Juba is Dead! Let the Dead Bury their Dead!
The Juba Peace Talks have collapsed! So what now for Acholi and northern Uganda?
In November 2007, I wrote an article: "Why Museveni is undermining a negotiated settlement", published in Sudan Tribune http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article24886. That article was prompted by the mysterious death of Vincent Otti, LRM/A former second-in-command to Joseph Kony. In the face of the collapse of the Juba Peace Talks, and unconfirmed news of further upheavals of internal strifes and deaths of nine senior commanders in the LRM /A camps, including Okot Odhiambo, Vincent Otti's successor, the thesis of that article still holds: that Museveni is not interested in a negotiated settlement as compromise, accommodation and give-and-take in order to settle disputes. As far as he is concerned, the LRM/A is a defeated, and there is nothing to negotiate or settle. All that is needed is to draw up an orderly surrender terms- thrugh what is euphenmistically referred to as the Juba Peace Negotiations process- to close the chapter on the LRM/A.
Those who keenly followed the twists and turns of the Juba negotiations, but were not simply caught up in applauding final signitures on protocals and appendices, should have noticed that, Yoweri Museveni, was still pursuing a negotiated surrender, rather than a negotiated peace settlement. On every issue that mattered, for anyone seeking to extract concessions from their adversary, the LRM /A negotiators failed to elicit anything they could point to as a win for Joseph Kony and his forces. They failed to guarantee cabinet positions; they failed to ensure senior LRA officers would be incorporated into the national army without preconditions; no revocation of the ICC indictments of LRA commanders; and they failed to entrench themselves into any future role for the reconstruction of post-conflict northern and eastern Uganda. At each turn, they were outmanoevred and made fools of by accepting deferred decisions to the NRM dominated parliament, and to the flawed constitution, against which their insurgency should have been fighting to overthrow. By the the logic of political theories of resistance and revolutions as challenges to or contestation against unsatisfactory prevailing political orders, the LRM/A negotiators made the LRA cheaper than a dime a piece.
By appending their signitures on documents after documents without any concessions for themselves, the LRM/A negotiators brought by doodling, what the mighty guns of the state could not do for the last 22 years. The agreements and defererence to the staus quo in state and government institutional, and legal-political superstructures, wittingly or unwittingly, forced LRM/A recognition of the legitimacy and rights of the NRM/A military dictatorship and ugandan state to make decisions about distribution and punishment. this effectively turned the LRM/A from an insurgent force that fought for 22 years to contest NRM/A authority and legitimacy, to one that was no better than a platoon of frontier guards or Amuka or arrow boys militia under NRM /A command in Acholi, Lango or Teso. Henceforth, they bound themselves to the authority and control of Yoweri Museveni.
Historically and theoretically, resistances and political disobedience aim to change applications of unjust laws and inappropriate goverenment politices; to alter particular laws or reverse policies; change governments or reform political systems and transform society. Challenging a socio-political system by force of arms as the LRA did, can only be settled by capitutlation, defeat on the battlefield by the state or a negotiated settlement that involves give-and-take by the parties to reach common grounds, forced by a stalemate or the implausibility of outright victory by either side on the battlefield. Such agreements ususlly result in abandoning some positions in excahnge for another on the other side in order to reach a settlement agreeable to both sides. But capitulation and surrender, mean that the stronger and victorious party has the upper hand in dictating terms and conditions for war termination or concessions for peace on their own terms. This is precisely the premise from which the Ugandan delegation were operating and under instructions to achieve through the Juba process. And they have done well at the expense of the LRM /A on account of the ineptitude, intellectual vacuousness of LRM/A negotiators, all of whom were lacking in the understanding of the objectives and goals they were to win for their principals, the LRM /A military and political leadership. Instead, it seems they were more interested in drawing allowances than ensuring that their client gets the best deal possible under the circumstances.
It is a wonder how anyone would give advice that prefers a corrupt judicial system of an authoritarian regime like Uganda's, over an international one where, facilities and penal conditions aside, does not render the death penalty as a just punishment. But who are we to complain; the LRA leadership appointed them to these roles; they knew best their terms of refrences.
