Ugandan Woman Jane Rwampunda wins innovation prize

Uganda's leading daily New Vision has awarded Jane Rwampunda, founder of Bugaaki Development Organisation  (BUDO) the Women's vision prize for her "creativity, innovation, entrepreneurship, impact on her household income as well as the community"  

Rwampunda was selected for her innovation in making charcoal fridges, which she sells to farmers and traders in markets. The local technology fridges preserve vegetables, fruits and keep farmers’ drinks cold as they await sale. Rwampunda’s charcoal fridges cost sh55,000 or more depending on the size.

She uses the money from her charcoal fridge sales to invest in solar dryers which increase the shelf life of perishable farm produce. This makes her business sustainable. Rwampunda’s charcoal fridges contribute directly to the agricultural sector on which the country’s economy depends. This innovation directly helps the grassroot farmers, 70 per cent of who are women.


Photo: Charcoal fridge

Though New Vision could only make a special commendation to Jane Rwampunda, several other women short-listed deserve mention.

Florence Kabogoza is a farmer in Mityana. Her story was highlighted in The New Vision of July 20, 2004. She makes crude waragi from jackfruit and sells it to Uganda Breweries in Kampala. Kabogoza’s creativity of increasing the shelf life and adding value to a fruit that has always been wasted was commended.

She supplies bigger businesses. The forward and backward linkages are very good. This is what women should learn from her,” said Kitakule.

Kabogoza narrowly missed the award because of the nature of her product - waragi. “The product and its impact on society and health matter. There are too many cases of alcoholic husbands battering their wives,” Sarah Lubega, UWEAL Board member said.

The third candidate, Norah Zawedde (New Vision, May 18, 2004) was short-listed for the challenge she poses to other youths who drop out of school for lack of school fees. “So many youths drop out of school yet there are many opportunities to make money for school fees out there.

Zawedde’s efforts are a challenge to all those who say “I’m not going to school because I don’t have fees”. Zawedde has been vending newspapers to raise her school fees. Other women are Betty Rutare Byanyima of Hope for Harvest, Mbarara (New Vision July 2004). Byanyima was identified as a social entrepreneur.

Betty Byanyima used money she got from selling old newspapers to buy goats for other women in her community. The goats are being reared for income generation. Byanyima’s start-up capital for this project came from the sale of old newspapers, which many people do not consider as a money making resource.

Her children, along with her, combed different parts of Kampala city, gathering and later selling the old newspapers. But her innovativeness and its community benefit aspect did not seem to have contributed much to her own household income nor is she involved in the goat rearing herself. She is a social entrepreneur.

Others on the shortlist are: Rosemary Bahitana Bangirana of Kakyeka, Mbarara who produces about 1,000 litres of wine annually. The 60-year –old retired primary school teacher started the project in 1995 using oranges and lemon fruits. Initially, she produced five litres of wine every day. (New Vision, July 2004)

Mrs Flister Ssekandi designs clothes for men across East Africa. She started a tailoring business with one sewing machine. Today she owns 16 machines and employs 16 people (New Vision, July 6, 2004)

Allen Neumbe a blind woman, aged 27 earns a living by knitting clothes (New Vision, October 22, 2004)

Nnalongo Kacura, a widow from Kabwohe, Itendero Town Council, Bushenyi has been earning a living and maintain her family by roasting gonja (plantain). From the business, she built shops. (New Vision, September 22, 2004).

Nominate your woman achiever

Do you know of a woman whose project or innovation has improved herself and her community in any sphere of life? It could be in health-care, education, farming, nutrition, business, parenting and childcare, they could qualify for Women’s Vision Achiever of the Year award.

It is a non-monetary award given out to one outstanding woman every year on Women’s Day. New Vision will follow up nominated women in the course of the year to profile and consequently give publicity. At the end of the year, your nominee could qualify for the award.

Please, send the name of woman or women’s group, type of project, location, what they do, why you think she/they deserve to be recognised, contact of the nominated woman achiever to:
The Features Desk, New Vision, P.O. Box 9815, Kampala,
Or email to features@newvision.co.ug
Or fax to 041 235843 or call 041 337127.
Include your name, phone contact, and address

[via Afrotecnik]

Crisis Group: LRA Rebels in Northern Uganda Reorganizing, Stepping up Attacks on Civilians

Note this copy of a news report at politico.com, Kampala/Brussels April 12, 2005:

The peace process aimed at ending Northern Uganda's extraordinarily brutal eighteen-year war is in critical condition, but it may still be possible to resuscitate it if the Ugandan government and international community act decisively, a leading peace advocacy organization says.

The latest report from the Brussel-based International Crisis Group (ICG) on the peace prospects in Northern Uganda, released Monday, says the insurgent Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) has recently stepped up the scale and frequency of its horrific attacks on civilians.

The Organization calls for Ugandan government mediator Betty Bigombe to present a new, comprehensive peace proposal directly to LRA chief Joseph Kony. If such a proposal is to be credible, however, it will require increased support from the European troika of Norway, the UK and the Netherlands and a more engaged United States, the report says.

"Kony won't agree to and implement a ceasefire that ignores the LRA's two central concerns -- the physical security and livelihoods of LRA members after any settlement", says John Prendergast, Special Adviser to the President of Crisis Group. "If the government really wants to make this work, it will have to replace its ceasefire-first approach with a deal that includes appropriate security guarantees for Kony and his commanders, and a peace dividend to help rebuild war-ravaged communities".

Although the LRA has been hurt by the improved performance of the Ugandan military, reduced support from the Sudanese government, and pressure from the International Criminal Court (ICC) investigation, reports of the insurgency's death are greatly exaggerated, the International Crisis Group says.

The organization says that from a base in Southern Sudan, the LRA leadership is reorganizing for intensified conflict and has launched an aggressive campaign of abductions, mutilations, and raids on arms depots. Atrocities include kidnapping of children to turn them into LRA fighters and cutting off the lips, ears and breasts of women who were caught while gathering firewood or drawing water from wells in Northern Uganda.

In February, the government decided not to extend its unilateral, limited ceasefire after the LRA failed to demonstrate goodwill.

The International Crisis Group says the Ugandan government appears to be losing patience with mediation efforts, refocusing instead on a military solution and expanding efforts to target LRA leaders.

