Refugees International: Articles: Northern Uganda: Letter to Egeland Outlines Humanitarian Concerns

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Northern Uganda: Letter to Egeland Outlines Humanitarian Concerns

Northern Uganda: Resettlement Site in Opit, Gulu
11/21/2006

Refugees International President Ken Bacon sent the following letter to Jan Egeland, Under Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, outlining RI’s concerns with the current humanitarian situation in northern Uganda. Mr. Egeland recently completed a tour of the region, and this letter is intended to help inform his briefing to the UN Security Council on the regional situation.

November 21, 2006

Jan Egeland
Under Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs
Department of Humanitarian Affairs
New York, NY USA

Dear Mr. Egeland:

We applaud your commitment to the crisis in Northern Uganda and your unceasing efforts to draw the world’s attention to the problem there. We will miss your dedication and passion when you leave your position as Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs. We are especially grateful for your ground-breaking meeting with Joseph Kony, the leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), to demand the release of women and children that the LRA may be holding.

As you prepare to brief the Security Council on your visits to Uganda and south Sudan, we would like to share some of our findings from our mission to Uganda. Advocates Kavita Shukla and Sarah Martin recently visited Gulu, Kitgum, Pader, and Lira districts and visited old camps and new sites there. This is RI’s fifth assessment in Northern Uganda since 2002. While there have been significant improvements in all four districts, particularly in humanitarian access to the camps since this spring, Refugees International is still concerned that the crisis needs attention, particularly in the following areas:

While there has been increased attention to the issue of returns, Northern Uganda continues to experience a humanitarian crisis. Refugees International documented that while international agencies are able to access more camps and even stay overnight in some districts, there is still a dearth of services. Water and sanitation continue to be big problems. While people in the IDP camps can now access an average of about seven liters a day per person (well below the Sphere standard of fifteen liters per person), it is mostly due to the fact that people have moved out of the camps rather than an increase in services by humanitarian actors. There are few government civil servants operating in the camps, and health centers and schools remain drastically underserved. There have been recent outbreaks of cholera that the health community has struggled to contain.

Protection remains a concern and should be prioritized throughout Northern Uganda. While there have been fewer reports of abuses perpetrated by the Uganda People’s Defense Forces (UPDF) in recent months, the area continues to be heavily militarized. There are almost no police officers in Northern Uganda and security in all camps is still being handled by the UPDF. The new satellite sites where IDPs are moving are dependent on the UPDF for security and are even more vulnerable to possible abuses due to the lack of monitoring services by human rights organizations and international agencies. While there is increased freedom of movement for internally displaced Ugandans, there are some reports of government coercion, pressure on humanitarian agencies to restrict services in the camps, and unclear information being distributed to IDPs about return and security. Access to justice for victims of human rights abuses and accountability of perpetrators is almost non-existent.

In the absence of a peace agreement, we are concerned that returns are being promoted under government pressure without adequate contingency planning. The Minister of Relief and Disaster Preparedness made a widely publicized announcement that all the camps will be closed by December 31, 2006. Many of the IDPs are still extremely reluctant to return, fearing that the peace process will fall apart, as has happened in the past, and violence will resume. Each of the districts is in a different security phase and requires a different return planning scenario. In Lira, where almost half of the population has returned, the government of Uganda has begun to ‘de-gazette’ camps that still contain significant numbers of extremely vulnerable people with little planning or programs available to support them. The situation is different in Acholiland. In Gulu, there has been movement to ‘satellite sites,’ but few have gone all the way back to their areas of origin. In Pader, the government identified 108 areas that it said were safe for return and encouraged IDPs to move to them. However, the government now claims that it does not have sufficient UPDF troops to deploy to these sites and has insinuated that the international community must provide services there before deploying them. In Kitgum, the district closest to the Sudan border, there is ongoing violence in the east with the Karamajong and there have been some LRA sightings. The population movement there has been the slowest of all as IDPs fear that without a peace process in place, the LRA may yet return.

The UN Cluster Response is not necessarily strengthening humanitarian response in Northern Uganda nor making a visible difference in the lives of IDPs. While it is too early to evaluate the roll-out of the cluster response in Uganda, there are some issues that must be addressed immediately. There continues to be in-fighting between UN agencies over the role of ‘lead agency’. The Humanitarian Coordinator has not demonstrated effective leadership in mediating inter-agency turf battles, leading to duplication of efforts and lack of coordination in some clusters. International NGOs feel marginalized in some clusters, claiming that they are treated as ‘implementing partners’ rather than as full participants in planning the humanitarian response. There is a lack of clarity at the district level about how to implement the cluster response in a country with a functioning government. Accountability is lacking, as the concept of ‘agency of last resort’ is still not clear. Mechanisms for ensuring that protection is cross cutting in all sectors are missing and inter-agency communication remains weak.

Early Recovery projects are under-funded. While it is too early to tell if the peace process will succeed and 2007 will be the year that the internally displaced of Uganda return en masse to their homes, the planning for recovery must start immediately. The government of Uganda has made unrealistic promises about return packages and has failed to follow through on committing adequate funds for its own Peace, Recovery and Development Plan. Donors must find creative ways to fund the early recovery while continuing to hold the government of Uganda responsible for rebuilding after the widespread devastation caused by this conflict.

In addition to these overall observations, we would also like to draw your attention to following groups of people that we are particularly concerned about:

Services for survivors of sexual and gender-based violence are urgently needed throughout Northern Uganda. While there are some promising initiatives underway, led by UNICEF, agencies still lack of sufficient human resources and experience in implementing SGBV programs in the North.
The needs of the extremely vulnerable --- the elderly, handicapped, single mother headed households, former child combatants, and orphans --- are being ignored. The traditional ‘coping mechanisms’ and social networks that have met their needs in the past are stretched beyond capacity and agencies must find a way to make sure that these people, many of whom may have no choice but to stay in IDP camps, do not fall between the cracks and remain left behind.
Children, particularly former LRA combatants and dependents, continue to need attention. Donors are not funding reintegration centers at the same levels as they did in the past. As you pointed out in Sudan, the LRA is still holding women and children, who we hope will be released soon. There are continuing reports of stigmatization of former combatants, particularly girls, and more programs should be created that address all conflict-affected children.

Thank you again for all your efforts on behalf of the displaced people of Northern Uganda.

Sincerely yours,

Ken Bacon
President
Refugees International