In March 2002 Uganda passed its own Anti-Terrorism Act. This largely removed the space for senior people to return from the bush and engage in reconciliation processes. Conventional rules of legal construction stipulate that where two legal instruments are in conflict, the later instrument, in this case the Anti-Terrorism Act, takes precedence. Thus while the Amnesty Act granted amnesty for engagement in ‘war or armed rebellion’, the Anti-Terrorism Act rendered punishable acts carried out for purposes of ‘influencing the government or influencing the public…and for a political or religious…or economic aim’.42 It made no reference to the Amnesty Act, and designated the LRA/M as a terrorist organisation, membership of which was a punishable criminal offence. In principle therefore it effectively negated the Amnesty Act,43 prompting one Amnesty Commission official to argue that ‘the reason why top rebel commanders refuse to respond to the amnesty is because of the Anti-Terrorism Act’. It also put a serious damper on civilian attempts to make contacts with the LRA, as any dialogue with them could be interpreted as treason.
The discourse of a global ‘war on terrorism’ generated by the U.S.A. and its allies post-September 11 2001, translated into previously unthinkable anti-LRA actions on the ground. On 10 January 2002, Presidents Bashir and Museveni, together with then U.K. Secretary of State for Development, Clare Short, held bi-lateral talks while attending an Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD)44 summit in Khartoum. They agreed on UPDF incursions into southern Sudan, with the stated aims of rescuing abducted children and capturing or killing Kony and his key commanders. In other words, an operation to deal with the LRA once and for all. UNOCHA reported widespread reservations about the operation's feasibility, its potential humanitarian impact and long-term political consequences, for it was seen as jeopardising ‘long-term issues of reconciliation both within Acholi society and between Acholi and the rest of Ugandan society’ (Weeks, 2002: 20–21). Religious leaders stated that ‘it seems as if the hawks are flying higher and higher. Although the doves are not yet dead they are hardly heard’.45 Nevertheless, troops began massing in the border areas known as Aswa Ranch from January 2002 onwards, where the U.S.A. sponsored ‘routine training’ for 6,000 of them.46
Phase V – Operation Iron Fist and its Aftermath (2002 to 2003)
Operation Iron Fist officially began on 8 March 2002, and a protocol was signed on 12 March with the Government of Sudan allowing the UPDF to attack Kony bases inside Sudan – with a deadline of 2 April. Although 10,000 Ugandan soldiers were deployed in south Sudan, and by the end of March claimed to have captured all four main rebel camps, this was at the cost of many UPDF soldiers’ lives and an escalation of civilian suffering to new levels – seen from northern Uganda the primary indicator of military activity was trucks carrying live soldiers northwards and corpses southwards. At the first extension of the agreement in late May, the army spokesman reportedly said that ‘this was “definitely the last phase” of the Ugandan army operation’ and that ‘Kony will either be killed or die of hunger, or surrender, within the next 45 days’.47 There was, however, nothing to back up these claims, and by early June UNICEF pointed out that ‘Only two infants – of some 3,000 LRA abductees whose return had been included in contingency plans prepared by humanitarian organisations – had been rescued by the UPDF’.48
Rather than capturing the LRA, Operation Iron Fist drove them into northern Uganda. By May 2002 insecurity was again severe, the operation was extended to 19 June and roads were built inside Sudan to facilitate the hunt for Kony, who, in a striking parallel with Osama Bin Laden, was allegedly hiding in the Imatong complex of hills. As UNOCHA reported on the IDP situation, established new offices in the north, and began working on a Government of Uganda policy on IDPs, UN involvement increased. The report was a first step in this process as it highlighted the many points of the UN's Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement which were not being addressed in northern Uganda (see Chapter 5).
In June 2002, the Government signed a formal ceasefire with UNRF II, a splinter group from the West Nile Bank Front formed in 1996. Some 2,500 fighters had taken up the offer of amnesty some months earlier, allegedly because of the pressure created by Operation Iron Fist.49 At the same time, as the UPDF came under pressure, community leaders in Gulu and Kitgum were ordered to recruit at least five men each from their respective wards.50 One extension of the agreement followed another, and by late August 2002 an estimated 30,000 UPDF forces were deployed in northern Uganda. Gulu alone was said to have contributed over six thousand Home-guards.51 In September 2002 an agreement between President Museveni and President Kabila of the DRC committed Uganda to withdrawing its remaining troops from the neighbouring DRC, in return for action against Congo-based rebels hostile to the Ugandan government. By October, long after the 45 days promised back in May had passed, Museveni announced 25 per cent cuts in social services budgets in order to fund the building of roads for the military in northern Uganda.52 In November 2002, President Museveni established a Presidential Peace Team (PPT)53 comprising army officers, government ministers, and Acholi MPs, and he called on the LRA to assemble in designated areas, a call which was ignored. The pact with Sudan was extended again in December, to last up to the end of January 2003. It covered the same region as that covered by agreements on humanitarian access between the Khartoum government and the United Nations.54
The PPT team was expanded in January 2003 to include representatives from all districts of the Acholi sub-region. Led by Salim Saleh, it attempted unsuccessfully to meet the LRA in March 2003. The latter also rejected a second call from Museveni to the LRA to assemble in designated ‘safe-zones’, and demanded instead that a cease-fire be extended throughout the whole region. By April the GoU's cease-fire offer had been withdrawn, and the PPT's efforts appeared to come to a standstill. In May the chair of the PPT, Eriya Kategaya (formerly Minister for Internal Affairs), was dismissed from Government. In the same month a ‘Dialogue for Peace’ workshop in Gulu resulted in the formation of another peace team (Uduru Kuc), but this never made any serious intervention. According to one team member, this was because the LRA failed to name a corresponding team, but several individuals and organisations claimed to have made offers to help link the PPT with the LRA, offers which were rejected.55
In 2003 the LRA took the war into eastern Uganda, reaching as far as Soroti and Katakwi, as well as Lira district. As in the past, the LRA were not the only source of violence, but they bore principal responsibility. Abductions increased dramatically, with some estimates reaching as high as 5000 new abductions in the period June 2002 – March 2003 alone (HRW 2003). Nightly commuting, which had been one of the reasons for creating ‘protected villages’ in 1996, re-emerged on a massive scale. It featured prominently in attempts to draw the attention of the international community to the gravity of the situation, notably through initiatives such as the ‘Gulu Walk’. Less attention was given to an unprecedented escalation in militarization. In response to the LRA's incursions, people in the Teso sub-region formed an ethnic militia known as Amuka, a process speedily brought under government control. The government itself then encouraged the formation of a similar militia in the Lango sub-region (Rhino Boys) and ultimately in Kitgum district too (Frontier Guards), providing both arms and some minimal training. By this process at least 25,000 men were brought under arms in the space of little over six months, ostensibly to share the burden of protecting the civilian population and allow the army to intensify its pursuit of the LRA (Dolan, 2004).
Phase VI – November 2003 to June 2006
The visit to northern Uganda by the UN Secretary General's Special Representative on Humanitarian Affairs, Jan Egeland, in November 2003, was one of several crucial events that