"Given the attitudes of the parties, the peace process will disintegrate without more vigorous, sustained international, particularly U.S., support", says Suliman Baldo, Crisis Group's Africa Program Director. "If this chance slips away, the people of Northern Uganda will be condemned to more violence and abductions -- for who knows how much longer".

The Lord's Resistance Army has been fighting to overthrow the Ugandan government since 1987, displacing more than one million people in the north. The rebels routinely attack civilians and kidnap children for forced labor as soldiers and sex slaves.

The International Criminal Court is prepared to issue warrants against LRA leaders suspected of committing crimes against humanity, a step that if not handled carefully could drive the rebels definitively out of the peace process. However, ICC officials are well aware of the risk and are undertaking activities which have increased mutual understanding with Northern Ugandan civil society.

http://www.politinfo.com/articles/article_2005_04_12_1600.html

Congo seeks reparations from Uganda at World Court

Thanks to Carine at ::the.exiled.afrikan:: for pointing out the following report - via Reuters by Paul Gallagher (additional reporting by David Lewis in Kinshasa) dated April 11, 2005:



Photo: A De Beers employee holds the largest uncut diamond ever displayed in Canada. The 616-carat Dutoitspan diamond, discovered in Kimberley, South Africa, is too flawed to cut and is valued at US$3 million. Stringer photo.

THE HAGUE, April 11 (Reuters) - The Democratic Republic of Congo accused Uganda on Monday of "massive" human rights abuses, looting and destruction in a war on its territory and demanded compensation from its neighbour at the World Court.

The Congo -- rich in gold, diamonds and timber -- was the battleground for rebels, local factions, tribes and neighbouring countries, including Uganda, in a 1998-2003 war in which 4 million people died, mainly from hunger and disease.

"Uganda played a considerable role in the murderous war which tore apart the Congo for five years," Congolese representative Maitre Tshibangu Kalala told the court at the start of public hearings on Monday.

Congo took Uganda to the World Court in 1999, accusing it of responsibility for human rights abuses and "armed aggression". It called for compensation for what it said were acts of looting, destruction and removal of property.

Congo says Uganda committed "violations of international humanitarian law and massive human rights violations", the World Court said in a statement.

Cases at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), also known as the World Court, can take years to be completed. The court is the U.N.'s highest and its ruling in the case will be final and not subject to appeal.

Uganda has filed a counter claim, accusing Congo of responsibility for attacks on Ugandan citizens and diplomatic buildings in Kinshasa and unspecified acts of aggression against Uganda.

A Ugandan representative declined to comment on the case and said his country would outline its position on Friday.

Congo's Justice Minister Kisimba Ngoy was quoted by U.N. radio as saying reparations could amounts to billions of dollars.

CHANGING MOTIVES

Rwanda and Uganda invaded Congo after rebel factions backed by them took up arms in 1998 to topple the late President Laurent Kabila, who was supported by Namibia, Angola and Zimbabwe.

A ceasefire was negotiated in 1999 and Ugandan troops finally pulled out in 2002.

A U.N. report in November 2001 said the initial motivation for Rwanda and Uganda to intervene in the central African nation had been to secure their borders.

But over time the lure of natural resources became the primary motive for staying in many areas of the former Zaire and perpetuating the warfare, the report said.

U.N. officials have accused Ugandan commanders of stealing gold, diamonds and timber, although Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has rebuffed such charges, saying there is nothing of value in the country to exploit.

Under a 2003 peace deal, a power-sharing government was set up to shepherd the Congo to elections this year, but armed groups still rule much of the country as local strongmen protect privileges built up during the war.

Uganda, Angola, Burundi, Rwanda, Tanzania and Congo pledged in September 2002 to stop interfering in each other's affairs in a new regional bid to end Congo's war.

But a U.N.-commissioned report in January singled out Uganda for failing to control cross-border trade into the Congo's lawless northeastern district of Ituri, where warlords prosper amid a local conflict that has killed 60,000 people since 1999.

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L11204656.htm
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Photo: Ugandan army soldiers display weapons captured from the Lords Resistance Army (LRA) in Kipwayi hills, some 50 miles inside Sudan near the border with Uganda. US lawmakers called for greater international efforts to bring peace to northern Uganda and stop the exploitation of children by opposition rebels there. (AFP/File/Peter Busomoke) April 7, 2005.

Shock Therapy for Northern Uganda's Peace Process

Copy of report via Relief Web - Kampala/Brussels, 11 April 2005:

The peace process aimed at ending the eighteen-year old conflict in Northern Uganda is in critical condition because neither the Ugandan government nor the insurgent Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) appears fully committed to a negotiated solution.1 After the LRA increased its atrocities against civilians in February 2005 and ignored a request to demonstrate its good will, the government decided not to extend its unilateral, limited ceasefire and re-focused on a military solution. The mediator, former Ugandan State Minister Betty Bigombe, needs to obtain a new, more comprehensive government proposal and then test the rebels' willingness for peace by travelling to southern Sudan to put it directly to their leader, Joseph Kony, if the chance to end an extraordinarily brutal conflict is not to be lost. Neither is likely to happen without more international engagement.

The LRA is reorganising for intensified conflict. Its attacks on civilians are becoming more frequent and are conducted by larger units. Joseph Kony, its single real decision-maker, has still not responded to any government proposal. Kampala appears to be losing patience with the mediation effort, putting priority instead on a military solution and expanding efforts to target LRA leaders. The process of reintegrating former LRA fighters into their communities is proceeding poorly, thus negatively affecting the calculations of LRA fighters who are still in the bush.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) is prepared to issue warrants against LRA leaders suspected of committing crimes against humanity, a step that if not handled carefully could drive the rebels definitively out of the peace process. However, the ICC is well aware of the risk and is undertaking a series of activities which have increased mutual understanding with Northern Ugandan civil society.

Bigombe continues to speak on the telephone with Vincent Otii, her designated LRA contact, and may meet with him soon. Reportedly, the insurgents are considering some gesture, perhaps even proclamation of their own unilateral ceasefire. However, new procedures and new substance are required if the peace process is to be given a decisive push. Since the lack of direct, persistent engagement with Kony is a critical handicap, Bigombe should seek agreement and help from the Ugandan government to travel to southern Sudan, where Kony is located, in order to take up face-to-face negotiation.

This would also need the active assistance of the Sudanese government and its new peace partner, the formerly insurgent Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM), as well as key diplomats in Kampala, Khartoum, and Nairobi.

