FIELD JOURNAL: AUGUST 2013

My Last Days at TASO

This week, I’m at TASO attending a TB workshop organized by the Medical Department to raise awareness among staff about TB's dangers and transmission. I chose to invite myself to this workshop, which includes medical staff, counselors, and other caregivers. This aligns with TASO's mission to continuously support facility staff involved in HIV/AIDS care in post-war Gulu.

Dr. Owino, a medical doctor and radiologist consultant from Kampala, delivered an informative presentation on how health workers can prevent TB's spread while working with clients. He covered different types of TB and their manifestations in the context of HIV/AIDS. Earlier, a government official in a radio interview urged donors to support programs beyond TB, HIV, and AIDS, like malaria, which is also a leading cause of death in Uganda. This raises the question: whose agenda matters—the government’s or the donors’?

I’ve also just recovered from a severe malaria attack and a lingering fever. After returning from the US in the summer, I was so excited to be home that I forgot to take my anti-malaria pills from the Notre Dame Medical Center. Being from the region, I assumed my immunity would be strong enough to resist malaria. Thankfully, after taking some medication, I’m feeling better today.

 

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Transitioning to the Refugee Law Project (RLP)

I traveled overnight to Kampala, arriving at 5 AM. Now, a week into my stay in Uganda’s capital, I’m eagerly awaiting the finalization of my agreement with the RLP to commence my internship. Spending a weekend in Kampala, I was struck by the rapid development—the skyline now boasts numerous skyscrapers, and even the Hilton has finally made its mark here. The last time I visited was in 2002, and I’ve noticed that the lush greenery that once characterized Kampala is rapidly disappearing. It seems to be transforming into a genuine concrete jungle, much like Nairobi.

Here, everything takes an eternity to get done. The HR manager is slow to fill out my forms and often requires appointments that he fails to honor. We’ve had two missed meetings so far, and my patience is wearing thin. It’s interesting how much I’ve changed during this time. A year ago, I would have waited without complaint; now, after a few months in the graduate school in the US, I find myself holding professionals to a higher standard, expecting them to respect ethics and other people’s time.

Finally, when I did secure an appointment, the entire process took a record 15 minutes. It’s a small triumph, but it brings me a sense of relief as I prepare to return to Gulu for my second placement.

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Life in Gulu

I live 30 minutes’ walk to my office, in a large wall-fenced house, surrounded by small huts at the outskirts of the town. It’s really a beautiful place. RPL offices is located 100mts away from my former organization (TASO). I make it a habit to walk to the office every morning, partly because I conscientiously decided to exercise, so as to keep fit. I also enjoy it because every morning I pass through beautiful large open field near the main marketplace. This field rekindles memories of my childhood days every time I cross it. I used to cross through a similar open field to go to school for eight years. I feel this connection every time I am here. It is sad today that the field in my rural home is no more. It has all been subdivided by “investors” into small plots and houses have sprung up, destroying the beauty of the place. In the evening, I would do a routine walk through the same route. Since we already have a good relationship with our next-door neighbor occasionally offers to cook Kenyan dishes for her family. The children love it. I, however, have to contend with their many questions, about the whereabouts of my family which I gladly answer. I had hoped to bring my family over during this August holiday but the school’s calendar was disrupted by the teachers strike, demanding for a pay hike and prompting schools' session to be extended.

The biggest frustration here is the frequent power outages especially when it rains. It affects operations in the whole town. It’s so frustrating when power disappears sometimes for 3 days. This seems unusual even though local residents are not bothered. Many of them have bought generators. But there are those that have no power. When Power is off, I enjoy my evenings sitting outside with the neighbor’s kids, looking up in the skies, and listening to the voices of children playing outside and laughing—so typical of my rural village. Constantly, I am reminded of how we have suddenly come to be so much dependent on electricity and adore televisions, the internet to an extent that they have robbed us the joy of being without.

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Tasks Ahead!

At the RLP my main assignment involves working with a team to support two of their main projects: The Beyond Juba Project II (BJP II) and the Advisory Consortium on Conflict Sensitivity (ACCS). The BJP II is implemented by the RPL and the Human Rights and Peace Centre (HURIPEC), both of the Faculty of Law, Makerere University.

