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UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

UGANDA: Peace committee appeals for international help

KAMPALA, 20 June 2003 (IRIN) - The chairman of a northern Uganda peace committee has launched an impassioned plea to the international community to intervene to stop the country's 17-year civil war. The appeal was made by the chairman of the Oduru Kuc committee, a new body comprising local, national, and international organisations working to try to rekindle peace talks between the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebels and the Ugandan government.

Speaking late on Thursday - a day after the latest spate of LRA attacks terrorised Lira and Gulu districts - Archbishop Jean Baptist Odama told IRIN that he had resolved to try every possible means to prompt global institutions into action.

"We’ve been crying, we’ve been shouting, we’ve tried everything to get people to listen, and we hear nothing in return. Do they really mind about what’s happening in the north at all?", he asked. He added that it was high time northern Uganda received the same degree of international attention as that granted to eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

"In the DRC, [the district of] Ituri’s case is being heard. The international community has stepped in. Perhaps because this is one tribe against another [Lendu and Hema] they could better visualise the suffering in this conflict," he told IRIN.

He said that after southern Sudan, the war in northern Uganda was a close second for the world’s longest-running civil war, which might explain the lack of international attention paid to it.

"The problem with modern media is that it is like a shop selling items. Once an item stops selling, they don’t stock it any more. This item has become stale," Odama said.

His comments come after a week of relentless LRA attacks on civilians in the north. This week the LRA twice attacked a trading centre in Lira District, on one night killing 10 people and abducting nearly 100 children, and on another abducting four children and razing hundreds of homes. They also threatened a campaign of violence against Catholic missions and attacked Anaka displaced people's camp in Gulu, brutally hacking three civilians to death.

"We have been seeing almost 18 years of war, and no international agent has stepped in," he said.

Themes: (IRIN) Children, (IRIN) Conflict, (IRIN) Human Rights

[ENDS]

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