UGANDA

INTRODUCTION
needs which linger in diverse corners of the country, are major obstacles to thinking
through the shape that a comprehensive national reconciliation process needs to take.
To fill this information gap, the Refugee Law Project in 2012 began a National
Reconciliation & Justice Audit (NRTJ Audit), a participatory research process that was
conducted throughout the country. Premised on the view that whenever the spotlight
of international attention focuses on one conflict, others tend to be ‘forgotten’ (whether
in policy-making, history teaching, or simply in the collective national consciousness),
the goal of the NRTJ Audit was to disperse the shadows that hide so many aspects of
Uganda’s history.
By sampling districts from every corner of the country, the NRTJ Audit gave voice to
the people of Uganda, more than fifty years after Independence; it captured their
exasperation at an enduring lack of peace, at persistent and deep divisions in society,
and at the failure to address legacies of conflict and injustice. Through focus group
discussions and key informant interviews, the NRTJ documented 125 conflicts, the vast
majority of which involved armed violence, yet remain unknown by anybody outside the
areas most immediately affected. It sought to answer not just questions of fact (which
rebel groups were there? What did they do? What legacies remain to be dealt with?),
but also to capture community attitudes towards a range of justice mechanisms.
The process itself offers a model for any future truth-telling in Uganda: Participants
consistently expressed a deep satisfaction at the opportunity to discuss and illuminate
Uganda’s history in a public forum. As they examined the causes and impacts of the 125
conflicts reflected in this Compendium, the importance of knowing one’s history was
expressed and reflected upon time and again. As one participant from Kitgum said,
“If history is not allowed to be talked about, then what
history can we have as people? History must be allowed. It
must be told in a true way to enable us to get healing.”
The conflicts identified in this Compendium are not limited to armed conflicts between
different armed groups or between armed groups and the State. When asked which
conflicts they wanted to discuss, participants did not focus solely on armed conflicts,
adopting instead a much broader definition, including (often unarmed) conflicts
between tradition and modernity, ethnic groups, religions, generations and genders.
The Compendium of Conflict reveals diversity in Uganda’s conflicts, but also a common
concern to address key forms and sources of fragmentation, and with that, an
understanding of cycles of violence and a wish for greater national cohesion.
METHODOLOGY
The methodology of the NRTJ Audit was tailored to enable a broad and comprehensive
overview of various conflicts that occurred at the village, district, regional and national
levels, while at the same time allowing for some in-depth coverage of the nature and
unaddressed legacies of those conflicts. The field-researchers were led by two main
objectives:
1. To document from a community perspective all the post-Independence and post-
1986 conflicts in Uganda of which participants were aware
3