Rising Voices Supports Online Media Activists

The miserable situation in Burma, where the shut down of the Internet was a major blow to pro-democracy advocates, has made me think recently about the importance of helping people around the world join the global online conversation. While people who live in the most repressive regimes are still having a difficult time, projects like Rising Voices (a part of Global Voices Online) are helping to support media activists around the world. Under the direction of my colleague David Sasaki, Rising Voices has drawn in applications globally and supported fascinating projects ranging from organizing workers in Columbia, to bringing female voices to the Dhaka (Bangladesh) blogosphere. I played a peripheral role in ensuring this project is helpful to media activists who are exploring this space. If you visit the Rising Voices wiki, you can brainstorm your own ideas by viewing past applications on topics ranging from HIV/AIDS to conservation to conflict blogging.

New Beat Writer for Global Voices Uganda

My good friend Rebekah, also known as Jackfruity, takes over as Global Voices Uganda Correspondent. I want to thank everyone who read and commented on my GV posts over the last 8 months. I especially want to thank the Ugandan blogren, which I have had the pleasure to watch come together at Uganda Bloggers Happy Hour in Kampala and in the blogosphere. I won’t be far away.
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My name is Rebekah Heacock. This is my first post as I am taking over from Joshua Goldstein.

The Ugandan bloggers are having an existential crisis of sorts. The self-examination among the Blogren, as they’ve started calling each other, began in January when several bloggers objected to the establishment of Uganda Bloggers Happy Hour and the Uganda Best of Blog awards.

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Ugandan Blogosphere Fans

I received an email today from a someone who has been following the Ugandan blogosphere. Her position on the power of blogging in Uganda is interesting and nuanced. I think this speaks to some of the unintended (or perhaps fully intended) global consequences of a bunch of people who individually decided to start publishing their quirky and intricate comments, all loosely related to life in Uganda:

Occasionally I get completely saturated in the worst-case stories that I retell over and over again (babies in latrines, child soldiers, wholesale rape and murder, maize meal, missing limbs) that I forget Kampala has a thriving community of people who drink coffee and talk about the greater world and give each other blogger awards. It's important for me to see Uganda in another context besides a backdrop to the hopeless misery I write about.

5 Sketches of Life in Uganda

My latest Global Voices piece, available here. I think posts that help us understand what life is like in other countries is what Global Voices is uniquely useful for.

Here are some sketches that detail the contradictions, complexities and beauty of daily life in Uganda.

In Apac, two women go in search of vegetarian food:

Thus it began: the most epic search for food I have ever experienced. We didn’t ask for much: beans, rice, maybe chapatti — something simple and easy, common Ugandan staple food. Our quest took us all over town, onto two bicycles and to six different restaurants, all of which were staffed by women who told us the exact same thing:

Smoked meat. Fresh meat. No beans. No rice. No chapatti.”

It was an anti-vegetarian conspiracy, developed and manned by a gang of sisters who ran Apac’s food distribution behind the backs of the LC5. An entire city — a district seat, no less — and no beans to be found. Rebecca and I sat in our hotel room for a minute, wondering what we would do.

In Kampala, Glenna Gordon explains the contradictions that exist at Cafe Pap, the swankest coffee shop in town:

I sat with Ali, a stranger to me, at our dirty Café Pap table because it had the only open spot at a smoking table at the crowded cafe. Pap, which sits just below Kampala’s Parliament and just above the main thoroughfare, is Uganda’s version of Starbucks, only with even more mediocre food and an even more stratified social milieu. Mbu, this is Uganda, where the average family lives on less than a dollar a day, and a cappuccino at Café Pap costs two days’ income. There are 28 million people in Uganda, 1.2 million in Kampala, and about 20 people at Café Pap at any given lunch hour.

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Uganda: Blog Awards, Digital Activism and More

From my latest Global Voices post, available here.

