Anne Mugisha
September 14, 2006
This week we finally saw women feature prominently in the peace talks in Juba. Sadly, the two women; Kandida Lakony and Hellen Lanyom only served to reinforce the image and stereotypes of women as victims of the war in northern Uganda.
Hellen is alive and each day when she looks at her reflection she is reminded of the horrors of war. Kandida died with her truth and we shall never really know whether she was the girl in the photo but we all know that a woman was held spread-eagled by men in military uniform, shaved, and publicly humiliated, and now the picture has come back to haunt us, reminding us of the abuse, assault, humiliation and unspeakable psychological scars of 20 years of war.
Now, I do not mean to detract attention from the suffering of the men and children but let us take a moment to think about the role of women in a post conflict period.
Several international and local NGO’s have decried the exclusion of women as equal participants in peace processes and even the token women at the peace table are hardly mentioned or heard on the important issues raised.
Instead, Hellen and Kandida’s ghost took centre stage as men used images of their bodies as props to bargain for their own selfish ends in an insensitive game of tit-for-tat.
A discussion paper by ACORD, an NGO working in northern Uganda, states, “The women of northern Uganda have suffered horrific experiences in the war especially rape, sexual slavery, disability, and widowhood. The new phenomenon of child-mothers has attracted international attention to the evil of sexual and gender-based violence faced on a daily basis by northern Ugandan women in captivity and in the IDP camps. As such, women and girls ought to be represented in the ongoing peace talks in Juba where perpetrators and government are meeting to decide comprehensive peace and post-war reconstruction in northern Uganda.”
The irony is that the issues of women do not seem to be influencing the Juba process but rather they are providing only side anecdotes for the main action. Progress in Juba hinges on the paradoxical trading of justice for peace with government relying on the threat of international justice through the International Criminal Court (ICC) to achieve a breakthrough against the LRA.
The Minister of Information and National Guidance, Kirunda Kivejinja, made it clear that LRA leaders would be handed over to the ICC if government’s conditions for peace are not met.
On the other hand, the LRA is threatening to abandon the process if the ICC indictment is not removed before conclusion of the talks.
LRA is also reportedly ‘selling’ peace for millions of dollars payable by the Government of South Sudan and other willing donors. The message we are getting from Juba is that the price for peace is justice, a few million dollars, with some ministerial or public service positions thrown in to sweeten the deal.
All this is really mind boggling for the average Ugandan who has heard and believed that the LRA was just a group of marauding, fanatical criminals wreaking havoc on their own people. Museveni who swore never to give an inch to these criminals has bowed to external and internal pressure to come to the negotiating table and while that in itself is commendable, the motives, process, and expected outcomes of Juba leave many with a great degree of skepticism about what will be achieved.
If Hellen and Kandida, first-hand victims of the conflict, are to believed, then what we have in Juba are two criminal sides making decisions for the entire country.
My greatest worry about the process is the peripheral involvement of influential stakeholders in the process. The voices of child soldiers, child mothers, mutilated people, raped women, the displaced communities, have been muted at best and ignored at worst.
My greatest worry about the process is the peripheral involvement of influential stakeholders in the process. The voices of child soldiers, child mothers, mutilated people, raped women, the displaced communities, have been muted at best and ignored at worst.
When women ask to participate in the process, it is not as props to reinforce arguments of any side of the negotiating table. Women are looking to participate as strategists in the process because they can speak for themselves, think for themselves, and most important of all they are well placed to recommend strategies for rebuilding the lives of their devastated communities.
It is from their experiences that psycho-social analysts will prepare long term interventions for the traumatised people. It is their knowledge that will enable government to develop policies and programmes that are relevant to the community. They are the ones who will fetch water, determine which children go to school, and ensure that there is food on the table. They need to have a voice in the decision making process through which government plans construction of roads, schools, wells, and clinics.
Using women as props rather than strategists is for me the greatest shame of the Juba process.
The author is a Special Envoy, Office of the President, FDC, she can be
reached at: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
reached at: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
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