Waging Peace:  Uganda

Mediating Conflict

Since the mid-1980s, the government of Uganda has been fighting the Lord's Resistance Army, a quasi-spiritual Ugandan rebel group that has had bases in Southern Sudan. The LRA has kept northern Uganda in a state of almost continuous insecurity and has attracted particular attention due to its use of child soldiers, kidnapped from their homes in northern Uganda and forced to fight, often against their relatives and neighbors. Additionally, the LRA contributed to hostilities between the government of Uganda and the government of Sudan, leading to the severing of diplomatic relations in 1995.

In 1999, President Carter and the Conflict Resolution Program negotiated the Nairobi Agreement between Sudan and Uganda, in which both sides committed to stop supporting forces against each other's government and agreed to eventually re-establish full diplomatic relations between them, opening the door for improved regional peacemaking. Following the signing of the Nairobi Agreement, the Conflict Resolution Program engaged intensively to ensure its implementation, convening a multitude of ministerial and security meetings between the two governments and other interested parties and making strenuous efforts to initiate dialogue between the LRA and the government of Uganda. Full diplomatic relations have since been restored between the two countries, and Uganda became a key regional partner in pushing for a peaceful resolution to Sudan's civil war.

Read the Nairobi Agreement, Dec. 8, 1999 >

Soon after the signing of the Nairobi Agreement, prisoners of war were exchanged between Sudan and Uganda. The process of repatriating abducted children also began at this time, and by early 2002, 300 abducted children had been returned to their homes. Read one Ugandan tribal chief's account of the devastation war has caused in his community.

The Carter Center also continued to make strenuous efforts to initiate dialogue between the LRA and the government of Uganda. In this effort, the Carter Center's Conflict Resolution Program worked with representatives of UNICEF, Uganda's Acholi community, and the governments of Sudan, Uganda, Canada, Egypt, and Libya and sought additional meetings with the leader of the Lord's Resistance Army, Joseph Kony, in an effort to end fighting in northern Uganda and return the LRA's child soldiers to their villages.

Through 2003, the program continued its efforts to establish a peace process between President Museveni of Uganda and the LRA, leaving only after concluding that the conditions were not ripe to establish a peace dialogue between the two sides. President Carter continues to remain in touch with key leaders while offering support to more recent peace efforts by Betty Bigombe.

Learn more about the Carter Center's Conflict Resolution Program >