"From the Trampled Grass" Inaugural Post: Reflections from the Sudan-Uganda border

This is the inaugural post in a series of reflections from Paul Ronan, Director of Advocacy for Resolve Uganda, as he travels for two months in Uganda, Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Central African Republic to interview victims of LRA attacks, civil society leaders, and local officials about how LRA violence can be ended and affected communities best assisted. Stay tuned for his next post from areas of South Sudan where LRA attacks are ongoing. For more details about the series see below.

The towns of Atiak and Nimule sit on opposite sides of the Uganda-Sudan border, mirroring customs posts on the highway between Gulu, the biggest city in northern Uganda, and Juba, South Sudan’s capital city. The scene here at the border at 8am on a Saturday morning is bustling. Hundreds of people disembark from crowded buses, buying food from local vendors and steeling themselves for the extremely bumpy dirt road stretching several hours ahead to Juba. The buses, some of which come from as far as Kenya, are full of people eager to test out Juba’s growing reputation as a regional hub for jobs and business.

I am accompanied on this trip by Fr. Joe, a Catholic priest and longtime resident of Gulu, and Professor Ron Atkinson, a northern Uganda expert who’s been researching this area since the 1970s. As we await approval to cross the border, Fr. Joe tells of a trip he took to this border crossing in 1985. 

“I was here to drop off a friend going to South Sudan,” he says. “It was safe to travel between Gulu and Juba then, and there was much traffic on the road.” 

However, Fr. Joe has never been to Juba himself. Shortly after his visit to the border in 1985, violence engulfed southern Sudan and northern Uganda, making travel by road far too risky. For more than two decades, Joseph Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) – backed by the Sudanese government in Khartoum as a proxy militia in Sudan’s own civil war – conducted cross-border attacks in the area, often ambushing and burning cars and buses that dared to traverse the roads.

The town of Atiak, on Uganda’s side of the border, is still recovering from a brutal LRA massacre committed in 1995 in which rebel fighters killed over 200 people. But the violence was not limited to the border areas alone. LRA fighters also often struck close to Fr. Joe’s home in Gulu; the day before we left for Juba, Professor Atkinson pointed out the valley behind the Catholic compound in which Fr. Joe lives, and told me about how it was once a favored route for LRA teams sent to attack the town.

Juba, the capital city of South Sudan, was itself unsafe for decades. Forces loyal to the Khartoum government occupied it until a peace agreement ended Sudan’s civil war in 2005. Longtime residents of Juba remember Kony moving freely into the city to stay at his houses there as recently as 2005, protected by his patrons in Khartoum. Osama bin Laden is even rumored to have dropped in on an LRA training camp outside the city once.

Without the ability to travel safely throughout the region, Fr. Joe spent the last 25 years in Gulu, caring for people affected by the violence. But in 2006, when the Juba negotiations process began, the LRA largely moved away from this area and into their current hideouts further west in South Sudan and across the borders into northeastern DR Congo and southeastern Central African Republic. Regional trade has again opened up, and after years of confinement to urban areas and displacement camps, northern Ugandans are once again moving freely.

Though largely welcomed, the resulting explosion of trade and activity between Gulu and Juba is by no means free of dangers or threats to the fragile calm. Severe inequalities are growing as some communities are better positioned than others to benefit from peace. While buildings are being erected at a breakneck speed in Juba, the road from Juba to the Ugandan border is marked by long unpaved stretches interrupted by little more than an occasional trading center or patch of fields, testament that little “development” has penetrated beyond the major towns. And even as South Sudan looks towards probable independence in 2011, many Southern Sudanese fear that the independence referendum could spark renewed violence – and a repeated exodus of businesses and people from the region.

The LRA also poses a threat to the region’s tenuous peace. Even though Kony has had to give up his Juba real estate, as recently as a year ago his forces conducted attacks along the Juba – Gulu highway. And further west in South Sudan, LRA violence remains a continuous reality, forcing tens of thousands of people to flee their homes.

Later, after Fr. Joe concluded his visit to Juba and returned home to Gulu, I asked him about his impressions. 

“I was very excited this time to go beyond the border post, and that people have the liberty to travel,” he said, while also noting that fields along the highway were “fresh for cultivation after so many years of fighting.”

Fr. Joe also told me that after reconnecting with some priests and friends he hadn’t seen in many years he has been invited back to Juba for an upcoming conference on how to jumpstart reconciliation activities amongst war-affected communities in South Sudan.

Will he brave the bumpy highway once more to return to Juba?

“Absolutely,” he says, not a trace of hesitation in his voice.

The stakes are high for efforts to protect the tentative peace in the area, but so is the commitment amongst many local leaders to seeing them succeed.

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"When two elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers" is a tragically familiar proverb in many African communities, alluding to the collateral damage of war, namely the innocent women and children who are often the most affected by war's evils while benefiting the least, if at all, from its spoils.

As Resolve Uganda seeks to amplify the voice of those affected by this war and effectively contribute toward sustainable peace in the region, we recognize the necessity of listening, documenting, and sharing the stories of those most affected by the LRA and whose active involvement is essential for lasting peace. Paul Ronan, our Director of Advocacy, is spending the next eight weeks traversing central Africa to listen, learn, and document as much as possible in areas most recently affected by the LRA.  As he travels, he will be sending back reflections, stories, and photos from the region to our headquarters in DC so that we can in turn share them with you.  We invite you to follow his journey as he shares stories "from the trampled grass."