As the peace talks solidify between north and south Sudan, just south of the border in northern Uganda, rages a conflict that has caused continued instability and suffering for the last 18 years. The ongoing entangled conflict in this area has become a major destabilizing factor for not only Uganda, but the surrounding regions as well. The conflict, rooted in the activities of the extremist Lords Resistance Army (LRA), has been described by United Nations Humanitarian Assistant Chief Jan Egeland as, Òthe worldÕs greatest neglected humanitarian crisis.Ó For the past two decades, the LRA has terrorized the Acholi population in its battle against the Ugandan government forces. The Acholi people who inhabit this region have dealt with indiscriminate killing, house burning, rape, and the kidnapping of children, which has driven 1.6 million people to seek safety in refugee camps. Others have their children partake in an activity called night commuting, where they leave their homes at night and sleep in public places in order to avoid being sexually or militarily enslaved by the LRA.

The Ugandan conflict is a multifaceted and complex problem. From the outside, it appears that the dominant factor is simply the fighting that persists between the LRA and the Ugandan military, know as the Ugandan PeopleÕs Defense Forces (UPDF). However, the LRAÕs strategy to divide the Acholi people exacerbates the situation. While the Acholi people inhabit the North and face the majority of the brutality, the LRA is strikingly composed predominantly of Acholi. The LRA systematically kidnap and brainwash young children to become their fighting agents, and from there the cycle continues.

The LRAÕs strategy of using children as fighting agents has three distinct purposes. The first is simply the ability to recruit massive numbers of expendable fighters. Second, they use the abductions of both male and female children to purify the Acholi people. Lastly it is designed to turn the Acholi against their government. Children are targeted because they are young and easily manipulated and are used to cleanse the Acholi people. The LRA molds the minds of the children at a young age into believing in the cause, and more importantly, into fearing the repercussions of not following orders. The LRA is an organization based on complex religious undertones that view the Acholi as sinful. The abduction of children serves to convert and exonerate these children and thereby purify them to create a future of followers. For example, the abduction of young girls for the use of sex slaves is used to create this future, pure population. The progeny of a cleansed soldier and a partially assimilated girl is considered pure and is believed to follow the teachings of the Acholi leader. The final part of the LRA strategy is that the abuse of the Acholi people creates anger and frustration among the population toward the government, which stems from the fact that for many years, it failed to adequately protect the northern region.

Apart from the struggle between the LRA and UPDF, the North and South divide has been a continuous problem in Uganda since its independence. The North consists of the Acholi people, who

complain of alienation from the body of the country, while the South holds the concentration of wealth and power. The North does not feel that the current Museveni administration has taken fair measures to reunite the country following the divisive practices of the colonial administration and years of armed conflict that followed. The Acholi also feel marginalized by the Museveni government, and demand for political, economic, and social initiatives that would give them a higher stake in the decision-making process, thereby connecting them to the central government. While these frustrations fuel the LRAÕs fighting motives, the actual organization and its demands are more abstract and unclear.

What is the LordÕs Resistance Army?
In order to fully understand the conflict and its possible direction, it is necessary to look into the organization. While the LRA claims to represent the grievances of the Acholi people, its methods of violence and exploitation of these very people contradict their mission. The foundation of the organization asserts that those who hold spiritual power dually hold political power as well. The leader of the group is Joseph Kony, a self proclaimed Messiah, has created a religion that blends Christianity, Islam, and traditional Acholi beliefs. Not possessing a clear political agenda, other than the demand for a government based on the Ten Commandments, he believes it his divine duty to purify the Acholi people. Not only is it KonyÕs duty to purify the sinners, but he has also created a following of people who believe that God is commanding them to act on His behalf. The LRA views the Acholi as people who have disobeyed the Commandments of God and therefore must be punished. For the LRA, ritual and religious ceremony surround everyday activities as well as their battle preparations. Members must follow a very strict regimen that interprets deviation as lack of faith and is therefore severely punished. According to children interviewed in the World Vision Report, the recruitment process includes isolation, purification ceremonies, and prayer for the troops in order to prove worthiness and become part of the group. Additionally, a ten-year-old girl described the transformations and fear that was instilled in these children, ÒWe would see our friends come back and they would have guns. They became tough and violent, and they didnÕt have any fear. It was they who would kill the other children who tried to escape. I saw children being killed myself. They made us watch so we would know what would happen to us if we tried to run away.Ó The LRAÕs religious zeal accompanied with the militaristic motives makes a negotiated peace difficult to imagine. The dichotomy of opinions present between leading Ugandan officials and those of the LRA create a delicate arena for open dialogue. What cannot be forgotten is the large displaced population from the North, the children that have been abducted and enslaved, and the constant destabilizing factor that this war plays in the region.

Can a Peace Be Negotiated?
The conflict in the North has created an environment with polar opposition on the extreme ends and those willing to negotiate at the center. This is true of many conflicts, but in this case, the negotiations