But now that the circus in Juba has come to the end, perhaps we should let the dead bury their dead. It is obvious that the theatre has ended somewhat abrutptly and not according to script. There were hopes that the stage managers would at least come and take a bow with the cast. But that seems a difficult act to stage. Those most surprised and angered by this seeming insolence are political and civil society delegations from Acholi, who had put too much faith in the process. They took appearances for realities and bought hook-and-sinker, the thought that a genuine peace negotiation was taking place in Juba. There is no doubting that they and the LRA are the only parties who did not know the script the governments of Southern Sudan and Uganda were acting from. The realistion that this may have all been a charade, may even be long in coming, given the political naivety in Acholiland. They seem to prefer symbolism to substance and reality; that is why a tactile sight of Museveni and Kony shaking hands, mean more to the Acholi civic and political leadership, regardless of the revealing insincerity in their past actions and the start-and-go jerky movement of the Juba talks.
However naive and trusting they are, it is perhaps time the Acholi political and civic leaders stepped back and thought about how helpful their eagerness to be cast in supporting roles on the stage of the Juba charade. First, the LRA for the last one year or so, have confined themselves west of the Nile and in Congo, far away from the Ugandan borders. Second, there are thousands and thousands of Ugandan soldiers deployed in southern Sudan. Third, there are reports that Kony and the LRA have moved further into Central African Republic, a lot farther from the borders of northern Uganda and southern Sudan. And since the negotiations started, the LRA have not been active in northern Uganda. Moreover, some of the Acholi in the concentration camps have moved back to their ancestral lands. Given these prevailing situations, it matters little if any, for a final signiture by Kony or Musevni at Juba, as long as the permanent ceasefire agreements hold and the Acholi are ready to hold to account, either party that re-ignites violence in northern Uganda.
In my view, there are a lot more compelling issues and problems to engage than wanting to smoke out Kony to come to the peace table from wherever he has run off to. What more do the Acholi want, than the relative, though uneasy absence of violence prevailing? As much as Kony is an Acholi, the Acholi have no responsbility for bringing him to account for the crimes he is alleged to have committed. Let international law and the laws of the land take care of that. And as long as he and his troops are no longer fighting in Acholi, it should not be any business of Acholi to worry about where he is. What is needed now is the Acholi to take the government and the state of Uganda to task on immediate disbandment of the death camps, resettling perople to their ancestral lands, demanding government accounting for its role in post-conflict reconstruction and development of dilapidated and collapsed social, and economic infrastructures.
Unless the Acholi are waiting for Kony to be arrested or dead first before they can begin to think of how they are going to respond to the overwhelming challeges that stare them in the face, I see no reason why they should be gnashing their teeth that Kony did not leave his jungle hideout to come to Juba. In my view, it shoud be enough that he has run away to Central African Republic and he is no longer fighting, maiming, killing and abducting people in Acholiland. Those still too eager to jump on and off planes to and from Juba and trundling and trudging off looking for Kony, are the people who are preparing the grounds for yet another wasteful military misadventures by the Uganda government to go hunting for the LRA wherever they are hiding. That would be courting disaster for northern Uganda again, let alone wasting scarce resources that are sorely needed for the reconstruction of northern Uganda.
As long as there is no more fighting in Acholi, Acholi should care less whether Kony is apprehended today or after a thousand years to account for his role for atrocities in northern Uganda. In as far as the Juba peace process is concerned, the most important agreement and matter to the Acholi, is that of a permanent ceasefire and cessation of hostilities between the belligerents. The rest of the agreements, as we have seen, do not concern the non-combattant Acholi. Therefore, it is time for Acholi to take up on post conflict needs and demands, and take the government and state of Ugand to task for its own role, responsibility and obligations towards its citizens for the consequences of the failures of normal politics, for which Museveni and his government must not escape responsibility. The task facing Acholi now is for it to mobilise, organise and ensure that neither party, LRM/A or NRM/A, with or without a signed final peace agreement, will upset the relative semblance of normalcy and peace obtaining in the region.
