 Good evening. I suspect a few people have got a bit lost in the labyrinth that is SOAS, so I hope we won't be too disrupted by people coming in a little bit late. My name's Phil Clark and I teach comparative and international politics here at SOAS, and it's great to see you come out this evening to talk about these issues around peace and reconciliation in Uganda. There's clearly a crucial focus on Uganda at the moment, given the recent elections, debates around the International Criminal Court, perennial debates around the ICC, I would say, particularly with the start of the Dominic Ongwen trial, and I think as we're going to hear this evening, continuing repercussions following the Juba peace talks between the Ugandan government and the Lord's Resistance Army between 2006 and 2008. Eight years have passed since those talks. Those talks are sometimes described as failed talks because the final part of the agreement was not signed, but I think as we're going to discuss this evening, those talks continue to reverberate in Uganda in very important ways and continue to structure ongoing discussions around peace and reconciliation. Now, immediately you will have noticed that our panel is quite different from how it was advertised, and I must apologize for that because we had very, very late withdrawals from both Bani Afako and Betty Bigombe. I guess this is one of the occupational hazards of a project that focuses on leaders because we're talking about very dynamic people who are greatly in demand. Bani had to race off to the Yemen peace talks that are currently taking place in Q8, so he sends his apologies for that. And Betty has some very, very late urgent business with the World Bank. Right up until this morning, I was still crossing my fingers that she would be able to get on a flight from DC. That, unfortunately, wasn't possible. We've also tried to secure her by Skype this evening. That hasn't been possible either, so I do apologize for that. But the virtue in all of that is that we get a lot more dedicated time this evening to engage directly with Michael Ottim, who has a huge amount of experience dealing with peace and reconciliation issues, particularly in northern Uganda. And I'll give Michael a full welcome in just a moment. I should also mention, and I said this in the email, that tonight's event is being filmed, and there will be a YouTube video of this posted in the next week or so. So please bear that in mind when it comes to the Q&A session. If you're going to say anything incendiary, that's fine, but it will be broadcast globally in the next few days. So a slight sort of warning about that. Very briefly, just let me say something about the wider project that tonight's event fits into. The project that I'm coordinating at the moment is called Learning from Leaders, Understanding Elite Experiences of Peace Reconciliation and Forgiveness After Civil Conflict, and it's funded by an organization called the FESA Institute. What this project is particularly interested in is the role of what the project is calling go-between or middle-tier leaders in peace and reconciliation efforts. There's a lot of literature that discusses the role of national elites and a vast literature that talks about the importance of community level actors in peace and reconciliation processes. But what this project tries to do is to look at a separate category of actors who in many ways bridge these two levels, who move backwards and forwards between the national and the community level. That often involves carrying the needs and concerns of local communities to elites at the national level and having to communicate back to the community what's been taking place in national peace negotiations in particular. And in fact, Joseph Nye has a phrase that we've been using in this project. He calls it leading from the middle, which I think is very applicable to the particular leaders that this project is focusing on. And what the project is really interested in is what are the very specific challenges that these go-between or middle-tier leaders face in trying to negotiate the different difficulties of these two levels of processes and actors. This requires very particular types of leadership and I think it requires very particular types of leaders. The project looks at four case studies. It's looked at Columbia, Sri Lanka, Uganda, of course, and Northern Ireland. And as part of the project, I've been hosting these public dialogues. We've already done the events for Columbia and Sri Lanka, bringing middle-tier go-between leaders from across different sectors of those two societies. And it's a real honor to have Michael Ottim with us here this evening to add Uganda to that list. Let me say something about the format for tonight. It's pretty straightforward because we have a single speaker this evening. Michael is going to, I guess, present for about 15 minutes, talking especially about his personal role in various peace and reconciliation efforts in Uganda. He's then going to engage in about a 20-minute dialogue with me, bouncing off of the presentation that he'll give. And then that will give us ample time anywhere between sort of 45 minutes and an hour to engage with you as the audience, questions and comments that you might have. So let me introduce Michael properly. He's the outgoing head of the International Center for Transitional Justice Office based in Kampala. He was previously the director of the Gulu NGO Forum in which role he coordinated Northern Ugandan civil society throughout the LRA conflict. He's the co-founder of the Justice and Reconciliation Project in Northern Uganda, one of the really seminal NGOs working on various transitional justice issues. For our purposes tonight, I think a key element of Michael's background is that he led the Northern Ugandan civil society delegation to the Juba peace talks between the Ugandan government and the LRA throughout the period of the negotiations between 2006 and 2008. And in that particular role, he was one of the last negotiators to engage directly with Joseph Coney in Gurumba National Park in November 2008, in fact after the Juba peace process had formally finished. So Michael brings a really extensive experience in a personal and professional capacity at national and community levels really over the last 15 to 20 years. And I think tonight in particular is going to focus largely on his experiences during the Juba peace talks and the kind of repercussions that he thinks those negotiations are still having in Uganda today. So without any further ado, I'm going to hand over to Michael. It's a real honor for us here at SOAS to have you at this evening, and we look forward to hearing your views. Thanks Michael. Thanks Phil and for that very elaborate introduction and to all of you for coming and in particular inviting me to SOAS to share some of our experiences in engaging with the peace process in Uganda and of course also looking at the issues of international justice and the complicating factors. Those of you who are familiar with the situation in Northern Uganda know that that's a region that experienced over two decades of violence. And of course with the resultant consequences of gross human rights violations, abductions of young children, killings. And because of the dire situation a number of attempts were being made to try and reach a peaceful solution. Betty who should have been with us here made the first shot around 1994 to reach out to the LRA to try and see how a peaceful resolution to the conflict would be achieved. Unfortunately those events didn't pay off. The talks collapsed and the violence resumed with catastrophic consequences that led to the creation of ITP camps. If you recall we had close to over 1.8 million people displaced as a result of the ongoing fighting between the government of Uganda forces and the rebels of the LRA. At the time there were few international actors responding to the humanitarian needs and so our focus at the time was to try and see how we could deal with the consequences of the humanitarian catastrophe as well as find solutions for peace. We teamed up with a number of civil society actors locally, culturally religious leaders with the support of a few international partners who I see some of them here to try and find a solution, an immediate one and in 2000 one of the things that came up was the need to put in place an amnesty act which was essential to extend an olive branch to the rebels to abandon a rebellion and return home. Of course government reluctantly accepted that but eventually they said well if this what the people want let's give it if it can help reduce the impact of the conflict and as a result a number of actors or rebels actually benefited from the amnesty. Now you will also note that at the time of course there had to be a lot of advocacy work to be done so one of the things that we tried to do was to form civil society coalitions both at the local level and the national level for instance one of them was SUPNU that is a civil society organizations for peace in northern Uganda to try and do advocacy on the need for a peaceful solution. Of course we noted that there were a number of challenges at the time in part because the government at the time was suspicious of the people from the north in particular if you advocated for peaceful solution there was almost an either or either you are for the rebels or you are for the state there was that kind of divide and so actors who would for instance advocate for peace were labeled either opposition groups or rebel collaborators and so on and it was a difficult space to navigate also at the national level even among policymakers itself there was very little knowledge about what was really going on the intensity of the conflict was not known. Also international actors who are even based in Kampala were less reluctant to discuss the issue of peace most of them preferred to deal with what would almost call soft issues will provide humanitarian assistance but we don't want to engage in the complicated discussion for peace and of course even in the country itself given the historical differences north south divide we will find that even other parts of the country say south of Karuma it knew very little of even what was happening in the north for instance and there was that kind of relax so it was a kind of complicated terrain nonetheless one of the things that we also did in early 2001 was to try to organize an international advocacy mission for civil society leaders to different capitals to London to Washington to Brussels or Taiwan a few places including the UN to kind of explain what was happening in the north and calling for international action following that international mission we had visits of a number of high ranking officials both from the UN foreign governments from the Dutch government foreign ministers Sweden and of course Jan Iglen who was the then UN coordinator for humanitarian affairs visiting and he described the situation as one of the most forgotten conflicts and that in a way kind of raised international attention about the issues but of course largely focus was still on humanitarian but later on of course with continued advocacy by other international actors who partnered with local civil society groups like you know conciliation resources and other partners I think the level of awareness continued to be raised but above all I think in 2003 when Uganda became the first country to refer the situation of the LRA to the ICC I think it drew in a lot of international attention to the situation a number of international justice actors and different groups began you know engaging and looking at