For nearly two decades, a rebel movement calling itself the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) has been locked in armed conflict with the government of Uganda, leaving two million people displaced in the northern Acholi region and creating what the United Nations has called one of the worst humanitarian disasters in the world.
The LRA, originally welcomed by the economically and politically marginalized Acholi people, has become known for its mass abductions of children and brutal violence against civilians.
Its leader, Joseph Kony, claims to have inherited spiritual powers and to be fulfilling a religious calling by waging a rebellion to install a new state based on the Biblical Ten Commandments. To fill its ranks, the LRA has kidnapped as many as 40,000 children over the years, forcing them to serve as child soldiers, concubines, or servants. Employing a potent mix of Christianity, indigenous religious traditions, and its own spiritual narrative, the LRA has indoctrinated thousands of children to fight in its corrupt holy war. The government of Uganda, noting that Kony and the LRA are irrational and cannot be negotiated with, has pursued a military solution to the problem, yielding little success over the years.In 1998, determined to stop the ongoing abductions of children and with hopes of ending a war that has ravaged their communities, Catholic, Muslim, Anglican, and traditional religious leaders in Northern Uganda created the Acholi Religious Leaders Peace Initiative (ARLPI). ARLPI leaders began accompanying thousands of children known as “night commuters” who seek refuge from LRA abduction by sleeping at city bus stations, parks, and other public places. The presence of the religious leaders provides physical and moral support for the children and helps deter LRA attacks. Believing reconciliation was the best way to heal their society, ARLPI also went on to lead a successful advocacy campaign for passage of laws to provide amnesty for LRA fighters willing to leave the war and reintegrate peacefully into their communities. ARLPI has also worked to train hundreds of local leaders in peace building and conflict resolution and has undertaken nonofficial mediation between midlevel LRA leaders and government officials (often called Track Two diplomacy) to help establish ceasefires, encourage negotiations, and urge restraint on all sides. Responding to the physical, economic, social, and spiritual damage of more than two decades of war, these religious leaders in Northern Uganda are actively working to help protect civilians, reduce suffering, denounce spiritually motivated violence, and bring the parties in conflict closer to a peaceful resolution.
Whether the Acholi religious leaders can succeed in restoring peace and reconciling the people of Northern Uganda remains to be seen. However, their faith-based peacemaking efforts, coupled with the LRA’s own use of religion and spiritual myth to justify and fuel violence, demonstrate the complicated nature of religion’s role in human conflict and the practice of peacemaking.