Ugandan bloggers have responded forcefully to the story that the Ugandan cabinet was considering giving away 7,100 hectares of Mabira Forest to private investor to turn into a sugarcane plantation. Mabira Forest is prominently located on the Kampala-Jinja Road and is Uganda’s largest tropical forest. I Have Left Copenhagen for Uganda reports that a boycott of Lugozi Sugar, a brand owned by the company intent on developing Mabira Forest, is being promoted via text message:

Congratulations to the Ugandan civil society for reacting! This is a fine example of a non-violent action, which in no time has created massive attention among the population, not just on individual basis, but also institutions and organisations are reacting. And not just within Uganda, it is going global. Campaign-wise this is a very interesting tool; any person with a mobile and airtime can participate.

However, no one said it should be easy; Police Spokesman Asan Kasingye is now hunting the originators of the text messages encouraging the sugar-boycott. He states that this kind of boycott is economic sabotage, claiming probably rightfully, it is illegal in the country. He is prepared to carry out arrests. In my opinion this man’s reaction is proving that the campaign is working! Guess the Uganda goverment is to learn about modern non-violent campaigning methods…(hopefully before it runs out out teargas).

In his post titled, “Battle to halt Mabira Forest giveaway taken to cyberspace,” Abubaker Basajjabaka shows the effectiveness of the SMS campaign:

With government playing hide and seek, on top of giving contradictory statements about the whole saga, environmentalists took their fight to FM Radio Stations, dgroups and have also resorted to using Short Message Services (SMS) to caution Ugandans to stop buying Lugazi Sugar if their desire to grab part of Mabira Forest is not dropped.

SMS have particularly been effective. Over the weekend, packets of Lugazi Sugar have been piling up in supermarkets besides some business owners withdrawing them from their stalls. Environmentalists have been arguing that apportioning part of Mabira Forest would bring more adverse effects than the sugar shortage. Opposition politicians have also picked up the slack and are busy de-campaigning government for seer lack of concern if they granted a deal like that.

Rainforest Blog calls for action to stop “Great Ugandan Mabira Rainforest Give-Away”:

Let the Ugandan Parliament know rainforests and their ecological services including water, climate and biodiversity are more important than sugar which can be grown elsewhere. Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni continues to pursue legally dubious plans to destroy large areas of Uganda’s last important intact and protected rainforests. Some one-third of Mabira Forest Reserve [search], about 7,000 hectares of an area which has been protected since 1932, will lose its protection for sugar cane production by the Mehta Group.

Daniel Kalinaki, a prominent journalist for the East African, weighs in on his personal blog:

In his book, Sowing the Mustard Seed, President Yoweri Museveni waxes lyrical about his life-long drive and ambition to liberate Ugandans politically and economically. The jury is still out on whether the political liberation, aka the ‘fundamental change’, is temporary or a mere papering over the cracks. Economic development, however, will certainly not come by pawning the family silver as giving away Mabira represents. To do so would be to see the forest for the trees, instead of seeing the trees for the forest.

Two other bloggers, Just Sayin and Only in Uganda, both write that concerns of economic development and environmental protection should be balanced.

There is an online petition to save the Mabira with over 9000 signatures.

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Why Didn’t Ugandan Bloggers Write About the Nation’s Biggest Story?

My latest Global Voices post, published here.

The Ugandan blogosphere was silent on the country’s biggest story over the last few weeks. On March 5th, the Ugandan judges and lawyers went on strike after presidential security agents raided the High Court to re-arrest six treason suspects who had been granted bail. The suspects were accused of representing the People’s Redemption Army (PRA), a shadowy rebel group that opposition candidate Dr. Kizza Besigye has been associated with.

On March 14th, several of the suspects were released after allegedly being beaten, and with the striking judiciary, marched around the High Court to cleanse it of the incident. President Museveni sent a letter to the judiciary and apologized for the incident. Why didn’t the blogosphere comment on this major story? Reasons could range from fear of reprisal from the government to this simply being business as usual for the Museveni regime.

In other news, The Diocese of northern Uganda shares the lesson he learned from noticing an early morning cock fight:

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Uganda: The Last King of Scotland, Cessation of Hostilities Agreement Expires, and Hummers in Kampala

My latest Global Voices post is here, inspired by seeing Forrest Whitaker in the Academy Awards.

