Peace talks and intervention in July–August

The nature of the conflict changed again when a new round of peace talks was launched under the lead of the Government of South Sudan in July 2006. The effect of these talks on the scale and form of development intervention in northern Uganda was, at the time of fieldwork in August 2006, still uncertain. The overall impression of the talks was that because there was more international involvement and media coverage than previously, the talks were more likely to succeed than earlier peace processes (IDMC 2006: iii). Yet in Kitgum, the humanitarian and development community was in a state of limbo, as was the displaced population. Peace or war, decongestion of displacement camps into smaller camps or no, and relief or development – many questions were still in the process of being answered when I conducted fieldwork for this study.

Opinions on the prospects of the talks varied immensely: some humanitarian workers were extremely cynical, whereas others were more optimistic. Optimism was largely due to the fact that the security situation had substantially improved from what it had been only six months previously, and there had been no fatal attacks by the rebels since 2005. As a result, UPDF escorts for humanitarian assistance were gradually being drawn back. Since rebel activity had diminished and the majority of the rebels were in a camp in the distant Garamba National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), most of the development workers interviewed believed that there would be relative peace whether or not an official peace agreement was reached.

Although the security situation had improved, the humanitarian crisis was still severe. Altogether 1,7 million people were estimated to be displaced in all the LRA-affected regions, of these 1,1 million in Acholi, of which 310 000 in Kitgum (UNOCHA 2006a). As security improved, people were moving closer to their homes in order to gain access to more farmland. Predominantly such spontaneous resettlement was occurring in

Lango and Teso districts, and population movement in Acholi districts including Kitgum was only gradually beginning (UNOCHA 2006a). In Kitgum the humanitarian community was challenged to address this movement to settlements outside established displacement camps. Many of the resettlement sites had serious inadequacies in terms of water, sanitation, health and education facilities. In addition, some of the locations to which people were moving had not been surveyed for mines and other unexploded ordinances. One of the topmost priorities of the humanitarian community in Kitgum in August 2006 was addressing a cholera epidemic in Kitgum and Pader districts, the persistence of which can be seen as evidence of the severe inadequacy of water and sanitation facilities in the region even after years of intense intervention (UNOCHA 2006b).

During my two and a half week stay in Kitgum I visited two camps (Palagek Gem and Lagoro) that had only recently received security clearance for access without armed escorts. Despite increased security and loosening travel restrictions, the evolving and unclear situation with the peace talks caused uncertainty among humanitarian staff. On August 12th _{2006, while I was in Kitgum, Raska Lukwiya, one of the ICC-indicted LRA} leaders, was killed in a village some twenty kilometres’ distance from Kitgum town (New Vision & Sunday Monitor, 13 August 2006). Though the news was, at least in public, received in a relaxed manner by many of the expatriates, locals I spoke with were profoundly worried that the event would lead to immediate retaliations by the LRA. None such action followed, however, as the majority of LRA troops had at this time moved to Garamba national park in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and only splinter groups were present in Kitgum.

Yet for myself the violent death of a top rebel leader just kilometres from where I was staying made the reality of conflict seem more real, and the prospect of driving along roads that had only days earlier been deemed unsafe to travel without armed escort was daunting. Other newcomers – humanitarians who had worked in Kitgum only for a short time seemed similarly worried, yet both local and international staff who had lived and worked in the area during much worse times, seemed rather at peace with the current situation. Women interviewed in camps were not as reassured. Obviously, years of uncertainty could not be erased with one set of peace talks. Women in the camps told me that there had been talks before, and there was little hope that these new ones would turn out any differently. A profound sense of insecurity was constantly reignited by rebel sightings around displacement camps. Many humanitarian workers observed to me

that there were gaps between real and perceived security threats. In so saying, they seemed to me to imply that the displaced had a tendency to dramatise events. Although this might have been partially true, to me it also spoke of the casual insensitivity with which humanitarian workers could address the worries of the displaced. As it was, it was not the humanitarians’ homes that the rebels approached, nor their g-nuts (as Ugandans refer to groundnuts) that the rebels were picking.