Emerging from the bush wearing a bright yellow blouse and with a hoe in her hand, Bisatina Ayet explained that she grows food during the day in a garden near her current home, a camp for internally displaced persons in northern Uganda. At night, Ayet returns to sleep at the camp for fear of her safety.
Countless communities in the north remain in a state of limbo as the peace negotiations between the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) and the Ugandan government continue. The LRA is primarily composed of former soldiers from the north who left the army after Yoweri Museveni, a southerner, assumed office. Discontented, the rebels have been waging a savage campaign to regain power, forcing women and children to join their ranks.
The LRA and the government have been engaged in peace talks since July. But the 1,5million who live in desolate camps for displaced persons are not yet fully convinced it is safe to leave the camps, despite government rhetoric urging them to do so.
Every day, the 51 411 people in Opit Camp in Oyam County leave only to go and cultivate their food crops, said the camp leader. Owing to the dilapidated state of the roads, even this task was initially a struggle. “But we have now opened the roads,” said Beatrice Okello, a political representative in Oyam.
A Danish voucher-for-work aid programme gives internally displaced persons the tools to rebuild their local infrastructure. They are paid with agricultural inputs so that they can grow their own food and stop relying on relief handouts. For the nearly 5 000 participants, good roads are a priority. Already they have successfully reconstructed 120km of road leading to what was once home. But there is still some distance to go.
“The government will aid to reintegrate the women and children affected by the LRA back into society when they return home,” said Dr Ruhakana Rugunda, Internal Affairs Minister, though he did not specify how. The people building roads and starting businesses in Uganda’s conflict-ridden North say they must take the matter of returning to society into their own hands.
The Ugandan peace talks in Juba, southern Sudan, also have a lot of territory left to cover. Led by Dr Riek Machar, Vice-President of the Government of Southern Sudan, the negotiations resulted in a formal cessation of hostilities agreement that was signed on August 26.
Under the agreement, the LRA was to relocate its forces to two desigÂÂnated assembly areas in southern Sudan: Owiny Ki-Bul and Ri-Kwangba. However, progress has been stalled because of arguments over ceasefire violations and whether LRA fighters are really gathering at the assembly points.
“We are getting concerned about the pace of the peace talks. The pace is very slow and people are dying with anxiety. They want to go back home,” said Ruth Nankabirwa, State Minister of Defence, referring to the alleged killing of a Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF) captain and Sudanese civilians by LRA rebels in southern Sudan. The LRA has also accused the UPDF of violating the truce by deploying troops in different locations inside Sudan and along the Sudanese/Ugandan border.
Meanwhile, LRA leader Joseph Kony and his deputy, Vincent Otti, who are hiding in the north-eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, have refused to enter either of the two assembly camps, saying they fear arrest. The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for the two men, as well as two other senior LRA leaders earlier this year. While the LRA have said they will not sign a comprehensive peace agreement until the warrants are scrapped, the Ugandan government has said it will only ask for the warrants to be set aside once a deal has been signed.
Both the government and the LRA claim that the odds of peace improved when a revamped truce was signed on November 1. The new agreement addresses security concerns, including providing security for the assembly areas so that the LRA may gather without worry of attack by the Ugandan army. The truce also extends the mandate of a monitoring team until December and calls for the withdrawal of the UPDF from the Sudanese border.
Talks on a more comprehensive peace agreement continue, but may yet be hampered by the International Criminal Court arrest warrants, which are not easy to withdraw. Meanwhile, both parties still have other issues to resolve, such as questions of shared governance and a reformed military.