Kony will not agree to a ceasefire that does not address the LRA's two central concerns -- post-settlement physical security and livelihoods. Therefore, the ceasefire-first approach the government has been following 2 should be replaced by a proposal for a comprehensive settlement that includes guarantees for Kony and other LRA commanders, international monitoring in all aspects of implementation to counter corrosive distrust that could potentially spoil the deal, and a peace dividend to help rebuild war-ravaged communities.

Given the attitudes of the parties, none of this is likely without more vigorous and sustained international support, most particularly from the U.S., which has considerable influence with Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni and whose reserve causes LRA leaders to doubt it supports a negotiated peace. Unfortunately, Washington is preoccupied with events in Sudan, even though the viability of the recently signed peace between the Sudanese government and the SPLM is partly intertwined with the fate of the southern Sudan-based LRA.

A European troika of Norway, the UK and the Netherlands is working hard but it would benefit from more direct American reinforcement; all four countries should appoint senior envoys to lend their efforts more credibility with the parties.

Footnotes

1 For more background on the LRA insurgency, see Crisis Group Africa Report N°77, Northern Uganda: Understanding and Solving the Conflict, 14 April 2004.

2 Crisis Group Africa Briefing N°22, Peace in Northern Uganda: Decisive Weeks Ahead, 21 February 2005.

http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/RWB.NSF/db900SID/MMQD-6BCPAZ?OpenDocument

Uganda in court over DRC claims

Uganda is accused of massacring Congolese civilians writes Geraldine Coughlan at BBC News from The Hague, April 11, 2005. Here is a copy of her report:

The International Court of Justice at The Hague is starting to hear a complaint filed by the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) against Uganda.

The DRC accuses its neighbour of invading its territory, committing human rights violations and massacring Congolese civilians. It is also demanding reparations for destruction and looting allegedly carried out by Ugandan troops.

Uganda denies the claims and accuses the DRC of acts of aggression.

In 1999 the DRC asked the court to put a stop to acts of aggression by Uganda, which it said were a serious threat to peace and security in central Africa. In a provisional ruling in 2000, the Court ordered both sides to refrain from any conflict - which could aggravate the case.

Last year, the DRC, Uganda and Rwanda started peace negotiations.

The DRC filed a similar complaint against Rwanda with the World Court in 2002.

Uganda army kills over 50 rebels in two days

KAMPALA, April 9 (Xinhuanet) -- Uganda People's Defense Forces (UPDF) announced on Saturday that its troops killed over 50 Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebels in the past two days in northern partof the country.

UPDF 4th division spokesman Lt. Tabaro Kiconco was quoted by Radio Uganda as saying that more than 50 rebels have been killed and several others captured with several guns when the rebels attempted to raid some internally displaced persons' camps in Gulu,Kitgum and Pader districts in the past two days.

Kiconco said the rebels who are moving in small groups of between three and ten have since Friday attacked internally displaced persons' camps in search of food and medicines.

He said early Saturday 15 rebels were killed in Kitgum districtand seven guns recovered.

The spokesman said in Kitgum that at least 21 LRA rebels were killed, 13 abducted people rescued and one captured on Friday, while two LRA rebels were killed and two guns recovered when five of them attempted to raid an internally displaced persons' camp atMuwini.

In Gulu district, two rebels were killed, one captured and two guns recovered in Palongo while two more rebels were killed and their guns recovered as they attempted to penetrate the Lagole camp.

He added that the rebels have recent intensified attempts on the internally displaced persons' camps in search for food.

LRA rebels, based in southern Sudan, have killed tens of thousands of civilians and displaced over 1.4 million people in their 19-year rebellion in northern Uganda. Enditem

Uganadan rebel leader fleeing towards Ethiopia - Ethiopia, Eritrea risk starting new war says UN envoy

KAMPALA, Mar 24, 2005 (New Vision) -- Joseph Kony and his Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebels are now in Bor in Jonglei, moving towards the Sudan/ Ethiopia border. Intelligence sources said the rebels had temporarily camped at Mangala, far north of the southern Sudanese city of Juba.

"There are indications that the rebels are heading to either Bor or the Ethiopian border. They are fleeing from intensive pressure inside Uganda and Sudan," a source said.

Army spokesman Maj. Shaban Bantariza said, "I think they are heading to the Ethiopian border. I have confirmed that Kony and Vincent Otti are in the group."

He said the UPDF was considering seeking permission from Sudan to pursue the rebels.

"I think we deserve to be cleared. Ever since we went behind the former red-lines near Juba, we have achieved tremendous success against the rebels," Bantariza said.

Kony's flight deeper into Sudan puts more pressure on the Sudan People's Armed Forces and the Sudan People's Liberation Army to locate and capture him. UPDF soldiers are deployed in eastern Equatoria province as part of a protocol between Khartoum and Kampala.

Kony's departure also means that hopes of ending the war through peaceful means have died. Betty Bigombe, the chief mediator of the peace process, also returned to the US, where she works for the World Bank.
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Ethiopia, Eritrea risk starting new war - UN envoy

OTTAWA, March 24 (Reuters) - Ethiopia and Eritrea run the risk of starting a new war over a long-running border dispute, with tensions being fueled by irresponsible arms sales to both impoverished African nations, a senior United Nations official said on Thursday.

"Time is running out. Both countries are acquiring additional arms, increasing the number of forces at their borders," said former Canadian foreign minister Lloyd Axworthy, the special U.N. envoy for Ethiopia and Eritrea.

"I still believe however that war can averted," he told Parliament's foreign affairs committee in Ottawa.

Ethiopia and Eritrea fought a two-year border war from 1998 to 2000 in which more than 70,000 people died.

The conflict ended with a peace deal that set up a commission to determine where the border should lie. Ethiopia, which objects to some of the commission's conclusions, recently moved troops into the buffer zone along the border.

Axworthy noted the two sides had adopted "a more military tone to the dialogue" and called on the international community to clamp down on arms sales to the two nations.

"There are a lot of countries who should know better who are making good profit off the arms sales and I think some effort through the (U.N. Security) Council to put some limitations on that would be well worth looking at," he said.
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Ethiopian troops murdered scores, says rights group

NAIROBI, March 24 (Reuters) - A New York-based human rights group said on Thursday that Ethiopian soldiers have murdered, raped and tortured hundreds of people in the country's remote southwestern region of Gambella since December 2003.