On Sunday Evening at the Kodak Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles, an emotionally shaken Forrest Whitaker accepted an Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in The Last King of Scotland, a film set in the frightful times of the Ugandan despot Idi Amin.

In February, the grand opening of the film took place in Kampala. The New York Times sent an outside correspondent to cover the event, and wrote in a front page article calling Uganda “one of the safest and most stable countries in Africa.” This week, the Times published this response from Patty in Nairobi:

"In 'A Film Star in Kampala, Conjuring Amin’s Ghost' (front page, Feb. 18), you note that Uganda is now “one of the safest and most stable countries in Africa.” That may be true in southern Uganda, but it is a very different reality for the Acholi people in the marginalized north. In Uganda, only half the population lives in a part of the country where it’s secure enough to film a Hollywood picture. We should not forget the other half."

In Kampala, Moses Odokonyero, a journalist at the independent Uganda Daily Monitor and blogger at sub-Saharan African Roundtable, describes a first hand encounter with Amin’s machinery of torture, as told by an Anglican Archbishop who was condemned for speaking out against the regime. Odokonyero then goes on to draw parallels between the Amin regime and the Museveni’s behavior in suppressing Kizza Besigye, his main opponent in the last presidential election:

Museveni, like Amin, shot his way to power after a five-year guerilla struggle that he and his supporters call a revolution. One of his favorite topics, besides the media, is past leaders whom he baptized “swines” several years ago. But how different is he from the “swines?” Uganda has greatly changed since the Amin days: people don’t disappear as often and crudely from the streets, and there has been an improvement in press freedom and freedom of speech which is commendable. But stories of illegal detentions, people being tortured in the most gruesome of ways, including allegedly tying stones on their testicles, are still heard of, only this time they take place in “safe houses.”

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Uganda: Special Report on Best of Blogs

My latest piece for Global Voices, with an overview of the Uganda Best of Blog nominees for Best Blog. My hope is that this post would tune in some more international readers. Cross-posted here.

Last week, Uganda bloggers descended on Mateo’s bar in Kampala for the second Uganda Bloggers Happy Hour. In addition to catching up with friends and discussing the main challenges facing the nation, the group made nominations for the first Uganda Best of Blog Awards. In a way, 2006 was the year that the Ugandan blogosphere woke up, with a massive increase in quality of writing and the addressing of public issues. The Best of Blog Awards, the brain child of Jackfruity, is an excellent way of recognizing both communal improvement as well as specific blogs and their content.

For Global Voices readers who haven’t been following the Ugandan blogosphere closely, below you will find a brief review of the 8 nominees for ‘Uganda Blog of the Year.’ Think of this as akin to those slick video montages at major award ceremonies. This quick review is intended to show the incredible diversity of writing style, topics and personalities in the Ugandan blogosphere.

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Ugandan Blogosphere: Juba Peace Talks and Best of Blogs

My latest Global Voices post, also available here.

If the activity in January and early February is a sign of things to come, 2007 promises to be a banner year for relevancy, engagement and quality of content in the Ugandan blogosphere.

The Juba Peace Talks between the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) and the Government of Uganda, whose wheels had been humming energetically as recently as October, have ground to a halt, with reports early this week of rebel movement towards the Central African Republic (CAR). However, Uganda-CAN, a leading policy advocacy organization has helped fill the void by creating an 8-part interactive blog series called ‘What’s At Stake in the Juba Peace Talks.’ Two highlights:

On Implementing Sudan’s Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA):

The LRA rebels’ presence in southern Sudan is further weakening the CPA. They continue to destabilize the region, making it more difficult for the GOSS to rebuild institutions and communities. The NCP may also try to maintain its monopoly on political power and access to oil revenues by renewing its support for the LRA in an attempt to destabilize the south and prevent its secession. However, success in the Juba peace talks would help consolidate the gains towards peace and democracy in South Sudan initiated by the CPA over the past two years, which in turn are crucial to the hopes for the stabilization of Darfur.