the situation in northern Uganda but at the same time while the ICC intervention came in it raised a number of complicating factors especially addressing the question of peace and justice and the possible complications or difficulties of pursuing justice during ongoing conflict became quite evident and of course as you will note the Uganda peace efforts or peace negotiations were happening for the first time under the scrutiny of an international you know court and so it kind of posed some challenges and dynamics on how to proceed nonetheless of course even for the people on the ground there was very limited knowledge about the court not many people had heard about the court initially there was what you call an overwhelming kind of interest when the court was intervening but the more people got to know about the court that didn't have a police force and so on you know then they realized that things might become more complicated than what they were before and hence some kind of hesitation and of course at that time you find that is when of course different arguments started coming where it looks like the ICC is going to make peace very difficult it also looks like other actors who are thinking that probably the ICC was coming to trample on local initiatives and stop any effort so there are all those divergent divergent views but of course another big challenge that pose we faced was the divergent views even both at the national and the local level of how this conflict could be ended these divergent views because where the conflict was playing out at the community level people had different views and suggestions of how they wanted a peaceful solution while others were you know proposing other interventions but it is not surprising why the community you know felt that they had preferred peace at that time over any efforts because of the continued suffering but also above all you will note that most of the fighters within the LIR ranks were from the epicenter of where the conflict was playing on predominant at that time the actual sub region before the conflict spread off to other areas and they know the circumstances of how these children went to the bush that most of them were actually abducted and so these really influenced views because most people would strongly feel that well these are our children we should welcome them back home and they will find their own way of how to deal with the crimes that their children will have meted on them of course the government kind of continued pursuing a two prong approach the combination of amnesty and a military solution and of course these were kind of contradictory at the same time which also posed serious challenges but of course following the events also of September you know 2011 in the US it also changed the dynamics and for the first time the LRO was listed as a terrorist organization and also that complicated things because I mean natural it would mean you cannot negotiate with terrorists anymore or the US would definitely not support any attempts to discuss with a group that has been labeled in that category and subsequent you know enactment of the LRE disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act to try which also kind of provided while providing humanitarian assistance it also advocated for other ways of supporting efforts that can lead to the capture and surrender of the indicted LRE commanders to the ICC during that time we also supported local efforts of cultural religious leaders especially in also pursuing local initiatives local practices traditional mechanisms of how former fighters who had abandoned rebellion and received amnesty could be integrated into the communities so there are simple welcome ceremonies that would be conducted and other reconciliation dialogues and meetings to try and integrate some of these communities I mean some of these returnies are in the communities and almost you find there was almost a dichotomy kind of perceptions because different actors were playing I mean intervening in the situation and there was that kind of polarized debate where some people would almost also perceive the ICC arrest warrants as being almost synonymous with supporting a continued military campaign and so all this divide was also playing out in the region as I said many had not known about the court and how it works but some felt that also given the nature of how the ICC referrals came into play the ICC was acting impartially it was in very investigating only one side of the conflict and not the other and this of course continues to be a challenge to date of course given those dynamics at that time not many people had anticipated that more protracted negotiations were ever going to happen with the rebels and in early 2006 through interlocutors we got some information that the LRA was willing to negotiate with the government to end the conflict and we as civil society leaders teamed up with some of the South Sudanese leaders who had already made contact with the rebels to try and you know engage and offer ideas of how best that can be done because the fear the South Sudanese government at the time had was whether the government of Uganda would ever be willing to discuss but fortunately that happened and the government in principle accepted to negotiate with the LRA. Definitely the talks were not very easy in the first place that was initially as I said first some level of reluctance but when the government started engaging in the process they basically viewed the negotiations as one that should entirely be about giving the LRA a soft landing given their past historical records are not really any protracted negotiation that could be ever made but looks like the LRA also had actually prepared to really you know put given their position of what they think are the issues around the conflict and what needs to be done and finally the government accepted and negotiations happened. As I said the negotiations were also you know faced with serious challenges right from the beginning from the time the cessation of hostilities were being discussed you find LRA would regularly breach the terms their instances when they would disrespect the request to assemble in particular places or even there were instances when their delegations actually walked out of the negotiations and these raised serious concern and of course as liars on and engaging in the process we had to do a lot of shuttle diplomacy to the bush to meet with the LRA leadership in remote places to try and see how we can contribute towards resolving some of those misunderstandings. Of course the negotiations that as I said earlier on were happening at a time when the ICC was in place and of course there are all questions that people ask to what extent the ICC in itself was a hindrance to the discussions definitely as you will see the talks somehow proceeded even under the watchful eye of the ICC there's no doubt that international justice opposed you know a risk but the extent to which we can say the talks actually collapsed because of the ICC is something that really needs to be discussed but I know there were other more complicating factors surrounding the talks and it is very difficult to say one but at the same time we also note that the presence of the ICC itself exerted a level of pressure on the discussions especially on agenda item number three and of course on the other hand we note that we had to tell the LRA leadership that there is no way you are going to avoid this agenda item because this agreement is not going to be accepted locally because civil society groups have already given their views of what they want about justice and accountability as well as the international community would never accept an agreement that excludes an element of dealing with the whole question of accountability and reconciliation in order to negotiate those agendas we definitely had to take an approach where we felt that we had to give you know bring the actors to a common level of understanding because from what we see from a number of peace processes it's not always those who are the negotiators who know the in-depth subject matter of particular issues and because when you know there was a high level of mistrust during the talks you know there was finger pointing it's you who did this it's you who did that it's you who did that and so the approach we had to take was one where we said okay when we approach this agenda item we'll get do a seminar get everybody on board and I remember we titled it common understanding for local national and international justice initiatives something like that and that okay let's all start from the screens let's come and understand these things and negotiate whoever did what is not something we can fully conclude in the you know the meeting room these we leave the things those issues to the mechanisms that will be put in place in the future to find out who did what but if we go finger pointing then we are not going to be able to actually reach any you know and it will just drag on forever and there was actually a strong fear that actually if he got to that agenda item probably that would have broken the talks but somehow it we navigated through quite quickly to the surprise of very many people well first forward as you all know the talks five agenda items were reached from the cessation of hostilities to the comprehensive solutions to accountability and reconciliation to the whole framework for implementation and DDR arrangements these individual agreements were signed however on the date of signing the final peace agreement Joseph Cohen did not show up citing a number of concerns of course when Cohen realized that his interest in having the whole ICC question removed from the talks not being addressed he started backing off and not engaging in the process in any meaningful manner and that was it any attempts to try and get them we made a number of visits under very risky circumstances sometimes but we were not able to influence and of course we had also to liars a lot to shuttle work with the mediators and the government of Uganda to give some time so that you know we are able to get a compromise solution unfortunately as you all know from 2008 2009 actual 2008 December operation lightning thunder started with the support of the US military and they were a dispersed father to central Africa and the rest as you know is still ongoing but of course one thing we can ask ourselves and still ask ourselves is whether the ICC was really completely a stumbling block I think not so completely because in still despite the arrest warrants the negotiations still continue to happen and we are concluded but as I said it did pose a risk and a challenge for the process and that pressure was carefully you know utilized in crafting an agreement that still would address the whole question of international justice but also above all allowed Uganda to begin thinking more seriously about putting in place domestic mechanisms to deal with the whole question of accountability and reconciliation locally now since the conclusion of the talks even if the final peace agreement was not signed at least there was a consensus by the mediation that those individual agreements were just not provisional instruments but valid agreements that should be signed and I mean implemented and the government of Uganda committed itself to fully implement those agreements they tried to you know do a few things they continue to roll out recovery and development programs in the affected areas they also set up a framework within the government under the justice and law order sector to develop a framework for implementing transitional justice in Uganda