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Assefa Nurtures Cease-Fire in Uganda

Lt. General Dr. Riek Machar (l.), vice president of the government of Southern Sudan and chairman and chief mediator of the peace talks, working with Hizkias Assefa, chief facilitator of the mediation process and coordinator of the International Resource Team.

A long-time professor at Eastern Mennonite University played a key role in the recent cease-fire negotiated in one of the most deadly war zones in the world - northern Uganda, which borders with Southern Sudan and Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Hizkias Assefa, who has taught at EMU's Summer Peacebuilding Institute (SPI) for the last 11 years, co-mediated the sensitive peace talks, working in tandem with the vice president of Southern Sudan, Dr. Riek Machar.

In this region, more than 100,000 people have been killed and two million displaced over the last 20 years, currently described as the globe’s worst humanitarian catastrophe. Children have lived in fear of being abducted and forced to kill or be sex slaves. Farmers have been unable to grow desperately-needed food.

A Ugandan newspaper trumpeted: "The truce is here. The guns have finally fallen silent. The cessation of hostilities agreement signed on Saturday, Aug. 27, between the Government and the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) took effect yesterday at 6 am. This is a landmark truce that could spell an end to the 20-year rebel insurgency in the north."

A veteran of 25 years of international peace work, Assefa has advanced degrees in law, economics and public and international affairs from two U.S. universities.

Top-Level Negotiations

Writing on Aug. 17, 2006 from Juba, the capital of Southern Sudan, he noted that "face-to-face negotiations have been going on now for over a month. At this phase of the mediation process, since the only place where the top-level leaders of the insurgency group feel comfortable to meet the mediators is in the forests at the DRC-Sudan border, we have been conducting many meetings there while the primary venue for the formal negotiation between the insurgents and the government delegates has been in Juba.

"So far, the process has been an interesting mixture of track-one and and track-two approaches - top-level political negotiations and simultaneous grassroots peacebuilding activities," Assefa reported.

However, "The happenings at the political level have been exasperatingly difficult. The level of deep animosity and distrust among the parties makes whatever proposals coming from the other side automatically unacceptable. But that is where we are," he noted, adding: "The terrible thing is that the fighting is still going on while the negotiations are proceeding."

A "breakthrough" happened on Aug. 28, Assefa reported in a second round of correspondence with EMU colleagues.

Agreement Signed

"Yesterday, we signed an agreement on cessation of hostilities between the government and the insurgents that included significant elements of cease fire and even the first steps towards demobilization," he said. "We are also getting the insurgency group to agree to release the children under their control to humanitarian agencies.

"This end of fighting between the government and the rebels will also allow the people in the horrendous displaced people's camps to begin to return home with the assistance of the United Nations and other agencies.

"At this point my energy level has hit rock bottom," Assefa said. "We had to work at times until 3 a.m. when we were drafting the latest agreement for signature. Although many of us feel it is time for a break, others feel that the momentum that is building in the peace process cannot be allowed to dissipate by taking a break, and we must push on.

"Some political mediations in large scale conflict have come to successful completion with peace agreements that have held," he said. "One of the big challenges of this process is how the changes that come with the peace process get internalized in the society."

One of the goals of CJP is to enable graduates and trainees to help guide their societies toward 'internalizing' peace, so that effective alternatives to violent conflict are well understood and pursued.

Assefa will return to the EMU campus in June 2007 to again teach in the Summer Peacebuilding Institute.

— article by: Bonnie Price Lofton; posted September 5, 2006