Northern Uganda: Building a Comprehensive Peace Strategy

Kampala/Brussels  |   23 Jun 2005

Peace may yet be possible in Northern Uganda in 2005. Many of the elements seem to be in place but need a more comprehensive framework and international support.

Building a Comprehensive Peace Strategy for Northern Uganda,* the latest policy briefing from the International Crisis Group, lays out a comprehensive strategy for the achievement of peace, and examines prospects for a peace deal between the government of President Yoweri Museveni and the insurgent Lord's Resistance Army (LRA). Mediation has occurred in recent months against a backdrop of continuing LRA atrocities against civilians. The LRA remains focused on terror tactics, not the control of territory.

"We know what the rebels want, and we know the government is flexible in response", says John Prendergast, Special Adviser to the President of Crisis Group. "A credible mediation effort is in place. Time is running out for the LRA to engage directly in a process".

After a brutal 19-year insurgency that has taken countless lives and displaced some 1.5 million people, the LRA's military position is becoming more tenuous, but it retains a highly disruptive capacity in the north to carry out mass abductions, mutilations, attacks on villages, looting and other violence. The key question now is whether Joseph Kony, the unpredictable LRA leader, is nearing a strategic decision that his prospects and those of his supporters are better served by a deal or whether he is merely playing for time in order to regroup as he has done several times in the past.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) is expected to issue arrest warrants for Kony and his senior deputies shortly, which will put new pressure on all concerned, including the government and its authorised mediator, Betty Bigombe, to decide whether they will continue with the effort at negotiation.

Although a negotiated settlement is usually viewed as the most direct path to an end of hostilities in the north, lasting peace requires much more than an arrangement with the LRA. A comprehensive peace strategy is needed, which involves:

• increased support for the Bigombe mediation;
• more sophisticated military operations;
• a renewed effort at reintegrating LRA returnees into society;
• a justice component that complements the peace process;
• improved reconciliation initiatives; and
• a hearts-and-minds strategy so the north feels government commitment.

"The overall strategy also needs to be supported by increasingly visible international commitment, especially from the U.S., through envoys and focused public diplomacy", says Prendergast.