they also set up a war crimes court the international crimes division which of course started its first case which and was fraught with challenges the trial is due to resume hopefully in July this year they have also developed a transitional justice policy framework it stayed due to be approved by cabinet they're also working on a reparations policy but of course one thing that is quite disturbing is that despite these developments little has been achieved it's eight years down the road and it almost signifies a lack of political will to kind of commit to full implementation of those agreements in our view and has become an issue of concern but nonetheless we continue to support the efforts of civil society actors to support in the absence of official responses what can civil society do to you know a bridge that gap because the consequences of the violations and the need for reconciliation of the community are still issues that are of major concern issues around you know reparations issues around people who suffered sexual and gender-based violence and so on and so forth still continue to be issues of concern that needs to be addressed and so there are still a number of issues as we still talk as I feel noted earlier on of course as the country moves on the question of northern Uganda seems to be disappearing under the radar in a way in the sense that government is now more preoccupied with the political issues following the recent elections which of course and of course there are all issues around human rights violations the treatment of opposition groups with high-handedness by members of the security forces the lack of level playing ground in the last election and the commonwealth observer group and the you mission I think to a large extent thought that the elections that were held this year in February fell short of minimum standards surprisingly the AU countries felt that the elections were free and fair so you find those divergent views of course one of the opposition candidates the former prime minister went to court seeking to overturn the elections but the court unanimously upheld that well even if there were regularities the results were not substantial enough to warrant the annulment of that election although they criticized the electoral commission for you know mismanaging the process and now of course being biased so civic space also in the country continues to be an issue of concern we have some NGO laws especially restricting action of civil society groups which has been also criticized and of course the use of other pieces of legislation a number of people think you know violate civil liberties like the public order management act and so on which continue to restrict civil liberties and ability of different groups to organize so I would say in brief this is just a small picture of what the situation is currently and I look forward to having more discussions with you at some point so thank you for listening thanks Michael um there's plenty there I think to get us thinking get get us talking um I guess what I want to do is sort of begin a conversation here by picking up on some of the themes that you mentioned in your presentation and maybe just to develop them a little bit more and then we'll throw it open to the audience for comments and questions I mean I guess I want to come back to this um this kind of theme of the project as a whole this idea of go between leaders who are trying to bridge national and community levels and of course one of the criticisms of the the juba peace talks was that they were at such a distance from the most affected communities in northern Uganda and that many local people felt that their voices weren't being heard and recognized in the negotiations as as a civil society leader from northern Uganda who spent so much time in juba um can you say something about that the challenges that you faced in getting local voices heard um and and some of the processes you engaged in to try and overcome that problem and you can stay here if you like Michael bro it's a tally up to you okay can you hear me at the back so we don't okay all right thanks Phil yeah of course uh given the fact that the negotiations were taking place far removed from the conflict affected area also raised the number of issues I mean it was natural that the talks would not easily be held in Uganda given the circumstances and the antagonistic relationship between the rebels and the government of Uganda and so the talks had to be held somewhere somehow and um one of the things is that uh definitely people were interested in getting their voices different actors group civil society women's groups and so on and uh so what we had to do was to engage with the mediation uh to try and make sure open space for different groups especially women's groups uh to engage in the process I remember they organized the peace caravan which travel all the way from northern Uganda across the region to juba uh to you know take a message of what they want to see out of the process uh but also locally what we did was to organize uh dialogues and you know town hall meetings community meetings to get people's views on different aspects of what was going to be discussed but above all also creating a fora through which what was happening in juba could be relayed to the people but of course in a more responsible way given the sensitivity of some of the other issues that were being discussed but nonetheless keep them informed of what was happening and this in a way helped uh people kind of follow up and of course have a high interest uh in the negotiations and I can say uh the different uh you know uh voices were effectively to a large extent communicated uh uh in juba I remember uh one of our colleagues remarked at the end is that uh the agreements actually the people who won were the people of northern Uganda because to a large extent their views were reflected and it's probably the LRA forgot to negotiate about themselves so in other words it's the people you know so they largely their views were reflected in those um in those uh uh um uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh natural of course you can't get everybody to juba of course practically just impossible but then we had to devise mechanisms through which information would flow but also in some instances there was a situation where victims groups would also come over and uh you know participate watch see what is happening have their take on it as well Michael was was subjected to a good two and a half hour grilling for the research project this morning um which gave me some fairly interesting information that I now want to turn against him um in a couple of these questions but um but what one thing that you said this morning that I thought was particularly interesting in terms of your role in juba and the role of the civil society delegation specifically you focused on two things that I thought were particularly interesting one was you talked about the importance of fostering even good social relations between the government and the LRA and I think you hosted one of the first dinners between the delegations at a very frosty time I thought that was interesting that the social element of peace negotiations that it's not just sitting around the table trying to negotiate very difficult um political and legal issues but it's also about the interactions between the actors so I thought that that was the first thing and the second thing and you mentioned it in your presentation here was the role in actually educating the parties at the talks about some of the technical issues that they were facing in the negotiations that the negotiators themselves and and the parties weren't always on top of the key issues and that you had to hold this transitional justice seminar with the government and the LRA at the height of the talks and I thought these were two very interesting roles um that your delegation played in the middle of the talk so I was wondering if you could say a little bit more about the need to foster positive social relations and also to educate parties because I think perhaps that's something we don't think about in terms of peace negotiations a lot yeah yeah thanks Phil um we just have two hours to discuss something that has happened in so many years but nonetheless I'll make an attempt uh yes as you know conflicts kind of create very antagonistic relations uh there's normally bitterness uh accusations and counter accusations by different parties on the different groups and uh for you to have some meaningful dialogue you need to create space uh uh uh uh to kind of allow the parties cool off and listen to each other in one way or another um and of course uh be able to dialogue in a meaningful way because uh if you take that very confrontational approach then chances are that actually reaching a final deal may become very hard and sometimes it takes just a few people who have the meeting of the minds to begin and initiate that process and in the case of the LRA uh what we did because when we realized that at one point you know we just felt the talks seemed just to go and collapse so we approached the mediation and said look let's create a fora through which we can get these two parties together and so they organized this dinner and both groups came and uh in a way you could see tension because they would not even greet each other to begin with they would not talk to each other at all and so the following day you could see people shaking hands even if they are from different camps you know speak at least it broke the ice in a way and eased some tension that well not everybody is as you know bad as we probably thought and in a way it eased the tension and um second on the whole question around educating the parties as I did say I mentioned earlier on it's not always that the people who are involved in the direct negotiations are actually knowledgeable on all issues that are actually being discussed and they will need a bit of input and support on some of those matters of how they can you know discuss them because some of them approach them from a very unrealistic point of view and I can say this seminar uh was really very very important and subsequently other seminars were also held especially that eased the tension for instance on DDR was also very helpful in easing the tension because we got experts who came and facilitated seminars on most of all those agenda items subsequently of course the most challenging one was the cessation of hostilities and the whole question around uh uh you know how because there are security matters and mostly we're being handled by military people I'm not a person with a military background but nonetheless I thought that some of these interventions are actually very important in terms of getting the parties to understand because many of them come and some of them come to full negotiation based on their own personal experiences and they're probably right because in a way they had probably a nasty history and so it's really hard sometimes to take off that feeling and somebody vents it in the meeting room so you have to find ways of how to you know change those dynamics especially if you're to reach some level of consensus. One of the really interesting features of Duba and again you touched on it briefly in your presentation was how internationalized that these peace talks were and and how heavy the international presence in Duba was everything from the UN mediators to international NGOs, journalists and the ICC obviously loomed larger over the whole process. Do you fundamentally see international actors as a help or a hindrance to these kind of peace talks? Thanks Phil