On Peace in Karamoja:

The proliferation of arms in the region from conflicts in northern Uganda, southern Sudan, and Somalia has also fueled Karamajong cattle raids in the neighboring Iteso and Acholi regions of Uganda, undermining the Juba peace talks by making northern Uganda less secure and safe for IDPs to begin returning home. If the Juba peace talks succeed in bringing stability to northern Uganda despite this, the Ugandan government might be encouraged to seek a peaceful solution to the violence in Karamoja. However, a failure of the parties to the Juba talks to come to an agreement would greatly hamper efforts to address the arms proliferation, political tensions and humanitarian crisis in Karamoja.

In other news, we can see the level of organization, profile and relevancy of Ugandan bloggers rising. The first Uganda Bloggers Happy Hour in Kampala in mid-January was discussed by prominent Amsterdam based podcaster Bicycle Mark as well as the Daily Monitor newspaper in Kampala. Coming up in February, nominations are due for the First Annual Uganda Best of Blog Awards (make nominations here by February 15th), the awards for the cream of the Uganda blogging crop, and the second Uganda Bloggers Happy Hour will take place in Kampala.

In other news, Uganda blogger and provocateur Dennis Matanda is quickly becoming much talked about across the the African blogosphere. In our last Uganda roundup, we talked about his proposal for recolonization of Africa. This post has been muched talked about, including this comment from White African:

Want to become an instant pariah? Talk about race in Africa. How about you continue and blame Africans for Africa’s problems, and how Africa isn’t living up to it’s potential. How about you make things even more explosive and talk about how things would be better if the white man was back in control. Stirring up a huge pot, that no one in their right mind would want to touch, Dennis Matanda has really put himself on the map.

This week, Matanda published 100,000 Guns Later, another provocative article detailing the subtle connection between Uganda’s history of ethnic militirization and today’s proliferation of weapons in the big business private security apparatus:

Uganda has over 100,000 guns floating around. It is roughly estimated that there are over 5,000 guns in private citizen’s hands; another 22,000 in the private security firm’s armories, a colossal 20,000 amongst the Karimojong, another approximately 18,000 with the police force, 50,000 plus divided amongst the regular army – and maybe 5,000 or so scattered amongst the many secret and sub secret security organs.

The point I am trying to make is encased in the fact that a great many Ugandans have lost their jobs and their livelihoods under the Yoweri Museveni years, 1986 to the present. The country has never been as polarized as it is right now. Our future has never been as uncertain as it is today. We are living in a bubble as it could burst any time. Unlike the Obote time in 1985, these over 100,000 guns in the “wrong hands” could do damage to ordinary people like me.

Finally, Ugandan bloggers are continuing to cover issues out of the sight of mainstream media. In Uganda there is much talk about the plight of both urban and rural Internally Displaced Persons (IDP’s). However, I Left Copenhagen for Uganda provides a fascinating piece that addresses the plight of Sudanese refugees displaced in Uganda:

Officially, there is peace now in southern Sudan, and asking any Sudanese refugee if he/she is to return, they answer positively. Asking ‘when that would be more specifically?’, they whirl into abstract explanations, finally concluding ‘that when the repatriation starts, that will be’. Translated into plain English it basically means ‘when there is someone facilitating the transport’. It is very simple, someone else (UNHCR) brought them here, now those ones must also bring them back.

Uganda: Bloggers Gathering, Best of Blogs, Ugandan Mercenaries in Iraq And Recolonization of Africa

My latest Global Voices post, also available here.

As manic as a beat poetry gathering in New York or a circumcision ceremony in eastern Uganda, last Thursday’s Ugandan Blogger Happy Hour was a mirthful gathering of creativity and wit. Poetry was recited, radical political doctrines defended, and blogging obsessions confessed. The first gathering of its kind in Uganda, the event laid the groundwork for the relationships necessary to establish a strong, meaningful and vibrant Ugandan blogging community.The event will take place monthly in Kampala, and there are plans to feature ‘Uganda Best of Blogs’ awards:

At last week’s Uganda Bloggers Happy Hour, I may at one point have been so overcome with spirited enthusiasm that I declared an upcoming blogging competition without real regard to who would organize, sponsor or regulate such a competition.

