Feature - Bid to kickstart flagging northern peace process

A two-day Northern Uganda Peace Workshop – a conference devoted to resolving the conflict in the troubled region – kicked off in the town of Gulu on Thursday in an attempt to breathe life back into the flagging peace process. The conference brought together government officials, peace mediators, diplomats and international observers. It was organised by the Gulu District Reconciliation Team, a group working for dialogue between the government and the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). Bodies as diverse as the Canadian Physicians’ for Aid and Relief, Britain's Department for International Development (DFID), Save the Children-Denmark, Catholic Relief Services, World Vision and the Uganda Human Rights Commission funded the gathering. COLLAPSE OF PEACE TALKS The meeting comes at a time when peace talks to end northern Uganda’s 17-year civil war have all but collapsed. Last month the Ugandan government formally ended a limited ceasefire with the LRA which had been arranged so that the two sides could meet for talks. Since then fighting has escalated, with both sides claiming the other was never really serious about peace. The presence of international observers at the workshop was significant, because this has been widely seen as the only hope left for reopening dialogue between the belligerents, officials told IRIN. COMMUNICATION PROBLEMS “Violent conflicts, like this one we are experiencing, follow an almost predetermined pattern and always involve a failure to communicate," said Stella Sabitti, executive director of the Conflict Resolution Centre (CRC). One of the most significant participants in the peace workshop was former Uganda National Rescue Front (UNRF) rebel commander General Ali Bamuzi, a one-time friend of LRA leader Joseph Kony. In an emotional plea to the LRA and the people of Acholi, Bamuzi condemned this "hopeless war". "We the people of Acholi are only fighting and killing ourselves," he said. “Kony is my brother. I have sat with him at his breakfast table in Sudan. And now I am begging him to please stop this." Bamuzi later told IRIN he also believed poor communication between the government and the rebels was to blame. “The problem is that the MPs of Gulu, the Acholis and elders are not together. They are taking the message to Kony in different ways,” he said, adding that the peace process was being manipulated by vested interest. "PACIFISTS' DAYS ARE NUMBERED" But government and army representatives, still fuming at what they see as the LRA’s insincerity, doubted whether dialogue with the rebels was possible. “The UPDF [Uganda People's Defence Force] is here, as you can see. The peace team are also here," army spokesman Major Shaban Bantariza pointed out. "But the LRA are not even represented. This is not what you call good progress.” And the head of the government’s peace team, Salim Saleh, said the peace talks had "achieved nothing". "We have all wasted our time,” he added. “That’s it for peace," he told IRIN. "We, the pacifists, our days are numbered. So we will continue to fight them, wherever they are. But we can do other things to help the population. Production is central in this. Once Acholiland develops, freeing up some cash, then Kony will be brought to the table.”