The project focuses on Transitional Justice (TJ) issues in Northern Uganda and is meant to monitor the implementation of the signed Juba peace agreement between the Government of Uganda (GoU) and the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) as a solution to attain sustainable peace in Uganda. Of great concern are the discussions around accountability and reconciliation. My role in this project is to work with the project team to develop and design a capacity-building strategy for the Group Support, including conducting training on advocacy, conflict resolution, networking, and fundraising strategy. I have already held an initial meeting with the team to discuss with the team ways to provide support and developed a tentative plan for the next month’s activities.

Under the ACCS project, I will assist in developing the Conflict Watch Newsletter into a standardized format with clear objectives and a summarized content. This will be published monthly. In addition, I will help the team design a monitoring and evaluation guide for their radio program. I have already reviewed content of the Newsletter and in the process of designing the M&E guide. The ACCS project sis a joint project of the RLP, International Alert and Saferworld that aims at strengthening the potential of the PRDP and recovery process to address the causes of conflict and contribute to sustainable peace and stability.

These processes are quite familiar to me and I am excited that I would be able to contribute. I have already made projections for the next months and the staff that I am supporting are really nice and professional.

RLP perspective is quite interesting, because of their emphasis on the victims’ voice in the public discourse. There is now a push by other CSOs including donors to have local peace initiatives address the root causes of conflict in Uganda. This includes deliberate efforts to have participation of the local communities, more importantly the victims, in finding solutions to the problems. It is clear that the post conflict situation in Northern Uganda is so complex, issues are also complex and actors are so many. The challenge is how to effectively coordinate all these efforts, actors and voices to respond in a complementary manner.

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Reflection of Uganda and Kenya situation

From the onset, I knew my tasks would be daunting. Not so much because I wasn’t confident about myself and my abilities to undertake the assigned tasks but to fully apprehend the context in which the RLP is working in Northern Uganda. Given my background, I knew it wasn’t going to be easy for me to try and draw parallels from their experiences and apply in the contexts of Kenya.

Kenya and Uganda being on the same geographical region, share lots of geographical features such as the Rift valley and Equator, the Lake Victoria which  is shared among the three countries. They are former colonies of the British. They got their independence almost at the same time (Uganda in1962 and Kenya in 1963). There are also some social elements like having same tribes that are found along the border of the two countries like the Teso, Pokot and the Sebei (Sabaot).

However, there are differences in in the way both countries have evolved since independence. Both countries have differently evolved politically, economically and socially since independence. Uganda has spent years fighting internal wars while Kenya has not had major wars except for frequent ethnic conflicts that have marred every general elections period.

In Uganda, the “south” communities were given to agriculture and the “north” served as security or in the military. In Kenya, the “northern” communities (Northeastern and north of the Rift Valley province) have never developed. There are poor basic infrastructures such as hospitals, schools and roads and the issue of security has not been given much attention. This divide has affected relationships and development of communities of communities in these regions. The slight difference is that in Kenya the northern communities suffer from food insecurity due to frequent drought for lack of rain. In Uganda, food insecurity in the North is blamed on the Lord Resistance Army (LRA) war that has lasted for 20 years as people fail to engage themselves in the cultivation.

Though both countries have had repressive regimes by the successive governments, Uganda has had a long history of armed conflict dating back in the 60’s, 70s and 80s where mass atrocities have taken place. In Kenya interethnic conflict and sporadic political violence associated with the clamor for democratic change Conflicts are usually over ethnic communities fighting over identity issues, natural resources, political issues and unorganized groups. Except for the post elections violence in 2008 which threatened to tear the country apart through large scale violence most conflicts happen at the community level—and this explains my experience in peacebuilding.

Corruption levels have soared in both countries. According to the recent Transparency International report Uganda police was positioned 9^th and Kenya 4^th as the most corrupt public institution. Events in both countries also seem to happen simultaneously. A few months ago, Kenya teachers went on strike demanding a pay increase. Uganda followed suit later. A few days ago, the lecturers at Makerere University were on strike wanting a pay hike. This resulted to indefinite closure of the university, affecting operations of RLP. This follows just a few months after the Kenyan lecturers went on strike, also wanting their salaries to be revised upwards.