definitely as you can see around the world especially now a number of these peace processes are being heavily funded I mean without international support most of these peace processes will actually not happen. They are both positive and sometimes negative roles that end up being you know I mean happening in those processes that impact on those processes negatively. The positive side of course is that the money is provided and the meetings are held the risk though sometimes these negotiations begin taking a life of their own if they are over monetized but again on the other hand the people who provide the funding mostly also have an interest and sometimes they end up pushing certain interests with very strict timelines that may not take into account the realities of what's happening and that of course poses a challenge. For instance in the Duba process I mean we had other actors who of course provided funding later but at the same time they said well if they don't sign by this day then of course let's just go for a military solution you know. If the talks cannot move then the other alternative stock alternative is continue the fighting so this really poses a serious risk to the the whole negotiations. Then at times of course there are all these unrealistic demands that are put especially around the time frame and timetables please by this time if this hasn't happened then these in a way kind of raises very serious challenges and you know they could easily disorganize talks and these are very practical realities. Of course different agencies have different interests and so on others come with good intentions others also spoilers also take advantage of the process you know everyone wants to sometimes also have some level of recognition or you know about what they have done in a process but sometimes could really undermine the process so these are practical realities that any mediator or team involved in these processes should be on the lookout all the time to try and see others come and you know push that whether at all costs you know if international justice if it's not the ICC then nothing else falls short of that and of course these also raise sometimes very serious issues there are no of course certain ways you can still push for those processes and I think in the case of Uganda I think the pressure from international justice compelled the country to think more deeply of how they can put in place national mechanisms to a large extent that is also in conformity with issues of international justice you know I know we've got a few donors and a few international organization representatives here this evening how do international actors make themselves more effective in these kinds of peace negotiations I mean given the problems that you've raised with some of the international influences what can outside actors do more effectively to play a more constructive role in these types of talks yeah I think to me of course the obvious one is of course funding which is very helpful but I think it will also be important that their roles to a large extent is more advisory without really kind of like pushing too much on certain areas of course they have reasons why they found certain processes and we have to strike a balance in those areas and of course doing the advocacy because generally peace processes are very expensive and if they can rally colleagues and other people to come on board and contribute to the pool that's very good and I think in a way they try to do it with the juba peace negotiations to try and really rally and get they had to put in a basket fund called the juba initiative fund which was being funded by a couple of donors put in a basket to fund the process which at least helped the process move somewhere which is something that they can also still continue doing one of the big sticking points in juba was Uganda's insistence on amnesty even for very high level suspects of human rights violations and there's clearly a huge debate today about whether amnesty should still be on the table for senior perpetrators what's your sense there that looking at juba looking at Uganda's experience over the last 15 or 16 years with the amnesty act is it right that international advocates are saying amnesty shouldn't be available for that level of actor and that we should be pushing for prosecutions where do we where do you think we should be on the amnesty question okay thanks maybe just to also correct an impression I think juba was not it did not specifically say even for high level perpetrators they should get amnesty but they just proposed that let their amnesty be there but they also said for prosecutions let it also be there for those who bear the greatest responsibility so that was something that was proposed in juba now the whole debate around amnesty is one that is of course quite controversial in the sense but of course given the recent developments it would be unthinkable to you know propose an amnesty in the wake of atrocity crimes especially serious crimes involving war crimes crimes against humanity and genocide and so I think certain exceptions need to be made in that area I think drawing from the experiences of other countries who have proposed amnesty and of course in Uganda recently in actually April last year the Supreme Court ruled that amnesty shouldn't be automatic or blanket for that matter it is should only apply for crimes committed in the course of advancing your political objective for instance but if you go and rape women kill people I mean how does that advance your political objective at least if you did acts of economic sabotage or something one can understand that you can qualify so I think in a way there is also a growing feeling and I think the consensus in Uganda also that we should have amnesty in exceptional cases and it shouldn't be applied for atrocity crimes a couple of final questions kind of bringing us up to the present was juba the last serious chance to negotiate with the LRA do you see any prospect for future talks with the rebel well that's an interesting question but my reading it looks like juba cannot be rewound fully in the sense as it was to have fresh negotiations but if it's about going to sign the final peace agreement probably that is what could happen reading from the developments that have happened so far and it would be unthinkable to rewind the clock and start fresh negotiations although we get certain information unofficial that well they are still open to revisit I think the government of Uganda will never will not be you know willing to go back again into protracted negotiations they already had it over two years of negotiation and it's very unlikely I also think international community will be also less reluctant given what has been happening so far but I think what can only happen is have the olive branch are still available for those who are willing to come back home I had to come back home and abandon rebellion but if for instance the LRA said well who want to come and actually sign then I think that's what can happen not protracted negotiations that's my reading a final question from me before we we throw it open to everybody else coming out of the latest elections in Uganda what's your sense of Uganda's political trajectory now how do you see things playing out over the next five ten years given given the 70 and the NRM's win again yes my take of course is that first of all these were one of the most intense campaigns that have ever happened in the history of the country the level of excitement the level of optimism by different groups was very very high I'm sure different groups thought their candidates were actually were going to win at all costs and attempts by the party that lost the leading opposition group that is the FTC to even wanting to declare their own results they even attempted to hold their own parallels wearing in ceremony for their president whom they call the people's president and of course recent he has been recently incarcerated and charged with the prison tells you that there's an increasing level of political I mean the political temperature is rising definitely it poses questions for any serious government in power to begin thinking deeper into the long term you know issues around the whole question of political inclusivity issues around dialogue with different groups that you know extremely bitter with the ongoing arrangements and I think to me in the long term somewhere somehow the new government will need to find a forum through which it can engage with those groups and of course try to deal also much with the underlying issues that seems to be causing this kind of tension of course you know we have one of the highest unemployment rates among the youth who can easily get swayed away in all these you know political gymnastics that are happening and there is a need to somehow ease those tensions and create an environment through which even parties that probably do not win feel they are part and parcel of an inclusive process yeah great um so I want to throw it open now to uh comments and questions from you all um and we've got a couple of microphones here so I'm wondering if there are a couple of people that can help me pass the microphones around um I also have to work at how these things work but there we go the um your staff great and um yeah so what I'm going to do is take sort of a group of maybe three or four questions to begin with brilliant thank you kindly um yeah let's start with Cesar here and if if you could also just say who you are what organization you come from that that would be great yeah thanks hello yeah Cesar from conservation resources uh we we we would like to to deal with the issue of the ICC and the question first and then comments that in your reading is there any appetite for addressing the actions the UPDF or Danny Northern Uganda or a national kind of program for trauma healing or reconciliation I say this because the international community when they investigated the the crimes in northern Uganda it was quite surprising that they only indicted the LRE so in northern Uganda the perception is that there is international justice playing out with impurity that that UPDF are kind of scot-free from what they did and since the the the ICC did not indict any single UPDF officer there must be a recognition by government for trauma healing or reconciliation recognizing what what they've actually done because there's no mechanism in which the ICC is going to go back and indict any the UPDF it is an opportunity now because the government is not under any threat for somebody overthrowing the government the process of trauma healing and reconciliation is now I say this because constantly in our work in northern Uganda in the last so many years there are atrocities that were meted by UPDF burying people alive where excavating graves that were already these are taboos that have actually been broken and the surprise is that the community that have actually experienced a UPDF officer burying people alive in northern Uganda there's there's no mechanism for addressing addressing this if a national program of trauma healing or reconciliation is not taken seriously the only mechanism communities will have to do is to devise a way of dealing with that trauma and the way in which historically everywhere in around the world is passing it to the next generation so in Uganda do we want this idea that somebody who witnesses his family being buried alive by a UPDF officer passes it on the next generation because there's no mechanism for for recognition of what what has actually happened ICC has not invited these people the community knows that they've actually