Northern Uganda Messenger Post

Déjà Vu? Since the implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) between Khartoum and the Sudanese People’s Liberation Movement/ Army (SPLM/A) that established the Government of South Sudan at Juba, border and land disputes have characterised relations between South Sudan and Uganda. These disputes between border communities and the two countries underscore the need to revisit the notion of nation-statehood based on arbitrary colonial boundaries. In its issue of 25 October 2011, the Sudan Tribune reported South Sudan accusing Uganda of tampering with international boundary markers between the two countries that extended Uganda’s northern frontiers by tens of miles into South Sudan. This is the border area between Magwi County in Eastern Equatoria State of South Sudan and Lamwo District in northern Uganda. According to the report, a meeting called to discuss the concerns agreed a joint resolution to investigate the matter, but Lamwo Resident District Commissioner (RDC...

IMPOSING “DEVELOPMENT”FROM ABOVE: Robbing peasants to enrich Museveni’s corporate friends Putting politics ahead of Lives Relative peace in northern Uganda is forcing people and groups to re-envision their futures. Individual entrepreneurs, communities, government agencies, NGOs and public international organisations, are appraising their future roles and activities in a changing stance from emergency humanitarian provisioning to reconstruction and development in a post conflict society. For aid agencies, their plans for the future are contingent on disbandment of concentration camps and resettlement of people to their homes. Like the NGOs, Yoweri Museveni, the National Resistance Movement / Army (NRM/A), and their apparatchiks in Acholi, are repositioning themselves to remain politically relevant in the region. Instead of “iron-fisting”, it is now time for “iron-roofing”, and for peasants in Acholi who drink sugar, to be charitable and donate their land to big profiteering subsidiarie...