After Operation Lightning Thunder: Protecting Communities and Building Peace

This 16-page report explores conflict resolution strategies in the wake of the military offensive known as Operation Lightning Thunder, which launched on December 14 2008 as the culmination of two years of peace negotiations between the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) and the Ugandan government. It highlights the ways in which communication must play a central role in strategies to end conflict across the Ugandan, Sudanese, and Congolese borders.

Specifically, the report looks at the current situation in the border areas of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Sudan's Western Equatoria state. It documents the attitudes of civilians, government, and army officials toward recent military operations and on the peace process between the LRA and the Ugandan government. These views were expressed in more than 70 interviews conducted in February and March 2009 and in two March 2009 workshops, one held with representatives from civil society and local government from Eastern and Central Equatoria, and one held with traditional and religious leaders, representatives from non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and government, and former LRA combatants.

This research revealed that "Operation Lightning Thunder commenced without clear arrangements for adequate civilian protection....Tens of thousands of Congolese and Sudanese have been displaced fleeing possible attacks....Yet even in towns protection is limited: it is unclear whether any army was specifically assigned protection duties....The intense international involvement, unprecedented in previous initiatives, had contradictory effects. On one hand, it made the peace talks possible through international funding and advocacy for a political solution. On the other, it created a tremendously complex environment that was hard for the LRA to navigate..."

Failures in open communication are cited here as primary problems. For instance, the operation dropped leaflets over Garamba Park urging the LRA to come home and assuring them they would be received with open arms. Yet it was ill-prepared: the leaflet informed the LRA that they should report to the nearest church or army units, but churches had not been informed that they were supposed to receive the LRA or what to do with them. As documented here, a local government official from Yambio said the military campaign was doomed from the start because it failed to take into account local knowledge.

And yet, as the authors assert, "The obstacles created by the complex international machinery can be overcome by a smaller, civil society driven process." In this vein, members of civil society in Sudan, DRC, and Uganda are calling for increased regional cooperation that includes civil society in order to restart a political process and communication with LRA leaders. Community leaders stress a comprehensive approach to conflict resolution is needed since all affected areas suffer parallel violent conflicts. The key message is that a consistent and inclusive political process across regional borders is necessary to bring regional peace and security.

A summary of the obstacles to a return to dialogue that are described in the report is as follows:

• Communicating with the LRA remains a crucial roadblock, even more so since they have significantly reduced their use of satellite phones. While returnees say that many LRA commanders listen to the radio news, it will be difficult to reach the many LRA soldiers who do not have access to a radio. Furthermore, it is unclear how close communication is between the LRA and the diaspora supporters.
• Despite significant frustration with the current situation, citizens of Southern Sudan and DRC express an understanding about what the negotiators had tried to achieve. However, on the communication front (related to participation), one Sudanese local commented: "Anybody who is talking of negotiation should relocate the negotiations to their own country."
• "To avoid prolonged deterioration, channels of communication with the LRA leadership need to be re-established....Recent developments seem to suggest that a peace process needs to include civil society from all affected countries and that cooperation between civil society actors across borders needs to be strengthened....Community leaders in all three countries have expressed a wish to engage more with their counterparts across the border and to have a more united voice when talking to governments, for example when discussing the impact of military operations on communities....Such cooperation would enable civilians to establish better relationships with their own armies, using the information to identify whether soldiers were moving on command or were rogue soldiers posing a threat. Such a relationship of trust was also seen to be potentially beneficial to improved security networks in which local representatives would agree on early warning signals to avoid surprise attacks by the LRA."
• "An environment needs to be established that facilitates return and reintegration, both for returning young men and for young women who in some cases might come with babies born in the bush, fathered by their LRA husbands....Communities, one man in Maridi said, are simply not prepared for the tremendously difficult task of reintegration...: 'You can see the stigma now,' explained a senior church leader. 'A person of nine to ten years old is captured and comes back. They will hear people say that they are rebels. Some of us here will also need to be counselled.'"
  

Communication-related recommendations outlined in the report include:

• All parties (including donor governments) should renew their commitment to ending the conflict by re-establishing communication.
• A regional civil society committee should be established as a permanent regional body for conflict resolution. While focusing on reviving the LRA/Uganda peace process, it should be mandated to address long-term peacebuilding and reconciliation in the volatile border areas in conjunction with governments and security forces.
• The local communities need to develop early warning mechanisms and communication to be better prepared for attacks. An emphasis should be placed on communication at the community level rather than community militarisation.
• Consistent mechanisms for cross-border dialogue and interaction are needed to make the borders more secure, to stabilise the region, and to start on the path to reconciliation, particularly on the Sudan/Uganda border.