Victims of Indifference
In November the UN's head of humanitarian affairs, Jan Egeland, described the guerrilla war in northern Uganda as the "biggest neglected humanitarian emergency in the world". Despite some brief publicity resulting from this, the war continues to be one of the most misunderstood conflicts in Africa. Just a brief look at the background to this bloody skirmish shows why it is unlikely to be resolved without the help of the international community - yet with the world's attention forever focused elsewhere, such a resolution looks frustratingly distant.
The Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) has terrorised northern Uganda for 18 years. This fanatical and murderous cult is led by the self-proclaimed prophet, Joseph Kony, who claims to be guided by spirits that tell him what to do and who to kill.
Kony and most of his fighters are from the Acholi tribe, as are the majority of their victims. The LRA has been fighting since 1986, after President Museveni came to power, in a civil war that has claimed an estimated 100,000 lives and caused around 1.6 million refugees to flee.
The LRA has no political purpose except rebellion itself, making the prospects of peace talks remote at best. The initial rebellion grew out of Acholi grievances against President Museveni's government, but Kony himself has no coherent demands.
However, what makes this conflict utterly barbaric is that children have been both its perpetrators and its victims. An estimated 20,000 have been kidnapped, either to serve as soldiers or as sex slaves for the rebel commanders. It is a shocking state of affairs, but few in the west seem willing to devote anytime to resolving 'yet another' African conflict.
The struggle must also be understood in the wider context of Uganda's history. Under British rule, the Bugandan people of the south had been used to form the bureaucratic class, while the Acholi in the north constituted the bulk of the army. After independence, Milton Obote and Idi Amin ruled brutally over Uganda. The Acholi in the north were favoured, the Bugandans persecuted - inevitably resulting in deep-rooted resentment still felt by the Bugundans.
In 1986, the years of oppression were ended and Yoweri Museveni's National Resistance Army took control of the country. The north has never accepted the rule of Museveni, who is from the south, and some there claim that the government has targeted the northern Acholi people for discrimination.
The LRA gained initial support from many Acholi, but the movement quickly turned into a vicious terrorist outfit that targeted its own people. Earlier this year, Kony declared that the people of Acholi are not racially pure and that his goal is to wipe them out and repopulate the area using his army's sex slaves.
Yet in Uganda's southern capital Kampala, two hundred miles away from the fighting in the north, the bitter struggle appears very distant. The tribes of the south of Uganda have tended to detach themselves from the fighting in the north.
"It's terrible up there," one man told me, giving the impression of one in another country entirely. "I know of a school coach going on a trip from Kampala to a safari park in the north. They were stopped by rebels and the headmaster pleaded with them to take his life in exchange for the students. The rebels killed the headmaster, then shot all the students in the bus."
Yet uttering such concerned comments are as far as many Ugandans unaffected by the conflict are prepared to go. Since many in the south believe that the Acholi people were responsible for their persecution, particularly during Idi Amin's brutal rule, they find it difficult to sympathise with the suffering in the north.
One Bugandan summed up popular opinion in the south: "Why should I care if Acholis are killing Acholis in the north? As long as they are not killing us we should just leave them." The Acholi people are perceived in the south as being a naturally violent race.
As a result, the Ugandan government has no room to manoeuvre. Museveni's support base lies within the tribes of southern Uganda. The LRA have not targeted the south or significantly threatened the government. A bloody war to defeat the insurgents in order to stop the suffering of the Acholi would not be popular with the President's core supporters, and for this reason it seems only greater international awareness and activity stands a chance of bringing about peace.
Army corruption is thus allowed to prosper - another factor in the prolonging of bloodshed. Kony's forces do not target the army, they only target civilians - so there is nothing to stop the government-supported Ugandan People's Defence Force from neglecting to engage the rebel fighters.
This is a huge humanitarian crisis. The Acholi people have been displaced from their land and forced to live in secure compounds to protect themselves from attack. Children are brutalised and communities destroyed. Due to tribal disputes in the past, those in power in Uganda are not inclined to help the victims of these atrocities. International intervention offers the only way out.
Yet the saddest aspect of this conflict is that it has simply been allowed to simmer for many years by the international community it so needs. Since the war began in 1986 the UN has sent peacekeeping forces to numerous conflicts around the world, but Uganda has been strangely forgotten.
Like so many of the conflicts in the developing world, the troubles have their roots in the haphazard manner in which the imperial powers divided their dominions. Uganda as a state only exists due to the borders drawn up by the British, and the tribal conflict within the state reflects the huge ethnic divisions - Britain and other nations have failed to respond to troubles they themselves helped create.
The dawn of 2005 brings a glimmer of hope for the people of northern Uganda in the development of a nascent peace process between the rebels and the Ugandan government. However, without the diplomatic backing of leading western powers, many are sceptical that this will prove anything other than a false dawn.
Uganda does not have oil. It is not in a strategically important position for America's fight against 'terrorism'. No surprise, then, that it has difficulty securing the international attention it so needs.
Stories of the violence and mayhem have remained on the fringes of the world's press. Western governments are not interested in helping to resolve this conflict. As the world's benevolence is channelled into south Asia, the people of northern Uganda continue to live in a perpetual state of terror.
13th Jan 2005