NRM, Museveni not part of the solution in northern Uganda
Okello Lucima.
Recent Pa Raa retreat for “Ächoli leaders” had less to do with exploring problems facing Acholi, the wretched of IDP camps and charting realistic exit from the impasse. What transpired in Pa Raa, was a valiant but inconsequential attempt to salvage the collapse of the movement or NRM/A & O in Acholi, and bolster flagging fortunes of its political dummies in Kitgum, Pader and Gulu (See Pa Raa Declaration, Justice and Peace News, July 2005; Museveni meets Acholi leaders, New Vision 28 June 2005; Tracing the roots of the Acholi people’s suffering, Monitor 28 June 2005, and Moving towards total liberation of the north, New Vision 29 June 2005).
If Pa Raa summit were a serious soul-searching and thinking moment for the obvious problems in Acholi, demanding creative, bold, immediate and realistic actions, the participants would have been hard-pressed to ignore the preponderant evidence to the fact and realisation that Yoweri Museveni, and plausibly, his government and the Ugandan State, can no longer be part of the solution to the twenty-year northern Uganda fratricide. Ben Hoffman, former director of conflict resolution programme at the Carter Centre, admitted as much. In an interview for the Canadian journal, The Walrus, Cathy Cook writes:
“He (Hoffman) wanted to continue his work there (in Uganda), but ultimately concluded that Museveni had a political interest in seeing the war with the LRA continue. Though he felt torn apart by the decision, he recommended that the Carter Center step away. Since then, the conflict in Uganda has degenerated into what the UN calls the world’s most neglected humanitarian crisis” (see The Peace Wager: A mediator tries to stop the killing in Sudan, The Walrus, June 2005, Volume 2 Issue 5; see also Uganda: An African “Success” past its prime?, Joel D. Barkan, 2 June 2005; Night Terror, The Herald, Glasgow, 04 July 2005; why war talk is music to movts’s tough men, Monitor 6 July 2005; and Kony good excuse for movt hold on power, Monitor 11 August 2003).
If outsiders like Hoffman, who only recently became acquainted with the history, facts and protagonists of this conflict, hardly needed a year before they could see through the façade, deception and folly in northern Uganda and come to such damning conclusion, how much higher learning curve do the “Acholi leaders” -who have lived with this conflict for twenty years-need? It is not as if the elite who gathered at Pa Raa do not know the problems; it is neither that they are fools; nor that they do not sincerely and justifiably feel and know that Museveni is part and parcel of the problem, and cannot champion any new solution whose price does not include further loss of Acholi lives and erosion of its cultural and social capital (See Northern MPs predict more misery, Monitor 22 June 2005).
The truth is, this meeting neither sought nor aspired to dissect and craft solutions to the critical problems of insecurity, displacement, privation, hunger, disease, sexual violence and human rights violation by all belligerents and their agents and collaborators in the conflict theatre. If there was even any feeble initial attempt to do so, it was clearly hi-jacked, usurped and used in a desperate attempt to put a humane face to movement ideologues and their record in Acholi, and throw some floating twig for the drowning NRM/A & O, to clutch onto for some political and moral relevance in a tumultuous Acholi social and political sea.
Let them be warned; the twenty-seven point Pa Raa declaration, together with Museveni’s historical blindness, groping and falsification, have larger and more holes than a fishing net, and cannot hold them from sinking into the political, moral, social, humanitarian and human rights murk in which they wallow in northern Uganda. Museveni portraying himself as a liberator and one through whom Acholi should seek social, political and moral salvation- to sane and thinking people- is like a hungry Serengeti lion king haranguing surrounded and cornered herd of wildebeests that they are safer because his cubs prowl the plains (See Tracing the roots of Acholi people’s suffering, Monitor 28 June 2005 and Moving towards total liberation of the north, New Vision 29 June 2005).
If the wildebeests take the lion at his words as so much as do the “Acholi leaders” Museveni’s, it is owed to a twenty-year suppression of rights, intimidation, and impoverishment of people in northern Uganda, which has created a sort of dependency and indolence that is expressed both socially, economically and intellectually. The leaders, who went to Pa Raa and came out with the twenty-seven-point declaration, seem dependent and unthinking. The declaration exhorts the government, donors and NGOs to think, develop and plan, as well as fund and implement recovery and development programmes for Acholi. What are they elected and paid to do? It is the responsibility of the local leaders in this region to assess the needs of their people, design the solutions and seek collaboration and support in implementing them. Appealing to Yoweri Museveni, the donor and NGO communities to actually develop these policies and programmes, is the greatest irony and statement yet on the failure and intellectual lassitude of local and national NRM/A & O leadership in this region.