Prime Minister Meles Zenawi has in the past dismissed allegations that his army was involved in killings in Gambella, telling Reuters they were "a fiction".

Human Rights Watch said in a 64-page report, researched last December, that the acts against the Anuak population could amount to crimes against humanity.

"The prevailing climate of impunity that now exists in Gambella has allowed ENDF (Ethiopia National Defence Forces) soldiers to prey upon and terrorise the Anuak communities they patrol," the report said.

"The Ethiopian government must address its responsibility for the horrific crimes that the army has committed," Peter Takirambudde, executive director of Human Rights Watch's Africa division, said in a statement.

But Ethiopia's minister for information Bereket Simon dismissed the report, saying it was authored by government opponents seeking to make political capital ahead of elections in May.

"The Human Rights (Watch) accusations are unfounded and unacceptable," Bereket told Reuters in Addis Ababa.

"The report is based on false information by the (local) Ethiopia Human Rights Council. We know that the leaders of this group want to make political gain from this issue."

Ethiopia will hold elections for its 547-seat federal parliament on May 15, 2005.

Human Rights Watch said Ethiopian soldiers from highland areas were attacking Anuak lowlanders in retaliation for ambushes staged by Anuak rebels in Gambella, some 700 km (435 miles) west of the capital Addis Ababa.

Ethnic tensions between highlanders and lowlanders boiled over into riots in December 2003 in which Human Rights Watch said mobs and soldiers massacred some 400 Anuaks.

One person described by Human Rights Watch as a witness to the December 2003 killings described seeing soldiers tie an Anuak man's hands to his legs before running him over with a military truck.

The report also quoted an Anuak woman as saying she was beaten and gang-raped by 12 soldiers on her way to a village in early 2004.

Six soldiers are due to be prosecuted for their roles in violence in Gambella, Ethiopian officials said last week.

The government has said 60 people were killed in December 2003, while another rights group, the Swiss-based World Organisation Against Torture, put the figure at more than 1,100 people.

Human Rights Watch said the unrest had forced 6,000 people to flee Gambella, with many crossing into Kenya and Sudan.

Human Rights Watch researcher Chris Albin-Lackey said Ethiopian soldiers had also destroyed more than 1,000 homes in a series of attacks on Anuak villages.
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Troop massing designed to send message to Eritrea- Ethiopian PM

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia, March 18, 2005 (IRIN) -- Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi is one of 17 commissioners who last week released a report by British Prime Minister Tony Blair's Commission for Africa. In an interview with IRIN in Addis Ababa on Friday, Meles explained his views on the report, and its role in fostering greater development in Africa. Here are excerpts from that interview:

[IRIN] The report was launched in Africa Hall [in Addis Ababa], where the founding fathers launched the organization of African Unity in 1963. What do you think they would say if they saw the state of Africa today, more than 40 years later?

[Meles] I think they would say that things have not gone as well as they should. But I hope they would recognize that over the past few years, and with the coming of the Commission for Africa report, Africa has been making significant efforts in moving forward.

[IRIN] What are you most pleased about with the recommendations made by the Commission for Africa?

[Meles] It is really the fundamentals of that report, based on the need for inclusive and fair globalization. That is the fundamental point based on the recognition that Africa should be in the driving seat. For me it is a new paradigm, no matter what happens in terms of the specifics. If the report is endorsed by the G8, that in itself would be an historic achievement.

[IRIN] You say the report has been infused with African spirit. Fine words, but what do you really mean by that?

[Meles] Well, as I said in my speech, it is about Africa. It is about globalization. It recognizes that in the end, Africa has to stand up for itself, and has to do what it has to do. And it is about the rest of the world recognizing that it is in their interests, and that they are closely linked to Africa doing much better than it has done before.

[IRIN] What do the Commission for Africa's recommendations mean for Ethiopia?

[Meles] It means legitimacy in terms of our rights, and it sets [an] agenda of development cooperation which is much more productive, in my view, than has been the case over the past 30 or 40 years. It creates the right framework for pro-poor growth in this country, as well as on the continent.

[IRIN] Do you think you can set an example by settling, once and for all, the dispute between Ethiopia and Eritrea?

[Meles] We will try. We have tried in the past, but as I have said, it takes two to tango.

[IRIN] What is required on that then?

[Meles] A willingness on the part of our fellows in Eritrea to talk. The outcome of the talks is open, but in the final analysis, the dispute will have to be resolved through dialogue. Talking with each other. That is not available to us right now.

[IRIN] But obviously you accept that peace and security are core themes of the commission's work?

[Meles] Nothing good will happen to Africa unless we address the security and governance issues, and that means, in specific terms, in the case of Ethiopia, we have to rule out the possibility of conflict between ourselves and Eritrea for good. We have to recognize that this problem can be, and should only be, resolved by peaceful means through dialogue.

[IRIN] There has been concern about Ethiopia moving troops to the border and the potential problems this might lead to. What is your view on this?

[Meles] The bottom line is we will not initiate a conflict with Eritrea or anybody else. We have had enough. We believe the problem between ourselves and Eritrea can be resolved through dialogue. And so everything we do is calculated to reinforce this message; including the troop movement. The troop movement is designed to send a message to our brothers that the option of violence is not an attractive option to any side. In the end, we have got to sit around the table. There is no way round it.

[IRIN] The measure of success for the Commission for Africa is to see the implementation of the recommendations, to see real action. What specifically will you be looking for?

[Meles] The first thing, and for me the most important thing, is that the report should be addressed. I am confident that Africa will address the report, and I very much hope that the G8 will address the report. Once we have the paradigm in place, then we would expect our G8 partners to move expeditiously on improving the quantity and quality of aid, debt cancellation and the [World Trade organization] Doha round of trade negotiations that provide real and non-reciprocal access for African goods.

[IRIN] What sort of Africa do you see without the implementation of this report?

[Meles] Well, clearly either we have to move forward aggressively, or we are going to move backwards, and we have examples of both. Moving backward means going in the direction of, let us say, Somalia, Liberia and so on. Moving forward means moving forward in the direction of, let us say, Botswana. Despite the HIV/AIDS pandemic, Botswana has done very well in terms of governance and economic development, and there are many other African countries that can be cited. So either we move in the direction of Botswana and company, or we move in the direction of Somalia and company.

[IRIN] You have been in power now 14 years. In that time, I am sure, you have had a lot of promises from various countries that have not been fulfilled. Why do you think these promises [by the Commission for Africa] will be fulfilled?

