Roadmap to Pece Peace Agreement 1988

On March 17th, 1988, in a dilapidated room at the infamous Acholi Inn Lodge in Gulu, Major General Salim Saleh of the National Resistance Army (NRA), and Uganda People’s Democratic Army’s (UPDA) Major Mike Kilama (alias Kilama part II), sat quietly, staring at each other across a rough, unstable wooden table with uneven legs. In the uneasy and awkward silence, Gen. Saleh rested one of his legs on the bottom rail of the table, making it tilt suddenly to one side, noisily rattling the bottles of Coca Cola sitting atop the table. Maj. Kilama instinctively lunged forward and steadied the table. Both men laughed nervously; relieved the unbalanced table broke the ice and eased the tension in the room.

The two soldiers had fought each other fiercely for two years.  Tens of thousands of people had died. Many people had been driven into “camps” by the NRA’s “Operation Fiaka Kufiaka,” which among other things, resulted in the depletion of livestock in northern and eastern Uganda. The primary aim of the operation was “weeding and identifying of UNLA remnants and rebel collaborators”. The strategy involved cordon and search of villages, homesteads and schools, and rounding up the population, who were transported off to various locations around the country for screening. Many of these people disappeared or died under unexplained circumstances in Luzira prison, Kivurura Government Farm (turned prison), army detaches and safe houses. Scores also died from mysterious illnesses upon their release from incarceration.

However, on this particular day at Acholi Inn, the mood was sombre. It was the second round of “talks” between the fledgling NRA government of Yoweri Museveni, and the UPDA rebel group that had contested the NRA’s brutality through a rebellion in northern Uganda. Gen Saleh, who was NRA Chief of Combat Operations, led the government team; while Lt. Col. John Angelo Okello Okeno, headed the insurgent delegation, which included Maj. Kilama and Charles Alai; but Maj. Kilama was the UPDA’s pointman.

At an earlier session of the negotiations, the talks were chaired by Mzee Vincent Olanya, with Eliya Obita, acting as secretary.  The two men, including Alai, were civilian local leaders. At the meeting, Gen. Saleh told the UPDA team that “this negotiation is a military matter and does not require the involvement of confusing third party agents – like politicians or local leaders.”  According to Saleh, that was “the position of the government and that of NRA.”

That is why when the second round of talks opened at Acholi Inn in March 1988, there were no civilian leaders in attendance.  The UPDA were not optimistic, as Lt. Col. Angelo Okello was to assert, “Too much had already been said and done, but the NRA had not honoured any previously signed agreements”.

If words had to be unsaid and blame apportioned later, neither side wanted to openly point the finger at the other.  According to Saleh, he was offering the ‘bandits’ an “olive branch” and “a way to redeem themselves” which included “full integration of UPDA fighters into the NRA if the talks were successful”

Maj. Kilama said that “the UPDA was seeking reconciliation and working with the NRA to build Uganda, but not surrender, resolution of the Nairobi Peace Accord and a peaceful way of life into civilian life for any of their fighters who didn’t want to join the NRA.”  He accepted in principle the offer of integration, but then indicated that many of his colleagues “might feel uncomfortable about joining an army whose name included the word “Resistance”.”  The Major, never quite spelt out the reason why “Resistance” was unacceptable to the UPDA, but went on to say that “this understanding would only work if the NRA stopped killing innocent civilians.”

General Saleh countered that he could “not offer to change the name of the National Resistance Army” without reference to his “boss [Museveni]”.  Saleh also out-rightly rejected any notion that the NRA was murdering civilians, and insisted for the record that, “the NRA does not kill innocent civilians”. As if on second thought, he qualified his earlier statement by restating that “If it (the NRA) did; then they [civilians] were either part of the bandits or collaborators or were killed in the heat of battle, while the NRA conducted operations against the UPDA”.

Gen. Saleh,   Maj. Kilama, and Lt. Col. Angelo Okello, knew that any undertakings they made in their discussions would still have to be endorsed by their bosses, President Yoweri Museveni and Brig. Odong Latek, respectively.

Throughout the two-year war, the UPDA had accused the NRA of unprovoked massacres of innocent civilians; arrest and harassment of former soldiers; confiscation of livestock; looting, burning of homesteads and fields of crops and food granaries.

At a particularly sticky stage in the negotiations, Maj. Kilama learnt that Gen Saleh was distributing money to some of his UPDA colleagues in the peace-team. He confronted the General, who responded that “the money was merely “facilitation”.”  Many observers now believe that the “facilitation” was an effort to lure a section of the UPDA into joining the NRA, bringing with them much-needed information about rebel operations; but more importantly to cause a rift in the ranks of the UPDA.