It would have been better to leave well alone. Better still, it would have been courageous to bill the meeting for what it was: a search conference to cobble together something NRM/A & O poster girls and boys can sell to Acholi, and provide a platform to stand on here during the 2006 campaigns. In other words, it was a hopeless scheme to cover Museveni’s and NRM/A & O’s nakedness in Acholi (See Akaki to reconcile Gulu NRM leaders, New Vision 06 June 2005; Tyero NRM-O oran i Gulu, Rupiny 1 June 2005; Lujok tye ka talo movement i Gulu ki Kitgum, Rupiny, 08 June 2005).
It is clear to many in Acholi, Uganda and internationally that neither the Pa Raa declaration nor historical prevarication by Museveni, can and will burnish NRM/A & O fancily enough to make it palatable to the Acholi people. Moreover, it has become increasingly obvious that Museveni and the UPDF can no longer be part of a meaningful and desirable solution, as integral components of the violence and destitution in Acholi, and authors of political uncertainties in Uganda (See Uganda: An African “Success” past its prime?, Joel D. Barkan, 2 June 2005; and also Uganda-An African story turning sour, Johnnie Carson, 2 June 2005, Woodrow Wilson International Centre; Down, down, up, and may be down, the Economist 30 June 2005; and Conflict Analysis for NUPI, Joyce Neu, 16 March 2004).
Realistically, any policy that still aspires to further militarise Acholi society, is both wrong headed, shortsighted and ill advised. Therefore, the suggestion to strengthen and expand the LDUs and other state paramilitaries is a complete copout and disjunction with the social and political needs in the fluid security situation in northern Uganda.
The problems of insurgency, gun violence, banditry, killings, rape and general anarchy cannot be solved by putting more guns in the hands of many more people, but exactly the opposite: demobilisation and disarmament of the local militia; strengthening and sensitising the national army and police, to carry out their duties efficiently and conscientiously. Railroading more Acholi into dead-end military service is to doubly punish them for being denied meaningful and gainful economic opportunities, after their education was interrupted and disrupted, and their society left in shambles by the conflict. Given the circumstances, any security and peace policy that envisages the local militia as the bulwark for the population against well-equipped and battle-hardened insurgent LRA, is suspect, cynical and a devious design to make Acholi continue to bear the burdens of failed national security policies, thereby insulating other Ugandans from the human costs of this conflict. If there is a shortage of manpower in the UPDF, scrap any external involvement and commitment, eg. Somalia, and re-deploy in northern Uganda or carry out nationwide recruitment into the national army.
The contention that the Pa Raa meeting and its outcome had nothing to do with the security and welfare of the Acholi people, but preoccupied with the security of the regime and political interest of the NRM/A & O in Acholi, is bolstered by their position on violence, rape and extra-judicial killings in Acholi. Granted, LRM/A violence in Acholi cannot be exaggerated. All peace loving, democratic and moral people must not stand even one violation of human rights, murder, rape and extra-judicial killing. Whether done by the LRA or by the UPDF and myriad affiliate state paramilitaries, it must not only be condemned, but no efforts spared in identifying, apprehending, prosecuting and punishing perpetrators to the limits of the law (See Acholi rally support against Kony, Monitor 30 June 2005 and Paa Raa Declaration, Justice and Peace News, July 2005).
Condemning the LRM/A atrocities alone, without even acknowledging recent rash of UPDF and state militia killings, rapes and other atrocities, smack of lack of seriousness and playing partisan politics with the lives of people. Incredulously, the same time these wise leaders went into reflective seclusion, there was a New Vision front-page story about the brutal rape by the UPDF, of an Acholi woman and her ten-year-old daughter, screaming out at these blind leaders. Furthermore, a UNICEF report had just come out, documenting and incriminating the security forces in violence, extortion and rape of little girls and women in the IDP camps. All these beg the question: which Acholi were being talked about at Pa Raa? (See I was raped by men who should have guarded me, New Vision 27 June 2005; Suffering in silence, UNICEF and GULU, Jan 2005; Uganda: Rape rampant in largest northern IDP camp, IRIN 17 June 2005; Soldiers cited in sexual abuse, Monitor 27 June 2005; IDPs beaten for noise, officer held, New Vision 28 June 2005; UPDF soldier tortures displaced woman, Radio Simba, 08 July 2005).
Finally, unity cannot be achieved by partisan and woolly declarations, but by actionable programmes and policies responsive to people’s needs, aspirations and anxieties. Giving people a sense of belonging and a stake in their future will motivate them to participate and achieve identified goals and set objectives in cooperation and collaboration, based on shared vision. However, Acholi neither belong nor share the twenty-year NRM/A & O vision of IDP camps, insecurity, violence, hunger, rape, murder and impunity.