Jackfruity, who has the guest list and pictures from the gathering, writes:

The topics of conversation at Thursday night’s Inaugural Uganda Bloggers Happy Hour ranged from cell phones to Alice Lakwena to the transvestitical possibilities of Philip Seymour Hoffman. The Jabberwocky was recited, blogging addictions were confessed, heaven was declared to be just like North Korea, and the Ugandan blogosphere gained a fanboy. Also, we unanimously agreed that Inktus is hot.

Northern Uganda and the Horn of Africa

In Uganda, stories about foreign relations with countries from East Africa, the Horn of Africa, the Middle East and America dominate the headlines and the blogs.

As Juba peace talks between the Government and the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) continue to stall, the LRA’s colorful and enigmatic spokesman in Nairobi called for the talks to be moved from Sudan to Kenya, citing bias on the part of the Government of Southern Sudan.

While the partners in the talks squabble over location, the people of northern Uganda held their first joyous New Year’s celebration in two decades, celebrating the fact that at least one million displaced persons were able to return home in 2006. However, the first weeks of the new year brought increased fear that the blundering of the peace talks would lead to a return of abductions and violence in the North.

On to the Horn of Africa, where a conversation between President Museveni and President Bush led to the Ugandan announcement that they would take a lead in a peace keeping mission in Somalia, following the routing of the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) by the Ethiopians over Christmas. In an African Minute weighs in on whether Uganda is ready to send its troops to foreign lands:

So is it a good idea that Uganda, at the urging of American Secretary of State Condeleeza Rice, recently pledged over 1,000 troops for stabilizing the region?
Well, it depends. Anarchy in Somali ports, a major port of entry for small arms, is one major reason that the Horn and East Africa are so destabilized. Guns from Somali ports feed the most dilapidated war zones in the world: southern Sudan, northern Uganda and eastern DRC. Also, no one in the region benefits from a Somali led by Islamists with extremists leanings, who enjoy basking in the support of Saudi Arabia and Iran instead of promoting a moderate image that assures the international community that they will not turn Somalia into a Al-Qaeda training ground.

Ugandan Mercenaries in Iraq and Re-colonization of Africa

In a lesser-known story, Sub-Saharan African Roundtable discusses why Ugandans are the prefered mercenaries for private security firms in Iraq:

According to various sources, Ugandan servicemen serving private military companies in Iraq have a good reputation. Their command of English offers an advantage over Asian and other competitors for non-combat guarding jobs. However in this billion-dollar industry, Ugandans’ share of the booty is being shared by the lack of malpractices at home- and the need for better regulatory oversight.

Also on Sub-Saharan African Roundtable, a well-written but intensely provocative and perhaps evasively satirical unsigned piece calls for the re-colonization of Africa:

I would like to recommend that instead of wasting our time and wringing our hands in helplessness while the rest of the world slowly but surely gets numb to our pain and leaves us behind even faster, we should let these good white folk come back to actually and effectively run our African countries and affairs. Yes – we know that white people control our budgets behind those curtains of donor aid and NGO’s – but they give momentary power to uninstitutionalized Africans – who can, in less than a heart beat, do more damage to a good and viable project than 1,000 barracudas can do to a ton of succulent lean beef!

Uganda's IT Scene and More

My most recent Global Voices post:

While only 0.6 percent of Uganda's population are internet users, there is increasing evidence that both Internet and Communication Technology (ICT) capacity is increasing, and that it is increasing in ways that are useful and relevent to local communities.

On OpenDemocracy.net, Patricia Daniels provides an overview of this continent wide phenomenon. In Africa: tools of liberation, she concludes with a general lesson:

The conclusion is always going to be the same: for peace, democracy or development, let's leave the real decisions to the people who know what matters to them. There is plenty of existing ICT capacity in Africa, as well as the potential to continue developing it, with the right kind of support. The conclusion of the discussion that sparked this essay was right: it's empowerment not patronage that's needed.

