For two years, the Government of Uganda and the Lord’s
Resistance Army (LRA) have been involved in peace talks to end the twenty-two
year war in northern Uganda.
As a result of this process, northerners have experienced relative calmness and
many internally displaced persons (IDP’s) are beginning to make their way home.
Some are even buying cattle and sowing seeds.
Earlier this year, AFJN, Resolve Uganda,
and many NGO’s in Uganda
were hopeful that the peace process was on the cusp of completion. Each agenda
item was vetted and the Final Peace Agreement (FPA) would allow for a
rebuilding of the north and for a Ugandan high court to try LRA leader Joseph
Kony and his cohort.
Kony’s failure to sign this agreement in April and then
in May is a significant blow to peace in the Great Lakes Region of Africa. To
add insult to injury, the LRA recently attacked villages in Democratic Republic
of Congo, South Sudan, and Central
African Republic, and abducted 300-500
individuals. Facing further instability on their own soil, the reaction from
these countries was to issue a new military strike against the LRA.
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World Refugee Day has been internationally recognized
on June 20 ever since it was established by the United Nations High Commissioner for
Refugees (UNHCR) in 2001. It serves as an opportunity to learn about and reflect upon
the growing scale and complexity of the refugee crisis and to salute the
courage, strength and resilience of the millions around the world forcibly
displaced from their homes.
There are some reasons to be
optimistic, such as growing global awareness and action in support of refugees
and internationally displaced persons (IDPs). There are estimates of hundreds
of thousand IDPs in the Middle East and over 600,000 IDPs and refugees in
Uganda that have returned to their home villages, and the number of stateless
persons was nearly cut in half over the last year. However, globally the crisis
has grown in both numeric estimates and on the scale of human rights abuse. The
United Nations estimates a total of 67 million forcibly displaced individuals
around the world at the beginning of 2008, including half a million newly-displaced
Iraqis, 600,000 new IDPs from Somalia, and 250,000 from the Democratic Republic
of the Congo. The largest internally displaced populations of Sudan and
Colombia, 5.8 million and 4 million respectively, and the largest refugee population
– 3.1 million displaced from Afghanistan – continued to grow. Meanwhile, these
populations around the world face the daily struggle of continued violence,
hunger, and lack of shelter.
AFJN
supports World Refugee Day, extending its concern in particular for those over
2 million refugees and 12.7 million IDPs in Africa, the region in which the
largest number of displacements took place last year, and encourages our
membership to spread the word on these important issues. More information and opportunities to contribute and
act can be found at the following websites:
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The Africa Faith and Justice Network (AFJN) is a community of advocates for responsible U.S. relations with Africa. AFJN stresses issues of peacebuilding, human rights and social justice that tie directly into Catholic social teaching. AFJN works closely with Catholic missionary congregations and numerous Africa-focused coalitions of all persuasions...
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