The Daily Monitor reports that Adrian Bradbury and Kieran Hayward, founders of GuluWalk, will visit Uganda in March to continue their mission of raising awareness on the suffering of children affected by the 19-year-long insurgency. "Making this trip to meet the children, families and communities who have been most affected, just seemed like the natural next step," said Bradbury. "More than anything we want to listen. We want to make certain that we’re telling the right stories and that we are truly an authentic voice for northern Uganda."

In response to CNN reporter Jeff Koinage's blog about northern Uganda, hundreds of people have responded about their concern for the children. Please take 3 minutes to visit the blog and add a comment, asking CNN to continue its coverage of northern Uganda and encouraging concerned people to join the advocacy movement of Uganda-CAN.

The plight and misery of children in northern Uganda was the object of a message sent 23 February by World Council of Churches (WCC) general secretary, Rev. Dr Samuel Kobia, to the Church of Uganda and the Uganda Joint Christian Council.

"It may not be right to draw up a hierarchy of suffering among the many ongoing conflicts in the region [...] but some are horrendous and tend to be ignored by the international community and the media," the message said. It calls on WCC member churches to "unequivocally denounce those responsible for committing these crimes against humanity with such impunity," and to "urge the international community to remain seized of the situation in northern Uganda and take all action needed to stop the human rights violations."

CNN's famous Anderson Cooper has featured northern Uganda in his 360 degrees blog on CNN.com. Reporter Jeff Koinage writes, "I've covered horror stories across the African continent, and every time, I tell myself I've seen it all. But nothing could have prepared me for the scenes I witnessed in the tiny dusty town of Gulu in northern Uganda."

Rosa Brooks, columnist for The Los Angeles Times, has published an Op/Ed on northern Uganda, titled "Stopping Uganda's War on Children." She writes, "On the international side, the U.N. Security Council — with U.S. leadership — should recognize the conflict as a threat to international peace and security and develop a plan that, if necessary, authorizes third-party states to use force to apprehend the indicted rebel leaders. If top rebel leaders can be removed, all indications are that the insurgency might melt away rapidly." Click here to read the article.

The Council on Foreign Relations has published a brief on the Ugandan presidential elections, published on The New York Times Web site, which talks about the war in northern Uganda. They write, Although Museveni has been credited with reform during his term, the ongoing conflict in Uganda's north between the government and the rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) has undermined his reputation. Museveni said at a CFR meeting last September that 'we have actually ended that conflict. We have defeated that terrorist group.' But most human rights experts disagree. Since about 1986, more than one million of Uganda's ethnic Acholi people have been forced into refugee camps across the north and thousands more have been killed, injured, kidnapped, or forced to become child soldiers serving LRA leader Joseph Kony.

"Many experts say Kampala could do more to quell the violence. Still others allege the government is using the conflict to justify the government's defense budget--which is protected from external audits--and maintain Museveni's status in Ugandan politics. 'If the Ugandan army wanted to wipe out the LRA it would have happened by now,' says the Africa correspondent for National Public Radio, Jason Beaubien."

The Presbyterian News Service reports Olara Otunnu, former U.N. Under-Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict, said that the world's churches are "missing in action" while 1,000 children die each week in squalid camps in northern Uganda. He said this during a global meeting of church leaders, the ninth Assembly of the World Council of churches in Brazil. "The worst place in the world today to be a child is in northern Uganda," said Otunnu. "Where is the church?"

The UN secretary general representative in the Great Lakes region, Ibrahima Fall, Monday called on the international community to create "a second Marshall Plan" to salvage countries of the region. Speaking at the opening of the 3rd inter-ministerial regional committee meeting of the Great Lakes region, Fall said his appeal was based on the need to "help countries of the region rediscover the path to stability and development."

While Uganda-CAN welcomes such attention and aid to the war-torn Great Lakes region, we believe that engagement must begin by addressing the volatile war that continues to rage in northern Uganda, southern Sudan and northeastern DRC. Protracted conflicts threaten peace and security throughout the region and will hinder development initiatives.

Ten local Los Angeles high schools are organizing Share the Love, a concert to benefit the children of northern Uganda. The concert will take place on Saturday, March 4th, from 4:30–8:30 at the Knitting Factory in Hollywood.

Organized by students from One Global Tribe, the kids will raise funds for the rehabilitation of child soldiers at the Rachele Rehabilitation Center in Lira, Uganda through ticket sales, a silent auction, and the promotion of Name Campaign dog tags each engraved with the name of a child affected by the war. Ryan Devlin (host of ET on MTV) will host SHARE THE LOVE. Three high school bands will be featured. SHARE THE LOVE hopes to bring together youth from both the east and west side of Los Angeles to take a stand on the theme of war and violence, a topic that has local and global relevance.

