As the United Nations sets up an office this month in northern Uganda to monitor human rights abuses, a Duke University scholar says only the United States can provide the needed political clout and "spiritual-sensitive" diplomacy necessary to end the region's conflict.
The 18-year conflict between Ugandan government soldiers and the rebel group Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) has produced "the world's largest neglected humanitarian emergency," according to a U.N. statement from Oct. 21, 2004. The U.N. estimates 1.6 million Ugandans have been displaced within the country because of the conflict and tens of thousands of children have been abducted by the LRA. Last year, the International Criminal Court opened an investigation into the situation.
"Sending a U.S. presidential envoy who is sensitive to religion or spirituality is the only way to bring about the dialogue that is needed to end this conflict," says George Piwang-Jalobo, a Ph.D. candidate in religion at Duke University and the founder and director of the Center of Conflict Management and Peace at Gulu University in his native Uganda.
"What people in the West don't understand is that this conflict grows out of political upheaval and traditional African religion," says Piwang-Jalobo, who is also an associate at the RotaryCenter for International Studies at Duke and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. "If those underlying factors aren't addressed through dialogue, then the suffering of the children of northern Uganda won't end no matter how much the [government] military attacks the LRA."
"People hear about the LRA using Bible verses and cutting off children's lips and think they are terrorists or apocalyptic fanatics who can't be reasoned with, when in fact the movement began as a response to social chaos [brought on by a series of coups in the mid 1980s] that used the only tool the people trusted -- traditional African religion" says Piwang-Jalobo, who holds a master's degree in theological studies from Duke Divinity School. "Only later it was co-opted and turned against innocent civilians."