In November 2007, I wrote an article: "Why Museveni is undermining a negotiated settlement", published in Sudan Tribune http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article24886. That article was prompted by the mysterious death of Vincent Otti, LRM/A former second-in-command to Joseph Kony. In the face of the collapse of the Juba Peace Talks, and unconfirmed news of further upheavals of internal strifes and deaths of nine senior commanders in the LRM /A camps, including Okot Odhiambo, Vincent Otti's successor, the thesis of that article still holds: that Museveni is not interested in a negotiated settlement as compromise, accommodation and give-and-take in order to settle disputes. As far as he is concerned, the LRM/A is a defeated, and there is nothing to negotiate or settle. All that is needed is to draw up an orderly surrender terms- thrugh what is euphenmistically referred to as the Juba Peace Negotiations process- to close the chapter on the LRM/A.
Those who keenly followed the twists and turns of the Juba negotiations, but were not simply caught up in applauding final signitures on protocals and appendices, should have noticed that, Yoweri Museveni, was still pursuing a negotiated surrender, rather than a negotiated peace settlement. On every issue that mattered, for anyone seeking to extract concessions from their adversary, the LRM /A negotiators failed to elicit anything they could point to as a win for Joseph Kony and his forces. They failed to guarantee cabinet positions; they failed to ensure senior LRA officers would be incorporated into the national army without preconditions; no revocation of the ICC indictments of LRA commanders; and they failed to entrench themselves into any future role for the reconstruction of post-conflict northern and eastern Uganda. At each turn, they were outmanoevred and made fools of by accepting deferred decisions to the NRM dominated parliament, and to the flawed constitution, against which their insurgency should have been fighting to overthrow. By the the logic of political theories of resistance and revolutions as challenges to or contestation against unsatisfactory prevailing political orders, the LRM/A negotiators made the LRA cheaper than a dime a piece.
By appending their signitures on documents after documents without any concessions for themselves, the LRM/A negotiators brought by doodling, what the mighty guns of the state could not do for the last 22 years. The agreements and defererence to the staus quo in state and government institutional, and legal-political superstructures, wittingly or unwittingly, forced LRM/A recognition of the legitimacy and rights of the NRM/A military dictatorship and ugandan state to make decisions about distribution and punishment. this effectively turned the LRM/A from an insurgent force that fought for 22 years to contest NRM/A authority and legitimacy, to one that was no better than a platoon of frontier guards or Amuka or arrow boys militia under NRM /A command in Acholi, Lango or Teso. Henceforth, they bound themselves to the authority and control of Yoweri Museveni.
Historically and theoretically, resistances and political disobedience aim to change applications of unjust laws and inappropriate goverenment politices; to alter particular laws or reverse policies; change governments or reform political systems and transform society. Challenging a socio-political system by force of arms as the LRA did, can only be settled by capitutlation, defeat on the battlefield by the state or a negotiated settlement that involves give-and-take by the parties to reach common grounds, forced by a stalemate or the implausibility of outright victory by either side on the battlefield. Such agreements ususlly result in abandoning some positions in excahnge for another on the other side in order to reach a settlement agreeable to both sides. But capitulation and surrender, mean that the stronger and victorious party has the upper hand in dictating terms and conditions for war termination or concessions for peace on their own terms. This is precisely the premise from which the Ugandan delegation were operating and under instructions to achieve through the Juba process. And they have done well at the expense of the LRM /A on account of the ineptitude, intellectual vacuousness of LRM/A negotiators, all of whom were lacking in the understanding of the objectives and goals they were to win for their principals, the LRM /A military and political leadership. Instead, it seems they were more interested in drawing allowances than ensuring that their client gets the best deal possible under the circumstances.
It is a wonder how anyone would give advice that prefers a corrupt judicial system of an authoritarian regime like Uganda's, over an international one where, facilities and penal conditions aside, does not render the death penalty as a just punishment. But who are we to complain; the LRA leadership appointed them to these roles; they knew best their terms of refrences.
