Northern peace possible with comprehensive strategy - ICG

Prospects for peace in northern Uganda have improved but a more comprehensive strategy is required to end the 19-year insurgency against the government by the rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), the International Crisis Group (ICG) has said. "The government has expressed flexibility, and the LRA military position is becoming more tenuous," the Brussels-based think tank said in its 23 June policy-briefing paper entitled "Building a Comprehensive Peace Strategy for Northern Uganda". The group noted that LRA leader Joseph Kony "appears very interested in a deal", and had said recently that he was not opposed to President Yoweri Museveni winning a third term in office - in sharp contrast to his earlier stance. The ICG warned, however, that it was too early to dismiss the LRA as a spent force. "The LRA retains a much reduced but still highly disruptive capacity in the north to carry out mass abductions, mutilations, attacks on villages, looting and other violence," it said. Levi Ochieng, an ICG official in the capital, Kampala, said the government should strengthen its two-pronged approach, in which it employs both a military tack and peace talks, by developing a thorough military strategy that maximises civilian protection and prevents further attacks and abductions while respecting human rights. "The LRA targets civilians for recruitment. The government needs to thwart this and also give the communities more protection," Ochieng said. Much more could be done, the ICG said, to support the potential the talks seemed to retain in the wake of recent gestures by Kony to meet with chief mediator Betty Bigombe, as well as to prepare the region for sustainable peace and reconciliation. The organisation also suggested the government and the international community construct and implement a comprehensive strategy for peace which integrates a more ambitious mediation strategy with a robust reintegration plan. In addition the government should implement a justice-and-accountability system to balance the role of the International Criminal Court - which is investigating the situation in northern Uganda - with the related objectives of peace and reconciliation. A reconciliation policy should also provide more direct support to community-based efforts, the ICG said. It encouraged the administration to make a visible effort to improve governance in the region and strengthen humanitarian assistance to the north's 1.5 million internally displaced persons. The think tank urged Uganda and the international community to put pressure on Sudan - widely believed to have supported and given refuge to the LRA for years - to take steps to arrest or expel Kony should he fail to negotiate seriously. "Leaving the decision on peace or war solely in the hands of the brutal Kony would be irresponsible on the part of the government and the international community," the ICG said.