August 29, 2007

TRIPOLI, Libya/GENEVA – Ms. Margaret Arach Orech, a landmine survivor, says she is prepared to forgive like many other women in her country Uganda. "We want peace," says Orech, who lost her right leg to a landmine blast during an ambush by the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) in Northern Uganda in December 1998. Her life-changing experience led to her active involvement in global and regional campaigns to ban landmines.

In her report to the second meeting of the Inter-Faith Action for Peace in Africa (IFAPA) Commission in the Libyan capital, Tripoli, 27-30 August, Orech highlighted the impact of the conflict on civilians. For nearly 21 years, she said, the war has brutalized the people of Northern Uganda and Southern Sudan through tactics such as roadside attacks, pillaging villages, and the abduction of civilians including women and children, among other outrages, resulting in the internal displacement of over 1.8 million people.

During the Tripoli meeting, the 30-member Commission is receiving reports about the work of the pan-African interfaith network. Its agenda also includes planning for the Third IFAPA Summit to be held in Sudan in 2008.

An IFAPA Commissioner herself, Orech said there was relative peace in the region now and renewed hope following the April 2007 resumption of peace talks between the Ugandan government and the Southern Sudan-based LRA. She called for traditional conflict resolution methods to help bring to an end the LRA's armed rebellion against the Ugandan government. She expressed concern, however, that international intervention was proving to be an obstacle to the current peace process, and cited the International Criminal Court (ICC) indictment of LRA commanders for crimes against humanity and war crimes committed in Uganda since July 2002.

While acknowledging the critical role of the ICC – to help end impunity for the most serious crimes of concern to the international community – she noted that international law was in conflict with some of the existing justice mechanisms including the traditional justice of the Acholi people in Uganda. Traditional justice would require the LRA to accept their crimes, show remorse, apologize, ask for forgiveness and pay reparation, she explained. Then victims like Orech could accept the apology.

Participants in the meeting discussed the issue of impunity for the perpetrators of violence in the Northern Ugandan conflict, and agreed that exemption from justice would be a bad signal to the world. "We do not condone impunity," stated Ugandan parliamentarian Ms Akiror Agnes Egunyu.

The convenor of IFAPA and general secretary of the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) Rev. Dr Ishmael Noko described the conflicting justice mechanisms as a big challenge for religious communities, and urged for ways to be found to bring the two dimensions together. But he also underscored the role of religious leaders in initiating dialogue with all the parties involved in any conflict.

The IFAPA Commission meeting also heard about the situation in other unresolved conflicts on the continent. "Distinctly troubling is the unconsolidated peace across the region particularly involving northern Uganda, eastern DRC [Democratic Republic of Congo] and Burundi," according to a report by Rev. Fred Nyabera, executive director of the Fellowship of Christian Councils and Churches in the Great Lakes and Horn of Africa (FECCLAHA).

He described the 2006 elections in the DRC as a milestone, but pointed out much remained to be done in view of the impact of armed conflict in the country – the so-called First Congo War (1996-97) and the Second Congo War (1998-2003). "Over 4.3 million people lost their lives in just five years making it the most deadly conflict since the Second World War. But few in the rest of the world were aware of this genocide," he said referring to the second conflict.

Nyabera urged the religious community to actively engage in conflict management and peace building. "We can bring in healing and reconciliation," he said, and pointed to the positive impact of faith communities' involvement in the training and mobilization of election observers in the recent elections in the DRC as well as in the political transition phase.

Lutheran World Information
Reported for LWI by Stuttgart (Germany)-based journalist, Rainer Lang, attending the IFAPA Commission meeting in Tripoli.