A second chance for peace in Uganda
By Peter J Quaranto, Open Democracy
April 14, 2007 — Peace talks to end Africa’s longest-running war, thought to have collapsed in January 2007, aren’t over yet. After two months of uncertainty, the parties – the Ugandan government and the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) – agreed in principle to meet and resume negotiations. The pace quickened this week with two sets of informal talks. In Kenya, the two sides reportedly reached broad agreement on extending the landmark (and now expired) truce of August 2006; and in Ri-Kwangba camp in southern Sudan on 13-14 April, United Nations envoy Joaquim Chissano is meeting the LRA’s elusive leader Joseph Kony and Uganda’s interior minister and top negotiator, Ruhakana Rugunda.
Chissano, a former president of Mozambique, added his voice to the latest calls for an extension of the truce. “It is my hope we will not leave this place without signing the documents which suspend hostilities”, the Reuters news agency quoted Chissano as saying after he watched Kony and Rugunda shake hands.
But reviving the peace process and ensuring its success are two different challenges. If an end to the violence in northern Uganda is to be negotiated, lessons will have to be learned from the failed first round of talks.
A stop-start process
The process that began in July 2006 was hailed widely as the best opportunity in more than a decade to end the twenty-one-year war. Earlier attempts at mediation lacked the necessary resources and leverage. In this case, the involvement of the government of semi-autonomous South Sudan (GoSS) gave the process serious potential. Moreover, peace talks were for the first time being held outside Uganda – in Juba, capital of South Sudan – with a strategic third-party mediator.
GoSS’s willingness to mediate was hardly selfless; since the 9 January 2005 signing of Sudan’s comprehensive peace agreement (CPA), the GoSS has been eager to consolidate control over its territory. The lingering presence of LRA rebels has fuelled instability. Many observers are skeptical of the Khartoum government’s claim to have ended its support for the LRA in 1999, and believe it could again use the LRA as a proxy militia to prevent the south’s referendum on secession, scheduled for 2011. The GoSS, foreseeing such threats, presented the LRA with an ultimatum in late 2005: negotiate or be expelled by force. The LRA, in face of growing international pressure, accepted.
It was far from easy to convince the Ugandan government to enter talks. The country’s president, Yoweri Museveni, had long insisted on a “military solution” to defeat the “terrorists”. However, military campaigns have only exacerbated the violence, while the other part of his strategy – moving northerners into “protected villages” – has turned into a displacement nightmare. Reports of 1,000 people dying each week in these camps for the internally displaced has become a stain on Uganda’s once-exalted reputation with the west. Museveni’s awareness that the Commonwealth summit (CHOGM) was to be held in Uganda in November 2007 was a further spur to bring the war to an end. So, in May 2006, he accepted the GoSS proposal for mediation.
The historic negotiations began in Juba in July 2006. In August, the parties reached the breakthrough cessation of hostilities (CoH) agreement. For the first time in years, there were virtually no attacks or abductions in northern Uganda. Some 300,000 displaced people returned home. Yet, the talks stalled due to disagreements over the agenda, particularly the contentious issue of International Criminal Court (ICC) indictments of the top five LRA commanders (see Tristan McConnell, “Uganda: peace vs justice?”, 14 September 2006). Additionally, both parties accused the other of violating the CoH. In January 2007, the LRA delegation refused to return to Juba, demanding a new mediator and venue.
There followed weeks of rising anxiety in northern Uganda, until the intervention of both northern Ugandan leaders and the UN’s Chissano convinced the LRA to return to talks. Chissano’s role as a respected African statesman has reportedly been crucial. In the compromise reached, five countries (Kenya, South Africa, Tanzania, Mozambique and the Democratic Republic of Congo) agreed to send high-level observers to the GoSS process.
A triple challenge
There is no guarantee that revived talks will succeed. A comprehensive agreement will only become possible if the three familiar, contentious issues – trust, transparency and transitional justice – are addressed with fresh thinking and flexibility.
The first issue, trust, is both critical and – after decades of fighting – extremely complicated. Each side doubts the integrity of the other. In addition, the LRA has accused the chief mediator, GoSS vice-president Riek Machar, of being prejudiced in favour of the Ugandan government. Several trade deals between the GoSS and Kampala have not quelled this suspicion.
In the first set of talks, the lack of involvement of several influential actors – including the United States government, the African Union (AU) and the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (Igad) – perpetuated this mistrust. Greater regional and international engagement not only would bring leverage, but also build confidence. These actors should not override GoSS’s leadership, but their presence provides implicit accountability. The new involvement of five African countries and Chissano is a hopeful start, but still is incomplete.
The second issue, a lack of transparency, was a key factor in undermining the cessation-of-hostilities agreement. This in turn was the result of a weak and underfunded monitoring team. Both parties have since been guilty of significant violations. Security officials in southern Sudan report that the Ugandan army continued to pursue LRA rebels, even blocking designated assembly-points. At the same time, LRA fighters committed attacks on Sudanese civilians. The obvious solution is for a strengthened CoH monitoring team, which can better verify rebel movements and military activity. The African Union is set to take over this task, but it will need increased resources and a clearer mandate.
A further transparency-related question involves the LRA itself, which is far from a united body. Peace talks have exposed a complex and divided external network that resides in Europe and north America as well as east Africa. Elements within this network have denounced peace talks and advocated a return to violence. These “spoilers” will continue to disrupt the process unless international action is taken.
The third issue is the controversy over transitional justice. The Ugandan government has promised to seek revocation of the International Criminal Court indictments of LRA leaders, but only when a comprehensive agreement is reached (under what circumstances indictments can be dropped, and by whom, is vigorously debated.) Yet, the LRA still demands more assurance of this stance and their security. Work is underway to research alternative mechanisms for accountability, such as traditional-justice rituals. This may provide a viable “third way” amid the dichotomy of the ICC and impunity. As this research continues, ICC rigidity is only deepening the impasse. The international community, either by the UN Security Council or informal channels, must impress upon the ICC the need for greater sensitivity and flexibility to local needs.
The other face of justice involves the longstanding political exclusion of the war’s primary victims, Uganda’s northerners. Neither the Ugandan government nor the LRA can honestly claim to represent their best interests. Ultimately, a just peace will require processes that empower northerners to express and overcome their grievances. A start would be greater involvement of northern civil society at the peace talks. Such representation may be the most important reminder to the parties that negotiations are not just about politics, but about people’s lives.
* The writers is a co-founders of the Uganda Conflict Action Network (Uganda-CAN), www.UgandaCAN.org a grassroots campaign advocating for more responsible U.S. policy to end the war in northern Uganda.