The evening will launch The Name Campaign, dedicated to raising awareness of the l9-year old conflict and its effect on thousands of children.

Members of the Wonewoc, LaValle and Ironton United Methodist churches in Wisconsin have sent signed petitions to their representatives and President Bush, declaring that the United States take stronger action to help end the long-running war in northern Uganda. The pastor of these three congregations, Laverne Larson, traveled to Uganda in 2003 and 2005 and was deeply moved by the suffering as a result of the war.

Pastor Larson writes, "As Christians, we have a responsibility to give voice to the oppressed, going back not just to the teachings of Jesus, but back to the time when God first gave the commandments to the Israelites through Moses (Deuteronomy 10:12-19). We lift our voices on behalf of the people of northern Uganda, especially the children, calling upon you, our elected officials, to use the power of the United States to bring justice and peace to a country that has tried hard to rebuild itself as a democracy after the decimation and destruction of AIDS and Idi Amin."

Uganda-CAN thanks Rev. Larson and the members of his churches for standing with the people of northern Uganda. We hope other faith countries around the country will follow this courageous lead.

In a recent public appearance in Tampa, Florida, an audience member posed a question to President Bush about the war in northern Uganda. President Bush, for his part, showed an awareness of the problem but a shallowness in his understanding, preferring to focus instead on Sudan for most of his answer. While the crisis in Uganda ranks as the second worst in the world according to mortality surveys conducted by the International Rescue Committee (with mortality rates three times those in Darfur, a crisis the Bush Administration has laudably payed more attention to), the scale of the emergency in Uganda remains lost on U.S. government officials and the broader public. Uganda-CAN thanks the person who posed the question and urges the Bush Administration to dedicate higher-level political resources to resolution of the crisis. The transcript of the question and answer is below.

Q: It's a small part of the world, but it's very important to me -- I'm concerned about the children in northern Uganda who are the victims of the rebel Joseph Kony. And I'm wondering if you can bring any pressure to bear on President Museveni to stop that 20-year war and free those children from the bondage that they're under.

THE PRESIDENT: Really interesting question. She's talking about the -- northern Uganda, there's a group called the Lord's Group that has been terrorizing both northern Uganda and southern Sudan. I talked to Mrs. Garang, John Garang's widow. John Garang was the head of the Sudanese in the southern part of the country that, by the way, became adopted by a church in Midland, Texas, my old home town, interestingly enough. And early in my administration I got Jack Danforth, a former United States senator, to go and negotiate an agreement between northern Sudan and southern Sudan. And John Garang was a partner in peace. Unfortunately, he died in a helicopter accident about a year ago, I think. And the reason I bring this up is that there's no doubt it would be easier to deal with the Lord's Group if we were able to achieve peace between north and south Sudan. They take advantage of instability.

I have talked to this -- I've talked about this issue with Mrs. Garang, as well as -- now, there are peacekeepers in the region, by the way, U.N. peacekeepers on the north-south accord. I hope they're effective at helping the people of southern Sudan. I have talked to Museveni, President Museveni, about the issue, as well, and I've been with him, I think, two or three times. I know on two occasions we've talked about this -- and will continue to talk to him about it. I'm very aware of the issue.

My hope is that by having a southern Sudanese -- having the peace agreement negotiated between north and south so that the southern Sudanese can begin to get their lives back in order, get the oil money moving that's guaranteed to them, will help provide -- help drive them out of any safe haven in the south, which will make it easier for all of us to deal. It's kind of a roundabout answer, but I'm aware of the problem, first of all. And secondly, I'm surprised that anybody in this audience would bring it up, and I thank you for that.

We also have got a major issue in Darfur, Sudan. I presume if you're worried about northern Uganda, you're also worried about western Sudan, as am I. The strategy there was to encourage African Union troops to try to bring some sense of security to these poor people that are being herded out of their villages and just terribly mistreated. We need more troops. The effort was noble, but it didn't achieve the objective.

And so I'm in the process now of working with a variety of folks to encourage there to be more troops, probably under the United Nations. I talked to Kofi Annan about this very subject this week. But it's going to require a -- I think a NATO stewardship, planning, facilitating, organizing, probably double the number of peacekeepers that are there now, in order to start bringing some sense of security. There has to be a consequence for people abusing their fellow citizens.

At the same time, part of the issue in the Darfur region is that the rebel groups are not united in their objectives. And so politically, or diplomatically, we have to work to make sure there's one voice from which to speak, so that we can then create kind of the same agreement between government in Darfur that was created between north and south. A lot of talk, but we've got a strategy, and it's of concern, to the point where our country was the first country to call what was taking place a genocide, which matters -- words matter.

And so, thank you for bringing up that part of the world. That's very interesting that you would have that on your mind. You're a decent soul, a decent soul. (Applause.)