She notes a particular ICT project in Uganda:

In Uganda, ISIS-WICCE have developed a multimedia, multi-pronged approach to bring women under the ICT umbrella. This included training, opening a women's cybercafé, collecting women's stories and basing content on real urgent needs. Working with different technology and developing partnerships (including the Women of Uganda Network [Wougnet]) created a synergy, which has had concrete results in a wider sense of empowerment. In particular, their radio talk shows on violence against women, especially war victims and refugees, raised awareness among the international community and prompted donor support to address these issues.

In An African Minute reports on the launch on an innovative IT project aimed at helping the country coming to consensus on post-conflict reconciliation issues:

Like all countries that emerge from long periods of violence, Uganda finds itself at a fork in the road. In one direction is the neopatrimonialism, tribalism, distrust and violence amongst ethnic groups that has existed since its inception as a nation (of which Joseph Kony's LRA was but one incarnation). The other direction is a society where living in certain districts doesn't completely disqualify you from adequate security, healthcare, education or economic opportunity.

Northern Uganda Peace Initiative (NUPI): A Portal for Reconciliation is space designed to discuss the multifaceted issues of Ugandan reconciliation. While none of the tools on this site are new (blog, vlog, cell phone text messaging capability), as far as I know this is the first time they have been used to help identify solutions in a post-conflict setting. Since the site will be only as good as the amount of engagement from all communities interested in reconciliation, it will be a fascinating experiment to see how useful and relevant participatory communication tools are in the developing world.

In Kampala, the X-poser covers a Makerere University video conference on Blogging and Media in Africa:

Fears for blog-sphere to wipe-out journalism took center of the discussion for some good minutes but later Abdullahi Boru from Makerere University commented that, “Blog-o- phobia has to be substituted by blog-o-mania. Journalist will not run away from the new technology instead they should do their part professionally”. Hard material like Academics and news are blogged not forgetting sensational or un-researched material. Journalism students or journalist too have to blog, but what is the impact of their blogging?

In other news, there were three important pieces written this week about some of Uganda's under-reported issues: the Karamojong conflict, regional geo-politics, and new news on Uganda's HIV/AIDS rates.

Samuel Olara reports on the undercovered continuing conflict in the northeast Karamojong region:

People rarely win wars, and governments rarely lose them. People get killed. Governments moult and regroup, hydra-headed. Civilians become hostage and victims to the actions of their own governments, which is constitutionally mandated to protect them. Such is the tragic situation that has been playing itself in the Karamoja sub-region of northeastern Uganda since President Yoweri Museveni launched his so-called “disarmament program,” which has now turned out to be a massacre of the poor Karimojong.

Head Heeb outlines the continuing disasters in the Sahel region:

And a new theater may be opening in southern Sudan, where the Machakos peace may be collapsing before the world's eyes. Since the 2002 peace accord and the installation of a national unity government last year, the south has experienced a tentative recovery and thousands of displaced persons returned to their homes. Three days ago, however, the peace was broken when a clash between government and SPLA troops in the southern town of Malakal escalated into a pitched battle in which hundreds died. The latest reports indicate that calm has returned to the city and high-level delegations are attempting to mediate, but these efforts face uncertain prospects amid the southern ethnic groups' growing discontent over their marginalization. Unless regional conciliation is extended to ethnic groups as well as governments and militias, and unless the international community makes a sustained commitment to peacekeeping and development rather than choosing sides, the Sahel conflict zone may continue to expand.

In An African Minute asks if violence in Sudan, Central African Republic and Chad have an impact on events in northern Uganda:

Of course, the conflict zone has already expanded, playing a role in destabilizing the talks between the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) and the Government of Uganda in Juba, Sudan. The LRA this week suspended the peace talks, claiming the cessation of hostilities agreement had been violated.

Elsewhere, Jackfruity investigates America's role in a possible reversal in Uganda's famous AIDS success:

The Washington Post recently reported that the AIDS rate is rising in Uganda. Peter Piot, director of UNAIDS, attributes the increase (from 5.6 to 6.5 percent in rural men and from 6.9 to 8.8 percent in rural women) to "a period of 'decreased credibility' of condoms, the consequence of messages by some fundamentalist groups, a run of defective condoms and then a shortage of condoms."

