In a new era of humanitarianism, human rights have become more than abstract talking points in international relations and domestic politics. For many western nations, a newfound intolerance of terrorism has inspired distinct agendas mandating international intervention in the name of democracy, liberty and humanity.
Yet, as these nations prove selective in the demons they choose to fight, one region of the world has been continuously excluded from this commitment to collective security: sub-Saharan Africa.
Though it has received increased international exposure, I am not referring to the tragedy in the Darfur region of western Sudan — which has witnessed a recent influx in U.S. involvement and the media attention that comes along with it. We instead turn to a place where international journalists and western diplomats have been absent, an interconnected conflict that may be the most under-reported humanitarian crisis in the world.
Across Sudan's southern border, in the jungles of northern Uganda, remnants of regional proxy-wars remain in the form of a Sudanese sponsored Ugandan insurgency called the Lord's Resistance Army. For 19 years, citizens of Uganda have been terrorized by the LRA, a spiritually-led rebel group intent on overthrowing the current government.
Once a formidable rebellion, the LRA has turned to terrorist tactics, causing economic breakdown, social disruption and mass displacement throughout the northern districts. Their atrocities are systematic, their methods are symbolic and their forbearance is astounding. Tens of thousands of citizens have been tortured and brutally murdered. The conflict lacks the buzzword label "genocide" because the killings are indiscriminate — yet the vile disdain for human life is no less apparent in Uganda than it is in Darfur.
Uganda has acted as Africa's poster child for economic and political development, but the violence in the north — presently, the longest standing conflict in Africa — has cast a dark shadow on the country's progress. According to the International Rescue Committee, approximately 80 percent of the northern population now live in internally displaced persons camps, where food, water and health care are scarce, and AIDS, malnutrition and illiteracy run rampant.
Untrained and irresponsible Ugandan soldiers, while failing to provide adequate protection within the camps, use their authority to beat, rape, murder and unlawfully detain the camps' inhabitants. The contemptible disdain for human rights by both the rebels and the Ugandan army leave imperiled citizens no one to turn to — not even global aid organizations. The internally displaced do not enjoy the same privileges international law and the United Nations grant refugees, so while international agencies focus their relief efforts on the Sudanese, 2 million displaced Ugandans receive no protection or attention from the international community, according to a large coalition of aid agencies quoted in a UN report.
The LRA's practice of abductions makes the conflict uniquely horrifying.
Ugandan citizens, particularly children, are reduced to pawns in the rebel's tactless chess game, forced to don M-16's and become the LRA's murderous foot soldiers. Terror manifests itself in different ways, but it seems particularly vile when 8-year-old boys are forced to burn huts with their screaming families trapped inside, when young girls double as sex slaves and ruthless mercenaries or when according to the Women's Commission for Refugee Women and Children, 50,000 children abandon their homes every night and walk miles to cities to sleep in hospital basements and bus parks, hiding from the rebels and praying they are not the next ones taken. This is the corruption — both physically and psychologically — of an entire generation of Ugandans, a treacherous deterioration of the country's future.
Human Rights Watch reports to date more than 30,000 citizens have been abducted by the rebels, 20,000 of them children. According to Reuters, ninety percent of the LRA's current forces are abducted citizens, a disturbing reality that has made the insurgency somewhat of an anomaly. Victims and enemies are one in the same; Ugandan soldiers find themselves in a battle with the very people they are supposed to be saving. This has made a military solution a virtual impossibility, and the ongoing peace negotiations between the government and the rebels the only viable hope for peace in Uganda.
Unlike Sudan, which the U.S. has continuously shunned by labeling it a sponsor of terrorism, American officials preserve a close relationship with the Ugandan government uncharacteristic of U.S.-African relations. Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has refused to declare the LRA insurgency a national crisis, and his porous policies towards victims of the violence allow the carnage to continue without the help of external resources.
As global interdependence demands human security take preference over national security, humanitarian crimes must be exposed and met with effective responses. Persistent impunity for human rights abuses severely undermine the legitimacy of international laws and the agencies that enforce them, and erodes the potential for development in conflict-torn nations. Amid the problems that plague it in some regions, there is still hope in Africa. But it's hard to maintain hope within its borders when none exists outside of them.
Adam Lichtenheld ([email protected]) is a sophomore majoring in political science and African studies.
