With peace negotiations due to restart in the southern
Sudanese town of Juba on 26 April, the ten-month-old
peace process between the Lord’s Resistance Army
(LRA) and the Ugandan government still has a chance
of ending one of Africa’s longest, most brutal conflicts.
The present process is more structured and inclusive
than previous efforts to end the twenty-year-old conflict,
benefits from greater – if still inadequate – external
involvement, and has made some significant gains,
notably removing most LRA fighters from northern
Uganda. And the implementation of the agreement
to end Sudan’s north-south civil war has reduced
both the LRA’s and the Ugandan army’s room for
manoeuvre.
But the favourable political constellation is likely to be
fleeting, and to simply resume the process as previously
constituted would be a recipe for failure. It is hamstrung
by major weaknesses in representation, structure and
substance. The LRA delegation, mainly diaspora Acholi
detached from the conflict, lacks competency, credibility
and cohesiveness. The agenda is being negotiated
sequentially, so progress has been thwarted by failure
to fully implement the cessation of hostilities agreement
and fundamental disagreement over the issue of
comprehensive solutions to the conflict. And the
Juba negotiations are the wrong forum for tackling the
underlying economic, political and social problems
of northern Uganda, critical in ending the north-south
divide in Uganda and breaking the cycle of conflict that
has racked the country since 1986.
