IDPs in northern Uganda: moving back, moving on

Written by DEVAPRIYO DAS

Monday, 11 May 2009 07:33

To a casual observer, a camp for displaced people in Northern Uganda is a mere collection of thatched huts, patched tents, ragged children and dusty pathways. But a closer look reveals a maze of muddy alleys that link the different sections of the camp, unobtrusive pit latrines, a bald football pitch, large water tanks heated by solar panels proudly branded by the sponsoring NGOs, and makeshift evangelical churches.There are also little stalls selling cooking oil, flour and salt, bicycle repair shops, and markets where women sell vegetables, maize mill and dried fish. These camps were meant to be a temporary stop on an unfortunate population’s march through life. But 22 years of war and insecurity have lent an air of permanence to the camps, unintentionally turning them into urban concentrations. For the last 18 months, their interned populations have been shuffling home, often willingly, sometimes forced. As the pace of return is heightened and the camps are set to close, the impact of this return from urban to rural life is only now being assessed, and questioned. MOVING ON OR BACK? Arthur Larok is Director of Programmes at Uganda’s National NGO Forum. His family was pushed into camps and is today struggling with the process of return. He argues that, “First and foremost, it’s not true that IDP (internally displaced persons) camps are urban settlements; they are worse than refugee camps. Urbanity is not just about the collection of people, it is about certain infrastructure and certain access to basic social services which was a major problem in these camps in the first instance”. Noting that the situation was imposed on the people, he believes that the return of IDPs to their original homes is “an extremely important and logical step towards restoring basic livelihood support to these groups.” The initial objective of the camps was to frustrate support for the Lord’s Resistance Army rebels by isolating them from the local populace. However, the outcome is worrying as an entire generation has been born in the camps, knowing nothing but camp life. Productive adults have been de-skilled and cut-off from the mainstream of economic life. The most affected communities are the Acholi and to lesser extents, the Langi and Iteso. No one doubts the squalor and frustration of camp life, and no one doubts the need for IDPs to move on with their lives. But does that mean moving back to their old, rural, and marginally productive lives? ECONOMIC IMPASSE According to Kenneth Oketa, Prime Minister of the Acholi cultural institution, “The resettlement has taken people unawares.” He explains that local people expected to receive the economic means to aid their resettlement and regain their productivity first. Instead, he says, “They are resettling through their own effort.” But IDPs have no savings with which to travel to their villages, buy farm implements, hire labourers to help clear their overgrown gardens, and build new homes. Those who are able to venture back to their gardens suffer the added risk of having their huts in camps demolished in their absence by local camp committees under the supervision of LC-I chairpersons. The latter are in charge of overseeing – some would say hastening – the demolition process at the grassroots level. As a minor concession, IDPs are allowed to take demolished building materials back home to their villages and use them to help construct new homes. Nineteen year-old Concie Ayen exemplifies the impossible situation faced by many IDPs. Living in Tetuku camp on the outskirts of Gulu Town Council, she is already taking care of three children aged 15, 14 and 4, the last being her own child. She is a single mother, a Primary 7 drop-out whose parents were murdered by rebels in 1995. She is, nevertheless, fortunate by the standards of a woman in her position. She owns land that her relatives have so far desisted from grabbing, on which she plants cassava and groundnuts. She sold over 100 kilos of produce in 2007 and hopes to repeat the feat this year. Despite this, she lives in camp, unwilling to face her relatives and the complications of land ownership without the backing of parents or a husband. She realises that she must stay around Gulu town if she is to remain economically viable and if her wards are to receive an education. STAGGERED FAMILIES Cumulatively, return often involves members of the same family living separately in camps, in common dwellings in parishes, and in their village homes (for those who have been able to construct them). Children tend to remain in camps so as to access free primary education, while their parents stay in the parish to cultivate their fields and be within reach of markets to sell their crops. Catering for the needs of scattered families is apparent to Richard Todwong, a Special Presidential Advisor on Northern Uganda. “We are going to have a population that is going to demand an urban life,” he says. “Then we will have another population that is semi-urban, semi-rural. And never shall Acholi be the same in the way we lived before the war.” He predicts that the challenge of resettlement will create a population “that will never leave this camp, and therefore, a time will come when government shall have to purchase land in camps, to re-settle this group.” He expects such a move will entail compensating owners on whose lands camps were built, and will compel the Uganda Government to plan proper houses, water systems, and electric supplies to serve areas that are currently IDP camps. The idea appeals to Lucy Akwer, a 19 year-old resident of Awer camp, some 25km north of Gulu town. She hails from Lamogi Sub-county where she owns land, but cannot access it as it is being squatted on by her step-father and