But now that the circus in Juba has come to the end, perhaps we should let the dead bury their dead. It is obvious that the theatre has ended somewhat abrutptly and not according to script. There were hopes that the stage managers would at least come and take a bow with the cast. But that seems a difficult act to stage. Those most surprised and angered by this seeming insolence are political and civil society delegations from Acholi, who had put too much faith in the process. They took appearances for realities and bought hook-and-sinker, the thought that a genuine peace negotiation was taking place in Juba. There is no doubting that they and the LRA are the only parties who did not know the script the governments of Southern Sudan and Uganda were acting from. The realistion that this may have all been a charade, may even be long in coming, given the political naivety in Acholiland. They seem to prefer symbolism to substance and reality; that is why a tactile sight of Museveni and Kony shaking hands, mean more to the Acholi civic and political leadership, regardless of the revealing insincerity in their past actions and the start-and-go jerky movement of the Juba talks.
However naive and trusting they are, it is perhaps time the Acholi political and civic leaders stepped back and thought about how helpful their eagerness to be cast in supporting roles on the stage of the Juba charade. First, the LRA for the last one year or so, have confined themselves west of the Nile and in Congo, far away from the Ugandan borders. Second, there are thousands and thousands of Ugandan soldiers deployed in southern Sudan. Third, there are reports that Kony and the LRA have moved further into Central African Republic, a lot farther from the borders of northern Uganda and southern Sudan. And since the negotiations started, the LRA have not been active in northern Uganda. Moreover, some of the Acholi in the concentration camps have moved back to their ancestral lands. Given these prevailing situations, it matters little if any, for a final signiture by Kony or Musevni at Juba, as long as the permanent ceasefire agreements hold and the Acholi are ready to hold to account, either party that re-ignites violence in northern Uganda.
In my view, there are a lot more compelling issues and problems to engage than wanting to smoke out Kony to come to the peace table from wherever he has run off to. What more do the Acholi want, than the relative, though uneasy absence of violence prevailing? As much as Kony is an Acholi, the Acholi have no responsbility for bringing him to account for the crimes he is alleged to have committed. Let international law and the laws of the land take care of that. And as long as he and his troops are no longer fighting in Acholi, it should not be any business of Acholi to worry about where he is. What is needed now is the Acholi to take the government and the state of Uganda to task on immediate disbandment of the death camps, resettling perople to their ancestral lands, demanding government accounting for its role in post-conflict reconstruction and development of dilapidated and collapsed social, and economic infrastructures.
Unless the Acholi are waiting for Kony to be arrested or dead first before they can begin to think of how they are going to respond to the overwhelming challeges that stare them in the face, I see no reason why they should be gnashing their teeth that Kony did not leave his jungle hideout to come to Juba. In my view, it shoud be enough that he has run away to Central African Republic and he is no longer fighting, maiming, killing and abducting people in Acholiland. Those still too eager to jump on and off planes to and from Juba and trundling and trudging off looking for Kony, are the people who are preparing the grounds for yet another wasteful military misadventures by the Uganda government to go hunting for the LRA wherever they are hiding. That would be courting disaster for northern Uganda again, let alone wasting scarce resources that are sorely needed for the reconstruction of northern Uganda.
As long as there is no more fighting in Acholi, Acholi should care less whether Kony is apprehended today or after a thousand years to account for his role for atrocities in northern Uganda. In as far as the Juba peace process is concerned, the most important agreement and matter to the Acholi, is that of a permanent ceasefire and cessation of hostilities between the belligerents. The rest of the agreements, as we have seen, do not concern the non-combattant Acholi. Therefore, it is time for Acholi to take up on post conflict needs and demands, and take the government and state of Ugand to task for its own role, responsibility and obligations towards its citizens for the consequences of the failures of normal politics, for which Museveni and his government must not escape responsibility. The task facing Acholi now is for it to mobilise, organise and ensure that neither party, LRM/A or NRM/A, with or without a signed final peace agreement, will upset the relative semblance of normalcy and peace obtaining in the region.
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