Prelate Asks U.N. Help for Crisis in Northern Uganda
Archbishop Odama Calls It the Least-Known Conflict

NEW YORK, FEB. 3, 2006 (Zenit.org).- Archbishop John Baptist Odama of Gulu appealed to the U.N. Security Council to call on the international community to help end the decades-old war in northern Uganda.

"I have come here to bring to the ears of people who can do something the crying of children, the cries of their beloved mothers and of their families," he warned. "There are some who describe this war as forgotten; for many others it is the planet's least known conflict."

The Ugandan prelate's intervention was reported Tuesday by the Missionary Service News Agency.

"What should I say to the people of northern Uganda when I return from New York?" he asked the Security Council. "That the members of the Security Council will continue to remain silent while children are kidnapped and killed and men and women continue to suffer violent attacks every day?"

The prelate asked the United Nations to be the mediator to facilitate peace talks between the government and rebels of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA).

Archbishop Odama also called for the creation of a "corridor" which will allow humanitarian organizations to reach the civilian population in safety.

200,000 dead

The phenomenon of child-soldiers is part of the scourge the region suffers. Rebels force the youngsters to fight or use them as slaves in the conflict that has lingered since 1986. The conflict pits the self-proclaimed visionary Joseph Kony and his LRA rebels against the Kampala government.

The war has caused an estimated 200,000 deaths and displaced 1.5 million people. About 30,000 minors have been kidnapped by the LRA and forced to fight.

The missionary agency observes that government forces themselves have been accused of abuses committed against displaced civilians gathered in "protected villages," which in fact are groups of dilapidated huts, "guarded" sporadically by small groups of soldiers.

It is estimated that 1,000 Ugandans die every week in the camps, where the rate of suicides and AIDS infection has increased drastically, stated a report last August, published jointly by the government, in collaboration with various U.N. agencies and nongovernmental organizations.

The Ugandan bishops' Justice and Peace Commission, headed by Archbishop Odama, points out that the entire population of the Pader district is obliged to live in "protected villages," a situation that has been true in Gulu and its surroundings for a long time.