[Meles] First, I am not banking on specific promises per se, I am banking on the paradigm as a whole. Secondly, despite some disappointments, we have seen some countries moving in the direction of implementing their programmes. For example, I can cite, in the case of Ethiopia - Sweden, Ireland and the UK who have improved both the quantity, but more importantly the quality of their assistance to us.

[IRIN] And realistically where do you think Africa will be in five years time?

[Meles] It may not be the case that Africa, or every African country, will have done well by then, but I think there will be enough countries in Africa that are moving more aggressively to achieving the [UN] Millennium Development Goals.

[IRIN] Is this a landmark document, a blueprint, something that people will look back on and say "that was a turning point for Africa"?

[Meles] That is exactly the case for me, and I would have thought so for every other African.

[Report courtesy http://www.sudantribune.com/article.php3?id_article=8616]

Rebels mutilate women in northern Uganda

March 21, 2005 AFP report:

Insurgents of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) chopped off lips, ears and breasts of seven women in northern Uganda's Kitgum district.

The incident occurred near Patika camp for displaced people about 48 kilometres from Kitgum town, the state-run New Vision newspaper said.

"They (rebels) just cut off the breasts of the seven women," Walter Ocholla, the chairman of northern Gulu district, said.

The New Vision said the insurgents, who have been carrying out a brutal campaign against civilians in northern Uganda, also chopped off lips and ears of the women as they were collecting firewood.

The rebels also took an unknown number of women hostage while the mutilated women were admitted to a nearby health facility.

Army spokesman Lieutenant Kiconco Tabaro said soldiers were pursuing the attackers.

"Our forces are tracking the attackers to make sure that they are punished for the crimes they are committing against humanity," Lt Tabaro told the newspaper.

Last month, the rebels sliced the lips off eight women in another raid in northern Uganda.

Several attempts to sign a truce and launch formal peace talks have failed amid growing mistrust between the warring sides.

The LRA, which operates from bases in northern Uganda and southern Sudan, has been fighting President Yoweri Museveni's secular government since 1988, ostensibly to replace it with one based on the biblical Ten Commandments.

It is notorious for its ruthlessness against the people of northern Uganda, where more than 1.6 million people have been displaced from their homes and are living in camps.

The rebel group tends to grow its ranks by raiding camps for displaced people in northern Uganda and kidnapping children living there, forcing the boys into combat and the girls into sexual slavery.

Africa experiences the devastating effect of two tsunamis every month

The following editiorial is a copy of a 9 March 2005 London Reuters report by Ruth Gidley.

Brutal conflicts in Congo, Uganda and Sudan are the world's three biggest "forgotten emergencies", each dwarfing the toll of the Asian tsunami but attracting scant media interest, a new Reuters AlertNet poll of experts shows.

War in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a country two-thirds the size of Western Europe, has claimed at least 10 times as many lives as the December tsunami yet remains almost unheard of outside of Africa, key players in the aid world said.

"It's the worst humanitarian tragedy since the Holocaust," John O'Shea, chief executive of Irish relief agency GOAL, told AlertNet. "The greatest example on the planet of man's inhumanity to man."

AlertNet asked 102 humanitarian professionals, media personalities, academics and policymakers which "forgotten" crises they would urge the media to focus on in 2005.

Answers came back from across the spectrum, from royal connections, acting stars and a Nobel prize winner, as well as various U.N. agencies and dozens of NGOs.

Many experts accused the Western media of routinely ignoring emergencies in countries of low geopolitical importance for big powers despite the enormous scale of suffering.

"One television news producer we met in the U.S. summed up the situation since spring 2003 this way: 'Look, we've got three foreign news priorities these days: Iraq, Iraq, Iraq," said Gareth Evans, president of Belgian think tank Crisis Group.

Almost half of those polled -- including U.N. relief coordinator Jan Egeland and U.S. leftwing intellectual Noam Chomsky -- nominated Congo, citing the brutality of an ugly, tangled war that has killed 3.8 million people since 1998, according to the International Rescue Committee.

'AFRICA'S WORLD WAR'

"It's Africa's First World War," said British journalist Jon Snow, news anchorman for Channel 4 television.

The details of northern Uganda's hidden war - the silver prize-winner in the AlertNet ranking - are even more sensational.

Ninety-five percent of the population in the conflict zone have been uprooted, and some 25,000 children have been abducted to fight as soldiers and sex slaves.

Rural children who live in the rural danger zone are called "night commuters" because they take refuge at night in the relative safety of cities to escape abduction by the cult-like Lord's Resistance Army, which has waged a bloody 18-year insurgency. Eighty percent of its troops are estimated to be children.

"Like many people, I didn't have any idea of the scale of this conflict," said British Hollywood star Helen Mirren, who travelled to Uganda with relief agency Oxfam. "Nearly two million people have been made homeless and hundreds of thousands more have been killed."

The experts' third most neglected emergency was Sudan, where four million people have yet to go home after Africa's longest-running civil war in the south and atrocities in the western Darfur region have raised the spectre of genocide.

"Darfur has slipped from the front pages, but the situation there is again going from terrible to being absolutely horrendous," U.N. relief coordinator Jan Egeland said.

Africa featured heavily in the top 10, taking half the top spots, but news coverage outside the region is minimal.

"Africa experiences the devastating effect of two tsunamis every month", said Amy Slorach, appeal coordinator for British nongovernmental relief agency Tearfund.

HEALTH EMERGENCIES

West Africa's wars encompass Ivory Coast, Liberia and Sierra Leone, briefly infamous for the large numbers of civilian amputees who lost their arms and legs to crazed soldiers' machetes.

AlertNet left it up to respondents how to define emergencies, and quite a few chose health disasters, with HIV/AIDS voted number four in the poll.

The Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund voted for women survivors of the Rwandan genocide of 1994, who are now dying as a consequence of being raped by HIV-positive attackers.

"The genocide happened 10 years ago, but its legacy continues to destroy lives today," said Lucinda MacPherson, the Fund's senior press and communications officer.

Other infectious diseases - tuberculosis and malaria in particular - made number 10 in the poll. Malaria kills an African child every 30 seconds, while tuberculosis kills about 2 million a year worldwide.

Two Latin American crises ranked high in the survey. Colombia - where nearly 3 million people have fled their homes because of violence that has been raging since 1948 -- was voted into sixth place

Haiti, the poorest country in the Americas, was number nine. The Caribbean nation is wracked with an ongoing political crisis, and U.N. troops have failed to quell the violence.

