ABSTRACT
The situation in northern Uganda encapsulates the many challenges and complexities of accessing and implementing justice in ongoing conflicts. The focus of the conflict in Uganda has been the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) and its long-standing antigovernment and antipopulation fight. Seldom highlighted are the brutality of the Ugandan government and its potential interest in keeping the LRA as a useful foil. Indeed, both the International Criminal Court and global popular movements that have arisen to shine a light on LRA brutality elide much of the violence carried out by government forces. The LRA became known, in particular, for abducting children to serve as soldiers or to support the rebels as porters or “wives.” The government responded to this new phase in the conflict with Operation North, a violent campaign which failed in its goal of wiping out the LRA while succeeding to terrorise and exacerbate tensions with the civilian population in the north.
