The Uganda Conflict Action Network wants to wish all its members and supporters a happy and peaceful Holidays!

In just six months, we have come a long way together. We helped catalyze a September Senate briefing on the crisis in northern Uganda. We organized a dozen of the more than forty October GuluWalks for the children of northern Uganda, gaining participation from tens of thousands of people (such as many of you!) and coverage from scores of news outlets, including BBC World News. In November, language that we helped draft to support a peaceful resolution to the conflict was used in a bill passed by the U.S. Congress. We recently met with the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Africa and challenged her on our government's policy on the issue. Our volunteers have appeared on television and radio talk shows around the country, pressing for attention to this crisis. Last Tuesday, December 13th, hundreds of you made phone calls to the U.S. Congress, demanding that peace in northern Uganda be a foreign policy priority.

Yet until this tragedy is over and children in northern Uganda are able to sleep in their own beds at night, our work will remain incomplete. We remain resolutely committed until our actions translate into substantial change for people in northern Uganda. In 2006, we want to reach out to new groups and expand our membership to more than 5,000 people, building a robust constituency for northern Uganda in the United States. We want to develop a new advocacy coalition that unites people in Kampala, London, New York and Washington working for United Nations Security Council action for peace. With your commitment, and our friends at GuluWalk and the Name Campaign, we believe these lofty goals are possible.

Before we move forth into 2006, though, we want to thank so many of you for your efforts and actions this year in this struggle for peace in northern Uganda. You have inspired us and given new hope to a once hopeless situation. This season, all of us at the Uganda-CAN team want to wish you and your family a restful and peaceful holiday!

One final wish before 2005 comes to an end: mail off the letters at our Holiday Campaign page and send them to Ambassador John Bolton and Ms. Jendayi Frazer of the State Department.

Students from Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri recently participated in a class competition. Each student in a Speech class donated $5 to a common pot; teams of students then presented about various organizations and movements, and the class voted on the most compelling presentation. Two students presented about northern Uganda and the work of Uganda-CAN, winning the competition and gaining a $150 donation for Uganda-CAN.

We extend our warm congratulations to Moreblessing Nkomo and Charles Wanyama for sharing with others the saddening realities of the crisis in northern Uganda. We encourage all the students to continue their participation in the campaign to see the war's end! These students are part of a long history of student commitment to social change, which has enabled the success of many of our world's movements for progress, from ending apartheid in South Africa to gaining equal rights for all citizens of the United States.

We are hearing from many offices on Capitol Hill that they have received large numbers of phone calls, demanding that northern Uganda receive more attention and sustained action. This is great news!

Many of the offices for members of the Uganda Caucus are sending people to the Uganda Desk at the U.S. State Department. If you call the State Department, be sure to thank them for the work that has been done and mention our policy recommendations as written on our Holiday Campaign Web page. Click here to see those recommendations in a sample letter to Jendayi Frazer, Assistant Secretary of State for Africa.

Today is the international call-in day for northern Uganda, the first of its kind in the war's twenty year history. Right now, policymakers in the United States and around the world have decided that northern Uganda--the 1000 people dying every week, the children being abducted daily and forced into committing horrible atrocities--does not merit their attention.

The only way to change this is to show them that people around the world care, and that we are watching how they respond. Today, visit our holiday campaign call-in site, pick a member of Congress, review the sample calling script, and make a call! Get a friend (or 14) to join you.

Tomorrow as part of the Holiday Campaign, Uganda-CAN is asking people throughout the United States to call in to targeted members of the U.S. Congress, demanding attention and action to make northern Uganda a priority in the months ahead. Help us flood the phone lines of key members of Congress, demanding that the United States play a more effective role in civilian protection and peacebuilding in northern Uganda! Click here for phone numbers and more information.

The Daily Monitor has published an Op/Ed by Uganda-CAN's Peter Quaranto and Michael Poffenberger, titled "Peace Talks? Let's Talk Government Commitment to Peace." In the Op/Ed, we write, "However, many in northern Uganda and the international diplomatic community have questioned the government's commitment to support [Betty] Bigombe in peacefully resolving this war. There is suspicion that the government takes only those steps necessary to placate donor pressure; neglecting to really bring necessary resources to bear for civilian protection and resolution."

We conclude: "The government has a responsibility to not only engage this opportunity for a real peace process, but to exploit it to the fullest by presenting a comprehensive peace proposal...Ultimately, the mistake of the past has been a failure to put the people of northern Uganda as the focus of the peace process. Putting them at the center of the process would raise the stakes and would help keep the parties committed to the process. It would bring light to the reality that this is more than politics; it is about the lives of millions of children and their families struggling for hope and survival. In the coming week, let's hope the LRA and the Government of Uganda don't forget that." Click here to read the entire text.

Paul Ronan, Uganda-CAN's conflict analyst, has published a powerful Op/Ed in The Buffalo News, titled "We must speak for those who aren't being heard." Click here to read the Op/Ed.

Now on the Uganda-CAN Web site, become involved in our Holiday Campaign to give children in northern Uganda the greatest gift: Peace!

1.) Read the story about a special Christmas wish.

2.) Write letters to the U.S. State Department and U.S. Mission to the United Nations telling officials to address civilian protection in northern Uganda. Click here for addresses and sample letters.

3.) Call in to targeted members of the U.S. Congress on December 13th and tell them that northern Uganda is a forgotten crisis that demands their attention and action. Click here to take action!

4.) Make a holiday contribution to peace in northern Uganda by supporting the work of Uganda-CAN as we move into the next year. You can donate online.