Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Gulu (Fides Service)- “We were more than satisfied with the talks with the United Nations special envoy ” Archbishop John Baptist Odama Gulu, northern Uganda told Fides with regard to a meeting of representatives of Acholi Religious Leader's Peace Initiative (ARLPI) and Jan Egeland, United Nations Under Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs. The major discussion point was the activity of the Lord’s Resistance Army LRA rebel group which has caused bloodshed in northern Uganda since the 1980s.
“We met in the afternoon of Sunday 9 November at my residence” Archbishop Odama said. “As religious leaders in the region, we asked Mr Egeland first of all for direct intervention of the international community and in particular of the UN in a conflict which has disrupted our region for years. We ask the UN to push the government and the LRA on the path towards dialogue. We told him we are convinced that the question of Uganda must be included in the peace process in Sudan between the Khartoum government and the SPLA rebels (Sudan Peoples’ Liberation Army). We have called for a system of international control at the Sudan Uganda border to prevent rebel groups which engage in violence in both countries from taking refuge on either side of the frontier.”
Archbishop Odama mentions another reason for creating a system of international border control: “ We also discussed the problem of the diffusion of weapons in northern Uganda, many of which come from Sudan. The international community must help collect these instruments of death and prevent further diffusion ”.
“Lastly we appealed for humanitarian aid for internally displaced persons victims of the war, who are about 1.3 million”.
“Mr Egeland assured us that UN would intervene with concrete humanitarian aid” the Archbishop of Gulu said. “On the political level the UN envoy said that the United Nations can undertake mediation only with the Ugandan government’s consensus”.
Egeland, who described the situation in northern Uganda “the world’s greatest and most forgotten and ignored crisis”, launched an urgent appeal for collection and sending of 130 million dollars of prime necessities to northern Uganda. (L.M.) (Fides Service 12/11/2003, lines 35 words 416)
