15 Minutes or Never

Mom and dad visited a couple of weeks ago. We took them to Kampala and booked rooms, but there was some mix-up and their room was not self-contained room. Wanting to make my parents feel comfortable in my Ugandan home, I tried to convince the lady who ran the place to give them a room with an en-suite bathroom. There was an empty room but it needed some cleanup, so I asked when it could be ready. Her reply: "15 minutes"...long pause, "or...never."

With all the momentum behind the Juba Peace Process--the plan to negotiate the last item on the agenda and have all parties sign within a few short days in April--it seemed like it was all going to happen, in perhaps the same time frame as my parents' room. 15 minutes...or never.

The first time we really expected/hoped/doubted that Kony would sign the final peace agreement (April 10th) I was on Ssese Island for the CPA staff induction. I sat with Immaculate, Sylvia and Tonny on the edge of the water and we watched the sun set while we listened to the day's news on radio. In this case, no news was bad news. If the peace agreement had been signed, something would have been reported. But it got darker and still the announcer said nothing about what we hoped to hear.

While peace delays, our days have been full. We finally had some time in an Acholi village--something we've planned to do for a long time. We spent a week in grass thatch hut. We were hosted by a Parent Support Group that we've interacted with a lot over the past years. Ben spent time in the garden with the men, constructed a chicken house and swept the compound.

As much as possible, I wanted to do what a traditional Acholi woman would do. I woke up each morning and swept and mopped the hut and then carried water from the well (on my head) and prepared the water for Ben to bathe. I had to take a break from feminist practice in order to really experience tradition. I practiced Acholi and listened to countless stories of village gossip, usually involving someone allegedly stepping on charms, speculation about who was charming who, etc. I wanted to learn Acholi cooking, so every day I went to a different household to make lunch and dinner. That meant twice a day of collecting food from the garden, pounding sesame or ground nuts, then grinding, cooking, serving, kneeling for washing hands before eating. All the pounding, grinding and cooking takes place in kitchens that have charcoal fires and virtually no ventilation. After the first day, my back ached, my eyes burned and my hands were covered in blisters. Because of the novelty of it, and because my effort was so appreciated--it somehow retained an element of fun. Were I born in that village, and the work was all I knew and it was as thankless as it is for most of the women, it would not have been fun. It is tough being an Acholi woman. And they are tough.

After supper, the drums come out and there is dancing for those with any sweat left in their bodies.

One evening after we danced we sat around a fire and told stories. It felt like any typical campfire, and they told stories with an easiness in their voices. The ensuing laughter would have given the impression to anyone that subject matter was light. But they were all stories of war, encounters with rebels, nights spent lying in maize fields shivering in terror in hope of escaping being burnt in their huts. They could laugh, because they felt safe. They felt like what the recalled was behind them. The unspoken claim was, "It's over." One of the women my age turned to me and said, "I've never known anything like peace in my life." I held her hand, and hoped that it really was over, and that she would know peace now. It is all so fragile, maybe deceptive--this fake or fragile peace we're enjoying in northern Uganda.

It was wonderful to spend time with my parents when they visited. We shared a taste of life in Lira, work in Gulu, Philip's traditional marriage in Kampala and a game drive and relaxing at the lodge in Murchison. My favorite animal is the giraffe.

We thought we'd miss the big cats. The grass was so tall, my dad said, "they could be 15 feet away and we wouldn't even know it." At that moment we saw this one, a baby, even less than 15 feet away. It's mother woke up and another cub emerged and the threesome ran off.

Mom and jelly bonded.

We finished our time with them dropping them off for a conference they had in Jinja. An hour before they had to arrive dad suggested bungee jumping. I've never had any desire to do it (I don't like the sensation of my heart being in my throat), so mom and I watched Ben and dad leap off a huge tower at Bujagali falls down to the Nile below them. I think we were more scared than they were.

I can hardly believe how soon we will be leaving for London. In periods of transition time takes on a curious character. The days somehow seem longer, but the months fly. I find myself in the middle of a tension, straining toward what's ahead and dissolving into nostalgia/regret on what's past. I find equilibrium in the middle of that tension. I manage to be fully present. In those moments every conversation has it's own life and meaning and each encounter is accepted and appreciated for what it is. It's often humbling. Sometimes, my expectations far exceed the reality and I wish for more. Usually, I feel grateful.