The New Vision reports that British lawmakers have called on the international community, including the UN Security Council, to intervene to end the conflict in northern Uganda. "Pressure from the West and the UN needs to be brought to bear on Kampala — the humanitarian and security situation in northern Uganda cannot go on a day longer," said lawmaker David Drew of Britain’s All Party Parliamentary Group on the Great Lakes Region and Genocide Prevention.

Reuters AlertNet reports that Britain's All Party Parliamentary Group on the Great Lakes Region and Genocide Prevention has called for immediate international intervention in northern Uganda and other areas affected by the LRA rebellion in the Great Lakes region. The group called for more effort to arrest the five LRA commanders indicted by the International Criminal Court last October, and said that UN peacekeeping forces in the DR Congo and Sudan should be given the mandate to engage the LRA.

The parliamentarians also urged the world to put more pressure on the Ugandan government to address the humanitarian catastrophe in displaced camps in northern Uganda, as well as the deteriorating security situation there. They also called on elements of the Sudanese government who are still supporting the LRA to cooperate in ending the rebellion.

Ugandan army spokesman Major Felix Kulayigye and Minister for Internal Affairs Dr. Ruhakana Rugunda have responded to the advocacy letter endorsed recently by Uganda-CAN and 33 other organizations in an article in Uganda's Daily Monitor.

"The war is ending. Anybody talking about a petition to the US is idle and not a friend of northern Uganda," said Kulayigye.

Uganda-CAN begs to differ: recent reports have noted that the month of January witnessed more abductions of people in northern Uganda than killings, surrenders, or captures of LRA soldiers, implying that the LRA maintains its capacity to repopulate itself. Moreover, the population remains trapped in camps with deplorable conditions due to the war. Read the Monitor's article here.

The United States Senate last week passed a resolution calling for increased attention to the crisis in northern Uganda. Introduced by Senator Jim Inhofe, a Republican from Oklahoma, the resolution gained 43 co-sponsors before it was introduced and passed unanimously on the same day. Because it does not mandate any specific action from the U.S. government, the resolution will not go to the House for consideration.

Among other things, the resolution calls for action from the U.S., Sudanese, and Ugandan governments for an end to the war. It further designates this week as a National Week of Prayer and Reflection for the People of Northern Uganda. Read the full text of the resolution by clicking below.

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McLeod Ochola, Retired Anglican Archbishop of Gulu, has written to Uganda-CAN advocacy staff in response to the letter recently endorsed by Uganda-CAN and sent to U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

"It is true that there has been a slow, but sure genocide, going on in Northern Uganda for the last 20 years, while the whole world continues to turn a blind eye to it. It is equally true that this conflict has involved both the LRA and the Government of Uganda... This confirms the obvious fact that the Government of Uganda is a party to the conflict that has been going on unabated," wrote the Bishop.

"The Government of Uganda has been like this father who has left his own children in the burning house and continued chasing the arsonist for the last 20 years. This means that the focus of the Government of Uganda has always been on the LRA, but not on the suffering people of Northern Uganda. Constitutionally, it is only the Government of Uganda, not the LRA, who is responsible for the entire people of Uganda, including those in Northern Uganda."

Uganda-CAN is exploring the question of whether or not the crisis constitutes genocide, and will soon be releasing a position paper on the matter. Regardless, the continuation of the Acholi people is undoubtedly being threatened; as Uganda-CAN has in the past affirmed, the LRA are guilty of intentional atrocities and the government guilty of serious neglect that has prolonged the conflict and exacerbated its consequent suffering. Read the Bishop's full statement by clicking below.

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Today’s New Vision reports that LRA leader Joseph Kony is fleeing from his hideout in southern Sudan towards the DR Congo. The UPDF refrained from validating the reports, saying it was still collecting intelligence about Kony’s whereabouts.

Kony’s second-in-command, Vincent Otti, crossed into the northeastern DR Congo in October 2005 with 300 LRA rebels. Several weeks ago rebels under Otti’s command in the DR Congo killed eight UN soldiers from Guatemala trying to arrest Otti and remove the rebels from the DR Congo, which has upped efforts in recent months to quell rebellions in the lawless eastern half of the country.

Today's Daily Vision reports that Steven Browning, the new US ambassador to Uganda, said last week during his nomination that he will urge the Ugandan government to end the LRA rebellion in northern Uganda. Browning also expressed concern about the state of democracy in Uganda, citing the November arrest of opposition leader Col. Kizza Besigye.

Uganda-CAN urges Ambassador Browning to advocate a more engaged US role in the peace process and to fully commit US resources in the region to a peaceful resolution to the conflict. To see our recommendations to the US government on how it can support peace in northern Uganda, click here.