done this kind of thing so Michael is there any appetite in Uganda for national reconciliation or trauma healing okay great thanks Susan um question down the down the front here and again if you could introduce yourself my name is Olo and John Ovalim I am a Ugandan resident in the UK now I recently the government of Uganda has been castigating the ICC a lot dismissing it and also invited Bashir to attend the is it the inauguration of the president of Uganda newly elected now how do you actually reconcile the current position that the government of Uganda has taken again is the ICC with the ongoing trial going on at the ICC again is Dominic Owen thank you good and I'll take one more in this round on the side of the room yeah down the front here there'll be lots of time for everybody else so you'll get your chance thanks um hi Michael my name is Sylvina Muase I'm a student at the University of East London but I'm also from Uganda my question is concerning land rights in northern Uganda as they are occurring today um in your opinion to what extent is the PRDP taking into consideration the land violence that is happening right now in northern Uganda and the question of investors dispossessing or allegedly dispossessing people in northern Uganda of access to their land thank you great thanks Michael do you want to take those questions and then we'll go for another round no thanks yes is a you raise an important issue the need for trauma healing as you know the consequences of the conflict has affected so many people who still continue to live with the you know sad memories and experiences and the tendency of one kind of as you say passing it or even metting it on others is quite high it's true the ICC has all indicted the rebels and not the government forces and according to them they claim that so far the evidence that was given to them about UPDF do not meet certain thresholds that would categorize as war crimes or crimes against humanity for that matter and they say well if others have information then they can pass it on and more recently if you heard the statement from the office of the prosecutor she has categorically said she will never open any new investigations in Uganda and the only person left that she wants is actually a coin and the rest can come out so the prospects of opening up ICC investigations on UPDF may not happen yes there have been instances and reports and even the president has acknowledged them publicly and of course he notes that they were actually shameful acts committed by members of his security forces but he has often felt fallen short of calling for a full inquiry into some of those issues and we wish he could follow through of course we were optimistic that once the government puts in place a comprehensive transitional justice policy then it would have helped create that framework through which to respond but right now as I told you that in the absence of an approved policy government cannot even commit resources to even respond so everything is just still hanging or in abeyance from the moment which is quite disturbing and I think of course maybe we can call on actors like yourself to also continue the advocacy to try and compare the government to put in place the transitional justice policy which in my view would provide a number of you know things that could be you know implemented with the existing framework and other initiative so that the risk of having another cycle of violence is actually avoided and this is something that needs to be to be done Mr. O'Ballim yes what you raise is seen as double standards definitely but as you know Museveni is following a decision that I think as heads of state and EU countries as you know what their position has been talking about non-collaboration with the ICC even their talks around withdrawal and mass and so on and so forth and this is all about immunity of heads of states they think the ICC is being disrespectful to them as presidents but they can go for smaller fish you know and that's why you for them on when can easily be disposed but for sitting heads of states they want to protect themselves so that's in a way the context and I think following the indictment of Bashir but I think the worst I mean what even sparked it father was the Kenyan cases the indictment of Uhuru Kenyatta and his deputy and the other two other people and so it kind of intensified the discussion among the different heads of states of how they can engage with the ICC so yes they are playing some level of double standards in this whole thing and of course it's a political issue that as you say we can discuss until the cows come home I don't have final answer on that Sylvia the whole question of land definitely land issues pose a challenge in northern Uganda I'm happy I'm seeing a professor here who has done extensive work on that question in the north but it's kind of complicated because at different levels with different actors and with different interests and of course the result and consequences of either even led to loss of life destruction of property and the tensions continue including displacement of people and to what extent government has addressed that within the PRRDP framework is that when you look at the pillars of the PRRDP the about four or so pillars the focus around consolidating state security improving livelihoods peace reconciliation and I think infrastructure something like that but if you see how much is allocated we are of course interventions in helping peace building it has a very small component the budget allocation is very small and I think in terms of that I don't think they are doing really much in the past they would give it to either the Amnesty Commission or the you know to do reintegration but not specifically helping and of course the districts continue to grapple with the whole question of land issues they continue to emerge every day but they are constrained resource wise that continue to pose a challenge let's take another round of questions there's Louis here so just down that aisle yeah hi I'm Louis Brooks I'm a former student here you talked a lot about some of the mechanisms you use to consult with the community and then to decrease tension between different parties at the Duba talks I was just wondering sort of how those sort of mechanisms are decided upon and whether sort of the experiences of other countries or other conflicts in Uganda's history for example or in other countries whether those kind of experiences come into your mind as people are making those sort of decisions and whether those experiences are learned from or whether it's much more of a as as the different actors around you you collectively decide this is the best way forward good um there's a gentleman here who can probably pass the mic straight hello I'm Grace Suites I'm African-African of Acholi origin I'm very very very critical of the international community's role in Uganda in almost all the cases where they have been complex whether it is Middle East Sri Lanka or in other places they have actually been effective international representation where there is actually UN envoy and that is normally a sort of person who is mediating between the two parties there was kind of tokenism shown when Chizano was temporarily drafted and he definitely was in in bed with Museveni because of the historical factors there should have been some kind of an arbiter who would have been able to balance on both sides showing a kind of impartiality that should have been followed up with a proper infrastructure of a UN envoy office stationed preferably in Gulu how come that none of that has actually happened now only reconstructive programs that have actually taken place in Uganda under the auspices of the office of the prime minister have been riddled with corruption that's so much money that has actually been pumped by the international community have been proven to be ineffective we are talking about land issues and some of the other civil matters reconciliation I do believe very strongly that an effective internationally operated office which would be stated in the local area would have a much more cloud accountability and responsibility to actually make sure that whatever little money that's actually sent is well spent and for the purpose that it actually suits it at the same time the same international communities are the one who are running around in suitcases trying to sell arms Britain and the USA are one of the biggest arms dealers and they are the very people who are actually supplying these innocent people or non-innocent people in the countries now what are the donors actually doing to make sure that these well-established organizations or governments are accountable for some of the excesses in making sure that there is a proliferation of arms into these so-called minor republics who cannot account for some of the armaments this I believe is the role that the international community has remained silent and then of course on the issue of the ICC they've taken a very selective role Uganda on record has been found guilty for the damage of war crimes that they committed in Congo and surely Uganda should have been brought to account for its own problems in its own backyard how come that it's actually not taking place and yet we're allowing Uganda to have its sovereignty and enjoy all the privileges that any other sovereign country would exhibit that to me is completely untenable and I think that Shirad if I told you donors are actually here I really want you to account and be responsible for this thank you okay one more question in this round we'll have time for another one Mark here thank you so much Mark Kirsten from the University of Toronto I have kind of a question a half the first is what is the LRA now right because when we read reports it's a spent force it's just um you know it's just trying to survive now it's now it's in the ivory trade yet it gets an incredible amount of attention if a hundred US soldiers are in northern Uganda stationed with them some estimates of the strength of the of the LRA would make it a one-to-one ratio of US soldiers to LRA combatants so is it a spent force is it not a spent force and what what is it that explains this incredible amount of NGO reports US military attention and even public events that this this force gets if it is a spent force and is so small and the second is actually I want to follow up on this question on on Dominic on Gwen and on the one hand yes it's it's a double standard and Museveni says you know the ICC's race hunting he invites Bashir but on the other hand what I want to push you on is actually not is not the re not his reaction against the ICC but why he actually gave the ICC in a sense a present by giving them on Gwen something that provides credibility to the ICC for finally getting somebody in their custody rather than as you mentioned prosecuting him like they've done with Coiello in the international crimes division showing here's the rule of law here's our transitional justice in action and so on and so forth why not prosecute Dominic on Gwen domestically in the international crimes division instead give the ICC a win when in fact publicly you're saying it's race hunting and now in fact Uganda has to commit to cooperating with the court over investigating additional crimes that are going to commit it thanks Michael yeah I'll start with the summer the methods that are used to reach out to communities get their voices and so on there are different ways through which information is sought from communities either through NGO documentation projects either through holding community dialogues either using other traditional ways