While serious issues continue to crowd the agenda, Ugandans continue to recognize the importance of laughter despite the struggles. Ernest Bazanye, known to Ugandans as Baz, and perhaps Uganda's funniest man, writes about his recent ride of Uganda's famous boda boda motorcycle taxis:

Twice in the past seven days I have found myself riding a boda in town, something I don’t usually do. It is both unsafe and unhygienic. It is on record that the National Boda Boda Association (NBBA) tests members’ underarms and will withhold an operator’s licence if the carbon concentration levels fall below a certain level of toxicity.

On Blogging Conflict Regions- 11.29.06 Global Voices Post

My most recent Global Voices post, with plans to follow this up with a series of posts on life in greater northern Uganda next week.

Ethan Zuckerman, one of the founders of Global Voices, once said in an interview that to care about a far away place that gets little media attention requires empathy. Empathy for a place can come through from having close friends who grew there, or by traveling there yourself. Sometimes, it can just from sharp, informed writing that transports you to another place.

Sometimes, these places are overlooked by the main stream media and by the blogging community for the same reasons. These places are incredibly difficult to cover, not only because of the logistical lack of power and bandwidth, but also because it is difficult to effectively translate such experiences to an average reader whose daily experience is, in many ways, incomparable.

Gulu Town is such a place. Gulu is the portal to a greater northern Uganda that has suffered as much as any region in the world. It is a vast and diverse suffering. For the last twenty years, over one million people throughout the north have lived in miserable Internally Displaced Person's (IDP) camps, fearing the occasional LRA attack and the daily government hostility. Warriors in the deeply troubled northeastern Karamoja region fight one another for cattle using AK-47's and fear occasional government air bombing. In the 1930's, the West Nile Virus was discovered in the region, and in the 1970's, it experienced an Ebola epidemic.

and Yet Gulu Town itself is strangely calm and charming. It is a beautifully laid out town in the British design; it is relaxed and pleasant compared with Kampala. Many people look strong and upbeat, and nearly everyone is endlessly helpful and generous. The LRA attacks have ceased recently, and there is a modicum of hope; perhaps this is the most one can ask for after lifetimes of never ending hostilities. For those who have heard about the tragedy of northern Uganda, there is a strange contradiction after visiting the place. Despite observing the often unspeakable difficulties of life, one often leaves with hope that the actors in the violence are human, even though their actions are not.

We have heard much political commentary about the stalled Juba Peace Talks between the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) and the Government of Uganda. However, we rarely hear about what life is like for the people that have been affected by the cycle of conflicts that has existed in the North since independence. This is strange, because in the North there is an ongoing joke about how the population is merely extras for foreign videographers filming the humanitarian disaster. While a few documentaries exist on the subject, there is very little online content.

We are lucky this week to have some blog posts about life in the north. I hope that more writers emerge from the greater northern Uganda, and that more Kampala based bloggers travel to the north and record their experiences.
The difference of life in northern Uganda can be seen in simple, everyday experiences. In I've Left Copenhagen for Uganda, Pernille traveled to the north and asks Where Is the Bathroom in an IDP Camp?

When you live in an IDP camp, on little space, without cash, and without access to materials - you have to be inventive. The things which can be recycled and used for a new purpose is amazing. But remember it is mainly done due to the above reasons.

The left image is a shower made out of jerry cans cut open. The right image is a 'handwash', where you tip the stick below with your foot in order not to touch the water can with dirty hands coming straight from the pit latrine. Handwashing is taken seriously around here, i.e. due to cholera.

In another post, Pernille travels to Arua, the far north border town with Sudan. She writes:

In Arua peace is a brand, and as one reader put my attention to the other day, now 'peace talk' is slang for chatting up the opposite sex. A good sign, I believe.

There are poets who can take on the voice of the suffering. Chorya, writing in Poems from a Civil War, shows us how fed up and tired those in the north have become:

Enough. Uphold the day’s
baton resolve - and let us marshal
a kindred peace as perennial
as this present overcast.

Sweep under the ignominy;
monument the carnage, if you must,
until shame whisks it away.
And in its wake, revealed,
new secrets and patient
formulas discovered, distilled from
blood-gore.

