The Mercy Corps Blog

Blog Post Posted September 14, 2009, 3:17 pm by Roger Burks

Forgiveness

Ugandan soldiers and policemen guard a burnt police station and vehicles in a suburb of Kampala. Photo: REUTERS/James Akena

Over the weekend, I paid attention to news of rioting in Uganda, a country I visited on a field trip almost three years ago. The violence was set off by rising tensions between one of Uganda’s traditional kings and the elected government. Supporters of the king took to the streets in protest of what they believed was Ugandan government interference in their culture and heritage.

At least 21 people were killed and 86 injured. Almost 700 people have been arrested. Dozens of buildings and stores were torched and looted. Cars were overturned and burned.

According to reports, Monday seemed calm on the streets of Kampala —Uganda’s capital — but choked with debris from the recent mayhem.

We all know that the blaze of violence, fueled by hatred or misunderstanding, can consume villages, cities and even entire countries before anyone can think of a way to put it out. Unfortunately such violence seems to occur disproportionately in Africa.

So once the fire has died out and survivors stand looking at the ashes, what happens next?

Is the first impulse revenge for what they’ve had taken from them? I think that, if I was to put myself in their place in those dark moments, I would have a hard time thinking about anything other than that.

Or, in a place where violence is so spontaneous and widespread — where the fate of nations is often decided by long-running blood feuds between a few individuals — does the fatigue of endless bloodshed give way to a desire for rest, for peace?

It’s hard to imagine reconciliation and even forgiveness rising from death and destruction. But that's exactly what's happening a couple hundred miles north of Kampala, in a place that was governed by displacement, killing and fear for more than two decades.

Cecilia Lamunu, widowed by Uganda's long-running civil war, holds a gas lamp against the darkness inside her tiny hut in Pader District. Photo: Thatcher Cook for Mercy Corps

Taking lessons from similar challenges around the world — from conflict-torn places like Guatemala, Kosovo, Liberia and Iraq — Mercy Corps is leading the Pader Peace Program, an approach that is restoring peace and security in Pader District, a place where up to 80 percent of the population were driven from their homes. This program uses “peace committees” composed of ordinary citizens to help resolve disputes before they escalate. Before property or lives are lost.

Over the last several months, the Pader Peace Program has already helped resolve 152 land disputes, 97 cases of domestic violence and 23 border disputes between neighboring counties. It’s bringing villagers, local leaders and government officials together for dialogue in a place where civil war interrupted any kind of governance for a generation.

The Pader Peace Program even helped the people of Atanga, a sub-county in Pader District, build a monument to those who lost their lives in during the decades of fighting between the Lord’s Resistance Army and Ugandan government troops: more than 440 men, women and children. Some of the worst atrocities of the civil war were committed here in Atanga, but its people want nothing more than to move on.

When the monument was dedicated, one of the speakers said, “This monument is a symbol that will serve as a reminder to future generations — something that can stop further war. If we truly want peace, we must forgive those who committed these atrocities.”

Because forgiveness is hard — and owning up to misdeeds maybe more so — anywhere you are, despite the circumstances.

But in places like northern Uganda, places where the past is obliterated, there is only the present and — beyond that — a more hopeful future. In places like this, that future begins with forgiveness and hard work.