Conflict in the breakaway Russian republic of Chechnya, number seven in the AlertNet survey, has been simmering since the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991, killing hundreds of thousands of civilians and at least 13,000 Russian troops.

HUNGER

Nepal's insurgency - which has toppled into a crisis since the king sacked the government in early February - was voted number eight on the list.

Crisis Group's Evans called it "the deadliest conflict in Asia, with some 10,000 killed over the past few years".

Food shortages in Africa - especially in Eritrea and Zimbabwe - featured in the survey responses, but narrowly missed the top 10.

"More people die every year of causes related to hunger and malnutrition than the total number who die of AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis combined," said James Morris, chief executive of the U.N. World Food Programme.

"Of the 10 million people who die each year from hunger and malnutrition, just 8 percent die in the kind of emergencies we hear about on the evening news."

Annabel Brown of Community Aid Abroad - the Australian Oxfam -- told AlertNet: "Natural disasters capture the attention of the world, but it is the manmade crisis situations -- resulting in part from the disparities and injustices in the world - that rich countries should continue to be aware of and forced to take some responsibility for."

Noam Chomsky chose Congo and Colombia, Haiti and the Israel-Palestine conflict, but also nominated a series of low-profile emergencies. The MIT professor chose to highlight West Papua, natural disasters and child labour in Nicaragua, displacement of Turkish Kurds, and horrifying conditions in rural India and China.

The Asian Development Bank's vice president, Geert van der Linden, voted for human trafficking.

Other organisations - such as Medecins sans Frontieres and the United Nations -- have tried to bring global attention to neglected emergencies.

Northern Uganda took the number one slot in the MSF Top 10 Most Underreported Stories of 2004

Uganda also tops the United Nations' "10 stories the world should hear more about".

"The attention span of most media on most stories is way too short," said Jody Williams, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize laureate in 1997 for her work with the International Campaign to Ban Landmines.

"The media should do a much better job educating itself - and then the public - on the root causes of 'emergencies'," she said.

U.S. State Department report describes horror in Uganda

Thursday February 3, 2005

By GEORGE GEDDA

Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - Up to 12,000 people have been killed in hostile action during a war in Northern Uganda and many more have died from hunger, disease and malnutrition resulting from the conflict, according to a draft State Department report.

The report, mandated by Congress, estimated that 20,000 children have been abducted since insurgents led by the Lord's Resistance Army began their uprising against the central government in 1987.

The LRA, led by Joseph Kony, has been using southern Sudan as a launching pad for attacks against the Ugandan government, the study said. Kony is described in the report as "erratic and vicious."

"LRA tactics to brutalize civilians include murder, looting, burning houses, torture and mutilation of children for the purposes of forced conscription, labor and sexual servitude,'' said the report, a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press.

The study noted that according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, LRA attacks had displaced nearly 95 percent of the ethnic Acholi population in three districts of Northern Uganda by the end of 2004.

The report called the LRA a "bizarre and cult-like group." It once claimed as goals the toppling of the Ugandan government and the creation of a new government guided by the Ten Commandments.

According to the study, the LRA drew upon grievances and disaffection in the Acholi community against a government it perceived as dominated by people from central and western Uganda.

"Today, the LRA has no discernible political agenda and survives through a vicious cycle in which children are abducted, brutalized and are forced to become soldiers or the 'wives' of LRA commanders and sent back to carry out the next wave of terror and abductions,'' the report said.

It added that the LRA has "benefited significantly'" from food, arms and refuge provided by the Sudanese government and government-supported militia groups.

The draft was described as "underwhelming at best'' by Rory Anderson of World Vision, a Christian relief group.

"Where else in the world have more than 20,000 children been abducted and brutally forced to serve as child soldiers and sex slaves over the last 18 years?'' she asked.

Anderson said the report should have gone further than a summary of a complex situation.

"World Vision expected more substantive analysis and recommendations on how to resolve one of the world's longest civil wars,'' she said.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-4776797,00.html

The lost generation - by British actress Helen Mirren

It's the world's worst forgotten humanitarian crisis, and for 18 years, the children of northern Uganda have borne the brunt of the country's bloody civil war. Helen Mirren reports on a heart-rending conflict.

15 January 2005

Day one

I wake with a sense of trepidation. I'm due to fly out to northern Uganda with Oxfam today and I don't want to go. I want to close the door, stay with my husband and live my lovely life. I don't want to confront the feeling of inadequacy and guilt at my own luck, or be that overfed white person asking banal questions. But I keep telling myself, "Just do it, some good may come out of it." On my way to the airport I pass Harrods, with all its Christmas lights, and know that in 24 hours I'll be a world away, in a world where children are being cynically and violently used. It's a night flight and when I wake up over Africa the adrenalin hits. I am about to confront a horror story.

It is inexplicable to me that the world stands by and does nothing. The war between the Ugandan People's Defence Forces and the Lord's Resistance Army has been going on for 18 years. There is a history of tension between the north and south. In 1986, Yoweri Museveni, who is from the south, took power and set about trying to control the Acholi in the north. The LRA now dominates resistance, fighting, so it says, to reclaim Uganda for the Acholi. Now led by Joseph Kony, it is one of the world's most brutal armies and has terrorised its own people. At least 25,000 children have been abducted, the boys ordered to kill or be killed, the girls used as sex slaves. Half a million people - mostly children - have been killed in the conflict.

Day two

We have a day in Kampala before flying north, so we visit an Acholi squatter village on the outskirts of town. Gabriel, the chairman of the community, shows me around, explaining that some people here are so tormented by what they've seen in the north that they live like wild animals. There is extreme poverty and the women - who are the ones keeping everything together - spend their days at the quarry, smashing rocks into tiny stones. Watching the women hammer and break the rocks, there's a moment when I feel mortified to be here. I feel so conspicuous but also want to show my solidarity.

Three-quarters of the village is made up of children but at least they seem happy enough, especially when Gabriel buys them sugar cane. It takes ages to cut the long strips into equal portions but the children wait patiently in line. Gabriel tells me that if peace is ever declared in the north, half the people here would head home within 24 hours.

