25 February 2008
editorial
After many months of overt diplomatic efforts and other less publicised parallel initiatives, the government of Uganda and the rebel Lords Resistance Army have signed a permanent ceasefire agreement.
Former Mozambiquan President and UN envoy Joachim Chissano, key at the centre of the process, has thus declared the war between the government and the rebels over.
Before the landmark agreement was signed over the weekend, there had to be several steps which have led to this achievement. These included the treaty on cessation of hostilities, the confidence building visit to Kampala and tour of the country by the rebel delegation and of course the agreement by the LRA leader Joseph Kony himself to face trial in a Ugandan court.
The whole peace exercise has cost millions of dollars and hundreds of working days of the Minister of Internal Affairs Dr Ruhakana Rugunda, his colleague Oryem Okello and other government officials, not to mention the time put in by Vice President Dr Riek Machar, President Salva Kiir and other South Sudan government officials.
All these should not be allowed go to waste due to hitches of implementation. Everyone needs peace and this should be Uganda's last civil war. While the top officials mentioned above have devoted thousands of hours to the peace process, we must bear in our minds and hearts the millions of children who have lost many valuable years of development and can never recover them. Someone who was abducted and forced into the rebellion ten years ago at the age of six is now 16, if lucky to still be alive, and has to start learning what a child learns in Primary One.
All these children, now men and women, missed out on the normal development steps their southern compatriots enjoyed. While several international and local organisations have been working over the years to rehabilitate these children, an opportunity should not be created to entice them back into rebellion.
Such dangerous opportunities for new civil wars can be created if resources meant for development are stolen, as has been the case in the past, increasing the feeling of marginalisation in some areas of the country.
We don't need to waste another 22 years funding anti-insurgency operations in which the friends and enemies who die are all Ugandans.
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