When Elephants Fight Read Online Free PDF Page A

arose out of the embedded policy of the British during colonial rule in which tribal groups were divided. This ‘divide and rule’ policy was continued by post-colonial Ugandan politics. When the current president, Yoweri Museveni, and his National Resistance Movement took powerby coup in 1986, they worsened the north-south divide by alienating northerners, creating grounds for rebellion.

    A view south into Gulu, northern Uganda’s largest town
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    Since 1986, the insurgency within northern Uganda has undergone four stages, beginning with a more popular rebellion of former army officials and evolving into the current pseudo-spiritual warlordism of the LRA. To date, the LRA consists mainly of abducted children brainwashed, brutalized and forced to kill viciously as child soldiers. Alienated from the Acholi, the LRA wages terror on the civilian population as a means to maintain attention and challenge the government.
    After attempted peace talks facilitated by Betty Bigombe collapsed in 1994, the conflict changed into a proxy war that cannot be understood separate from the geopolitics of the entire Great Lakes Region of Africa.
    In 1994, the country of Sudan began to provide military assistance and support to the LRA, while the Ugandan government provided military assistance to the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), a rebel group in southern Sudan. The West, particularly the United States, saw this as the battlefront of the war against the spread of Islamic fundamentalism in sub-Saharan Africa and provided significant amounts of aid to the SPLA through Uganda. New elements of a war economy and arms trafficking made finding peace more difficult.
    Following September 11, 2001, the United States increased its strategicalliance with President Museveni and his NRM regime in Uganda. The U.S. quickly declared the LRA a terrorist group and increased military aid to the Ugandan government. This relationship only further solidified the insistence of Museveni on a military approach to end the war. Unfortunately, the “military solution” has worsened northern grievances and proven ineffective over the years. It is strongly believed that rather than continued war, that the keys to peace are to negotiate and build mutual trust.
    In the summer of 2006, the newly formed semi-autonomous Government of South Sudan agreed to host and mediate peace talks between the warring parties. The involvement of such a strategic mediator, coupled with new openness by the parties to negotiations led many to call this the “best opportunity in over a decade for peace in northern Uganda.” In August, the parties agreed to a Cessation of Hostilities—to stop fighting—that led to relative calm in northern Uganda. However, the talks have since stumbled due to the rigid involvement of the International Criminal Court (ICC), a weak Monitoring Team and divisions within the LRA networks.
    The war in northern Uganda has raged now for 21 years, making it Africa’s longest-running conflict, and has been described by one UN official as “the world’s worst neglected humanitarian crisis.” The war has led to the displacement of 1.7 million people—over 80% of the region— who now live in camps in squalid conditions. At its worst, 1,000 people were dying each week as a result of the poor conditions in these camps. The war is also known for the brutal abduction and use of child soldiers. The LRA has filled its ranks by abducting over 50,000 children.
    As this neglect continues, the people of northern Uganda remain condemned to lives of despair and displacement.
Child Soldiers
    For over 250,000 children all over the world, army barracks are home and military commanders are family. These are no ordinary children. They are child soldiers.
    There is still no universally accepted definition for what a child soldier is, but international human rights organizations, including UNICEF, agree that a child soldier is