The Night Peace Came

by Holly
A couple of weeks ago Ben and I got a text message from someone in Kampala who’d seen a news report celebrating the end to war in northern Uganda and guessing that there was some serious jubilation where we were. There was indeed jubilation, but it was because of the annual Lira NGO volleyball tournament, a beautiful starry evening, good music and good company. We started asking friends if they’d heard the news—most hadn’t and the few that had shrugged indifferently. They commented about how divorced the peace talks were to life of grassroots people, or about what a farce the entire process had become since the link between the LRA negotiators and the LRA fighters seems increasingly dubious. Could it be, I asked with a mix of incredulity and hope, that we will remember tonight as the night peace came?

No. Partly, because what was signed that night was an agenda item of the ongoing peace talks and not the comprehensive peace agreement, and partly, because peace doesn’t come all at once. It’s an agonizingly slow process that is benchmarked with agreements but must extend beyond signed pieces of paper. We might remember it as an event, a day, a night, but it will be a long journey.

The formal peace process in Juba is moving forward right now with ambitious momentum. The final peace agreement was scheduled to be signed this Friday (March 29), but this morning’s papers (New Vision & Monitor) say it’s been postponed until next week, April 3rd. Before the signing, the negotiating teams from government and LRA together with a delegation of about 100 civil society leaders including Angelina, CPA’s Chair, should agree on an implementation schedule and framework. They intend to travel to present it to the LRA leadership in Ri-Kwangba, and return with either Kony or his delegate to sign on his behalf in Juba next Friday. Easter Monday, before Angelina went to Juba, she told us her goal would be to push for the two ‘big men” to sign the agreement with their own hands. I admire her determined optimism, but it’s hard to imagine that either of them will be holding pens in the same room in the near future.

Most of my colleagues don’t believe Kony will ever come out. Perhaps he won’t block the peace accord, but he won’t be part of it. He realizes that many of his ranks and the affected community want peace, but he and a few others have no intention to ever return. That idea somehow is not unsettling to many I’ve talked with. They believe that Kony and company will either become mercenaries for the highest bidder in DRC, CAR, Sudan or Chad or that there are already plans of apprehending them as soon as the agreement is signed (no one says this outright, they just hint around it as if speaking plainly might jeopardize some covert operation). Someone put it this way, “this peace agreement affects almost everyone and we all want it. The ICC is just for three people, the peace agreement doesn’t need to be for those three people too.”

I’ve been surprised by how little concern has been raised over the implications of the reports in the past couple of weeks of 100 new LRA abductions in the Central African Republic and 70 more in south Sudan. Maybe that’s due to the amount of unreliable information we get. Though many people seem to have an as-long-as-it’s-not-in-Uganda attitude. Of course there have always been and will continue to be doomsayers. They have warned the delegation of 100 civil society leaders of the risk of going to Ri-Kwangba this week. They fear that some apocalyptic fate may await them, or they will be captured and held ransom with expected demands to be made to the ICC.

From the beginning LRA top command has made it clear that the ICC issue is a deal breaker. Yet few people I talk to here think that the issue will have any bearing on the outcome of this week’s discussions. It’s not clear to me yet if this is a hope that international law will suddenly become “flexible,” wishful thinking about the trust that’s been built between the government and LRA leadership or something else. One friend suggested, “make it as easy as possible for him (Kony) to sign the agreement and then just disappear." Perhaps that's what the organizers have in mind. Maybe we are boldly moving forward ignoring the impending collapse of the process. Or, could there be some quiet plan to take 3 people out of the equation all the while making public statements that make impunity-conscious human rights folks squirm?

What is actually happening is hard to say. In any case, notwithstanding further postponements, the next 7 days of events may determine which night we will remember as the night peace came to northern Uganda.

LRA consultations/speeches in Lira

Holly and I just returned from a public meeting between the citizens of Lira and a delegation from the LRA. As a part of the third agenda item in the Juba peace talks, the Government of Uganda and the LRA have been visiting northern districts to gather opinions of the people affected by this 20 year war. Several weeks ago the government of Uganda held consultations; today it was the LRA’s turn.

There is no statement that can capture the views of affected people. Their questions and statements directed to the delegation ranged from, “How can we be compensated? “Our schools, economy, and social fabric have been destroyed” to “We forgive them, but the ICC [International Criminal Court] should keep the pressure” to “Why do we need the ICC when we have our own court in Kampala?” to “Is Otti [2nd in command of LRA] dead or alive?” to “You have a cell phone and a vehicle, are you going to pay our children’s school fees?” to “How can you come and ask for forgiveness when you are keeping our children in the bush? You should release our children as a sign that you’re serious about reconciliation,” to “If the LRA wants to fight the government then why have they been killing and mutilating citizens?”

The delegation (perhaps strategically) waited until the sun went down to even take these questions/statements and was unable to answer them due to time constraints.

