Many women and girls amongst the thousands of people in the north who flee their homes each night to seek shelter in town centres fearing attacks and abduction by Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebels are sexually abused, an advocacy group has reported. The New York-based Women's Commission for Refugee Women and Children (WCRWC) said in a statement that the "night commuter" girls and women had reported that those sexually abusing and harassing them were mainly youths and government soldiers.

The Ugandan army has hailed the killing of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) overall army commander, Yadin Tolbert Nyeko, as "one of the most significant victories against the LRA since the launch of Operation Iron Fist" in 2001. "This guy was army commander, so this is a big defeat for them. There are now only two above him – Vincent Otti and [Joseph] Kony himself. It weakens their morale. That's why they fought so hard to get his body back from us, but we repelled them," the spokesman of the Uganda People's Defence Forces (UPDF), Maj Shaban Bantariza, told IRIN on Wednesday.
Related Link:
* The war that won't go away
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=39180

The East African Law society has added its voice to calls for Uganda president Yoweri Museveni to step down at the end of his constitutionally stipulated two terms. Speaking at the launch of the inaugural East African Human Rights Report for 2003, the chief executive officer of the East African Law Society, Donald Deya, said debate on the constitutional reform to allow Museveni another term should not be allowed. "We urge the president of Uganda not to violate the constitution in any way to allow himself another term of presidency," he said.

Kacoke Madit (KM) – an organisation set up by Acholi people living in the diaspora in response to the escalation of the northern Uganda conflict – has repeated its call on the government of Uganda to extend a blanket amnesty as an important means of confidence-building with the Lord’s Resistance Army and other groups. However, KM has stressed that amnesty is only one element among many required for supporting a broader peace settlement. KM publishes a regular newsletter focusing on issues relating to the conflict.

Fifty-three new unregistered political parties and organisations have formed a coalition protesting their exclusion from the on-going talks between the Ugandan government and multi-parties, reported official media on Friday. The Ugandan government delegation held two preparatory talks with a total of 11 political parties this week on transition to pluralism in the east African country. Seven political parties were invited on Monday's talks and another four parties invited on Thursday.

UNHCR started its voluntary repatriation operation from Uganda to Rwanda this week, kicking off what is expected to be one of the last major movements of Rwandan returnees in the region. The first 242 of some 25,000 Rwandan refugees living in Uganda returned home on Monday, under an agreement signed by the governments of the two countries and the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), an official told IRIN.

Applications are invited for an IT Technical Officer position with the Reflect/ICT Project in Fort Portal, funded by DFID-UK and ActionAid Uganda. Deadline for applications is January 30, 2004.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, the Netherlands, has started gathering evidence of atrocities committed by LRA rebels for a possible indictment of rebel leader Joseph Kony. In what appears to be the first heavy step by the international community, the ICC is seeking documentary evidence on the 18-year long insurgency in northern Uganda.

Described by a senior UN official as the "world's biggest neglected humanitarian crisis", the conflict in northern Uganda has now dragged on for more than 17 years. The number of internally displaced people (IDPs) has more than doubled from about 650,000 in July 2002 to 1.4 million as of December 2003. The escalation of the conflict since June 2003 meant hundreds of thousands of people have poured into camps after fleeing direct attacks by the rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) and regular fighting between the warring parties. It is widely believed that the government army is unable or – worse – unwilling to protect the IDP camps, which are frequently attacked by the LRA. Because of the insecurity, few humanitarian actors assist the heavily congested camps where conditions are appalling with a widespread breakdown of schools, health care, and water and sanitation facilities.

“I really hated this man at first, but there was no way I could escape from him. With time, I started developing some love for him because he was always with me. He was kind so I accepted him into my life. I even decided not to return home if I ever got the chance. I conceived and gave birth to a baby girl. Then one day, the Ugandan Army (UPDF) invaded our camps forcing us to flee. I was separated from my husband. It was so hard fending for my child alone in Sudan that I decided to escape across the border back into Uganda." Betty was abducted by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebel group when she was 16 years old and taken along with other children to an LRA base in south Sudan and given a ‘husband’ – an LRA fighter - on arrival. The LRA regularly abduct children for use as fighters, porters and ‘wives’ in their combat against the Ugandan government. The Italian aid agency AVSI is helping to re-integrate former child soldiers in northern Uganda into family and society. Betty is now one of about 1400 children benefiting from this project.

More than 4,000 women, children and men marched though Gulu town on December 31 2003. The Peace March has become a yearly event for the people of northern Uganda. However, what one notices first is not the bare-feet of children and women treading the roads of Gulu, but the grim faces etched perhaps with 18 years of war and suffering. This year’s theme, “Among all, Peace for all,” was chosen to stress the fact that peace is a work of everybody and also seek the involvement of the international community in ending the 18-year war.

It is the third day of a peace building and conflict management workshop at Gulu teacher's centre. Most of the participants are women who belong to the Grassroots Women for Development (GWARD), an NGO in Gulu. Others are members of the Uganda Media Women's Association (UMWA). The meeting is mainly focusing on health in the internally displaced people's camps, women and children's rights in the camps and nationalising the war in the north.

A proposed hydropower project at Karuma falls was inflated by $200 million. Norpak, a Norwegian company, is developing the Karuma project. Karuma is competing with Bujagali for World Bank's approval. Subsequently, the World Bank lined up Bujagali - which is now dogged by bribery allegations.

The state minister for Defence has ordered the army to stop referring to rescued girls as former wives of rebel commanders. Ms Ruth Nankabirwa said such references could traumatize the girls, who were forced to marry the rebel commanders of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA). "It has never been their [girls] wish that they get married to those commanders. I want to ask my commanders to change the language of reporting," she said at the army general headquarters in Bombo.

The Ugandan army has denied reports from local leaders in the country’s troubled northern Lira district that up to 70 bodies from Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) attacks have been recovered in the last week. “This figure is simply false," Lira-based army spokesman Lt Chris Magezi told IRIN. "We know the rebels killed four over this last weekend in a place near Okude, but our investigations in this area revealed nothing further.

The 54th scientific conference of the Association of Surgeons of Eastern Africa (ASEA) has heard that there are currently less than 100 surgeons practicing in Uganda for a population of about 24 million, a surgeon to patient ratio of 1:30,000.

About Shs 4.4 billion which Unicef paid out to local governments has not been accounted for. Mr Martin Emukulat, who led a team that did a performance audit of Unicef's country programme operations, said that the UN agency disbursed about Shs 20 billion to local governments in the last three years.

At least 14 people, including three civilians, have been killed in clashes involving rebels of the feared Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) over recent days, military sources told AFP on Tuesday.

Rural Uganda is a difficult place for women. Many women are the primary providers for households, either responsible for doing much of the agriculture work, or running a small business. Despite this role as providers, men, not women, usually have access to credit and local business exchanges. The Uganda chapter of the Council for the Economic Empowerment for Women of Africa (CEEWA) tries to rectify this problem and help women find the financial resources they need directly. In addition, as part of its Women's Information Resource Electronic Service (WIRES) initiative, CEEWA-Uganda recently brought information and communications technologies (ICTs) directly to the villages by building local telecentres.

The Internally Displaced People (IDPs) in Corner-Kilak camp, Pader district, have requested the Government to beef up security around IDP camps to stop abductions. In a recent memorandum which they presented to Zackary Olum, chairman of Acholi Parliamentary Group, the IDPs said the tight security would cripple the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebel group.