Just before leaving, I meet David Toorase and his wife Alice. They welcome me into their tiny home. They used to be farmers in the north but fled when it became too dangerous to go to the fields. David is wearing massive flares and at first I'm convinced these cool loons must be a fashion statement but then he pulls them up to reveal the worst case of elephantitis you can imagine. His legs are like huge tree trunks, his toes spreading into the ground like gnarled roots. It's a terrible sight. David tells me the disease took hold during his long trek south.

Day three

The alarm is set for 5am but I wake much earlier. Oxfam has chartered a small plane from Kampala to Kitgum, right in the heart of the north. Ninety-nine per cent of the people here have been herded by the government into IDP (internally displaced people) camps, ostensibly for their own protection.

Looking down from the plane, Uganda appears wonderfully green and tropical, but then, flying over the north, I suddenly notice all these abandoned villages - one after the other gone to seed or burnt out. It's a very sad sight. On landing we're greeted by a group of chanting women dressed in their best - no mean achievement in this environment. Lenyeno Esteu, a mother of four, is one of the 18,000 "night commuters" - mostly children - who walk three to four kilometres into Kitgum to escape the LRA raids after dark. She's been a night commuter for three years, ever since one of her children was abducted when she was just six years old. "Every night I can't sleep for thinking of my boy," she says.

At Hotel Bomah - the only hotel in this dusty town - I'm shown to my room. I've been given the so-called presidential suite, but there's nothing very presidential about it. It's quite a salutary contrast from the Elton John Suite at the Paris Ritz, where I just stayed while touring Europe with my husband [the director Taylor Hackford] to promote his new film, Ray.

At the hotel we are given a security briefing by Craig Hollingsworth, the British man who runs the Oxfam programme here. There's a curfew at 10pm and no one - not even Oxfam staff - is allowed further than three miles from town at any time. In the afternoon, I meet Okot Lapolo Santo, a district Commissioner. He is full of outrage. "The world has never seen people cooked in pots and eaten but this is what this conflict is about," he declares, referring to just one example of the depths of depravity the LRA are accused of. "When there was a massacre of 400 people, the world didn't even raise an eyebrow. When there was a massacre of 200 people, the world kept quiet." The UN Security Council is right when it calls northern Uganda the world's worst forgotten humanitarian crisis.

Lastly, I have a meeting with some religious leaders working for peace, who put me on the spot. They've received a stream of representatives over the years and are frustrated that nothing changes. They want me to bring this story to the wider world. I don't just want to be another voice in the wilderness but nor do I want to be drawn into the politics of this extremely complex situation. I've always sat back from politics and I was never as much as a political activist in my youth as people make out. I guess I'm like the camel in the Iraq war which plods through the night not taking much notice of the soldiers on either side. It's tempting to get sucked into the drama of it all but that can easily become slightly self-aggrandising.

Day four

The Labuje camp is one of 18 IDP sites in the Kitgum area and one of 118 in the whole of northern Uganda. To protect the people, the government has herded two million of them into these squalid camps. Squashing people together with nothing to do means Aids and domestic violence are on the increase, and these once self-sufficient people are now totally dependent on food aid. Lebuje is one of the smaller IDP camps; still, there are 14,000 people living here.

Sometimes I feel uncomfortable introducing myself. I tell the camp leaders that I am a well-known actress from England and that unfortunately people seem to need celebrities to bring other people's suffering to the world's attention these days. The small traditional mud huts are built so close together you can hardly squeeze by. They are about 8ft in diameter, with nothing in them - no bedding, just plastic sacking and a fire built into the ground emitting lethal fumes. It makes me so aware of how unbelievably much we have. It's not that I don't love shopping, but increasingly I feel nauseated by the masses of stuff we all accumulate in our houses.

In one mud hut, 16-year-old Anena Susan lives with four of her siblings. Her parents were murdered in front of her - something she's too traumatised to speak about. Another girl, Agnes, a former abductee, doesn't want to talk about her experiences. She bends her fingers back, over and over again. I feel uncomfortable asking her about all this. There's an enormous sense of dignity among these people and they don't want to blab on about being raped - well who does, whether in Kitgum or California?

While the girls won't look me in the eye, the children certainly do. They grab my hand and won't let go. As I'm talking to the adults, I can feel them poking at it. I'm sure they're thinking, "What's this weird white thing?"

Lying in bed at night I have a sense both of the horrific nature of humanity as well as its incredibly productive side. I feel immersed in Kitgum now. I've left my home and husband far behind. Actually, Taylor called at the most sensitive moment today, just when I was talking to Agnes. I rarely use my mobile and it was very embarrassing - a stark reminder of the chasm between our two worlds.

Day five

I hear gunshots in the night but it doesn't alarm me - I do live in LA after all. Then it's another 5am start, to see the night commuters heading home to their village for breakfast. We catch them going east out of town, hundreds of them, some as young as six carrying toddlers on their backs and clutching their bedding. It is the most extraordinary sight and a clear indication of who the targets are in this war. I walk with them a fair way up the road. For every 100 or so children there is one adult - a grandmother who comes to supervise. I walk with one. When I say goodbye, she calls after me: "Next time bring food." I feel awful - these people need food more than my questions and sympathy.

We visit St Joseph's Hospital. Patients walk up to 100km to get here. Dr Lawrence shows me round, beginning with the therapeutic feeding centre, where malnourished babies are given assistance, and ending at the wards with victims of the conflict. Many of the former abductees end up here, often with severe malnutrition. When the Sudanese government withdrew its support of the LRA earlier this year, in effect they cut off their food supply.

In one bed is 16-year-old Komakech who is brain damaged. His legs twitch all the time and I'm told his mind is "gone". His parents were killed in a raid. He was abducted and kept in captivity for two years. One day he was beaten up so severely by the rebels that he was left for dead by the side of the road where Government troops found him. When I sit down on the bed next to him and try to chat, I find that his brain is actually OK. He can even speak some English. He says he has many problems. Again he is looking to us for help. As we leave, I ask Dr Lawrence about David in Kampala and whether his elephantitis can be treated. He tells me that it sounds far too advanced and his legs are as good as useless. It's terribly disappointing.

The last visit of the day is to the Concerned Women's Association, which supports formerly abducted children. Again, I feel awkward prying into the lives of these children. I hate feeling like a vulture preying on people's misery. I don't want to dig around for horror stories and feed a salacious public who want to hear about the worst barbaric act. I want to make this a productive and honest trip for myself and for the people I meet. I absolutely don't want to make simplistic assumptions, tell people what they should do, or say "how terrible" and weep a few tears.

