The Foreign Service Journal, February 2007

office after years of blood-stained rule. (Three years later Taylor was taken to The Hague for trial, not for acts committed in Liberia but for his support for a ruthless rebel movement in neighboring Sierra Leone. That trial is expected this spring.) In addition, Bigombe believes that Museveni is showing greater interest in peace negotiations than he has before. He has, for instance, agreed to provide new levels of manpower and financial resources to the negotia- tion. “The northern Uganda situation has tainted Museveni’s image,” she says. The one time before now when peace appeared to be at hand, in 1994, the process collapsed, with the rebels claiming that Museveni had acted in bad faith. The Real Test Museveni’s interest in a settlement has seemed to rise in response to growing international awareness of the gravity of the situation in northern Uganda. Jan Egeland, who served as U.N. undersecretary for humanitarian affairs until December 2006, has said the conflict is the world’s most neg- lected humanitarian crisis. Egeland contends that the war has forced northern Ugandans “to live in massive displaced persons camps that are not found anywhere in the world.” Difficult as conditions may be in northern Uganda, they are better than they were, Bigombe says. LRA ab- ductions of children stopped in 2005, except when the rebels need extra hands for brief periods to do hauling or other tasks. When abductions were common, children from rural areas would routinely trek long distances — up to 12 kilometers, Bigombe says — each evening to the nearest town to avoid capture by LRA bandits. Each morning, they made the return trip. People at the camps, Bigombe says, are now free to come and go to tend crops they plant outside camp limits. Overcrowding in makeshift housing has been eased. Curfews have been eliminated. “Nobody’s being restricted anymore,” Bigombe says. Some people have returned to their homes, but most don’t dare do so because Kony, although weakened, could regroup, “and come back with renewed brutality,” she says. Wariness about his intentions should be under- standable given his track record, she adds. Bigombe says she is worried that, despite progress, some parties to the conflict who ostensibly want peace may actually be interested in prolong- ing the war. As an example, she says LRA negotiators may feel threatened by peace because a settlement could leave them unemployed. This could explain what she describes as the “unrealistic demands” by LRA dele- gates; for instance, the dismantling of the Ugandan Army. “How do you deal with the spoilers?” she asks. “How do you make them promoters of peace?” The real test for the Juba negotia- tion will not hinge on whether an agreement is signed, she says, noting that failed peace agreements are the norm in Africa. “The sticking point is whether it will be implemented,” she says. F E B R U A R Y 2 0 0 7 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 51 Museveni’s interest in a settlement has seemed to rise in response to growing international awareness of the gravity of the situation in northern Uganda.