However, the LRA delegation made a clear apology and claimed commitment to reconcile. At one point they equated Joseph Kony with the main character of Jesus’ parable, “The Prodigal Son”, saying, “We have made mistakes, all we want to do is come home and work alongside the workers in the field.” They pleaded with community to be the father in the story, who welcomed his wayward son home.

Naturally, the delegation emphasized the Government’s culpability in the displacement, atrocities and poor governance.

It is Possible

by Holly
Last night I was chatting with a Ugandan colleague about the preparation NGOs have been doing for the return of an expected 2,000 women and children from the LRA. I said I hoped it would be soon. He replied with emotion, “I doubt it.” Both of us said together in almost the same breath, “but we have to hope.” I had an interesting encounter with a Special Advisor to the President in Gulu recently and got a little insight. The celebrated but little understood “agreement” that was recently signed between the LRA and Government of Uganda negotiating teams on accountability, the 3rd agenda of the peace talks, is reportedly not an agreement but principles that should apply to whatever agreement is reached. So, we’re not quite as far down the road as the local press made it seem.

Last weekend after we celebrated the MoU signing for the EU grant (“cause to celebrate”) we stopped in Barlonyo on the way back to Lira. In 2004 the LRA attacked and massacred a lot of people there. A mass grave and memorial was built on the site. The plaque on the memorial reads that on that day “121 innocent civilians were killed by LRA terrorists.” The local government says it was 314 people. I sat and prayed for a few minutes. The words running through my mind were familiar. I felt again the deep pain of people who have known too much violence, the groaning of the blood soaked ground, the hope that it would not happen again, that it is over and that healing is coming. I felt it in Srebrenica at the commemoration day of prayer, 10 years after Serbs killed over seven thousand men and boys. I felt it when I prayed on dusty streets in Palestine on the Reconciliation Walk just 2 months before the second intifada started. I heard someone say recently that if you act like you have faith the faith will follow—I don’t know if that’s quite true, but when I get tired or discouraged lately I’ve been saying to myself, “it is possible.” And I think it’s working, because I feel a greater sense of the vision and hope the statement implies. It is possible when we make daily decisions and decide to take steps toward peace, however far away we may feel at the time. It’s a journey, gratefully we don’t travel alone. At CPA we are on that road and we are moving forward.

CPA has begun a project called “Steps Toward Reconciliation.” (Funded by MCC.) The goal is to empower CPA’s community structures of parents and youth to advocate for peace, constructively respond to conflict, and participate in reconciliation. It is initiated and led by parents who are committed to a personal and community process of reconciliation. The project responds to the ongoing emphasis on the importance of incorporating local level mechanisms into a transitional justice strategy.

By the completion of the plan, four steps towards reconciliation will have been taken:

1. Consensus will be built on applying traditional methods of restorative justice in Lango. Significant effort has been made in Acholi to build consensus on how traditional forms of justice can be adapted and used in the modern circumstances. The relevance of this discussion extends beyond the Acholi sub-region to the Greater North, including the Lango Sub-Region, Teso, Karimoja, and the tribes in Arua West Nile. Little has been done outside Acholi to document and build consensus among clan and traditional leaders around traditional justice. As CPA is operational in Lango and Acholi, the project will document and build consensus on the application of traditional justice mechanisms in the Lango Sub-region.

2. Directly affected parents will publicly forgive the Ex-LRA Commanders who have returned to the community. A series of preparatory meetings will be held with the directly affected parties (beginning with founder parents) and their families and clans and separately with the ex-LRA commanders and their families and clans. The preparatory meetings will culminate in a day of forgiveness for those who want to participate. The event will celebrate the progress made toward reconciliation and share practical experiences about the process.

3. A delegation of most affected parents will take that message of forgiveness and restorative justice to the top LRA leadership and negotiating teams. Having documented and compiled practical examples of traditional justice and restitution mechanisms as well as forgiveness and reconciliation, parents will take these practical experiences to the people who are critical decision makers in the peace process. CPA believes that the voice of parents must be heard and considered as part of the negotiations, specifically as discussions are held on issues of accountability and on comprehensive solutions.

4. Parent Support Groups and Youth Groups will be empowered to transform conflict, reconcile and mediate between conflicting families and clans through 100 trained mediators from those groups. Mediators will contribute to the reunification of families as formerly-abducted children return and mediate in the many conflicts between families/clans that are a result of the war. Traditional reconciliation ceremonies will be supported. The experiences of reconciliation will be documented and shared through publications and radio providing a public example of practical forgiveness, truth telling and restorative justice as a way to peace in northern Uganda.