Whilst the talks continued, other “mishaps” took place that threatened to derail the process.  Lt Steven Obote, one of two UPDA officers co-ordinating the peace efforts with Salim Saleh, was together with other junior UPDA officers “accidentally” killed by the NRA in March 1988, as he tried to organize a meeting between senior UPDA and NRA commanders at his family home in Bar Dege. Many people, especially Obote’s family, believe that the killing was deliberate; the only mishap according to the family was that the NRA believed other top UPDA commanders had already assembled at the venue.

Kilama and the UPDA team decided that they had to consult their overall commander, Brig Odong Latek, at the UPDA headquarters “somewhere in the bush”.

After days of consultation, the talks duly resumed and concluded with a draft agreement to be ratified after further consultation by both sides.

Unfortunately, two days after the “successful conclusion” of the talks, doubts began to surface about the validity of the whole exercise. Word got around that the UPDA negotiation team readily and happily accepted money from Gen Saleh in exchange for their surrender and information on UPDA strategic operations.  The political leadership of the UPDA in exile issued a statement disassociating itself from the negotiations, as a split also emerged among the UPDA commanders in the field.

As the UPDA was scrambling to salvage what was left of the political and military outfit, Gen Saleh flew by helicopter to the UPDA base in the “bush” in May 1998 and met with Brig Odong Latek, who reportedly told the General that he “supported the peace process in principle”, but was “suspicious about the motive of the NRA”, especially “the seriousness of the NRA in the talks, otherwise they [NRA] would not be “mistakenly” killing UPDA officers”, and so it would seem “they [NRA] were using the “peace talks” as a ploy to get the UPDA in the open”.

Gen Saleh left the UPDA base unsatisfied with Brig Latek’s response and immediately sought a meeting with Lt Col Angelo Okello in Gulu; from where the UPDA peace team announced a day after the meeting, that it had replaced Brig Latek with Angelo Okello, the head of UPDA delegation team who was also commander of UPDA Division One in Gulu.

Brig. Latek on his part cautioned Maj Kilama and Lt. Col. Angello Okello that “if the NRA failed to honour an agreement when they were in the bush, why should they honour one now that they are in government?”

And so the UPDA was split right in the middle, one team headed by Lt Col Angelo Okello came out and signed the draft agreement in what became known as “The Pece Agreement” on June 3, 1988 with President Museveni in Gulu.

The other team remained in the bush under Brig Odong Latek and continued with their war against the NRA.

The UPDM – the political wing of the UPDA – under the leadership of former Prime Minister Eric Otema Alimadi (RIP) later signed a peace agreement with the Museveni government in July 1990 in Addis Ababa (the Addis Ababa Peace Agreement); which was disputed by some UPDM/A factional leaders on the basis that “the signatories were no longer part of the organisation.”

The Addis Ababa agreement was signed even though in less than two years after the Pece Peace Agreement, the military officers of the former rebel group UPDA, who had been integrated into the NRA, were arrested in January 1990 and charged with treason.

Prominent among them were Lt Col Ochero Nangai and Major Mike Lapyem, who died in detention under mysterious circumstances; while Lt Col Walter Odoch and Capt Okumu Cana fled into exile. Capt. Cana later died from a mysterious illness in Sweden; while Lt. Col. Odoch remains in exile.  Lt Col Angelo Okello later also died from a mysterious illness.

In February 1990, Maj. Mike Kilama was killed under mysterious circumstances. The NRA says that Kilama was shot as he tried to escape to Sudan to wage war.

The death of Kilama and co dented any trust that had been built between the NRA and the remnants of the UPDA and other rebel groups in the region and Eastern Uganda.

In déjà vu moment for leaders of the rebellion and signatories to the peace agreements, the NRA government responded with the brutal scorched earth “Operation North” under Maj Gen David Tinyefunze in 1990.  The Operation completely cut off the entire northern region from the rest of Uganda for six months (although officially, it is said three months); no persons were allowed to get in or out of the region; all NGOs, humanitarian workers and most white Catholic priests were expelled from the region. Since no information was allowed to filter through, it created a vacuum as to what was taking place in the North.

The Political Leaders who spoke out against the methods deployed during Operation North by Gen Tinyefunze were arrested and tortured; prominent among them were Andrew Adimola, Tiberio Okeny, Ojok Mulozi, Omara Atubo and Zachary Olum.

The people of northern Uganda were yet again reliving the nightmares of another failed peace overture.