Recent Pa Raa retreat for “Ächoli leaders” had less to do with exploring problems facing Acholi, the wretched of IDP camps and charting realistic exit from the impasse. What transpired in Pa Raa, was a valiant but inconsequential attempt to salvage the collapse of the movement or NRM/A & O in Acholi, and bolster flagging fortunes of its political dummies in Kitgum, Pader and Gulu (See Pa Raa Declaration, Justice and Peace News, July 2005; Museveni meets Acholi leaders, New Vision 28 June 2005; Tracing the roots of the Acholi people’s suffering, Monitor 28 June 2005, and Moving towards total liberation of the north, New Vision 29 June 2005).
If Pa Raa summit were a serious soul-searching and thinking moment for the obvious problems in Acholi, demanding creative, bold, immediate and realistic actions, the participants would have been hard-pressed to ignore the preponderant evidence to the fact and realisation that Yoweri Museveni, and plausibly, his government and the Ugandan State, can no longer be part of the solution to the twenty-year northern Uganda fratricide. Ben Hoffman, former director of conflict resolution programme at the Carter Centre, admitted as much. In an interview for the Canadian journal, The Walrus, Cathy Cook writes:
“He (Hoffman) wanted to continue his work there (in Uganda), but ultimately concluded that Museveni had a political interest in seeing the war with the LRA continue. Though he felt torn apart by the decision, he recommended that the Carter Center step away. Since then, the conflict in Uganda has degenerated into what the UN calls the world’s most neglected humanitarian crisis” (see The Peace Wager: A mediator tries to stop the killing in Sudan, The Walrus, June 2005, Volume 2 Issue 5; see also Uganda: An African “Success” past its prime?, Joel D. Barkan, 2 June 2005; Night Terror, The Herald, Glasgow, 04 July 2005; why war talk is music to movts’s tough men, Monitor 6 July 2005; and Kony good excuse for movt hold on power, Monitor 11 August 2003).
If outsiders like Hoffman, who only recently became acquainted with the history, facts and protagonists of this conflict, hardly needed a year before they could see through the façade, deception and folly in northern Uganda and come to such damning conclusion, how much higher learning curve do the “Acholi leaders” -who have lived with this conflict for twenty years-need? It is not as if the elite who gathered at Pa Raa do not know the problems; it is neither that they are fools; nor that they do not sincerely and justifiably feel and know that Museveni is part and parcel of the problem, and cannot champion any new solution whose price does not include further loss of Acholi lives and erosion of its cultural and social capital (See Northern MPs predict more misery, Monitor 22 June 2005).
The truth is, this meeting neither sought nor aspired to dissect and craft solutions to the critical problems of insecurity, displacement, privation, hunger, disease, sexual violence and human rights violation by all belligerents and their agents and collaborators in the conflict theatre. If there was even any feeble initial attempt to do so, it was clearly hi-jacked, usurped and used in a desperate attempt to put a humane face to movement ideologues and their record in Acholi, and throw some floating twig for the drowning NRM/A & O, to clutch onto for some political and moral relevance in a tumultuous Acholi social and political sea.
Let them be warned; the twenty-seven point Pa Raa declaration, together with Museveni’s historical blindness, groping and falsification, have larger and more holes than a fishing net, and cannot hold them from sinking into the political, moral, social, humanitarian and human rights murk in which they wallow in northern Uganda. Museveni portraying himself as a liberator and one through whom Acholi should seek social, political and moral salvation- to sane and thinking people- is like a hungry Serengeti lion king haranguing surrounded and cornered herd of wildebeests that they are safer because his cubs prowl the plains (See Tracing the roots of Acholi people’s suffering, Monitor 28 June 2005 and Moving towards total liberation of the north, New Vision 29 June 2005).
If the wildebeests take the lion at his words as so much as do the “Acholi leaders” Museveni’s, it is owed to a twenty-year suppression of rights, intimidation, and impoverishment of people in northern Uganda, which has created a sort of dependency and indolence that is expressed both socially, economically and intellectually. The leaders, who went to Pa Raa and came out with the twenty-seven-point declaration, seem dependent and unthinking. The declaration exhorts the government, donors and NGOs to think, develop and plan, as well as fund and implement recovery and development programmes for Acholi. What are they elected and paid to do? It is the responsibility of the local leaders in this region to assess the needs of their people, design the solutions and seek collaboration and support in implementing them. Appealing to Yoweri Museveni, the donor and NGO communities to actually develop these policies and programmes, is the greatest irony and statement yet on the failure and intellectual lassitude of local and national NRM/A & O leadership in this region.