A time for peace a-brewing...

Around Uganda

My latest Uganda Update for Global Voices:

It’s been an excellent week for big news and sharp writing in Uganda. The peace talks in Juba continue to dominate the agenda. Last week, a renewed ceasefire gave LRA rebels until Dec. 1 to assemble at the two meeting points in Southern Sudan. The Government lead at the talks, Internal Affairs Minister Rugunda, remained confident in the success of the talks, and nearly all major donors pledged funds to support the talks.

One conspicuously absent donor was the United States. Uganda-CAN asks why:

At this point, we cannot help but wonder what interests the Bush Administration is worried about hurting or losing if it shows any support for this historic peace initiative. Is it worried that it could hurt its alliance with President Museveni, whom has been a strategic ally in the war on terror? Is it worried that it could hurt the working relationship between the UPDF and the U.S. Combined Joint Task Force in the Horn of Africa (CJTF-HOA)? Is the it worried that it could lose the U.S. military’s air base at Entebbe Airport? Is the it worried it could hurt foreign military sales to Uganda? Is it worried that it could hurt its business interests in the country at a time with China’s influence on the continent is growing? Whatever it is, it appears that the White House is putting perceived geopolitical, military or economic interests before the interests of northern Ugandans in peace after 20 years of brutal war.

Meanwhile, Ngromrom remains highly critical of the Government’s intentions at the Juba talks:

Right now as I speak, if the Museveni government were to remove the NRA soldiers from all detaches, reverse its policy towards the people in eastern and northern Uganda, promote a committee for reconciliation, obtain and disburse fund for rehabilitation of the northern and eastern regions, revert maintaining of law and order to the police, embark on a program to empower the people in all communities, the Juba peace talk would become redundant. These few points would result in a speedy return to normalcy in Uganda. Juba isn’t the only place where Ugandans are making plans for after the conflict.

In a controversial move, the Government has announced that it is shutting down all IDP camps by the end of the year. While many welcomed Government moves to take post-conflict development of the North seriously, critics, including Jackfruity, believe that the move was dangerously premature:

The government’s showy closing of the IDP camps as proof that northern Uganda is finally safe is a dangerous move, with the potential to further damage the lives of millions of conflict-affected people. Though LRA attacks have dramatically reduced since the beginning of the peace talks in Juba, a better system for resettlement needs to be firmly in place before IDPs are forced to return.

Further south, in the dusty town square Kasana, in Luwero District, In An African Minute reports on a little noticed meeting that could be the first step towards creating a Ugandan culture of reconciliation:

On Wednesday, October 11th, 2006, The Daily Monitor published an unlikely headline: ‘North Seeks Reconciliation With Luwero’ The article (not available online), written by Rogers Mulindwa, goes on to describe a meeting between cultural, NGO and political leaders from the greater northern region, and their counterparts from Luwero (central Uganda). The leaders from the north asked for forgiveness for the crimes committed against the people of Luwero by the Oboto regime in the 1980’s. To understand the significance of this meeting, one must understand that for many Ugandans, the Luwero Massacres are symbolic of deep and complicated divisions that exist within Uganda’s many regions, tribes and ethnic groups. More often than not, these divisions are sealed with memories of blood.

A long time member of the Ugandan press, but a newcomer to the blogosphere. Angelo Izama, on the Sub-Saharan African Round Table, writes penetratingly on the legacy of a hardworking president:

An author himself, Museveni and the critic Kalyegira aught to get together and write a book possibly entitled “A Backward Dream: From Third World to Third World,” the biography of a frustrated Ugandan president. The stasis in Uganda as in elsewhere on the continent is however constructed not just on poor economic policies, tribal wars and an exclusionist global trading environment but also on a debilitating attitude crisis. If writers like Kalyegira mourn that Africans do not amount to much, he and others do not work on expanding Africa’s options more. Instead, there is a retreat by his ilk to another favorite African pastime, the opaque sanctuary of religion and myths like white supremacy.

My First GVO post

Here is my first Global Voices Online Uganda Roundup. Enjoy.