Culturally, Ugandans has the kingship or Kingdoms amongst major ethnic groups of the Baganda, Toro, Japadhola, Banyoro and the Acholi. Although they are ceremonial, they hold the heritage amongst Ugandans. In Kenya cultural practices such as circumcision is widely practiced among the communities. Among them include the Kalenjin, Maasai, Somalis, Luhya, Kisii etc. At a personal level I initially thought culture shock was not my major concern. I though since I was from the region, and an African for that matter, cultural dynamics that a Westerner would find it difficult to navigate would be my greatest asset. Much as was this an advantage, there was much more I needed to learn from the people here. Great insight

Professionally, my challenge has been the tendency to rely too much on relationship building as my change strategy. Of course, this has grown out of my many years of work in the field. My theory has been the idea that peace is achieved when violence ends or stops—as soon as communities have returned back to their homes and a peace agreement has been signed peace has been achieved. Much of this thinking has dominated my practice for a long time and that thinking is no different—“peacebuilding” runs parallel to the “justice” initiatives, each viewing the other as being an obstacle. The “gospel” in Northern Uganda is the much needed “peace, truth and reconciliation” for the “peacebuilding”  and “accountability” for the “justice” community—because of their strong emphasis on prosecution and punishment of the perpetrators for gross violations. Within RLP justice is seen as a community centered approach where solutions gross violations on civilian population have occurred. They are trying to come to terms with the legacies of large scale past abuses, serve justice and secure reconciliation.

 

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Attending RPL Activity—Public Information Session

On August 16, I attended an once day Stakeholders Public Information Session workshop at the RPL office. The event was organized by RLP under the Conflict, Transitional Justice and Governance project to discuss and raise public awareness on the challenges of Transitional Justice in Northern Uganda, with a particular focus on gender and reparations. The workshop was designed to kick-start public debate for appropriate reparation for the affected communities with the understanding that the experiences of gender-related violence meted against men and women predates the conflict and continues to manifest  itself differently even after the conflict.

From the discussions, it was clear that in some contexts, gender-based violence is seen as part of the larger system of structural gender violence, where reparation is considered a fundamental right to all victims including survivors of gender-related violence. This view was seen as a crucial “right to remedies” which must not therefore be restricted to judicial or administrative processes and awards but gradual societal acknowledgement and redress of the impact of gendered transgressions.

It was the view of the panelists that adequate reparations for men, women, girls and children violated during the war cannot be about returning them to where they were before the violence, but instead they should strive to have a transformative potential. Reparations should therefore be done in a way that they do not reinforce, preexisting structural inequality that may be the root causes of the violence they experienced before, during and after the conflict.

Current TJ interventions are seen as those that are geared towards recovery, empowerment to address the causes of conflict and contribute to sustainable peace and stability. However, these are not adequate to address conflict risk factors that include inadequate quality and level of service delivery, inadequate processes of rebuilding and empowering the communities increasing number of redundant youth and unemployment, lack of transparency and accountability seen in the delays in provision of services, child labor and prostitution, and lawlessness.

The challenges of post conflict Northern Uganda are many but not limited to resource-based conflicts, social and physical insecurity including conflict in the neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Southern Sudan. Border control/smuggling and immigration especially from Congo and Southern Sudan into Uganda and others including armed robbery (boo Kec), mob justice, witchcraft, suspicion of infiltration and trafficking of small arms and population pressure

 

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Field Visit to Lukod Memorial Site: Some thoughts

On Tuesday (July 19) I visited Lukodi village, 17 kms outside Gulu town. I was accompanied by the LRP team to join other organizations to witness the community exhuming remains of their family members who were buried 10 years ago in the IDP camp after they were killed by the LRA rebels and accorded a decent burial in their ancestral home. The invitation was made by the Community Reconciliation Team (CORE) which was responsible for organizing the event with the assistance of the Justice and Reconciliation Project (JRP).How do you feel about this?

Lukod village is one of the many villages that the LRA solders attacked at the peak of the conflict in 2004. 60 people were killed. Lukodi, which acted as an IDP camp, became the burial ground for the dead, since tension was high. The bodies were not transferred to their original homeland to be accorded proper burial according to the local culture and were done hurriedly. Since most of them have now gone back to their original villages, they now want to accord their loved ones a decent burial. This is meant to appease the spirits of the dead and to help bring healing to the families who lost their loved one. Don’t they call the spirits something in particular in these instances?

It was an emotional moment when families narrated their horrors of the fateful day. There were many survivors who still clearly remembered the events of that day and I couldn’t hold my breath listening to them. A memorial has been built in a nearby place to commemorate the lives of those who were killed that day. It is one of those many sites that have been given by the government and the community to honor the slaughtered. Local residents think that the memorial is key to commemorate the past, share memories and increase their understanding of the legacies of conflict, and to facilitate healing for both individual and community.