It would have been better to leave well alone. Better still, it would have been courageous to bill the meeting for what it was: a search conference to cobble together something NRM/A & O poster girls and boys can sell to Acholi, and provide a platform to stand on here during the 2006 campaigns. In other words, it was a hopeless scheme to cover Museveni’s and NRM/A & O’s nakedness in Acholi (See Akaki to reconcile Gulu NRM leaders, New Vision 06 June 2005; Tyero NRM-O oran i Gulu, Rupiny 1 June 2005; Lujok tye ka talo movement i Gulu ki Kitgum, Rupiny, 08 June 2005).
It is clear to many in Acholi, Uganda and internationally that neither the Pa Raa declaration nor historical prevarication by Museveni, can and will burnish NRM/A & O fancily enough to make it palatable to the Acholi people. Moreover, it has become increasingly obvious that Museveni and the UPDF can no longer be part of a meaningful and desirable solution, as integral components of the violence and destitution in Acholi, and authors of political uncertainties in Uganda (See Uganda: An African “Success” past its prime?, Joel D. Barkan, 2 June 2005; and also Uganda-An African story turning sour, Johnnie Carson, 2 June 2005, Woodrow Wilson International Centre; Down, down, up, and may be down, the Economist 30 June 2005; and Conflict Analysis for NUPI, Joyce Neu, 16 March 2004).
Realistically, any policy that still aspires to further militarise Acholi society, is both wrong headed, shortsighted and ill advised. Therefore, the suggestion to strengthen and expand the LDUs and other state paramilitaries is a complete copout and disjunction with the social and political needs in the fluid security situation in northern Uganda.
The problems of insurgency, gun violence, banditry, killings, rape and general anarchy cannot be solved by putting more guns in the hands of many more people, but exactly the opposite: demobilisation and disarmament of the local militia; strengthening and sensitising the national army and police, to carry out their duties efficiently and conscientiously. Railroading more Acholi into dead-end military service is to doubly punish them for being denied meaningful and gainful economic opportunities, after their education was interrupted and disrupted, and their society left in shambles by the conflict. Given the circumstances, any security and peace policy that envisages the local militia as the bulwark for the population against well-equipped and battle-hardened insurgent LRA, is suspect, cynical and a devious design to make Acholi continue to bear the burdens of failed national security policies, thereby insulating other Ugandans from the human costs of this conflict. If there is a shortage of manpower in the UPDF, scrap any external involvement and commitment, eg. Somalia, and re-deploy in northern Uganda or carry out nationwide recruitment into the national army.
The contention that the Pa Raa meeting and its outcome had nothing to do with the security and welfare of the Acholi people, but preoccupied with the security of the regime and political interest of the NRM/A & O in Acholi, is bolstered by their position on violence, rape and extra-judicial killings in Acholi. Granted, LRM/A violence in Acholi cannot be exaggerated. All peace loving, democratic and moral people must not stand even one violation of human rights, murder, rape and extra-judicial killing. Whether done by the LRA or by the UPDF and myriad affiliate state paramilitaries, it must not only be condemned, but no efforts spared in identifying, apprehending, prosecuting and punishing perpetrators to the limits of the law (See Acholi rally support against Kony, Monitor 30 June 2005 and Paa Raa Declaration, Justice and Peace News, July 2005).
Condemning the LRM/A atrocities alone, without even acknowledging recent rash of UPDF and state militia killings, rapes and other atrocities, smack of lack of seriousness and playing partisan politics with the lives of people. Incredulously, the same time these wise leaders went into reflective seclusion, there was a New Vision front-page story about the brutal rape by the UPDF, of an Acholi woman and her ten-year-old daughter, screaming out at these blind leaders. Furthermore, a UNICEF report had just come out, documenting and incriminating the security forces in violence, extortion and rape of little girls and women in the IDP camps. All these beg the question: which Acholi were being talked about at Pa Raa? (See I was raped by men who should have guarded me, New Vision 27 June 2005; Suffering in silence, UNICEF and GULU, Jan 2005; Uganda: Rape rampant in largest northern IDP camp, IRIN 17 June 2005; Soldiers cited in sexual abuse, Monitor 27 June 2005; IDPs beaten for noise, officer held, New Vision 28 June 2005; UPDF soldier tortures displaced woman, Radio Simba, 08 July 2005).
Finally, unity cannot be achieved by partisan and woolly declarations, but by actionable programmes and policies responsive to people’s needs, aspirations and anxieties. Giving people a sense of belonging and a stake in their future will motivate them to participate and achieve identified goals and set objectives in cooperation and collaboration, based on shared vision. However, Acholi neither belong nor share the twenty-year NRM/A & O vision of IDP camps, insecurity, violence, hunger, rape, murder and impunity.
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