While some celebrate northern Uganda's newfound security, peace in the region remains shaky at best, notes Ida Sawyer After two decades of war in northern Uganda, in which untold numbers were abducted, mutilated and killed, and over 1.7 million forcibly displaced from their homes, a ceremony last month marked the first closure of a camp for internally displaced people. Ugandan government officials and United Nations representatives symbolically knocked down huts as they celebrated northern Uganda's newfound peace. The security situation has improved dramatically since peace talks between the Ugandan government and the rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) began over a year ago in Juba, Sudan. Yet peace in the region remains shaky at best. Many fear a renewal of conflict and question both parties' commitment to the talks. Little progress has been made on key issues like justice, security, and livelihoods -- or even the fate of LRA leader Joseph Kony and three others who have been indicted by the International Criminal Court. Attacks on civilians in northern Uganda and southern Sudan had largely ended by June of this year after the majority of the rebels moved to the LRA's jungle hideout near Garamba National Park in eastern Congo. According to a new report by the International Crisis Group, the LRA is now safer and stronger than it was when the peace process began. It is not monitored nor under any credible pressure in the remote region around Garamba, from where it could easily move into the Central African Republic or back into Uganda. Sudan's government in Khartoum is also said to be lending support to the LRA, likely in an effort to ensure their long-time ally remains a regional player in case south Sudan's fragile peace breaks down. As for Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni, long blamed for prolonging the northern war, he appears to view peace initiatives now as but a pause before seeking again to impose a military solution. Museveni and President Joseph Kabila of Congo recently vowed to eliminate all "negative forces" in eastern Congo in the next 90 days, including the LRA. The LRA responded by declaring that any attacks on its bases in eastern Congo would be seen as an invitation to resume war. Presidents Museveni and Kabila also worked to diffuse tensions between Uganda and Congo over oil exploration in a disputed island in Lake Albert, bordering the two countries. Cross-border skirmishes between Ugandan and Congolese forces left at least four dead last month. Relations between the two nations have been tense since the Ugandan army's occupation of eastern Congo from 1998-2003 helped fuel Congo's decade-long war, the world's deadliest conflict since World War II. The United Nations' largest and most expensive peacekeeping operation helped establish an official end to the war and the country's first democratic elections in 2006. But the eastern region has remained lawless and insecure. Recent bouts of fighting between Congolese government forces and the Rwanda-backed General Laurent Nkunda, Congo's only surviving warlord, have sparked a new humanitarian crisis with over 10,000 Congolese refugees fleeing into Uganda. Meanwhile, downpours in Uganda have resulted in severe flooding since July, affecting some 300,000 Ugandans -- including 100,000 already displaced due to insecurity in the north. A United Nations-backed flash appeal for $41 million was launched this week to provide emergency assistance to Ugandans who have suffered damaged homes, an inability to access food or schools and hospitals, and an increased risk for waterborne disease outbreaks. According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the incidence of malaria, diarrhoeal diseases and acute respiratory infections has already escalated 30 per cent. Given the region's volatile nature, it is not surprising that many in northern Uganda are sceptical about whether or how long peace will last. The International Crisis Group reports that 400,000 displaced people have returned home as of May 2007, mostly in Lango District. But nearly 1.4 million remain displaced, either in new satellite decongestion sites or their original camps. In Acholiland, the northernmost region bordering Sudan, only two per cent have returned home. "People really are not very sure about what is going on," said James Kidega, a native of Acholiland's Gulu District. "Many people in the north are not ready for the camps to be destroyed. They want to keep their houses in the camp so that in case the peace talks do not work well, they are in position to run back to where they have been." Kidega directs Charity for Peace Foundation (CFP), a local NGO that works with youth in the camps in Gulu. "Many former abductees have returned to their communities, but they have nothing to do in the camps," says Kidega. "If we can give them basic education, let them know how to read and write and do basic arithmetic, they can be accountable for their own lives and serve as leaders and advocates for peace in their communities." Oringa Mageno is a student in CFP's Youth Education Programme. When he was just nine years old, LRA rebels captured Mageno from his home and forced him to become a child soldier. He watched as 14 people were killed in front of him, one after the other. "I was then forced to kill, and they made me eat next to decaying dead bodies," he recalled. "They made me watch as older men raped innocent young girls. I saw 20 people burned inside their homes." After months with the LRA, he was rescued by the Ugandan government army, and was then forced to become a soldier for them. But Mageno rejected this and ran away. He eventually found his family, displaced from their village in an overcrowded camp called Coope -- a remote, dusty settlement rife with hunger, rape, violence and disease. That was 10 years ago. Today Mageno remains in the camp, where he and his family have lived for a decade with little access to education, farmland, or any means of gainful employment. Of the 7,000 people displaced in the Coope camp, only about 400 have gone home. "The ones who went home all lived in villages nearby, close to the camp," Kidega explained. "But the rest of them come from areas much farther away. Most of the people there are also young, so they're scared and don't want to go back. And for many of the young people, their families died in the war, so they don't even know where home is." In many ways, the young people have faced the biggest obstacles in the conflict. They have been severely neglected and discriminated against -- and will continue to suffer long after the war ends. Former abductees like Mageno have missed out on their education, are often severely traumatised and rejected by their families, and they have nothing productive to do in the camps. According to Adong Grace Alanyo, a 17-year-old girl who participated in CFP's Youth Education Programme in Tetugu Camp, "rape and defilement take place at all times of the day and night and anywhere in the camp -- including at home, at the borehole, and when girls and women are walking to their gardens or to collect firewood or water." Vulnerable to exploitation, rape, and sexual assault by adults in the camp who are idle and abusive, young women have become mothers at a dangerously early age, and they are at high risk of contracting HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted infections -- while living in a community where access to testing, treatment, and counselling services is either non- existent or a luxury few can afford. Kidega Geoffrey is an 18-year-old boy in Tetugu camp. Both of his parents were abducted and killed by the rebels, and he is now heading the family and taking care of his four younger sisters. "With help from Charity for Peace, we built a bakery and learned the basic skills for running a business," he said. "After working and learning together, the youth of our community are now united. We are running the bakery on our own, and we've been able to make some money to help our group members face their problems." With the money he earned, Geoffrey has been able to pay the school fees for two of his younger sisters to go to primary school. The ongoing peace talks in Juba bring the best possibility yet that Uganda's war may finally end. But an end to the fighting is only the first step. For those living in the camps, it is clear that any potential for peace must be accompanied by long-term plans to promote the development of northern Uganda and to provide opportunities for the young people in particular. "The war and diseases like HIV/AIDS have left thousands of children like me orphaned and heading households on our own," Geoffrey said. "The youth in the camps need to be supported in education and skill training projects like our bakery, so that we can build our capacity and begin to fight the effects of 20 years of war."
