Schomerus, Mareike
(2012)
Even eating you can bite your tongue: dynamics and challenges of the Juba peace talks with the Lord’s Resistance Army.
PhD thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science.
Abstract
RUNNER-UP for the Cedric Smith Prize 2014, a prize for the best piece of peace and conflict research awarded by the Conflict Research Society. NOMINATED for Peace Science Society's 2014 Walter Isard Award for the Best Dissertation in Peace Science.
This thesis offers an alternative narrative why the Juba Peace Talks between
the Government of Uganda and the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) and
its political wing, the Lord’s Resistance Movement (LRM), did not produce a
Final Peace Agreement. Widely considered the most promising peace effort
in the history of a violent conflict that began in 1986, talks were mediated
by the Government of Southern Sudan from 2006 to 2008. During this time,
the parties signed five separate agreements on a range of issues, yet in
2008 the LRA’s leader, Joseph Kony, failed to endorse them through a final
signature. An aerial attack on the LRA by the Ugandan army spelled the
end of the Juba Talks.
It is commonly argued that as the first peace talks conducted with people
wanted by the International Criminal Court, the Juba Talks collapsed
because the arrest warrants made a negotiated agreement impossible.
Another widely accepted reason is that the LRA/M were not committed to
peace. This thesis, however, argues that how the LRA/M experienced the
muddled and convoluted peace talks was the crucial factor because the
dynamics of the process confirmed existing power dynamics. Internally, the
LRA/M’s dynamics were profoundly influenced by their perception of being
trapped in an established hostile system, causing a struggle to transform
their own dynamics constructively.
Offering an analytical chronology of the Juba Talks with an empirical
emphasis on the perspective of the LRA/M and an analysis of LRA/M
structures and behavioural patterns that emerged in the process, this thesis
further outlines that judging success or failure of a peace process on
whether agreements have been signed is misplaced. Despite not producing
a final agreement, the Juba Talks contributed to peace and change in
Uganda.
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