I was trying to think of a catchy name or slogan for the community mediators. The word “mediator” doesn’t translate well into Acholi and Lango. It makes people think more of a match maker Fiddler-on-the-roof style than it does someone who can facilitate a positive space for conflicting parties to brainstorm and agree on solutions. I was thinking of calling them yeast. Just a little bit of it in the bread of northern Uganda can transform everything making the whole thing rise. But then I was told that that in Lango and Acholi if you call someone “yeast” it’s saying they’re a drunkard because it’s used to make the local beer. So the mediators would’ve all been wearing T-shirts that said “Drunkards for Peace.” I’d still like to use some symbol that carries the hope of the power of small things to change everything--something that will encourage the mediators, me and others, when the inevitable fatigue or discouragement comes—to remember that it is possible. Any suggestions?

How to Bend a Speer

I’ve found it surprisingly challenging to reconcile hope with critical thinking about current events. I told Ben earlier in the week (on our date night, which we do every week and it’s so great!) that I was having this struggle and as we talked about the dynamic of hope the thought occurred to us that perhaps it was so hard to reconcile the desire not to blindly wait for something that was not going to happen and not giving up on it because we had a wrong view of hope. Maybe hope isn’t convincing yourself to think that something good is actually the most probable outcome, but believing that it should happen and that the good thing you hope for is closer to what God intended—closer to original design. With this little shift in my thinking it’s been easier to reconcile my mind and heart while I achingly long for peace in Uganda and reason through the complexity of the ongoing peace process. People want it so much, I want it so much. The emotional investment in this process is deep. You can see it on people’s faces. After 20 years, God, let this be the end—if not now when? When you talk to most people and ask them about what they think about the process the answers are on the tip of every tongue “I just want to go home,” or “I just want my sister to come back from the bush, that’s all I want.” I’m often humbled and baffled by the unflinching hope that many in the north express—but I do wonder, everyone has their breaking point, if this process fails will they reach it?

I spent most of this week with a delegation from MCCs advocacy offices from DC, Ottawa, and the UN office in New York as well as from the Africa and Peace departments in Akron. It was refreshing to be with them, to experience Uganda with them, and to discuss how we can better support the peace process through advocacy. We had a series of meetings with people from the groups of cultural and religious leaders who have been supporting/observing, military, NGO community, people in IDP camps, people on the monitoring team for the cessation of hostilities agreement, observers of the process from Juba, and others. The views they had, the messages they wanted to send were diverse, and rather than give my own ideas I thought I’d capture a few from what I heard: (paraphrased)

Why is the international community silent? The West is too silent, not showing oneness with Africa. If this conflict was happening somewhere else there would have been more support from the US. (Religious leader)

The incidences of violence around Juba reported in the media are not UPDF and LRA. Most incidences that have taken place have been the result of misinformation. (Monitoring team member)

I think that the government is trying to save face and that the LRA are rebuilding. There is a lack of commitment to relieve the suffering of Acholi people on both sides. They need to build confidence: don’t discuss wounds, don’t praise yourself, the negotiation should include the suffering people because they are motivated to work for peace. Maybe the negotiating teams should visit a camp so that they can get motivated (community leader)

Are you really sure that peace and justice are friends? Who is the parent in this conflict? Parents take all the costs of their children’s misbehavior. Convince the ICC to bend the rules. (Community leader)

What’s needed for peace is restorative justice. This is not a tribal war but crimes against humanity by terrorists. The military method hasn’t succeeded for 20 years. This might work. It is the most hope we’ve had. In the past the LRA wouldn’t eat food provided by the government of Uganda. But now they are accepting food, so there is some trust. (Formerly abducted person)

We want a statement from the Secretary General of the United Nations not only Jan Egeland. Now the Secretary General is leaving, I hope the next one will at least say something. (Religious leader)

Why is Kony so difficult to capture? We have a saying in Acholi, a coward lives longer. But the fighters are there in the bush, for them this is about reorganization. The LRA negotiating team are people who have a power hangover and they are not fighters. They are waiting for it to fail and getting attention and money. If you think I’m lying time will tell. (Military)

Why is Kony so difficult to capture? Because he is surrounded by children. Children are his water. (Community leader)

When I met with Kony, he had 3 messages: 1. He is for peace. 2. Watch and witness who will spoil the process. 3. The suffering should stop and the war should end. He is willing to do Mato Oput (reconciliation ceremony, that means drinking bitter herb) with the community but is not sure how it could be done with the government, since the government is not a tribe. (religious leader)

