Fellow Citizens and members of the International Community:
I just wanted to point out that the issue at hand in Northern and Eastern Uganda cannot and will not be solved by pouring in more US Dollars..NO...The Muzungu thinks and this is a typical way in which the US tries to solve world crises ..throw a few dollars at the issue and the issue will simply vanish ..GO AWAY! well Wrong very very wrong. US leadership of the Bush adminstration needs to prevail upon their puppet dictator Yoweri Museveni to pursuit a negotiated peaceful settlement to the crises in Northern and Eastern Uganda.. as long as the US thinks that they can simply throw a few buck and walla the problem is solve, then I say to you fellow citizens and memebers of the International Community embrace yourselves for 20 more years of wars in Northern and Eastern Uganda!!! In fact permit me to say the the Bush adm's policy regarding the
crises in Northern and eastern Uganda get a grade of FFFFFF..there is simply No coherent policy pursuit by the Bush Adm to resolve the Museveni created crises in Northern and Eastern Uganda.!! that you can bet on!!!..they are simply making one as they move...like a blind man trying to find his way out!!
Matek
Uganda: US Lawmaker, Officials Pledge More Aid for Ugandan Children
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United States Department of State (Washington, DC)
April 27, 2006
Posted to the web April 29, 2006
Posted to the web April 29, 2006
Washington, DC
Members of Congress as well as top government officials pledged to increase efforts to help child victims of a vicious insurgency that has wracked northern Uganda for 20 years.
During an April 26 hearing by the House Subcommittee on Africa, Global Human Rights and International Operations, Chairman Chris Smith (Republican of New Jersey) told a standing-room-only audience -- including Ugandan Ambassador Perezi Kamunanwire -- that not enough is being done to safeguard the endangered children of northern Uganda, who are being abducted from their homes on a systematic basis by a movement called the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA).
"With all the attention given to the genocide in Darfur, a similar crisis in northern Uganda has been eclipsed in both attention and resources. If the eyes
and ears of the world are focused elsewhere, we must redirect them to Uganda's distressed northern population -- especially the children," Smith said.
According to Smith, since the LRA began its depredations, as many as 2 million people, about 90 percent of the total population of the Acholi area in the North, has been "forced into internally displaced persons [IDP] camps" and "more than 20,000 children have been forced to serve as either soldiers or sexual slaves for the LRA."
A child survivor, Grace Akallo, who now is a college student in Boston, recounted to the subcommittee her ordeal, which began with her abduction, along with 139 other girls, in 1996. Akallo, who was a 15-year-old schoolgirl, and the others were used as slave labor by the LRA and Sudanese government soldiers. "We were forcibly given to senior LRA commanders as so-called wives," she said.
She told a rapt audience
that she finally managed to escape, but said, "Five of my classmates died in captivity."
Others, Akallo said, "gradually managed to escape over the past 10 years; some are infected with HIV/AIDS; many of them have children by the commanders who abused them. Ten years later, two of my friends are still held hostage by the LRA."
Smith said Congress plans to challenge the use of child soldiers soon with legislation involving sanctions. He said the legislation "would deny U.S. military assistance to seven of the 26 nations believed to use children in their military forces: Burundi, Colombia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Côte d'Ivoire, Paraguay, Sudan and Uganda."
Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor Jeffrey Krilla told the subcommittee that the issue of abducted children in Uganda has "understandably struck a chord with the American people."
The United States is "a leading source of humanitarian and other aid for the people of northern Uganda, and we provided $78 million in bilateral assistance" in 2005, he said.
Krilla, a former democracy and Africa specialist with the International Republican Institute, was making his first appearance before Congress since being named to his new position several months ago.
Having met recently with the Ugandan ambassador and U.S. Ambassador to Uganda Steven Browning, Krilla said, "I look forward to close cooperation with them as we work to improve the security and living conditions for the people of northern Uganda."
Krilla said he plans to travel to northern Uganda this summer for meetings on "the regional dimensions of the LRA threat" and what the international community can do to improve the situation in northern Uganda.
Deputy
Assistant Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Leonard Rogers said, "Northern Uganda remains one of the world's least-publicized humanitarian emergencies."
Rogers said President Bush's recently released National Security Strategy report specifically mentions the LRA, terming it "a barbaric cult" that is "exploiting a regional conflict and terrorizing a vulnerable population." (See related article.)
The mention of the Ugandan conflict in such an important U.S. policy guide is significant and underscores the administration's attention toward the problem, Rogers said. "The LRA is a subregional issue that must be addressed" because it has the potential to "threaten regional stability not only in Uganda, but in the volatile regions of southern Sudan and eastern Congo," he added.
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In addition to the $78 million in assistance Krilla cited, Rogers said, USAID also provided 79,000 metric tons of
vitally needed food aid for northern IDPs in 2005, valued at $47 million. In the same year, USAID also shifted $11.8 million for food storage and health programs in the Acholi region.
Telling Smith, "The LRA has terrorized the people of northern Uganda for too long," Rogers pledged that, until peace is restored, "USAID is determined to effectively respond to what remains one of the most overlooked humanitarian crises in the world."
For information on U.S. policy in the region, see Africa.
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