brothers. With two small children and nowhere to live except in camp, she would certainly benefit if the camp itself were made permanent and rehabilitated. Yet this idea is disagreeable to many. Larok is one such person, who notes that, “It is government responsibility to provide services wherever people are. I can never buy the argument that now [people] are concentrated somewhere it’s better to build a school [there]. Do a school at parish level because that is the plan and that is happening in other parts of this country. Otherwise, if we wanted to extend [this] argument, we would say, why don’t you concentrate people all over the country? Let them come and stay in areas where services can be [provided] for them!” However, a return to villages removes people from the squalor of camps but transplants them into relative obscurity. Access to local schools, health centres, markets to sell produce, and even to places of entertainment or worship becomes more difficult as northern Uganda’s hinterlands lack suitable transport infrastructure. Even where local markets are available, farmers inevitably flood them with produce, pushing down local prices. Jimmy Akena, who has lived eight of his 21 years at Awer Camp, illustrates this paradox. A Primary 6 drop-out, he returned in February to his home village of Jimo in Alanya parish, hoping to grow groundnuts and beans which he intends to sell. He acknowledges that “In the village, you can only cultivate, you get something for feeding; but in town you do some business where you can get money, you can move around.” AMNESTY, ANGER Apart from economic woes, returnees from camps also face the emotional horror of living next door to former rebels who returned –and are still returning- from the bush under a general amnesty. While cultural and religious leaders constantly point out how successful reconciliation and reintegration of former rebels has been, they cannot deny that returnees are angry with those who destroyed their livelihoods. Oketa goes so far as to suggest that victims no longer necessarily feel that former fighters were “forced” to fight innocent civilians and should therefore be automatically forgiven. Rather, “they feel the person committed an offence and the person should be penalised.” The situation is exacerbated by the conditions of amnesty which entailed former rebels receiving gifts of blankets, mattresses and agricultural implements with which to restart their lives. Small though these items may seem, they spark bitter jealousies in the impoverished world of the returnees. Oketa recalls an instance when local youth grabbed mattresses from a former combatant in their village, justifying their action with, “You are getting a free mattress when I am sleeping on the floor, and yet you are the people who were disturbing us!” Oketa says the former combatants don’t often complain about such actions. “They just remain meek because they know what they have done.” USEFUL AGAIN No clear agenda or concrete deadlines seem to be in place to facilitate and monitor the process of return. The effort is a haphazard mix of government policy, small-scale civil society efforts, and ad hoc donor-driven interventions. Therefore, what emerges as the surest way to obtain a sustainable process is to provide viable livelihoods. “We don’t need to waste time planning a lot!” says Oketa exasperatedly. “We need to create some avenues for youth like vocational training – masonry, carpentry – so they can earn themselves a living.” While free primary education might help children living in camps, it cannot serve those too old for it and who urgently need to start earning money. As of now, there are not enough free vocational or higher education schemes. And as Oketa asks, “How many sacks of maize will you sell to pay for it?” Larok insists that those in camps must be made independent of food aid and other welfare programmes: “When the human dignity of people is restored, when they are able to take care of their own basic needs, resources that would otherwise have been spent on them can be deployed elsewhere.” He explains that the return of IDPs, and ultimately the productive enterprise they will engage in, can only benefit Uganda. “For many years, people in camps have not been contributing to the wealth of this nation; now we are digging, we are trying to get back to what we used to do in the past, and hopefully soon we will be making considerable contributions to the development and wealth of this nation.” AGAINST THE TIDE But simply doing what one did in the past will not be enough to salvage the situation. A sensibly combined effort by the Uganda Government, local governments, foreign donors and civil society is needed to provide capital for enterprise development, pay reparations to victims, ensure security and justice, and establish infrastructure like roads, hospitals and schools. Good roads, for instance, would help farmers get their crops to booming markets in South Sudan and Northern Kenya, which suffer perennial food shortage. Larok envisions a long-term reconstruction fund for Northern Uganda. Unimpressed by the existing Northern Uganda Social Action Fund (NUSAF) that is bedevilled by theft and mismanagement, he wants the reconstruction fund to “ensure that everything gets integrated into the normal district development planning and budgeting processes.” This would involve strengthening district works and planning units, organising local people into co-operatives, promoting mechanised agriculture among farmers’ groups, allocating business loans in a non-partisan way among a variety of stakeholders, and making local people responsible for their livelihoods. The task is enormous and likely to face unique challenges. Whatever the outcome, its effect on the human landscape of Uganda will be felt in unpredictable ways for years to come.