After 20 Years, Crisis in Uganda Gains Mention in Security Council Resolution
As the war in northern Uganda enters its twentieth year, spanning three nations and causing an estimated 1000 deaths weekly in Uganda alone, the United Nations Security Council has passed its first resolution with explicit mention of the crisis.
The resolution,which resulted after a series of briefings on peace, democracy, and human rights in the Great Lakes Region of Africa, expressed the Council's "deep concern at the devastating impact of conflict and insecurity on the humanitarian situation throughout the Great Lakes region and their implications for regional peace and security, especially where arms and armed groups move across borders, such as the long-running and brutal insurgency by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) in northern Uganda which has caused the death, abduction and displacement of thousands of innocent civilians in Uganda, the Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo."
The resolution further called for the LRA to end its campaign of terror on innocent civilians, and for regional governments to fulfill their responsibility to protect civilians and to cooperate in finding resolution to violent conflict.
Civil society organizations, including Uganda-CAN, have called for further action to be taken by the international body, including the sending of a UN Envoy to northern Uganda by Secretary General Kofi Annan, the development of a commission to explore sources of LRA financing, the provision of increased material and diplomatic support to mediation efforts, and the deployment of human rights monitors to the area. While these requests have yet to be met, the passage of this resolution by the Security Council makes future Council engagement of the crisis more likely.
The resolution,which resulted after a series of briefings on peace, democracy, and human rights in the Great Lakes Region of Africa, expressed the Council's "deep concern at the devastating impact of conflict and insecurity on the humanitarian situation throughout the Great Lakes region and their implications for regional peace and security, especially where arms and armed groups move across borders, such as the long-running and brutal insurgency by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) in northern Uganda which has caused the death, abduction and displacement of thousands of innocent civilians in Uganda, the Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo."
The resolution further called for the LRA to end its campaign of terror on innocent civilians, and for regional governments to fulfill their responsibility to protect civilians and to cooperate in finding resolution to violent conflict.
Civil society organizations, including Uganda-CAN, have called for further action to be taken by the international body, including the sending of a UN Envoy to northern Uganda by Secretary General Kofi Annan, the development of a commission to explore sources of LRA financing, the provision of increased material and diplomatic support to mediation efforts, and the deployment of human rights monitors to the area. While these requests have yet to be met, the passage of this resolution by the Security Council makes future Council engagement of the crisis more likely.