organizing one horse which is like sitting around a fireplace and people can provide information and of course that information is passed on and of course they're held for the purpose and passed on to the right people and that's how for instance you find that we communicate the views of the people to different actors who we think need to know about specific things agree yes you have given some summer really proposals and which I think can make some plausible you know kind of positions to the extent of Chisano's role being biased in favor of Museveni well he was appointed by the UN to come as a UN you know envoy to the process to support the process I'm sure he's one of the few African leaders who have seen I mean people who they thought had the credibility and legitimacy depending on the different biases but he was able to play his role until at a point when he couldn't but also the AU also had an envoy to the process as well Ambassador Francisco Madeira I think now is with the with the AU and a number of people which in a way would backstop including a number of African countries representatives who I thought were fairly neutral and also supporting as observers really to the process so it wasn't that one person would wholly and I think you know wholly decide on the direction of things it had to be a consultative process yes funds by international community and so on yes I'm sure the international community invested quite a bit and they continue to invest but as you know positions shift with the time with the time as the LRA conflict gets off the international radar I think these days we want to look at countries like Syria and other hot spots you know and and this also really poses a challenge and some of because when you look at what these conflicts do they have long-term devastating consequences and once you intervene and you just pull away just like that sometimes there are gaps and of course Uganda government itself may not have put enough resources to make sure that they deal with some of these issues well on the question of arms and so on well I'm not privy to what who is doing what but definitely if some of those things happen they they can really pose challenges you know and of course escalate for instance various conflicts where they are happening the ICC taking on a selective role and so on I think it is the international court of justice not the ICC that made a decision on the whole question of Uganda versus DRC and on making that decision they give an opportunity for the countries to negotiate and come I think there have been attempts to do that negotiation between the government of Uganda and DRC of course the challenges are well it's government Uganda but of course it's the whole question of those individuals and others involved in the whole process that to me raises serious concern as and getting the whole country you know involved but that's not withstanding I think we wait for the final decision I'm sure that I will followed sometime the discussions who are still fraught with challenges and lack of agreement on certain areas but I think they are still negotiating and hopefully the court will advise what will be the way forward but this is a matter to be resolved between the countries mark on the issue of LRA strength I really don't have an answer immediate answer how many days I last engage or in other words of course I've been following their developments the reports by other groups that actually monitor the LRA situation resolve and you know invisible children CR and who the consideration resources who engage in those regions may have more updated information but definitely fewer they are I think they are still a vicious group shown by the impact of their actions in those communities and so if they can really impact and continue to displace thousands and thousands of people then I think it's not really completely a spent force and that's why maybe there are hundred U.S. soldiers who are advising the regional task force are still there and was it not too long ago I hear the mandate was extended for another year so I'm sure they believe you know that this group is still a little one and can be quite dangerous if not contained on Dominic and when why Museveni gave him and not you know quay yellow I think was more from a practical consideration I don't think Uganda government right now they could try but the circumstances I don't think we'll have the resources to actually conduct a trial of that magnitude it would raise quite serious challenges and hopefully so they felt maybe the best is to actually have the ICC deal with that prosecuting quay yellow at the ICDES and it still faces serious challenges of course the court is still grappling with financial issues as well to be able because I mean when you try these crimes of an international nature they also command a lot of international scrutiny there are certain standards they are different from trying ordinary crimes and you know the standards are quite high and so they really require resources to be able to do that the personnel are there but you know you must have a very elaborate witness protection for instance program you know and a number of other things logistically quite challenging but I think Uganda is still keen to prove a case that since they enacted the ICC Act put in place a war crimes court they will also want to prove that they are able to you know you know try these crimes domestically so I think it wasn't necessarily a win but from a very practical consideration that would not be able to do it effectively what I'll do now is take one final group of questions I still see lots and lots of hands I'm actually going to try and give everybody a very very brief say Michael that you then don't feel any need to respond to absolutely everybody but you can kind of pick the ones that you think are most interesting and respond to those so we'll give everybody there out there there's a lady at the back there yes who's you've had your hand up for a while sorry and again if you could introduce yourself hi my name is Margaret um Ugandan community um I just want to ask Michael you sound so confident that there will be never ever peace talk with LLA have you learned from them past experience from other countries who would have thought that um them the negotiation between palestina columbians those armed group who take place if you why why um you cannot go back to peace negotiation with LRA why is it different when other countries have done it who would have thought that um Mandela would be on a table at peace talk and he became a president later on there's a there's a kind of a string of three people in a row here which is geographically very convenient for the microphone so we'll take the three of you in a in a cluster here yeah thank you my name is Josephina Perra I'm organization called Uganda concern network I'm also a political and human right activist I happened to be in juba for the peace talk having lobbied international community and foreign government that the the conflict in Uganda should be uh ended through dialogue and that brought about some changes in policies from outside so it did not only work from the ground we also acted from outside here now when I was in juba we were surprised to find that the movement that took people to juba was to erase the LRAs it was not about peace talk that's why they were talking about um we need it very quick you know we know to get this for very quickly get them into the you know in the center so that we can catch the the leaders that was all it was all about so even if you are going for a peace talk how can you not be suspicious how can you not distrust the people how can you not you know worry about what's going to happen so it was not about peace talk it was not addressing it's not about addressing what went wrong in the first place why did the world start why did the world start what is the root cause of the war these people just jump up one day in the bush and started killing each other no mr. Tim you come from actually since when as you grew up when did actually man or woman decide to take a child away to go and abuse or do anything to the child when when did it start we need to ask ourselves why and when it started somebody brought it into a true area and we need to be honest about that if you want peace talk to come to a true area that's number one number two the gender nobody was going to discuss anything to do with agenda at all i was there we had to push with some other international community so that we came up with an agenda to be discussed because the government said that there is no agenda to discuss with LRA we said we how can it be why were you fighting each other and we were asking the government has got a constitution which says that it should protect the citizen and their property why did not do it why did the international community or the your community the NGO community why did they not bring the government to account why did they not protect the population and their property and nobody can answer that number three the delegations okay i'm going to finish soon the delegation that went to juba the LRA was not allowed to select or nominate their delegation most of the people who flocked to juba were mainly government agents and they were acting on both sides and then they would come and pretend to be talking for the LRA they end up in a government office hotel eating the money celebrating and doing what sorts of rubbish they were not caring about the population why they came this is something that when you talk about the peace talk not succeeding this is what is not why nothing was touched about the picture the population in this camp we are waiting to hear when the issue are going to be discussed so the agendas were not discussed except situation of hostility the rest of the agenda was not discussed because the people and the leaders people like masanga who went there were agents of government and they were not discussing on behalf of the population that's why their gender and whatever they signed was completely rubbish it was something of their own interest nothing to do with what went wrong with the government because our intention the intention of people who went there was to come up with a commission after discussion to come up with a commission we would go through the root cause of the war the comprehensive solution and disarmament and all the rest of it that will allow people to go back why do you think the people did not go to the assembly point because those programs were not there all they wanted was to arrest their leaders and take them away so how can you blame them for not coming there anyway i'm not going to be long okay that's fine thank you yeah yeah that's fine i think we yeah i asked for brief comments okay okay and you had quite a lengthy one there so yeah richie hi i'm richie i'm a former student and worked on the learning from lilies research project um my sense from some of the questions in the room is that there's a lot of questions about the icc at quite a senior level and then questions about things like land rights and trauma and reconciliation at a more local level which makes me wonder about the role of middle tier leaders now where there are no specific negotiations going what going on you've mentioned sort of um community coalitions established at locals and national levels so what's what's the role for the middle tier leaders right now in addressing the concerns which are definitely happening at local level and a more senior sort of international level thank you um no good luck someone PhD student here at sirs um i want to ask you about transition um in peace building in peace we