Earlier in 1986, The Goodwill Mission led by Mzee Tiberio Okeny Atwoma, which included elders Leander Komakec and Peter Odok, traversed the bushes of northern Uganda under very difficult circumstances in a mediation attempt between the government and the UPDA rebels.  The Mission made its recommendations in December 1987 to President Museveni that “the war should be ended through a negotiated settlement.”  Museveni’s responded by offering Mzee Atwoma a ministerial office for his effort, but said that “there was only one solution to the war and that was military”; Atwoma rejected the offer as he “felt it would undermine trust with the rebels, jeopardising the entire peace process.”

Following Operation North by General Tinyefunze, which came on the heels of Operations White Gold 1987 and Sim Sim in 1988 under Gen Salim Saleh, a humiliated but determined Acholi Leadership called on the government to negotiate with the rebels and stop the blood-letting in the region. Museveni responded by saying that “he only believes in finishing the war militarily”.  “Our work is to kill these people,” he said.

Meanwhile, corruption in the army had become an open secret, so the donor community in wanting to be seen to be doing something in accounting for their “aid money”, pressurised Museveni into “cutting his Defence budget”.  Museveni resisted the call for sometime, but eventually caved when he announced that “due to public pressure he was going to pursue both the military and negotiated options.”

He reluctantly gave his Minister for the Pacification of Northern Uganda, Mrs Betty Bigombe the go-ahead to talk to Kony, who had emerged after the demise of UPDA and Alice Lakwena’s Holy Spirit – in what became known as the Bigombe Peace Initiative which started in 1993 in Pagik, Aswa County.  At their meeting, Museveni left Bigombe under no illusion that he was not ready to talk peace, “the LRA are not rebels, they are just bandits without political grievances or a political agenda, the gun is the only language these bandits will understand”, he told her.

At the request of Bigombe (who reported directly to Museveni), to senior UPDF commanders in Acholi region, a total ceasefire was declared in which rebels were allowed to move freely in a “demilitarised zone” and at times mixed with NRA soldiers in barracks and trading centres, giving people the chance to enjoy a semblance of peace similar to what we have today.

Senior NRA officers such as Col Samuel Wasswa – who had replaced Col Peter Kerim as commander of the 4th Brigade, Gulu; Brig Joram Mugume – NRA Chief of Combat Operations and Lt Col Fred Tolit – Director of Military Intelligence; accompanied Bigombe to the bush and participated in the direct negotiations with the LRA whose delegation included, Field Commanders George Omona, Jenaro Bongomin, Jackson Achama, Yardin Tolbert Nyeko and Cirilo Jurukadri Odego.

Negotiations continued until February 1994, when President Museveni gave the LRA a seven-day ultimatum “to come out of the bush or face being killed”.  The announcement was made in Koch Goma whilst the president addressed an audience that included the former head of state, the man he had toppled, Gen Tito Okello Lutwa. A wave of attacks was launched on “LRA assembly zones and suspected bases” after the expiry of the ultimatum.

An initiative that began in 1992 to “encouraged the Acholi” to form a militia armed with bows and arrows to thwart rebel attacks on villages was intensified under the watch of Bigombe and J.B Ochaya (RIP) former RDC, Gulu; the LRA responded by launching a wave of violent attacks on civilians and carried out mass abduction, limb amputations, and other gross atrocities under the very watchful eye of the NRA who never directly engaged the LRA in combat.  The war on innocent civilians had been elevated.

After two years of extreme violence in which some of the worst atrocities were witnessed by the people of northern Uganda, two prominent Gulu elders Mzee Okot Ogoni and Mzee Lagony said that “something must be done to stop this mayhem”, and so initiated another meeting with the now reluctant LRA rebels in yet another attempt at peace talks in what became known as the Gulu elders’ peace initiative – 1996.

In July of that year, the two old men left Gulu after notifying UPDF commanders and the RDC’s office that “they had been given the go-ahead by UPDF leadership to talk to the LRA in an attempt to jump-start negotiations”; they were murdered the very day they arrived at the venue.  Their death sent shock waves across Acholi sub-region and remains mysterious.  Another blow to a negotiated settlement to the war had been attained.

Years of lull and misery went by after the death of the two old men, before the Acholi in the Diaspora came together in yet another call-out for peace, this time to the international community, to get more involved and pressurised the parties to the conflict to resolve their differences in a negotiated settlement.  They organised and concluded their first peace conference called Kacoke Madit (KM) in April 1997.  Following the success of KM, the Rome-based Catholic peace movement Community of Sant’Egidio organised two meetings in Rome between the Museveni government headed by Amama Mbabazi and ESO Director David Pulkol and representatives of the LRM headed by Dr James Obita in Rome in December 1997 in what become known as the Community of Sant’Egidio Peace Initiative.

