The unfinished business of Africa’s longest wars
by Erica Mac Donald and Tim Shenk
Mareike Schomerus
Southern Sudan and northern Uganda have both experienced decades of war with grave humanitarian consequences, spurring international involvement at many levels.
Unfortunately, it will be difficult to achieve a lasting peace in either region due to unresolved political conflicts, according to Mareike Schomerus, a fellow with the Global Public Policy Network.
Schomerus presented her research on instability in southern Sudan and the political views of northern Uganda’s Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) on October 20 and 27 at the School of International and Public Affairs.
Schomerus argued that policymakers have misunderstood the LRA, which began in Uganda and now operates along the borders of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Central African Republic and southern Sudan.
While the LRA is widely seen as responsible for massive atrocities, including kidnapping children and massacring civilians, Schomerus argued that the international community has failed to take into account the injustices that motivate the rebel group.
Through interviews of civilians, government officials and LRA leaders, Schomerus found that the LRA can be understood as having “legitimate grievances” that are consistent with the views of many Ugandans.
The LRA was founded in response to the marginalization of the Acholi people of the northern region of the country. LRA manifestos call for equal political representation in the region, an end to human rights abuses by the Ugandan government and attention to issues such as governmental corruption and nationwide underdevelopment.
However, the Ugandan government has gained international political support by discrediting the views of the LRA based on the group’s indiscriminate violence.
Schomerus, while not justifying the LRA’s tactics, argued that ignoring its political demands has hindered peace negotiations. Without any meaningful concessions from the government, the LRA leader Joseph Kony saw peace negotiations as a dead end for his movement.
During peace negotiations in southern Sudan in 2006, for example, Kony said, “We seem to have built our own deathbed by committing to this peace process.”
Schomerus also questioned the conventional wisdom on southern Sudan. The region was granted a degree of autonomy from the Sudanese government under an agreement that ended the Sudanese civil war in 2005, and its citizens recently voted overwhelmingly for independence in a January 2011 referendum.
However, despite the peace agreement, people in southern Sudan are more insecure than during the war, Schomerus argued.
Violence was more predictable in wartime, she said. Now, violence is sparked by competition for resources, such as cattle, and by soldiers who prey on the population with impunity.
“It’s really unfathomable how many civilians get abused, how many women get raped, by the SPLA at the moment,” Schomerus said, referring to south’s military, the Sudan People’s Liberation Army.
Civilians fear a new civil war within southern Sudan almost as much as they fear a repeat of the civil war with the north, Schomerus added.
Aid organizations that try to negotiate peace agreements between southern groups are often ineffective, Schomerus said. The true instigators of violence are unlikely to attend peace negotiations, and few local people believe that these processes permanently resolve conflicts.
According to Schomerus, there are no easy solutions to the difficulties in southern Sudan. In a region still reeling from 50 years of war, her research underlines the enormous challenges that remain.
Published in RightsNews
Volume 29, no. 2, February, 2011.
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