talk about transition but especially also in transitional justice transition is a key element and yet uh at least according to my own analysis uh there is no transition in Uganda and i'm not just talking about north in Uganda i'm talking about Uganda in general there is a problem of multiple conflicts overlapping and i think this was raised here today as well neither of those is really transitioning but rather being swept under the rug in favor of something that makes sense at a time to someone in power so and again this is kind of my analysis if you disagree i'd be keen to hear why and if you do i would like to hear your kind of reflection what is really possible in terms of real peaceful transition real transitional justice in Uganda in the absence of any real political transition thank you good thanks yep no question um thank you very much my name is Bosco Nyaku from Uganda and pro-democracy activists as well um obviously with the events and traveling in Uganda a lot at hand at the moment um having heard everything that had to be said this evening it's quite clear that whatever situation is in Uganda or in northern Uganda in particular all we have is a tentative peace the guns may have fallen silent but everything all the problems are literally not been dealt with and it's so unfortunate that even the money that was given to rehabilitate Uganda some people the government of Uganda decided to divert the funds into their private bank accounts something that we raised with the British government here though obviously very concerned all the European Union literally decided to withdraw those funds from well at least they asked Ugandans to Ugandan government to pay that money back so my question really um is i i i don't really see how Uganda can be a viable state if Museveni is left in power so perhaps part of the solution to the problem may require actually a regime change in Uganda because not only was two million people kept in camps in northern Uganda now the whole country is at gunpoint with nothing anybody can do in Uganda so i don't know if maybe our presenters this evening can literally elaborate on those kind of very serious issues because the country is fragmenting at a very fast rate and also on the issue of ICC is quite clear that if you have powerful patrons outside you become the untouchable that is what clearly Museveni has gone away with absolute destruction of the country for the last 30 years despite the rhetoric that Uganda is improved and so forth and I think one of the key areas is that the patron seems to be very concerned with security or personal interest very trivial things within Africa and is creating a wall bullwack of problems right in east and central Africa going all the way to the Horn of Africa only two days ago al-Shabaab in Somalia which Uganda obviously has done so much to help western government especially with their security concern happened to have Amisun which is with a huge contribution from Uganda and what is happening now Amisun obviously has become a war economy Ugandan soldiers have been caught selling weapons to al-Shabaab so it is a vested interest so if you want to cling on to power just invest in Somalia it doesn't matter what you do to your own population the world will just turn a blind eye unfortunately Ugandans will pay a heavy price for these and I do fear that after Museveni the country may disintegrate thank you very much let me come to this side of the room yep two in a row there yeah my name is Matt Kandel I'm a postdoc at psoas I was wondering if you could say a bit about the relationship between Khartoum and LRA and then Ugandan SPLA and then how perhaps the LRA and was was caught up or was in a broader interstate conflict or rivalry there and how perhaps that shifted the trajectory of the conflict and then perhaps whether too often the analyses of conflicts in Africa coming from the from western countries tends to focus or argue that they're broadly interstate they're within countries and there's not the same interstate components that perhaps we've seen in other parts of the world and how even with say non-insurgencies so for instance calibrating how maybe these conflicts are also maybe caught up in other interstate issues or at least between the leaders of other countries say in East Africa for instance Hi Kara Blackmore London School of Economics. Given ICTJ's current debate around should we remember and should we forget I wonder if maybe you could speak about what that means in the context of Uganda and how we might move forward on either side of that coin and then perhaps you could speak to the critique coming from places like Luwero and Bundy Bujo and Kasese about this idea that we have national policies and national efforts when in fact they're driven by northern predominantly acholi thinking and and efforts that might create more divisiveness than unity that they intend to promote. There was a question here too. You've had a lot of comments and questions Michael I don't it's a big pile of complexity I just wanted to add and say well I'm Andy Carl I'm a former colleague of Seizur's here with conciliation resources formally with conciliation resources and I wanted to just my comment is really just to kind of thank you for the presentation you've done it reminds me of the I really appreciate how kind of considered you are how careful you are in what way you tell your tell the story and how important it is to remember what happened and I'm I really value that we shouldn't forget this this this part of history and I feel really I really appreciate this moment in this room that you you've you've given us this real living history which I think some some of the things you said still aren't recorded and risk being forgotten and I'm also very struck by the of course that you've lived this experience and your project feels very interesting projects and someone has already asked a kind of question like this I think that obviously it's a very unique very complex context but I do see similarities other conflicts in the world where you also we don't see conflicts ending through a peace agreement we don't see victors and vanquished and we see the the roles of people like yourselves and organizations like the NGO forum or the actual religious leaders are all the many people who show have shown leadership in civil society need to show this leadership of how do you how do you deal with this unfinished business and how do you how do you how do you continue to win and wage the peace when when it's not being won at the in the battlefield or the negotiation table and any you've mentioned some extraordinary achievements you've had after juba in terms of some of the agendas you've moved forward but I'd be interested just one more thing it was just you know what you're really what you're what you're proud of really over that you've been working on of late where you where you really you you and the collective you really where you really advanced that agenda of working on the unfinished business great okay michael there's there's uh more than enough there i would strongly say pick and choose don't try and respond to everything because i feel like it would be a lecture of its own but maybe maybe two or three of the the main points that you see there and respond to that and the rest I'm sure you can engage with people afterwards yeah thanks Phil and of course thanking also members of the room for raising some of these important questions Margaret I agree you know with your viewpoint but we just look at things from a very practical reality and as you said and just linking it to what and they just said you know sometimes it's hard for negotiations to be resumed in very many contexts for different things and could be concluded in different ways I do not completely sound that I'm too confident well depending on how you judge the reading but looking at a very it would be quite challenging to from a very realistic point of view to reopen and that things up to what Josephine also raised she was part of the delegation and I'm happy to have met Josephine again after a while and well she has her own views about what she sees how the process really went whether there was of course naturally there could be a level of dissatisfaction in how certain processes went because of other complicating factors which she might know better than I do I wouldn't want to go to them but nonetheless we look at the more broader process that at least they had five major gender items that were concluded and initialed and that was forming the backbone of the support and current pj developments that are happening in Uganda whether it's a good or bad thing is an issue of debate really I missed some two names but there was all this question around the role of what middle level actors are doing or what can they do in the current situation I think there's quite a bit that middle level you know actors need to continue doing the you know bridging the gap getting the information after all a number of them experience technical knowledgeable on a number of things and can help you know propel the implementation of some of these initiatives you know over time so I think they still continue to play quite vital role and would continue to do so the whole question around transition yes there's no major transition in the country well there have been some transitions I mean there's a move from peace those conflict is peace there are others of course political transition could be an issue and other transition but that doesn't mean and of course there are different conflicts of course other conflicts still continue to happen at different levels and you can't do away in society there will be conflict all the time at whatever level but in the lens of TJ I think definitely many successful transitions I wouldn't even say very successful really even in countries that have experienced major political transitions have not really made tremendous progress even I mean there are still concerns even with South Africa which is always touted as one of the best models of transitional justice still afloat with challenges with their own you know processes so it's not really that once a major regime change or whatever that links with what somebody asked happens that's when you can have that we shouldn't get into that kind of debate but all we need is to create the conditions and support those initiatives that will respond in a very meaningful way to the what the victims want and of course it's not a quick fix it could you know can be curiously long neither short so this is something that we continue looking at Mark this is a very long question around the relationship a lecatum of course it's a very long debate that I'm sure we can have a private conversation on that but it's been of course quite complicated but what I can say it looks like there's improved relationship between Kampala and Khatum now but she was recently in Kampala, Museveni was in Khatum so it means the relations between the countries are improving and a number of developments happening but definitely in the past the LRA was a complicating factor but I think they might have agreed in a way also with the SPLA so I don't think that well they could still be having their own other differences but at least for now since the CPA I think there has been a shift in the approach between how Khatum would look at SPLA or LRA for that matter or how Uganda or Kampala would look at maybe Khatum or SPLA I do agree when that what formed the current initiative on transitional justice in Uganda was largely informed by the events and experiences of northern Uganda but if you look at the consultations on transitional justice now they