The figure of the abducted Acholi girl: nation-building, gender, and children born into the LRA in Uganda

Based on analysis of newspapers and secondary sources, this article examines the gendered construction of the national imagery of the war between the Ugandan government and the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) in an effort to expand current conceptual understanding of the exclusion experienced by children born of forced marriage inside the LRA. Uganda developed as a militarised and masculine post-colony and yet nation-building for President Museveni involved crafting a national imagery that drew upon development discourses of gender and children to position himself as the benevolent father of the nation. Invoking Veena Das’ ‘figure of the abducted woman’, I argue that the Ugandan government mobilised the figure of the abducted Acholi girl to legitimise both its governance and the war. The article concludes that the resulting narrative provided no legitimate social or political space in the national imagery for the children of the abducted girls.

Uganda’s Oil

This chapter studies Uganda’s journey to become a petroleum producer and provide estimates regarding the size and timing of the oil revenues. At an average US$38 per capita per year over a thirty-three-year period, oil revenue by itself will not be transformational for the Ugandan economy but it could provide a welcome boost. The question is whether the Ugandan government will manage to avoid squandering it, and will transform the country’s natural resource assets into productive assets. To this end, the government has made significant changes and additions to the policy and institutional framework that will govern the use of revenues, adapted from the Norwegian model. We study the framework put in place and identify a number of potential shortcomings. Weaknesses in public investment management further raise doubts about the transformational impact of the planned investments.

Uganda: Counterterrorism in Museveni’s Uganda

Ugandan security concerns throughout the Museveni era have centered round terrorism, both domestic and international. Internationally, there is evidence to suggest, Ugandan intelligence services foiled attempts by Al Qaeda to bomb the US Embassy in Kampala, at the time of the Dar Es-Salaam and Nairobi Embassy bombings. In 2010, Kampala suffered from Al Qaeda-inspired bombings carried out by the Somali group Al Shabaab, in retaliation for sending peacekeepers to Somalia. Domestically, Uganda has also experienced attacks deemed to be terrorism from the Allied Democratic Front and the Lord’s Resistance Army. This chapter demonstrates how the term ‘terrorism’ has been used by the Ugandan government in many different ways and how the expansive use of this term has been critiqued. I argue that the key to understanding the Ugandan government’s response to these disparate threats is through understanding how Museveni has used these crises to become a key US ally in the War on Terror and to position himself as a regional leader in East Africa.

Peace Comes to Northern Uganda

In the early 2000s the civil war in northern Uganda raged on, and ARLPI continued to pursue its goals of assistance to the war’s victims and advocacy for a resolution. Growing international awareness brought more humanitarian assistance and more pressure on the Ugandan government to end the suffering; but government attacks continued, and brutal reprisals followed. Indictment of LRA leaders by the International Criminal Court in The Hague complicated the peace process, because of fears of arrest and extradition. ARLPI and other concerned observers succeeded at last in convening peace talks in Juba in 2006, leading to the withdrawal of LRA forces from Uganda in the years following, in spite of the lack of any formally authorized agreement.

From policy to practice: the challenges facing Uganda in reducing maternal mortality

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to describe the challenges faced by health professionals in meeting Millennium Goal 5 and reducing maternal mortality in Uganda. Design/methodology/approach Uganda is a low income land locked country with some major challenges around maternal health. There are many comprehensive and visionary plans produced by the Ugandan Government, however, there is a disconnect between policy and practice and there are many barriers to be addressed in order to reduce maternal mortality in Uganda. Findings Despite making considerable progress in reducing maternal mortality, Millenium Development Goal (MDG) 5 was not achieved and every day 300 children and 20 mothers die in Uganda. Major barriers include lack of resources, both human and equipment, disparities in access to care, lack of clinical skills and knowledge and financial constraints. The Millennium goals are now behind us and focus has shifted to the sustainable development goals (SDGs). The Ugandan Government must focus on using these goals as part of developing the maternal and child health strategy by prioritising the human resource and health financial issues and continuing to work towards reducing maternal and perinatal mortality. Originality/value This paper gives a succinct review of the progress of Uganda towards meeting the Millennium Goal 5 and makes key recommendations for addressing SDG 3.