What specific confidence building measures are needed? UN supportive statements and a visit from the Secretary General to Northern Uganda. The African Union to respond to the call to be on the monitoring team. “Tell off” the government of Uganda to withdraw all troops in Sudan. Media should send positive supportive messages. It should not be a hurried process—there is no hurry in Africa—we need community views and this takes time. LRA needs to listen to the community. Focus on the victims and the costs of more war. (group of cultural and religious leaders)



These all are not exact quotes, but they are the things I remember and scribbled down in my notebook while I listened to people. Someone said, knowledge speaks, and wisdom listens. Trying to be wise, I’m listening--to those who may have accurate information or may be confused and misinformed but who all have a reason behind their words. I have many questions, but one is at the forefront of my mind. In any negotiation, a party’s position is strengthened when their alternative to a negotiated agreement is good. Unfortunately, all the parties have pretty decent alternatives, which may be why we've seen so many walk-outs. As I see it, the degree to which those alternatives are weakened motivation to settle without violence will be strengthened. How do the Juba peace talks become the most attractive option, and how can the alternatives to a negotiated agreement be minimized?

Hopeful Skeptic

by Holly

Cautious optimism characterizes the mood around the peace process for Northern Uganda. That is how I feel anyway. In general, I consider myself a naturally hopeful person, but I want it so desperately for this place that it hurts to allow hope too much liberty—the obstacles to any meaningful peace mean a high risk of disappointment.

We all follow carefully the daily developments in newspapers that unreliably print shadows of truth. We listen to Kony and Otti on the radio. They both apologized “for everything” on two different days within the past weeks on an Acholi broadcast. And I dared to be thrilled at such watershed statements. At the same time, their voices sounded hollow and the words echoed off of so many atrocities. If they were sorry for the abductions, truly, than why do they still refuse to release the women and children?

Otti has said his “wife and children” are part of him and they will all go home together. The women and children are a shield, a bargaining chip, they are still useful—and they are evidence that though they might be “sorry” they aren’t willing to make things right, not yet.

The irony of having men who have committed some of the worst crimes against humanity raising issues that are actually of legitimate concern and are real political grievances of people in the North is sometimes overwhelming and borders on the absurd. A cartoon in the paper depicted new seats being added to Parliament and Kony sat in one of them with a bloodied machete. A nameplate on the table in front of him read: “Minister of Child Rights.”

I read an editorial this morning (by Charles Onyango-Obbo in the Daily Monitor) He says, “If you ask those of us, who support dialogue to end suffering, but are opposed to these pacts with the devil, what creative alternative there is to that, we don’t have an intelligent answer. That’s the real tragedy of Uganda.” I join him, and many others in the fear that, “sleeping with the devil” could produce some very ugly children.

When I passed through Gulu on the way home from Kitgum on Friday I had a drink with the Public Relations Officer for the UPDF in Northern Uganda. I got the party line, or the military line, instead of the medias interpretation of it. He told me the meeting went well with Dominic Ongwen, (one of the ICC indicted) he said Kony was lying when he said they’d been shot at after the cease-fire by the UPDF. He told me about the one abduction that has taken place since the cease-fire. I asked him if he was hopeful about peace. “Honestly,” he said, “It’s hard to tell, I say it’s still a fifty/fifty chance.” I’ve talked with him before—it’s his job to put the best foot of the military forward, and he does it well. So, I was disheartened by his prediction, if he says fifty/fifty, I’m guessing the UPDF is thinking and planning for thirty / seventy—or worse.

Still, hope finds ways of asserting itself. While we were in Kitgum there were hundreds of rebels walking, sitting under mango trees, waiting for others to join them and then continuing. Presumably they were going to the assembly points. They weren’t hostile. They weren’t causing trouble. They were “friendly.” I don’t know whether to let myself get excited or not. It is so delicate, fragile, and precarious. There are so many variables and so many unknowns.

Right now, Angelina, the Chairperson for CPA is moving with a team of others on a National Reconciliation team. The team is meeting with leaders all over the country and while they discuss and reconcile with each other they are gathering consensus around the messages they want to send to the government, the UPDF, and the LRA and to ordinary people in Uganda. She consulted me just before she left on the most recent leg of her journey to Bunyoro. We discussed the dangers of “unconditional forgiveness,” that can encourage impunity and conceal the truth. We discussed the need to convince the ICC that the crimes which have been committed against humanity—not only the people of Uganda--could somehow be redressed in a local context, in the interests of peace, through Roco Wot and Mato Oput. Angelina is admirably reckless with her optimism. While it strengthens my heart, my mind finds some safety in skepticism that guards me against the disappointment that may come.