Hard News on Committee Session #2

IPI _ Hindustan Times _ Lydia _ DISEC

DISEC Council

Is negotiation a right way to save people from LRA?

LRA or Lord’s Resistance Army are a group of military power from Uganda who are in war with the government and the people from Uganda and its neighboring country. During 1987, LRA had not only had war with the government but also abused people for soldiers and sexual slaves. This criminal activity has been funded with the goods transaction to gain money and to get weapons that could be used by the soldiers. LRA’s criminal lists also include the activities of abducting and killing people from African Countries. Though LRA is harmful for countries and human rights, the efforts of negotiations have failed because LRA did not want to discuss a way to solve the criminal activities with the government and international organizations. LRA’s leader, Joseph K., refuse to be punished.

Even though negotiations did not succeed, today (27/02), DISEC as an international organization still talks about the possibilities of diplomatic negotiations with LRA. LRA, as quoted from one of the delegates, ‘are a delusional group that do not want to negotiate and therefore a negotiation is risky’. The problem also arose because the information about LRA is still lacking. Hence comprehensive solutions like intelligence connections between African countries are needed. This connection hopefully will be helpful to find sources of the conditions of the LRA camps and where they find their weapons.

Due to the dangerous activities LRAS needs to be punished. The solutions given by the delegates is changing the punishment into social punishment so that LRA wants to take part in the negotiations. In order to help LRA’s victims, we have to think and feel like the victims so that we could understand the needs of help from the government and international organizations.