Christianity Today has published an interview with Rory Anderson, senior Africa policy advisor for World Vision and friend of Uganda-CAN, on "what American Christians can do to help resolve the LRA conflict." Rory says, "This conflict can end. Just as the U.S. government took seriously peace inside southern Sudan, likewise this is a related conflict. There have been sustained advocacy efforts by American Christians around southern Sudan—the same efforts apply and need to happen inside northern Uganda. This type of advocacy brings change." Read more here.

Today’s Daily Vision reports that the district chairmen of Gulu, Kitgum, and Pader districts have proposed that a reward be offered for the capture of Joseph Kony and the four other LRA commanders indicted by the International Criminal Court (ICC). They gave the proposal to officials from the ICC, which issued the arrest warrants in October, during a recent trip to Europe.

The New Vision reports that the United Kingdom will reduce its budget support for the Government of Uganda, diverting the money to humanitarian relief efforts in northern Uganda.

Sweden’s Foreign Aid Minister announced on Friday that Sweden plans on withholding $5 million dollars (US) worth of aid from Uganda because of concerns that the Ugandan government is not facilitating a smooth transition to multi-party democracy. Instead, Sweden will give $3 million dollars in aid to UN humanitarian agencies working in northern Uganda.

Sweden's move is believed to have been prompted by the arrest and continued detention of Uganda's primary opposition party leader, Col. Kizza Besigye. Sweden’s decision makes it the fifth country, after Britain, Norway, Ireland and the Netherlands, to withhold aid from Uganda within the past year over concerns about democratic development. Read more at Xinhua.

The Daily Vision reports that the British High Commissioner, Francis Gordon, has said that the war in northern Uganda will be discussed by the UN Security Council within weeks. Gordon said, “This will be the very first time the Council particularly discusses the LRA rebellion. We hope whatever resolutions they come up with will help quicken the end of the suffering of the people in northern Uganda.”

Uganda-CAN and other advocacy and humanitarian organizations, who have long called on the UN Security Council to end its silence on the crisis in northern Uganda, welcome Gordon’s statements and the hope they contain for a peaceful resolution to the conflict.

British leaders have expressed limited interest in raising northern Uganda at the Security Council, a move long advocated by Uganda-CAN as one avenue to expediting the resolution of the war.

In a written statement posted on the British Parliament website, the British Minister of State for Trade, Mr Ian Pearson, said, "The UK has supported previous efforts to raise northern Uganda in the United Nations (UN) Security Council. As presidency, the UK has invited Jan Egeland, the UN Under Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Co-ordinator to provide a briefing on humanitarian issues in Africa on December 19."

"A number of non governmental organisations have written to the foreign secretary, advocating for a UN Security Council resolution during the UK's term of office. We are currently considering their ideas and how we can most effectively continue to address the situation in northern Uganda," Pearson said.

The United States takes over the Presidency of the Security Council next February, and activists in the U.S. will push then for a resolution if one has not already been introduced.

Reuters reports that the U.N. relief coordinator urged the Security Council on Friday not to water down its resolution on protecting civilians subject to abuse, whether in Northern Uganda, Sudan or the Ivory Coast. The 15-member council, in an all-day debate among dozens of U.N. ambassadors, is considering a document on how to stop atrocities against women, men and children in war zones.

"This is not the time to end up with a weak resolution on the protection of civilians," Jan Egeland, the humanitarian relief coordinator, said. "It would be the ultimate irony when faced with the mass of information of tens of thousands of deaths, and tens of thousands of rapes, and tens of thousands of children being abused."

Egeland and Canada's Ambassador Allan Rock cited massive violations in northern Uganda. However, the Security Council has never put Uganda on its agenda, partly due to objections from Kampala. Uganda's U.N. ambassador, Francis Butagira, bluntly told the council it did not want the issue on its agenda now "that we are reaching the tail end of the rebellion."

Last week on Thursday, December 1, more than 2,000 people participated in walks throughout Germany for the lost children of northern Uganda. The producers of Lost Children, a documentary about the children of northern Uganda, led the walk in Cologne. In the coming days, Uganda-CAN's German partner, the Society for Threatened Peoples, will provide news and photos from the walks.

On December 9, the United Nations Security Council will open debate on the Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict, and will consider passing a new resolution on the same subject.

The changing nature of conflicts and the realization that the greatest number of casualties in conflict are civilians sparked the Secretary-General to submit an initial report on the protection of civilians in armed conflict to the Security Council in 1999 and the Security Council to pass two subsequent resolutions. In the following 4 reports, the issue of the state’s responsibility for the protection of civilians, regardless of whether the violence is perpetrated by state or non-state actors, increasingly emerged as a critical focus of the Protection of Civilians agenda. The Secretary-General’s 2001 report highlighted not only the responsibility of the state to protect civilians, but also emphasized the international community’s responsibility in the face of a state that is unable or unwilling to ensure the security of its populations.

Uganda-CAN believes that an affirmation of the agreed responsibilities of the international community is an essential component of any new Security Council resolution on the Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict. Such affirmation is critical to develop a robust UN that can protect civilians in chronic crisis situations, like northern Uganda.

Paul Rusesabagina called on the international community yesterday to fulfill the promises it made to never tolerate crises like the 1994 Rwandan genocide again by acting to stop the conflict in northern Uganda. Rusesabagina, whose heroic actions as a hotel manager saved hundreds of lives during the genocide were the basis for the recent film Hotel Rwanda, was speaking yesterday at Syracuse University in New York.

Rusesabagina commented that although the world promised "never again" to allow crises like the Rwandan genocide to go unnoticed, devastating conflicts in the DR Congo, Darfur, and northern Uganda have received little attention. He said "What is this silence? It is complicity. It can be called nothing else" - a powerful call to action from a man who witnessed first-hand the horrific consequences of inaction.

The New Vision reports that many leaders in Gulu are calling on the international community to arrest Joseph Kony, Vincent Otti and the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) top commanders, before organizing peace talks.

Briefing journalists yesterday at Nakasero on Otti's remarks about peace talks with the Government, the leaders said Kony and Otti should be killed. "Issuing arrest warrants for Kony and his colleagues by the International Criminal Court is not enough. If killing them is the only solution to ending the 20-year insurgency, then government should not waste time on having peace talks," Gulu LC5 chairman Col. Walter Ochora said.

"The UN has not played its role to end the war in the north. In other countries it has made interventions, rescued those abducted but this has not happened in Uganda. In Angola, Dr. Jonas Savimbi was killed. Can't that happen to Kony?" Ochora asked. Read more here.

The UN today released its appeal for humanitarian relief funding for 2006. The highest ever appeal by the UN, the press release cites a wave of humanitarian crises over the last year that have called for more resources. Northern Uganda is one area benefitting from UN relief assistance.

“Unfortunately, many of these disasters have been largely forgotten by the international community,” said Jan Egeland, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator. Egeland in the past has noted that northern Uganda tops the list of neglected emergencies.

"I do not believe we are asking too much," Egeland said. "We are asking exactly the amount of 48 hours of military spending in this world or we're asking for the equivalent of two cups of coffee per person in the industrialized world."

The Quaker UN Office today released the letter signed by twenty major international non-governmental organizations that was delivered to the United Nations Security Council prior to their recent trip to Uganda. The letter, available here, lamented the suffering caused by the war, layed out a series of myths about the war (presumably often used by the Government of Uganda) as well as the corresponding truths, and offered suggestions for questions that the Security Council delegation could pose to President Museveni.

Though the delegation reviewed the letter, their comments in a press conference in Uganda and their report to the UN upon their return lack any trace of recognition of the scope of the crisis.