First, the LRA would be given ultimatums to surrender. The rebels would also be given ultimatums to sign certain peace deals. “Even though we are the ones who initiated those peace talks, we were forced to pull out as we could not yield to ultimatums,” said Mr Ayoo. The first attempt to end the LRA insurgency was initiated in June 1993 by Betty Bigombe, then Minister of State for Pacification of Northern Uganda, Resident in Gulu.
Ms Bigombe was tasked with the responsibility of persuading the rebels to give up their armed struggle. She made contacts with the rebels following the government’s failure to rout them using military force. Thus was born the “Bigombe One Initiative.” But the term “pacification” drew huge protests from the LRA, forcing the government to rename Bigombe’s post as Minister of State in the Office of the Prime Minister, Resident in Northern Uganda. Whereas Ms Bigombe’s efforts earned her recognition as Uganda’s Woman of the Year 1993, the peace talks collapsed in February 1994. The LRA then intensified the struggle with no efforts being made towards peace until 2004, when Ms Bigombe was appointed chief mediator between the government and the LRA. And for the first time, the LRA and government ministers met face to face in what became known as the “Bigombe Two Initiative.”
According to Mr Ayoo, previous peace talks collapsed because a Ugandan was mediating them. There was also a feeling of insecurity among the rebels, as the talks would be held within the country, with the government deploying its troops to the venues to intimidate the rebels. The current peace talks, however, stand a better chance of success as they are being held at a neutral venue — in Juba, Southern Sudan. Dr Riek Machar, Vice-President of Southern Sudan is the chief mediator, while representatives from international non-governmental organisations Pax Christi International and the Community of St Egidio are acting as co-mediators. Joaquim Chissano, the UN Special Envoy to northern Uganda is sitting in as an observer while representatives from five African countries — Kenya, Tanzania, South Africa, Mozambique and the Democratic Republic of the Congo — are also sitting in as observers as well as guarantors to all agreements reached. The five countries have also each sent two senior military personnel to work in the ceasefire monitoring team.
The rebellion was started by Joseph Kony in 1986, supposedly to replace President Yoweri Museveni’s government with one based on the Biblical Ten Commandments. The ferocious war, characterised by the abduction and forced conscription of thousands of children into the rebel ranks, has left tens of thousands dead and forced two million people or 90 per cent of the population of northern Uganda to live in squalid camps for the internally displaced. Such is the irony that has characterised the war that whereas the LRA claims that it took up arms to save the north from discrimination and humiliation by Museveni, it is the northern population that has borne the brunt of the conflict. Beyond its stated aim to overthrow the Ugandan government and its purported commitment to establishing a government based on the Ten Commandments, its critics say the LRA has no clear political agenda. But according to Mr Ayoo, the LRA never advocated governing by the Ten Commandments. Rather, Museveni’s soldiers forced the rebels into the bush following constant humiliation.
“The National Resistance Army perpetrated vengeful acts of violence on the people of northern Uganda, breaching laws of military conduct. As they advanced, they sang provocative war songs,” Mr Ayoo told The EastAfrican. “When you reach Tororo, Mbale, Lira or Soroti, burn it to the ground,” the NRA soldiers would chant. “Men were sodomised in front of their wives and children, women were raped in front of their husbands and children and girls raped in front of their parents. People were burnt alive and their crops destroyed. “We could not keep quiet. We had to fight back,” Mr Ayoo said. The LRA’s vision document states that it is committed to the protection, advancement and enjoyment of the basic human rights as enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights Charter. The LRA/M wishes to articulate the establishment and entrenchment of systems of governance and the rule of law, anchored in the universally recognised rights and freedoms, for the promotion of peace through the provision of all that is due to a human being, respect his/her dignity and direct civil life for the greater Glory and Good of God, and to the common good of individuals, groups, tribes, peoples and regions, all in the spirit of Uganda’s National Motto – For God and My Country,” the document states.
According to the document, the political agenda of the LRA/M is premised on the universally recognised principles that all peoples, women and men of Uganda aspire to a government founded on the inalienable principles of freedom, democracy, social justice and the rule of law so that they can live as a united people with a common destiny, in the attainment of social and political objectives for the nation of Uganda.
“LRA/M wishes to articulate the adoption of a federal form of government, with particular reference to issues relating to the devolution of powers, general principles and objectives of devolution, that is, power sharing as a method of organising the conduct of government business or affairs, that is, the sharing of power between the centre and the regional levels with regard to decision making, financial resources and other functional responsibilities,” says the document. The origins of the conflict, however, are clear. After President Museveni’s NRM/A took power in 1986, there was widespread fear in northern Uganda, especially among the Acholi people, that it would take revenge for atrocities committed when the northerners dominated the army.
The initial NRA military actions, during which the Acholis were abused, tortured or disappeared, partially justified these fears, leading many to join rebel movements that included the Uganda People’s Democratic Army and Alice Lakwena’s Holy Spirit Movement. Lakwena emerged in 1986 claiming to be possessed by a spirit that was guiding her for the good of the Acholi, who felt they were being victimised by the NRM government. The Ugandan army defeated Lakwena’s movement in 1987, but her claim that she had spiritual guidance inspired Joseph Kony, who has also purported to be visited by spirits. He gathered the remnants of the Holy Spirit movement around him and formed the Uganda People’s Democratic Christian Army, which became the LRA around 1994. But, unlike Lakwena, the LRA has targeted the civilian population, in defiance of the international law, committing serious human-rights abuses in the process.