I talk to Patrick, and then to Mary. Both are very withdrawn. Patrick says he spent most of his time in the bush injured and not fighting, but there's no way of knowing if this is true or if he just can't face telling us what happened. Mary says her biggest fear is that she'll be recaptured by the LRA. She explains how the rebels use shea butter, spreading it on the children's palms, feet and foreheads as a part of an initiation ceremony to make them kill. Mary was in a band of 200 children, most of whom carried guns.

Later in the evening, we visit a school run by Oxfam for the night commuters. There are hundreds of children milling around in the dark, too excited by our presence to go to sleep. The children welcome us with a short play about hygiene, while the women sing and dance. I can't resist joining in. It's the first time I've felt like this since being here. And it's the first night I sleep well.

Day six

My last day in Kitgum and we visit the Concerned Parents' Association which helps rehabilitate older returnees. Many of the boys have committed appalling atrocities, most of the girls have been used as sex slaves and are now child mothers who live in fear of their rebel "husband" finding and killing them. Since last year, 1,700 returnees have come to the centre. Julie, the centre's director, tells me how the organisation was founded by parents of the Aboke girls who were abducted in 1996 from a boarding school in northern Uganda. There was an international outcry at the time but then the world forgot.

This is the ultimate horror story - one where your heart falls away from you. Julie tells me that the day after the abduction, 100 of the girls were released and the rest taken to Sudan. Over the years, most have been rescued but four died, including the head girl. Apparently, a handful of girls were caught trying to escape and when the rebel leaders threatened to kill them, the head girl said "take me instead". They agreed, but only on condition that the other girls hacked her to death. And that's what happened. It's the most terrible thing I've heard.

Everywhere we look there is a tragic story. One young man is playing a string instrument under a mango tree. He's a wonderful musician and apparently plays this music all day long, but is too traumatised to talk about his role as an LRA commander. Only music can obliterate the memories of the atrocities he committed. I must say he looks terrifying. The image of this boy lost in his music is something I'll never forget. It's the contrast between the beautiful, meditative sound and the fear, darkness and violence of his past that is so haunting.

Just before leaving, I meet Joyce Ayota, a 24-year-old who was abducted when she was 14 along with her father and sister. Her father was apparently released but she never saw her sister again. She tells me: "In Sudan, we younger girls were handed out to the men before the older girls because we hadn't been with a man before. I was given a man much older than me and I was terrified of him." But this is a complex story - Joyce continues to tell me that she grew to love the rebel commander who fathered her three children. While she's glad to be away from the rebels, she misses him. For many years, she lived in Sudan, cultivated the land and had friends. That was before 2002, when the Ugandan army launched Operation Iron Fist, hunting out the rebels in Sudan and driving them back into Uganda. Joyce has nothing and, without an education, she doubts she can support her children. She appeals to me to tell the world about her plight.

Day seven

It's time to go home. I've learnt so much from being here and my task now is to get others to listen. When people saw the horror of Beslan on their television screens, the world was in shock at what adults could do to children, but no one makes a noise about what must surely be the world's largest hostage crisis. What I've witnessed in Kitgum is nothing short of a massacre of childhood. I see myself as a messenger, trying to throw a search light on that part of the world which the rest has forgotten about. On the flight back to Heathrow, a woman from Kampala asks me where I've been. When I tell her the north she practically jumps out of her seat. "I'd rather die than go there," she says, and she means it. Even Ugandans don't want to know.

I don't like scrutiny so I'm glad this trip has not been about me, Helen Mirren, the actor. If at times I've felt overwhelmed by the tragedy of it all, that's irrelevant. This trip isn't about how bad I feel, but abut the plight of the Acholi people in northern Uganda. At the press conference today when a journalist asked me why I was over here, I said, "Because people like you wouldn't be here if a member of Oxfam was talking."

A week ago, I didn't want to come, I couldn't face it, but now it's over, I'm so unbelievably glad I did. It's unspeakably sad on the one hand but also incredibly inspiring because in a situation where you'd expect chaos and anarchy you still find a very structured, self-disciplined society.

I've always believed it's dangerous to dehumanise anyone, even those who seek to dehumanise us, so in order to succeed this peace process has to engage the LRA, which isn't easy when everything you hear about them is so inhuman and brutal. There was a ray of hope in November, when the first tentative stages of a peace process got underway. There was even a ceasefire. But then, on New Year's Day, the UPDF - government troops - attacked the LRA. The process has now fallen through.

For more information, visit www.oxfam.org.uk
Report courtesy http://news.independent.co.uk/world/africa/story.jsp?story=600196

Northern Uganda ceasefire talks collapse and hopes for end to 18 year war are dashed

The following Press Release was issued by Oxfam International 8 January 2005. It highlights the fact that 1.6 million people in northern Uganda continue to face a terrible humanitarian crisis:

Oxfam welcomes the historic peace deal to end the civil war in Sudan, but warns of deepening humanitarian crisis in neighbouring Uganda

On the eve of the historic signing of the Sudan peace agreement, international agency Oxfam warns that 1.6 million people in neighbouring northern Uganda will continue to face a terrible humanitarian crisis following the collapse of the ceasefire between the Government of Uganda and the Lord's Resistance Army on 1 January 2005.

Welcoming the signing of the peace agreement between the Government of Sudan and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM), Caroline Nursey Oxfam Regional Director said

"The end of the 21 year civil war in Sudan is a momentous time for the people of Sudan. However just across the border in northern Uganda, the ceasefire talks have collapsed and hopes for an end to the 18 year war have been dashed."

African leaders, the African Union and the wider international community, who were instrumental in bringing about peace agreement between the Government of Sudan and the SPLM, must now concentrate their attention on the conflict in Northern Uganda as well as addressing the crisis in Darfur.

"The ceasefire in northern Uganda must be given another chance to work. African leaders and the international community must keep pressure on all parties to resume talks as soon as possible." said Emma Naylor, Oxfam Uganda Country Director

"It is difficult to imagine how continued conflict in northern Uganda will not threaten the peace in Sudan. The fate of people in Sudan and Uganda are intertwined." said Emma Naylor

As the world's attention is drawn to the tragic Asian tsunami disaster, Oxfam calls on the international community to support the historic peace agreement in Sudan and to continue to push for peace in Darfur and neighbouring Uganda.

http://www.sudantribune.com/article.php3?id_article=7423