Building Peace at the Local Level in Uganda

Negotiators for the Ugandan government waited in vain last week for the illusive rebel leader, Joseph Kony to emerge and sign a peace agreement to end the twenty year civil war in Northern Uganda. Once again, Kony failed to appear, demanding further concessions. However, while Kony continues to stall peace efforts, the people of Uganda have continued to pursue peace amongst themselves.

This week, we travelled to Soroti, in eastern Uganda to meet with an inspiring local organization which is taking peace into its own hands. The Teso Dioceses Development Office (TEDDO) has a peace project  headed by Pastor Sam Eibu which specializes in community-based mediation. Under Eibu’s initiative, a group of one hundred “peace promoters” have been trained to carry out localized conflict resolution and conciliation initiatives in the villages surrounding Soroti.

In contrast to the high ranking negotiations aimed at coaxing Kony into a peace deal, the peace promoters find themselves mediating disputes between spouses, parents, children and neighbours. While these efforts may seem small, the reality is that they make an important and significant contribution towards creating peace in eastern Uganda.

Some of the peace promoters’ work represents significant steps towards addressing larger issues of insecurity in the region. TEDDO has initiated dialogues between the Teso people and their Karamajong neighbours – two Ugandan ethnic groups whose relationship has been characterized by violence and misunderstanding. The peace promoters have also invested much time in mediating land disputes that erupt as internally displaced people from the war in Northern Uganda attempt to return to their land.

TEDDO’s peace project is unique in several ways. All of the peace promoters are volunteers who take time away from tending their crops in order to make a contribution to the peace of the community. These volunteers are nominated by the villages themselves which gives them local authority. Eibu has intentionally urged the villages to nominate women as well as men and has trained the promoters in issues of gender-based violence, strengthening the voice and influence of women in a society that often undervalues them.

The TEDDO peace initiative is an important example of the power of ordinary people to create sustainable, lasting peace in their own communities. In the words of Eibu, “Peace is not imported. If it could be imported, we would already have it. Peacebuilding is about the community, about building relationships and about the community owning the process.”

-Emily Welty