SantEgidio’s primary concern and intrest was the release of the girls who had been abducted from St.Catherine Aboke – the Aboke girls.

Obita left for Juba at the end of the second meeting in January 1998 for consultation with his boss, “only to be”, according him “immediately arrested and sentenced to death by Joseph Kony”, but he was “later released” and left the LRA for a prolonged period of time only to return in the recently scuttled Juba peace talks.  Obita says that Kony accused him of “taking money to betray the LRA when he held a meeting with [then] minister in charge of northern Uganda, Owiny Dollo in London”.

After the failure of Saint’Egidio, the Carter Center took up the mantle following another consultation by Acholi in the diaspora, to mediate between not only the warring parties but the Uganda and Sudan governments, who were accusing each other of supporting rebel groups from each respective country. However, at the dismay of the victims and those who initiated contact with the Carter Centre, the LRA was excluded from the negotiations that culminated in the signing of a peace accord in Nairobi on December 8 between Uganda and Sudan.

Members of parliament from Northern Uganda who had been critical of the military option, expressed concerned that the government was not doing enough to build trust with the LRA and so convinced the Uganda Parliament, following relentless lobbying from the likes of Reagan Okumu, Michael Ocula & co, – to pass the Amnesty Bill, declaring amnesty for “rebels who surrendered and renounced rebellion.”

Almost simultaneously, in January 2002, a Carter Centre official, Joyce Neu, met with Joseph Kony in Southern Sudan in an effort to “include the LRA into the Nairobi peace accord” between Uganda and Sudan; Kony rejected any late inclusion into the deal and said that “they [LRA] were not a party to the negotiations”.

The Amnesty Bill, although initially rejected by Museveni was duely passed; Museveni said he only went along with the amnesty due “to pressure” but rejected any extension of the amnesty to the LRA top commanders like Kony, Otti, Tabuley, Odiambo, Ongwen, etc.  With the Amnesty in place, offices were opened in Gulu and Kitgum, prompting the extensive use of radio messages and other mediums by the local leaders to encourage the rebels to come out of the bush.

Other keen observers also joined the campaign to encourage the rebels to surrender under the Amnesty arrangement.  In April 2001, an Italian priest, Fr. Tarcisio Pazzaglia and a cultural leader Rwot Oywak Ywakamoi met LRA Commander Moses Okello in Pajule, this meeting failed after the meeting was interrupted by a UPDF attack on the venue.

Also in the same year, NRM stalwart Col Walter Ochora – former Gulu LC5 Chair and current RDC, led a team of UPDF officers in a meeting with LRA commander Onen Kamdulu on the outskirts of Gulu.  For nearly two months the LRA were given a “demilitarised zone” in which contacts with the rebels would be made.  The on-going meeting came to an abrupt end when the UPDF attacked rebel positions within the demilitarised zones because “the LRA was using the opportunity to abduct and regroup”, the army said.

With the LRA scattered across northern Uganda and Southern Sudan, Rwot Oywak, Rwot Lugai and Fr Calos Rodriguez made yet another contact with LRAs Maj. Onekomon Ki Koko in another effort to drum up support for the rebels to take up amnesty. That meeting was also attacked by the UPDF in which Fr Carlos Rodriguez sustained injuries.

Prior to the amnesty law, the UPDF launched ‘Operation Iron Fist’ in March 2002 attacking LRA bases in Southern Sudan where “Kony avoided being killed by the whisker”, but his Kaunda suit was not so lucky and “was captured.”  Operation Iron Fist resulted in the LRA pouring back into Northern Uganda and a wave of atrocious brutality and killing sprees against innocent civilians by both the LRA and UPDF resumed as never before seen in the entire duration of the war.

The Catholic Archbishop of Gulu Diocese, John Baptist Odama, and the retired Anglican Bishop of Kitgum Diocese, McBaker Ochola, initiated another effort to mediate between the warring parties in 2002 in what became known as the Religious Leaders’ Mediation Team.

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A series of meetings were conducted with a team of LRA commanders headed by Brig Charles Tabuley and Brig Tolbert Yardin Nyeko; the religious leaders’ team which also included Acholi MPs Okumu Reagan and Michael Ocula reported directly to president Museveni.  Okumu recently through a serialisation of his experiences on the peace team observed that violence did not stop, in fact President Museveni used the opportunity first to pour scorn on the LRA in his letters to the LRA, but later made proposals for safe assembly zones and ceasefire arrangements, culminating at the end of August 2002 in the appointment of the Presidential Peace Team.

