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Uganda

Mr. Eric Joyce (Falkirk) (Lab): The great lakes region of Africa is emerging from a long and terrible period of violence and dictatorship. Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and now the Democratic Republic of the Congo have democratically elected Governments. The economies of Uganda and Rwanda in particular are being kick-started and there are many reasons to be mildly optimistic about the future of the region. Eastern Congo remains lawless, of course, and the writ of the Kinshasa Government does not yet run there in any true conventional sense. That lawlessness as a function of civil war, poverty and history continues to be fuelled in no small part by the existence of marauding bands of bandits formally associated with neighbouring countries that have at one time or another occupied parts of the country.

Today I want to focus on the problem of the Lord’s Resistance Army, which still occupies part of eastern Congo and has conducted a 20-year campaign in and around northern Uganda. In that time many children have been abducted and forced into military service, many people in northern Uganda have lost limbs and many have lost their lives. The suffering of the people of northern Uganda has been beyond expression at times.

I come to the subject as chair of the all-party group on the great lakes region and genocide prevention. Just over a year ago, a delegation from the all-party group, including my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew), visited northern Uganda and met President Yoweri Museveni. The report of the visit reiterated the extent of human suffering the conflict in northern Uganda has caused. At the time many thought that the International Criminal Court indictments of the leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army, Joseph Kony, and of several of his close associates, which were delivered while the mission was still in the field, signalled that the window for possible peace talks between the Lord’s Resistance Army and the Ugandan Government had closed. Kony seemed unprepared to talk and President Museveni had urged the ICC to take up the case.

When the group subsequently met President Museveni in London, it seemed that little had changed. The president had decided that if the LRA would not lay down its arms and if Uganda were not to be permitted by the international community effectively to invade the Democratic Republic of the Congo, it was up to the ICC to take charge of the situation. The ICC did that and there has apparently been a considerable turnround in many respects. The LRA has apparently taken part in talks in Juba, although—to put it in the most positive way—things are moving extremely slowly.

It is estimated that 1,000 people a week in the region are dying as a result of the conflict. Children are still the principal victims of the violence: an estimated 1,500 are still in LRA ranks and at least 10,000 remain unaccounted for. It is worth emphasising the abominable extent of the crimes conducted in the course of the conflict. Some 20,000 to 25,000 children have been abducted and made to work as field wives, child soldiers, and porters of weaponry; often they have been forced to mutilate or kill friends and relatives. Tens of thousands of other people in the region have become night commuters, walking long distances every night into towns to try to avoid attack. Members of the all-party group met some of those children at the Noah’s Ark shelter in Gulu. The founder of the Concerned Parents Association, a remarkable non-governmental organisation formed in response to the abductions and killings, told the all-party group the harrowing tale of her daughter: kidnapped by the rebels in a notorious attack on the Aboke girls’ school, she was forced to become the wife of a commander and was held for seven years before she managed to escape and return home.

The group’s visit to Koch Goma internally displaced person camp was perhaps the most striking and depressing experience of its time in Uganda. As at other camps, the inhabitants live in fear. The day before the visit, residents who had gone to tend nearby fields had fled in panic after coming across signs of LRA presence. At a memorable meeting with the group, residents described an incident in May 2005 in which 16 people were killed and two abducted when the LRA attacked the camp. When the assembled crowd was asked who had lost someone to the LRA through murder or abduction, virtually every hand went up.

I believe it is incumbent on anyone who wants to help alleviate that suffering to put the present victims at the top of the international agenda. If there is a way to make it stop, we have to help to find it and the sooner the better. There is another agenda, however, and that is to seek to prevent such things from happening in future. There is another agenda, however, and that is to seek to prevent such things from happening in future. That agenda is served by making it clear that the perpetrators of the world’s worst crimes against humanity are held responsible and punished for the atrocities that they commit. The present situation in northern Uganda, with a temporary ceasefire in place while negotiations take place to make it permanent, I hope, is therefore extremely sensitive.

At face value, that appears to be a Catch-22 situation. There is no doubt that atrocities have taken place over many years, and that cannot be ignored under any circumstances. That is why the ICC has indicted a number of LRA suspects. However, discussions imply movement on both sides. Such movement brings with it, one assumes, the possibility of damaging the ICC process and the crucial role that it will play in preventing future atrocities. It is essential not to find a messy compromise, but to serve both objectives—to stop the violence, while also holding to account those responsible for violence in the past.

For those on the ground, that will be a challenge of the greatest proportions. For sure, the August 2006 cessation of hostilities agreement has so far led to increased safety, confidence and hope. With assistance from non-governmental organisations such as Christian Aid, Oxfam, Tearfund, and Save the Children, schools are being rebuilt and there is better access to health care. The improved security has allowed NGOs much better access to camps for families who have been forced from their homes by fighting. Displaced people have been able to move to new settlement sites, which are often closer to their homes and have access to farmland. New fighting and a return to terror tactics in northern Uganda could destroy all that progress, so we need to do what we can as an important member of the international community to prevent that from happening, if that is possible.