The Foreign Service Journal, February 2007

or Betty Bigombe, the choice was grim: tend to her children or to her suffering people. She could not do both. Bigombe is an Acholi from northern Uganda, for 20 years the scene of one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises. It is the result of an insurgency that has made the bulk of the population victims of the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army’s religious fanaticism. Many live in squalid camps set up by the government for their protection. Africa experts often draw parallels between the suffering in northern Uganda and in the Darfur region of western Sudan. A major difference is that while the U.N. Security Council started addressing the Darfur crisis seriously in 2004, just a year after it erupted, there was no Council acknowledgment of the Acholi plight for 18 years. The future for the Acholi seemed to brighten in 2006 when peace talks began after the Ugandan government imposed a unilateral cease-fire. For much of the conflict, Bigombe has tried to be a peacemaker. Now affiliated with the U.S. Institute of Peace, where she met with this reporter on Nov. 17, she is writing a book on the Acholi nightmare. An attractive, gregarious woman, she evinces no regrets about her life choices and the sacrifices they have entailed. Today, for the first time since 1994, when the last promis- ing peace attempt collapsed, her efforts and those of others have a real chance of bearing fruit. Appointment as Peace Mediator In 1986, the year the LRA rebels started their war, Bigombe was selected for membership in the Ugandan Parliament. Two years later, President Yoweri Museveni asked her to seek a resolution of the conflict, granting her the rank of minister. She was 34, married to a Ugandan diplomat and the mother of two young children. Although Bigombe knew it meant separation from her children for long periods, she accepted the president’s offer and moved from Kampala to the country’s embattled north- ern region. She traveled home whenever she could, but the risks were high because a rebel attack could come at any time. On one journey, she hitched a ride in a police car, one of only two vehicles in the town of Gulu, her headquarters. The car broke down, forcing her to walk a terrifying 36 miles. Bigombe describes her early visits to the camps: “Each time I went, it gave them so much hope. They smiled. It gave them life.” They also felt safer when she was there because, Bigombe says, LRA attacks on the camps seemed to occur only in her absence. Thus, she had good reason to persist despite the personal hardship — “There were no telephones, no light, absolutely nothing, not even water” — especially at the beginning. Not long after her appointment as a peace mediator, her husband was posted to Germany, and took the children with him. Bigombe supported the move, though it was a painful tradeoff: she got to be a full-time peace mediator at the price of not seeing her children grow up. But she was relieved that they had the basics for a decent life. She says she used to tell herself, “At least they are getting food. At least they have shelter. At least they go to school. And they have a father who is with them all the time.” (He has since died.) In the Maelstrom In contrast, her Acholi brethren had nothing, she says. “If they get one meal a day they are very happy. I became A Q UEST FOR P EACE IN U GANDA B ETTY B IGOMBE HAS BEEN PERSONALLY INVOLVED FOR MUCH OF THE PAST 18 YEARS IN TRYING TO RESOLVE THE CRISIS IN NORTHERN U GANDA . S OON HER GOAL MAY BE REALIZED . F B Y G EORGE G EDDA George Gedda, a frequent contributor to the Journal , covers the State Department for The Associated Press. 48 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / F E B R U A R Y 2 0 0 7