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Have aid agencies prolonged Uganda's war?
Written by: Emma Batha
An internally displaced woman in her hut in Pabbo camp. REUTERS/James Akena
Reports on northern Uguanda often paint a picture of an evil, crazed rebel cult committing unspeakable atrocities while kidnapping thousands of children to fight. In the background, aid workers do their best to feed hundreds of thousands of people crammed into squalid displacement camps where disease is rife. But have humanitarian agencies actually helped prolong the crisis? The question is posed by journalist Matthew Green, who recounts his search for reclusive rebel leader Joseph Kony in his new book "Wizard of the Nile: The Hunt for Africa's Most Wanted". Coverage of northern Uganda rarely makes clear that many people were systematically forced into the camps by the government as it sought to close in on Kony by depriving him of support. The army broadcast ultimatums telling people they would be considered rebels if they refused to leave their homes. Green argues that the United Nations' World Food Programme (WFP) was unwittingly sucked into underwriting this strategy when it began trucking aid into the camps shortly after the government began creating them in late 1996. "The government said at the time it would be a few months," Green says. "Ten years later the camps were still there and they caused arguably more suffering than the rebels. The amount of disease, the squalor and social deprivation people suffered was appalling. "And all this time the WFP was effectively sponsoring this strategy... No one was asking was it really correct for the government to herd hundreds of thousands of people into camps and leave them there indefinitely." At the height of the crisis some 2 million people - 90 percent of the local population - were living in camps. Many were also dying there - up to 1,000 a week, according to a 2005 report by the Ugandan government and U.N. agencies. Green describes the camps as "giant incubators of disease, alienation and despair" that ended up killing more people than the rebels did. CONUNDRUM He stresses he isn't condemning the WFP, but highlighting a bigger problem with the whole system. "Aid agencies sometimes look away from the cause of the suffering," Green says. "They try to treat the suffering but by doing that they actually become part of the system that creates the suffering. "It's easy to criticise but I think people even within the organisations recognise there's a dilemma - it's that dilemma of it's much easier to put a humanitarian band aid on the problem than to mobilise the political will in Western capitals to try to do something about it." Western governments viewed Uganda as a success story - a development story rather than an emergency. And President Yoweri Museveni's government, for its part, was eager to play down the crisis. "They always presented the camps as a temporary measure," Green says. "They kept repeating this mantra that we've defeated Kony and then there would be some terrible outrage and they would always use this phrase 'the last kicks of a dying horse'. It was essentially propaganda and I think that worked." The myth of Kony as an apparently deranged mystic also distracted international attention from conditions in the camps. The plight of children abducted by his fighters made better copy than the quiet suffering of a generation growing up in squalor. "The fact that Kony was this bizarre jungle dwelling demi-god figure surrounded by dozens of wives talking about the Holy Spirit - that image was so powerful that it made it much easier to dismiss the conflict as something almost beyond the realms of rational intervention and that played very much into the government's hands," Green says.
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4 responses to “Have aid agencies prolonged Uganda's war?”
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03 Mar 2008 17:35:23 GMT
I agree that aid agancy sometimes focus on collecting donations to keep a situation at constant levels. The more the suffering, the more money they gather. This is a fact, it is not a joke at all. I have tried it over and over. Some problems we have today is caused by governments, they are not natural desasters, so why should we pay money to a government which is causing our own detriment? Aid agencies pretend to be non government organizations, but they work close hand in hand with governments. Their trustees are government ministers etc, the same people who make legislation to sell arms, create wars are the ones who oversea the funds being raised. It is about time the public search information ourselves, pull together for our own causes.
04 Mar 2008 12:23:40 GMT
There are many factors which have prolonged Uganda's war.