The Presidential Peace Team (PPT) which was headed by Hon Eriya Kategaya and also included Salim Saleh, Bishops Ochola and Odama, MPs Norbert Mao and Reagan Okumu began work in March 2003 and were faced with financial constraints right from the beginning – it is fair to say that the PPT never really took off.  Their work came to an abrupt end when the venue for their proposed only meeting with the LRA was attacked by the UPDF in Lapul – Pader district, prompting Bishop Ochola to observe that “they were being used as bait”.

By this time, the Rome-based Catholic peace movement Community of Sant’Egidio was making a second attempt at mediating between the Museveni government and the LRA.  In 2003, two members of the Community of Sant’Egidio went to Gulu in an effort to try to work out a proposal to convince the LRA to once again come to Rome for negotiations with Uganda government representatives, something the rebels were reluctant to accept, especially when mistrust had built up to boiling point.  This second attempt never therefore got anywhere.

Betty Bigombe then told the world that she had constantly been in contact with the LRA and Kony, and should be given a second chance to lure the rebels out of the bush; it was 2004, a ceasefire was agreed in November following a number of meetings between LRAs Brig Sam Kolo – also main spokesman for the LRA at the time and Bigombe, which also included other various groups such as Acholi traditional leaders, religious leaders, MPs and district political leaders.

 

The meetings culminated in the Minister of Internal Affairs, Dr Ruhakana Rugunda, shaking hands with some of the LRA commanders in Paluda (Palabek) on December 29, 2004. However, a cease-fire agreement that should have been signed the following day never materialised with both sides accusing each other for the failure.  The LRA’s chief negotiator and spokesman, Brig Sam Kolo “was rescued from the LRA” by the UPDF; hostilities resumed, the LRA crossed into the DRC jungles, where they remain holed up to date.

There was great optimism when the Juba peace process kicked off under the mediation of Southern Sudan’s Vice President Dr Riek Machar.

When Uganda finally caved in to “outside pressure” to accept the invitation from Dr Riek Machar to go and talk to the LRA in Juba, the Museveni government was very succinct in their reason for going to Juba: “there is simply nothing to talk about, the LRA did not go to Garamba as tourists but due to pressure from the UPDF”, so it was simply a case of offering a “soft landing”.

Even though Rugunda and Okello Oryem were dispatched to oversee and draw up plans for the “LRA soft landing”, during celebrations to mark International Labour Day at Kololo Airstrip on May 1, 2008, President Museveni said that he never sent the team that had been negotiating peace with the LRA in Juba.

Meanwhile, once the talks got underway, the Museveni government embarked on a “confidence building” mission – MPs, district, cultural and religious leaders, relatives and friends  of LRA commanders including Kony’s mother were ferried to Kony’s Mecca in Garamba in droves.  The result; intrigue, mistrust, deceit, brown envelops, air-times and other state house goodies exchanged hands; the ICC arrest warrant was dangled as “being looked into”; bad propaganda spread across the airwaves and donned print media pages; Salim Saleh held a secret meeting with some LRA peace negotiators in Mombasa where “a presidential message was delivered in brown envelopes” – all playing crucial roles in undermining any meaningful negotiations, and fuelling a feud within rebel ranks that culminated in the execution of Kony’s deputy Maj Gen Vincent Otti and others.

The talks resulted in the signing of the first-ever cessation of hostilities in 23 years since 1986.  It brought about the semblance of peace that currently prevails in the region.

The fate of the Juba talks was eventually sealed in December 2008 when the Ugandan, Congo and Sudan armies launched “Operation Lightening Thunder” on the bases of the LRA scattering the rebels, further deep into the DRC jungles and into Central African Republic (CAR).

The guns might have fallen silent, but peace is yet to come to Northern Uganda, arrests, torture and detention by government security operatives are rampant.  All along, it has been the victims who have been at the forefront in the search for peace.  The Uganda government on the other hand has been playing the role of a provocateur, profiteer and “mediator” in “stopping Acholi killing each other”.

From what was originally “Acholi killing their own brothers and sisters” to what is now a “DRC problem”; this war was never a Ugandan problem in the first place.

In A Billion Lives: An Eye Witness Report From the Frontlines of Humanity, Mr Jan Egeland, the former UN humanitarian chief who famously described the war in northern Uganda as the world’s biggest forgotten crisis, confirms what many observers have previously echoed when he says that President Yoweri Museveni has never been interested in the talks but finishing the war militarily. “Let me be categorical–there will only be a military solution to this problem. I have never and will never send a delegation of the [ruling] NRM party to talk with Kony” Egeland quoted Museveni to have declared to him.  Can we ever talk of peace in northern Uganda if thousands are continuing to die in DRC or CAR? Who is to say that it will not spill back into Northern Uganda?

The writer is a human rights advocate in the UK; [email protected]