are broader than just only focusing on the north I think there are consultations happening even in the hotspot the western region except with the new developments these are now new emerging conflicts that we are seeing after you know the elections that we are seeing new conflicts emerging but previously from what I know is that there have been nationwide and consultations and it was kind of agreed that of course if it was largely informed only by the experiences of northern Uganda it would complicate the process and how people perceive it but of course the challenge of course that poses is that given the fact that it's largely driven by the northern Uganda situation there is a tendency who people think well transitional justice for us we even don't know it's for those people of the north you know because you know so there is that and then they are reminded just because of the lack of motivation they have of course had conflicts in the past but eventually when they are probed and engaged then oh yeah you know we also pass through this and I think yeah finally maybe and yes it's also another long one but yeah based on the different experiences different countries offer different contexts and it's very very crucial that actors continue especially like right now in Uganda we have had very limited you know there was a lot of hype around when the peace talks were concluded everyone thought the agreements would be quickly implemented and the victims thought their demands for justice would be addressed they would receive reparations you know do all this but now it's eight years down the road they have not seen any of this and that is rather frustrating and in the absence of these official responses I think the role of specific groups continues to be very very essential to provide the needed support like what Cesar is around the trauma psychosocial support addressing other physical needs you know engaging communities to talk to each other given the you know the devastating impact the conflict has had on them and so on and all these still continue and I agree that not everything gets finished through the peace it could be one step it may involve other subsequent initiatives to completely try and bridge the gap and get people back in shape again great um I know there are still some other questions but but I think if it's brief brief brief brief brief okay if you promise me it'll be brief no it will be quite quite brief my my name is richard rickard and I've been involved in this issue of the war in northern Uganda right from day one and I'm one of the living testimony and I've been in southern Sudan I just wanted to highlight some points that I've read all the documentation history news cuttings and whatever that appears on this war which some of them I'm going to tell you now and you will know you never had it the war in northern Uganda was designed not by the government of Uganda but by Musabeni it was to deal with land issue money and destruction from March end of March nineteen six nineteen eighty three to June Musabeni collected 21,000 guns from Guru area and with that he made sure there was no more guns and after that he changed the calm commanders that were in Kittgum and Guru and brought the wild commanders what I call wild commanders that's triggered the refuge of over 4,000 youth to the to the southern Sudan which most people don't talk of these in another but before that before that trigger of the youth taking refuge in southern Sudan Musabeni had linked with SPLA and he supplied them with new guns we were at Magui which is 32 miles or 50 kilometers away from from from the border of Sudan they made sure they dismantled the 17 refugee camps which belong to their means refugees plus the new refugee camps that were created for our state in 1986 all that was dismantled and then he started with his war issue what is interesting is there are people like Catherine Bond, Pike, Alison, Richard Dalden who now differs from Musabeni according to his book are all hidden because the lies of what Musabeni told the world of what happened in Luero is now being told by people like Dr Besige and others who are now against Musabeni now they talk of half a million Ugandan killed I wonder whether ICC will close their eyes and not even think of those Luero people and why did I say it was land it was money and so forth the area in Luero triangle where these people were killed are now being distributed to investors of late the Turkey president was there he was given 18 square miles in Luero in Luero area and then there are more of this Luero destitute in Kampala they called them kafesi what is happening so there are a lot of these facts that lies behind Musabeni which those who are interested in should learn of later we have been demonstrating and I highlighted that the blood trail of Musabeni which he briefly mentioned you remember in 1965 when the war in in Mozambique was happening that is when the Portuguese were being beheaded and paked on the roadside and only when the black men were also paked on the beheaded and paked on the the roadside the decisano we are talking about reacted against that and Musabeni was there coin was not there when he came back in 79 he killed the 500 people in Barara coin was not there the half a million people he killed in Luero if you take away the 40 40 000 he was claiming a body kill he would still have 460 dead Ugandans okay thanks Richard yep Michael go to northern Ghana 1.2 million go to Rwanda yeah I have more about Rwanda they talk of two issues the third issue where people were floating in Lake Victoria it's not discussed it's not even talk about the only one people killed when they were running in the gardens and those killed while they were in churches or in the houses but those who are floating per hour a hundred per hour in Lake Victoria for two three months it's not to be talked about go and mention it in Rwanda they will chase you now Richard you've made your point thank you Michael I find a word yeah thanks Richard you raise a lot of well I'm not so privy to some of these things but it's good that they are documented and they are unknown and of course that's why in part the country is grappling with this whole tj issue you have to try and look at the violations that are happening actually as we talk there's a human rights documentation project which is going to be spearheaded by the Uganda Human Rights Commission to document conflicts unfortunately from 1986 to 2006 to look at all violations that happened in Uganda during that period they have started their work already it is hoped that they'll produce a different narrative about what exactly happened which could be an opportunity and I think so far they have been they are widely seen to some extent as quite independent producing critical reports about what's happening and they'll do a country-wide documentation accesses actually I've started with actually subregion as we talk and they'll roll out to other parts of the north west Nile they'll look at Tesso Lang and move on to the rest of the can including the west and hopefully we think that is going to be a process that will produce an impartial process and ideally it's supposed to contribute to the Uganda stages process but above all looking at the truth-telling process so we are hopeful and they're not just going to wait until they and I think they'll be doing it and I think within the they they are seeing themselves within six months they should have finished the region and released the report which would be a public document and ideally in part because they want it as an official record I know for a long time different groups have done documentation in Uganda mostly NGOs and so on these reports have been rubbish but hopefully this time that it's being done by an official state institution hopefully the state will not run away from the findings of those things and to me I think it can provide a good basis to pick up on the other cases that you talked about Buchor or where people are buried alive are all going to be looked into and many many other areas where serious violations happen and I think this could form a basis to begin a really genuine conversation and dialogue about the future of the of the state so it's one thing that we hope and pray that will not be you know and should be able to do quite some good work they so far they have been a respectable institution and also been very critical actually of the state and indeed they report to the parliament so we hope that they'll do something that gives us a good foundation that's all I can do to say great just a couple of final comments I'm going to steal Andy's idea of living history because I think that that incorporates very nicely what we've been trying to do in this whole learning from leaders project is to talk about current as well as historical peace negotiations and peace negotiations as very dynamic processes that often have repercussions way outside of those talks themselves and I think the case of the juba talks between the LRA and the Ugandan government is a very good example of again talks that are sometimes framed as failed talks because the final part of the agreement was not signed but but we can see how much it still resonates particularly in Uganda today and I think we're as Michael's spoken about the talks continue to structure community level but also civil society demands and various demands particularly transitional justice demands in Uganda but interestingly juba also I think resonates in the way that the government is still having to talk about the past whether it likes it or not and it's amazing how much juba continues to be a touchstone for things like the national transitional justice strategy as stalled as it might be at the moment the government having to answer really tough questions about reparations that is forcing the government to have to go back and talk about things that were raised in juba so this process from eight years ago I think continues to to resonate in very important ways and of course middle tier leaders as we've heard very clearly from Michael play an absolutely key role in bridging different levels of society during those talks and in the way that they continue to reverberate afterwards just a quick plug for the final event in this series which will take place probably in October or November that's going to look at Northern Ireland a couple of quick thank yous I have two Richards that I need to thank Richie who I know he said before he's finished on this project but that's kind of not really true Richie's been absolutely central in helping to conceptualize and kind of frame the whole discussion here so this event certainly couldn't have taken place without Richie Howard's help and also Richard at the back on the camera who's working way over time tonight on a very muggy Thursday evening Richard for the AV work and the YouTube that'll be produced next week we're very grateful to you as well you talked Michael about the importance of international funders for peace negotiations they're also very important for research so it's vital that I mentioned the Fedsa Institute who's funding this entire project and of course my own department the politics department here at SOAS thank you to them for their support nothing else remains to be said except to thank all of you for coming out on a very muggy Thursday evening in London and most importantly to thank Michael Ottium for really I think incisive well-considered contributions this evening for being here this morning to be subjected to my interview and to be here to share with all of us this evening Michael again extremely grateful for your contributions thank you very much