Why I was in Kampala

The real reason we (JRP) have been in Kampala (other than the benefit of being able to find a doctor that graduated from a university) was for the 11^th hour of the peace process. Kony (LRA leader) has stated that his reason for not having signed the Final Peace Agreement (other than the ICC indictment) was that he wanted clarification on 1) how traditional justice will work for fighters coming out of the bush, 2) how the Special Division of the High Court will work (this is a court that is supposed to be set up in order to satisfy the ICC that Uganda can try war crimes and crimes against humanity in a national court), and 3) how the two systems will interact. So he asked they key cultural leaders (who are connected with JRP’s work and NGO Forum) to bring the answers back to him on the 10^th of May (today).

So Mike (our fearless leader, and also an elder for Ker Kwaro Acholi, the institution of traditional leaders and rwodi (chiefs, singular: rwot)) and Rwot Acana (Paramount Chief of northern Uganda, sort of like the king) scrambled and worked their butts off to get funding and send out invites and everything at the very last minute to pull off a workshop of experts to answer these questions. They really pulled it off and so this workshop had the “who’s who” of northern Uganda civil society. The group included MPs, religious leaders, judges and lawyers, a few academics and an ambassador or two, a representative from South Sudan, and several people from both the Government of Uganda (GoU) and LRA delegations. So it was interesting for me to put a lot of faces to familiar names, except for when I was in the bathroom, which was most of the time.

I found the LRA delegation to be a fascinating puzzle. I spent a lot of time staring at them, wondering what their histories are and what motivates them to represent the LRA. Most of them are lawyers, and I’m pretty sure none of them live in northern Uganda anymore. I’ve heard and read lots of claims that they are disconnected from the reality of the war, that they are all part of the Acholi diaspora in London, Nairobi, etc. (a very controversial group of people inasmuch as war profiteering is concerned) and that they can’t really represent the LRA because they haven’t really been in the movement.

I tend to believe these claims if only because Kony has killed and fired several of his chief mediators; they never seemed to have the pulse of the LRA. But I can’t say that I know that much about it. I do know that they all talked like lawyers, they were all dressed to the nines, and I sure saw a lot of gold watches. Are they in it for the money? Do they want the LRA to succeed? Or am I being too speculative: are they offering their services in the interests of peacemaking? It’s a mystery to me.

There was one man on the LRA delegation that lounged during the discussions and walked in an out looking disinterested, and one of my colleagues told me that the had complained to her during a break that the workshop was failing to answer any of the questions that Kony asked. She wondered then why he didn’t raise his voice at all.

My only answer is that maybe he had diarrhea like I did.