Changes in pastoralist commons management and their implications in Karamoja (Uganda)

This article analyzes the progression from traditional to current pastoralist practices and the contemporary diversification of livelihoods of the Jie group of the Karimojong in the Kotido district in Karamoja (Uganda). the focus is on changes of land use, framed by the commons debate. We identify factors that have forced the Karimojong to abandon their traditional mobile pastoral lifestyle and to adopt new income-generating activities, including charcoal production and brick-making, which may have detrimental effects on local forest and soil cover. These have included repeated enclosure of common grazing lands by colonial and postcolonial governments. We conducted empirical research (interviews and focus group discussions) in 2012. They confirm the superiority of traditional pastoralist practices (in terms of safeguarding sustained productivity of pastures) compared to the current situation. An important factor leading to current unsustainable pastoralist practice involved the mass acquisition of firearms by the Karimojong in the 1970s and 1980s, violent cattle raiding and subsequent unequal disarmament and establishment of army-controlled cattle herding. This radical enclosure of the commons by the government, linked to impoverishment of a large part of the population in terms of cattle numbers, has necessitated the emergence of new, potentially environmentally detrimental livelihoods for the Jie. However, the escalation of the firearm crisis cannot be seen in isolation from a century of commons enclosure by governments, curtailing traditional practices and leading to insecurity and impoverishment of the Karimojong. The situation is exacerbated by current policies of the Ugandan government, geared to agricultural sedentarization, which may be unsustainable given the local natural and climatic conditions. Key Words: Pastoralism, Karamoja, environmental degradation, commons, political ecology, colonialism

Homosexuality, pornography, and other ‘modern threats’ – The deployment of sexuality in recent laws and public discourses in Uganda

In recent years, the Ugandan government has proposed a number of laws that attempt to control the sexual conduct of the Ugandan population. The much-debated Anti-Homosexuality Bill, signed by Museveni in February 2014 but overturned on constitutional grounds in August 2014, is only the most well-known. Further examples include legal measures related to HIV/AIDS, defilement, prostitution, and pornography. This article analyzes why and in which contexts these laws and recent public debates on sexuality have emerged and what consequences they entail. I argue that they must be seen in relation to ongoing power struggles at the local and national level – between men and women, youth and elders, state, and citizens. Based on discourse analysis and drawing on ethnographic fieldwork, I show how both state and non-state actors exploit popular concerns about recent processes of social change and instrumentalize ‘sexuality’ to extend their control and reinforce a normative order based on patriarchal values.

Balance of power in East Africa is shifting

Significance Kiir's ally, the Ugandan government, yesterday publicly urged him to sign. However, Kampala's credibility among regional neighbours is under strain given the presence of its troops supporting the Juba government. Elsewhere, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has played an unconvincing role in the thwarted mediation process in Burundi between the government and opposition parties. These two crises have highlighted Uganda's dwindling effectiveness on the regional stage. At the same time, Kenya, supported by its relationship with Ethiopia, has begun to take on the leadership mantle. Impacts Rwanda's government will continue to enjoy a more productive relationship with Kenya than Uganda. However, Burundi's crisis keeps complicating regional ties, with Tanzania and Burundi suspecting that Rwanda had a role in the failed coup. Rwanda's poor relations with Tanzania may be healed when the latter's current president steps down ahead of October polls.

KONY 2012, Military Humanitarianism, and the Magic of Occult Economies

The global success of the film KONY 2012 by Invisible Children, Inc., manifests far greater magical powers than those of Joseph Kony and his ruthless Lord's Resistance Army, which it portrays. The most prominent feature of the Invisible Children lobby is the making and constant remaking of a master narrative that depoliticizes and dehistoricizes a murky reality of globalized war into an essentialized black-and-white story. The magic of such a digestible storyline, with Ugandan rebel leader Joseph Kony as a global poster boy for evil personified, not only plays into the hands of the oppressive Ugandan government but has also become handy for the US armed forces as they seek to increase their presence on the African continent. As the US-led war on terror is renewed and expanded, Invisible Children's humanitarian slogan, “Stop at nothing”, has proven to be exceptionally selective, manifesting the occult economy of global activism that calls for military interventions.