This was just but a reminder of the many challenges that transitional justice process faces in Northern Uganda as it tries to address the many needs of the community. The Community Reconciliation (CORE) team of Lukodi and the nearby villages of Punena Parish and Bungatira Sub-County continue to organize events to memorialize events of the past as a way to bring reconciliation and healing back to the community. The events bring together men, women, youth, the elderly and people with disability. It was interesting to note how the community attached importance to these reburial events to their ancestral homes, an upholding their deep culture to bring healing and reconciliation long after the war has ended.

At the event long and repeated speeches by the local leaders, pointed on the need to forge reconciliation and forgiveness in order for community to move forward; lamenting how the Acholi culture has been eroded by the external influences, especially among the youths. Leaders stressed on the need to preserve and not let the culture die. Cultural rites, such as the one performed today (to appease the dead) is a long tradition of the Acholi people –taking the dead to their final resting place in their ancestral homes, allows family members to mourn their loved ones and also allows the landowners utilize their land. However, it was clear that deep resentment and apathy against the government of Uganda still existed among some community members. There was a perception that during the war the government had failed to protect the community against the LRA and government forces even committed atrocities against the same communities they claimed to protect. This was made by elder who spoke at the event. They also claimed that the government persecuted the Acholi people marginalized them for their support to the successive governments of Milton Obote, Iddi Amin and Tito Okello, all of whom were from the North. Any government action would therefore be looked at from this angle.

I learnt that JRP had been requested by the community, through CORE team, to assist undertake this activity to avert a community conflict. The landowners of Lukodi had requested the families of those who buried their members at the camp to remove the remains because they wanted to utilize the land and JRP supported the community to the activity. Though noble, interventions of these nature are always inadequate to address the challenges of the post conflict Northern Uganda and additional support is still needed?

 

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Mediating land disputes: A peace practices and prospects in post conflict Northern Uganda

 RPL, through the Advisory Consortium on conflict sensitivity (ACCS) project in currently analyzing effects of the escalating land disputes in Northern Uganda, as an aftermath of the two decade-long war between the government of Uganda and the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) led by Joseph Kony, with the view to generating option for resolutions.

Land conflicts has been identifying as a key driver of newer forms of conflicts in the region. These includes competition over commercially valuable land, fraudulent transactions, illegal occupations, contested boundaries, misinterpretation or poor understanding of the land laws and post conflict return policies. As a measure towards reducing land conflicts communities have often sought legal means as a form of redress. However, these cases have overwhelmed the courts and have escalated tensions in the communities. To reduce the backlog of the cases in the courts, the government has encouraged communities to resolve these cases through mediation process, which is seen as cheaper, convenient and restorative. With all these intricacies, interventions and responses to land conflict has brought in a number of players, including offices of the Resident District Commissioners (RDC).

RPL is advocating the use of mediation as a means to resolving land disputes in Northern Uganda. It recently organized a stakeholder’s dialogue meeting to discuss mediation option. The dialogue brought together participants from the Office of the Resident District Commissioner (RDC) and that of the Chairman LCV Gulu District, Regional Police Public Relations Officer (RPPRO) and the Regional Police Legal Officer, an Advocate, District Speaker, Youth LCVs, LCV persons with disabilities, representative from Ker Kal Kwaro Acholi, councilors LC3 and LCVs from Gulu district, Officers In Charge of police stations in Gulu District and the media.

The dialogue focused on discursive analysis on conflict-sensitive approaches to resolving land disputes. It also highlighted the roles and responsibilities of councilors, police and politicians in preventing and resolving land disputes. Further, stakeholders sought to clarity between the legal approaches to addressing land disputes and mediation through good offices as an alternative dispute resolution mechanism. RPL believes that resolving and preventing land disputes in a post conflict setting provides space for systematic recovery of individuals, households and groups and that mediation, an alternative form of land dispute resolution, has the potential to ease and reduce numerous land disputes that would otherwise have been sought through the courts of law.

In Gulu district, the RDC office is already overwhelmed with land cases. Individuals and groups have approached the RDC office to seek intervention and resolution of land disputes. Articles 203 of the Constitution of the Republic of Uganda spells out the roles of RDC in the resolution of land disputes. These roles are also extended in the Local Councils.