UGANDA

COMPENDIUM OF CONFLICTS IN UGANDA
When a nation takes the bold step of looking back unflinchingly into its history, what
exactly does it need to look for? Ever since the 2006-2008 Juba Peace Talks between
the Government of Uganda and the Lord’s Resistance Army set in train a process of
national self-scrutiny, different sectoral stakeholders have attempted to put in place
the frameworks for such an analysis. Civil society has led the way in developing a draft
National Reconciliation Bill, while the Justice Law & Order Sector has moved forward
the elaboration of a Transitional Justice Policy which was submitted to Cabinet in 2014.
However, all these efforts have taken place against the backdrop of a crippling information
deficit and a lack of certainty regarding the full extent of the legacies of violence that
they are supposed to address. The names, nature and legacies of the numerous rebel
groups that have troubled Uganda ever since its independence are neither well defined
nor well described; the majority of the conflicts are never discussed, and where there
are atrocities, abuses and failures of governance, they are effectively silenced by the
broader narrative of Uganda’s post-1986 ‘renaissance’.
Many of Uganda’s citizens, increasingly divided by an extensive districtisation process
(often along ethnic and sub-ethnic lines), tend to focus on their own difficulties rather
than the challenges faced by fellow citizens in other parts of the country. The long
duration and particular history of the northern Uganda conflict ultimately prompted
the development of strong civil society voices seeking to tell the world about what was
happening in their region. Most of Uganda’s other, shorter, conflicts have remained
much less well publicized, and both civil society and Government are much less able to
speak out about them. The lack of clarity about specific conflicts, and a corresponding
lack of awareness of the numerous conflict related traumas, tensions and reconciliation
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