Association of Volunteers in International Service (AVSI)
Website: http://www.avsi.org
More than 4,000 women, children and men marched though Gulu town on December 31 2003. The Peace March has become a yearly event for the people of northern Uganda. However, what one notices first is not the bare-feet of children and women treading the marram roads of Gulu, but the grim faces etched perhaps with 18 years of war and suffering.

The walk was organised by Acholi Religious Leaders Peace Initiative (ARLPI), an umbrella of Catholic, Anglican, Orthodox and Muslims leaders of northern Uganda.

Associazione Volontari Per il Servicio Internationale (AVSI) representatives joined northern Uganda Members of Parliament, representative of internationals and local non-governmental organisations, district authorities and traditional leaders, for the Peace March.

This year’s theme, “Among all, Peace for all,” was chosen to stress the fact that peace is a work of every body and also seek the involvement of the international community in ending the 18-year war. “We are unable to end the war without the involvement of the International community,” said Carlos Rodriguez, advocacy officer of ARLPI. “We need an external help,” he added.

Religious leaders from Lango and Teso regions also attended the event. They were invited to help mend relationships between the two ethnic and the Acholi. Their relationships have of late been fragile as the Lango and Teso blame the Acholi people for the conflict, caused by Joseph Kony and Lords Resistance Army (LRA) rebels, mainly formed by Acholi.

The LRA claims to fight for peace while massacring large groups of civilians, ambushing vehicles and planting landmines, and setting fire to camps for the displaced, health centres and Catholic missions.

“In my six year stay in Gulu, this demonstration has been the one with the greatest participation from the people, mainly woman and children,” said Fr. Carlos. On the same day 1,000 people joined their counterparts in Gulu and marched through the northern town of Kitgum.

Previously on July 14, 2003, about 20,000 young people demonstrated in Kitgum town, demanding an end to the war. The demonstration, an initiative by the children themselves, was the first of its kind and saw Acholi children carrying messages directed at their country’s political and religious leaders, protesting against the insurgency waged by the LRA.

Most children in northern Uganda know little about peace. They have spend their childhoods displaced from homes and schools, sleeping on the ground in bus parks, on shop verandas or on the grounds of hospitals and Churches. Parents, hoping to protect children from rebel abduction, send them each evening to population centres or any place of perceived safety.

The LRA has abducted about 20,000 children since the 1980s. Children are forced to serve as porters, soldiers and, in the case of girls, sex slaves. Within the LRA ranks, around 90 percent of “soldiers” are estimated to be abducted children. They are often forced to murder family members and neighbours, and then placed on the frontlines against the government army.

Human Rights Watch reports that the LRA has abducted 8,500 children since June 2002 alone. Some children are able to escape, but an uncounted number die in battle or as a result of living conditions in the bush. Girls, kept under tight surveillance, are less likely to escape and can remain with the LRA for years, serving as “wives” and giving birth to children who grow up with the rebels.

A statement by ARLPI release on the day of the march puts the figure of people displaced by the conflict in Uganda to one and half million.
“I cannot find any part of the world having an emergency on the scale of Uganda with so little international attention. This is far beyond what is seen in Iraq, Palestinian territories or in any part of the world probably and still it is being forgotten and neglected,” the U.N. Under Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs, Jan Egeland, speaking to the BBC, after visiting Northern Uganda in early November 2003.

Nonetheless, Ugandan Army continues to claim that they are largely successful, and the attacks and ambushes by the LRA are kicks of a dying horse. The last half of 2003 has also seen Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni pitch camp in northern and eastern Uganda to bolster the war against the LRA.

Reports that Sudan has signed a peace accord with the SPLA rebels group, is good news for Ugandans. The LRA rebels, who have bases in southern Sudan, have been reported by youth who escape captivity, to get large supply of arms from elements within Sudan. The Government of Khartoum denies this and in November released a statement that denounced LRA atrocities and called on them to hold dialogue with Uganda government.

International mediators have made significant progress in pushing for the Sudanese peace talks, but the link to northern Uganda is often overlooked. The last quarter of 2003, saw the Ugandan presidential peace team, return to Kampala, after failing to gain significant results. Since then, the peace process seems to be on hold. “We ask the Presidential Peace Team to be revitalised and go back to northern Uganda,” said Fr. Carlos. “ A lot of trust and confidence building needs to be developed before genuine peace talks could begin,” he added.

Religious leaders, while calling for a return to peace negotiations, ask consideration of the crisis at the United Nations. They point to U.N. intervention in other African conflicts and make a case that Uganda’s war should not be considered only as an internal problem.

Foreign governments have however, taken some notice of the upsurge of conflict in northern Uganda. The statement by ARLPI reveals that the European Union is making a “peace road map” for northern Uganda that is to be submitted to the U.N. Security Council. The statement also welcomes the U.N. Initiative for increasing humanitarian aid to northern Uganda and opening of more offices run by international staff in critical locations.

The Peace March though well attended by the local people failed to gain the much-needed attention from the international press and persons. “I regret that diplomats and international press did not attend the event, though they were invited,” said Fr. Carlos.

Nonetheless, the demonstration succeeded in capturing attention at a national level. The lasting peace requested by the woman, children, men and the religious leaders however, remain elusive, as LRA continued abductions, ambushes and killings throughout the Christmas season.

“At the beginning of every year, war is said to be over, but as the year goes by the war rages on. We need to ask God to give us patience and commitment for peace,” said Fr. Carlos.