Q & A in The East African
Julia Spiegel, policy analyst for the ENOUGH Project, spent the past month in Uganda and South Sudan. She visited numerous internally displaced camps in Gulu and camped out in Ri-Kwangba on South Sudan's border with eastern Congo along with U.S. and other international diplomats for what was supposed to be the signing of a momentous peace deal. Her research focused on the Juba peace process and prospects for ending the 22-year long conflict between the Lord's Resistance Army and the Ugandan government. She submitted this Q&A to the Nairobi, Kenya weekly paper, The East African. It was published in the April 20-27, 2008 edition.
The Juba peace talks seen by many observers as the best chance to end the 22-year LRA insurgency are headed for collapse. Did you see it coming?
Many of the parties involved in this peace process were hopeful that the time to rubber-stamp this deal had come. That said, Kony's seriousness about these peace efforts was always suspect; his movement to and establishment of a base in Central African Republic, numerous raids and abductions conducted by the LRA in South Sudan during peace negotiations, his refusal to communicate over the last few months with key persons leading peace efforts (in particular chief mediator Riek Machar and UN special envoy Joaquim Chissano), and the killing of his second-in-command Vincent Otti all indicated an alarming lack of buy-in by Kony. So the failure to get a peace deal signed by the rebel leader in Ri-Kwangba was not a complete surprise, but we were hopeful. This has been a long and arduous process - and the opportunities for a peaceful resolution to the conflict, given Kony's opaque dealings and unclear intentions - are decreasing rapidly.
In your view, did the international community and the Ugandan government do enough to ensure the success of the talks?
The Ugandan government, the chief mediator, and the international community have done a commendable job at keeping these talks on track, despite a few bumps along the way. The real problem, as I mentioned above, is Kony's non-interest in meaningfully engaging in these peace efforts. There is, however, much more that the Ugandan government and the international community can do to facilitate resettlement and reconstruction in the war-ravaged North and to reach out to Kony now to try and broker a deal.
What next for northern Uganda? Do you see the possibility of a return to war?
Despite the fact that a peace deal was not signed, the people of northern Uganda may still be able return home in larger numbers. The LRA - now in Central African Republic, eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, and South Sudan - are far less likely to renew attacks in northern Uganda in the near future for a number of reasons. First, it would be much more difficult logistically to deploy a few units from such a great distance. Second, the UPDF has a much greater protection presence in the North than it did a few years ago. And third, the likelihood of defections would be far greater if Kony sent units out far from their main bases and near to their home communities. The regional presence of the LRA, however, remains a grave threat to those civilians and vulnerable populations in those areas. But for the people of northern Uganda, this chapter of the war may in fact be over. To rebuild their lives, however, the Ugandan government will need to seriously invest in resettlement and reconstruction in the North, as is layed out in its Peace, Reconstruction and Development Plan, as well as a civilian protection strategy to ensure that those returning home are not at risk. But over time, without a diplomatic initiative aimed directly at Kony, backed up by preparations for a regional strategy to apprehend him and the other International Criminal Court indictees should diplomacy fail, the surrounding region faces the prospect of Kony and some of his most extreme and brutal soldiers terrorizing civilians for the foreseeable future. In the long term, peace will not be assured in Uganda or the surrounding region until Kony either comes out of the bush or is arrested.
Please comment on the alternative justice mechanism Kony and his indicted commanders are to undergo as opposed to a trial at The Hague.
If Kony decides to return to Uganda, he will have to face domestic judicial processes. But the first two simultaneous steps for reaching this point are ensuring that the assembly in Ri-Kwangba occurs and that the Government of Uganda passes the requisite legislation to establish a special division of the Ugandan High Court to try LRA leadership. Kony has refused to allow the DDR process to begin until the ICC indictments have been suspended for a year or lifted altogether. But the ICC warrants cannot be lifted until local accountability mechanisms have been initiated. If the UN Security Council is not responsive to appeals from the LRA or Ugandan government, which has agreed to seek the suspension of indictments in the April peace deal, and the Ugandan government fails to establish adequate domestic judicial mechanisms to deal with Kony, we will have reached a dangerous crossroad. As the former LRA delegation head David Matsanga recently warned me, Kony also has a plan B - bloodshed.
There are a few other options to deal with this ICC dilemma. First, the parties can file a motion to have the warrants lifted based on the agreement and the prosecutor can exercise his discretion to suspend all obligations to execute the warrants pending a final decision by the Pre-Trial Chamber of the ICC as to whether the local accountability mechanisms meet international standards. They cannot, however, realistically make this decision until local mechanisms have been initiated. Second, Kony can send out one of the remaining indictees as a kind of trial balloon to undergo the agreement's justice mechanisms and then see what the Court does. There should be a price for these assurances, such as some disarmament, agreement on proper counting and monitoring of the LRA, staying within the assembly area in Ri-Kwangba (not the Central African Republic), releasing some of the women and children, and so on. Some believe that these steps could help to assuage Kony's fears of the ICC and begin meaningful implementation of the deal.
More likely, though, Kony understands very well that the proposed complementary justice approach laid out in the peace deal will not offer him a viable exit from ICC prosecution or even protection from future Ugandan prosecution. When his lawyer visited him in the bush, Kony made him explain why he was accused of crimes against humanity, and in what circumstances the ICC might drop the case. He realized then that this option was full of risk, likely unacceptable to such a risk-averse figure. So a deal, as distasteful as it may be, might have to be brokered with Kony in order to find an end to this costly and lengthy war.
What do you think should be done to Kony in order to salvage the talks?
First, a concerted effort must be made by the Ugandan government and key international players to press Kony to make a choice about his future. He can either sign the peace deal and begin assembling his LRA forces in Ri-Kwangba; agree to a third country asylum arrangement representing exile or banishment from northern Uganda as a consequence for his crimes, thus removing himself from the battlefield and giving peace a real chance; or walk away from the agreement and formalize his status as a regional warlord, which will trigger a regional manhunt that will leave him on the run for the rest of his life. But ultimately, he must feel a cost for his failure to meet deadlines and uphold agreements; he has continually rejected carrots and has faced no real sticks. As a result, Kony has been able to gain time, money and medicine out of these peace efforts without making any real commitments or deliverables. Now Kony must be forced to make a choice. But this requires an effective communication channel to be made between the government, the international community and Kony himself. If he rejects these negotiation attempts in the next few months, then it will be clear that all peaceful options for resolving this conflict will have been exhausted, and thus the international community should, with regional states and UN peacekeeping missions in neighboring countries, rapidly develop a containment and apprehension strategy focused on capturing Kony and the other LRA leaders indicted by the International Criminal Court.