Northern Uganda: Cultural leaders want a role in the peace process

Ending the conflict could require the traditional structures’ involvement

By Christopher Kibol Ebong, UPA

“Always there is a beginning and an end. The war will definitely come to an end. Let no one doubt. Even the Lord’s Resistance Army may get tired of fighting. Our sons are fighting a war without a vision,” says the Acholi Paramount Chief, Rwot David Onen Acana II, when the newsletter visited him in his palace, Gang Kal Madit, in Gulu.

He believes that through more involvement of cultural leaders in advocacy for peace and in all the peace initiatives the war can become a history.

Save the Children in Uganda agrees with the focus on culture and cultural leaders for ending the conflict. Programme officer for advocacy and peace Daisey Muguzi says:

“Cultural leaders have the advantages of reaching all the people including the rebels quicker. The fibre of the people is embedded on the cultural leadership. They listen more to the Rwot than to the politicians. The cultural leaders should be facilitated and involved in peace talks. Where government tries to do things without them they miss 70% of the success.”

The Rwot himself sees his own and other cultural leaders’ role as “to advocate for peace. Since the war began, we tried to stop it. Elders footed up to Sudan to find out why our sons, went to the bush and to ask them to come back. Many sons and daughters who listen returned.”

However, other people doubt that the cultural leaders can take the lead in the peace process.

“It was the Elders who waved Kony and his men off as they went to the bush, how will they again undo it?” wonders Robert Opio, of the umbrella Civil Society for Peace in Northern Uganda, CSOPNU.

But the cultural leaders talked to by the newsletter brushed off this worry. Nikanori Ojok, the leader of Koro Abili Internally Displaced Persons’ camp dismisses that anyone blessed the rebel leader Joseph Kony.

“He was possessed. He started as a witch doctor and later claimed to be a man of ‘God’. Why bless someone who instead turns round to make you suffer?” he asks.