To see footage of the World Food Program visit this link: http://youtube.com/watch?v04 Mar 2008 12:27:55 GMT
Please read SOS: Profile of a genocide
"In the aftermath of hurricane Katrina last August, Americans and the world were horrified to see some 10,000 citizens exposed to conditions of utter despair and vulnerability in the New Orleans Superdome. In northern Uganda, the government has warehoused two million people in 200 'superdomes', for the last 10 years, in conditions more abominable than what we witnessed in the New Orleans Superdome." http://www.friendsforpeaceinafr12 Mar 2008 12:01:25 GMT
Balanced report
As an Acoliman, You will or will not agree on my claim that,'The Success of United Nations' failure' begins in Acholiland. Here are some evidential facts to back up this claim starting with the; Former Secretary-General Boutros Boutros Ghali's paper An Agenda for Peace, which provided analysis and recommendations on ways to strengthen and improve the UN's capacity to maintain world peace, was commissioned by the UN Security Council on 31 January 1992 at its first ever meeting at the level of heads of state. An Agenda for Peace Definitions An Agenda for Peace was significant in defining four consecutive phases of international action to prevent or control conflicts, as well as in highlighting the importance of the their cohesion; those phases are defined as follows: ⢠Preventive diplomacy can include fact finding missions, early warning of potential conflicts, mediation, confidence-building measures and, in certain circumstances, preventive deployment. ⢠Peacemaking refers essentially to means outlined in Chapter VI of the UN Charter, which concerns the pacific settlement of disputes and can include such measures as negotiation, enquiry, mediation, conciliation, arbitration and judicial settlement. However, enforcement measures may also be appropriate under certain circumstances and Boutros-Ghali even suggested establishing a permanent standby UN force to facilitate this. ⢠Peacekeeping is described as 'the deployment of a United Nations presence in the field, hitherto with the consent of all the parties concerned, normally involving United Nations military and/or police personnel and frequently civilians as well'. ⢠Peacebuilding refers to action to identify and support indigenous structures which will help to strengthen and solidify peace in order to avoid a relapse into conflict, although today it is increasingly also seen as a preventive measure. At that time, I was at the UN in New York on a mission to investigate and write about the UN Organization for my academic paper on Organization theory as a domination metaphore at Stockhom University. The paper ended up with a title: "Time to change the UN for a better World". Acholi land had entered eight years of total chaos and hardship under the yoke of political oppression of dictator Yoweri Museveni. Families were being set ablaze by Museveni soldiers in their houses, lisfestocks rustled and sent to Museveni's tribal areas as some were left to feed his brutal soldiers, special section of HIV infected soldiers were dispathced on a rape spree to spread as much HIV Virus to Acholi women as possible, the war of sytematic annihilation of Acholi people was at play, while the UN stood by and watched in silence, because the conspiracy was in the hands of the western member states like Sweden, Britain, and Denmark just to mention a few. Following due hardship at home, many Acholis sought protection of the UN in several countries including those mentioned before. The UNHCR Commissioner in Tanzania, a Polish by nationality used to open refugee claimant's file by demanding a US$100 from Acoli Refugees, those who did not have the money were sent away or reported to the Police for cooked up offences. In stockholm, a UNHCR commissioner, by the name Gorgesen, a Deinish by nationality, used to send away rejected Acholi Refugees by the Swedish government from his office, saying they were lying because his best friend Dr. Rugunda was serving in the government, and would go as far as showing Rugunda's telephone number to them. Meanwhile, at the security council, any motion that was brought to provide UN Peace keepers in Acholiland, met strong resistance and blockade from Western Countries' representatives, in favour of their vested interest in dictator Museveni. As Acholis ended the 20th century in makeshift camps of misery and death, in the hope for better condition in the new 21st century, a new UN design to support Museveni emerged,the ICC, whose role is to penalize those who were fighting their interest in Uganda's Museveni in the UN court at the HAAG, by using ego centric and fame seeking bias prosecutors like Luis Moreno Osembo whose role is to derail any positive out come on the Peace agreement between dictator Museveni and Joseph Kony. It is from this standpoint, I say, the Success of United Nations' failure started in Acholiland, and it is upon us the Acholis to unfoil the UN-Museveni conspiracy ordeal from ourselves by resistance, beginning with the ICC itself, calling for: 1.The ICC judges to drop the indictment brought upon Joseph Kony and his commanders to respond to the general will of Acholi people who are in favour of Peace deal to indictment; 2. The setting aside the indictment pending a new and balanced investigation by another prosecutor since Ocembo's admission is being perceived by the affected Acholi community as single sided and biased, favouring the government who they hold equally responsible for their plight or even worse; 3. The ICC to expect another war crime charges being Acholi people Versus Yoweri Museveni and Joseph Kony in the shortest forseeable future should they fail to drop the indictment. Okelo P Patuda