By Keith Taylor
Those who crowded into the Parish Hall on 1st October enjoyed an illuminating evening on Africa when Malcolm Harper, previously with OXFAM and the United Nations Association, spoke of his deep involvement in African development and peace-making over some 40 years.
He looked at a number of key challenges facing Africa as a whole (including malaria, widespread poverty, corruption and violent conflict) and spoke about alternative traditional African methods of conflict resolution, often based on restorative rather than punitive justice, which he felt should be allowed more rein than is often the case at present.
He looked in particular at the 22-year-long civil war in northern Uganda which has pitted the Government against the rebel LRA (Lord’s Resistance Army). The LRA have a long list of appalling atrocities to their name, including the forcible abduction of some 20,000 children for use as child soldiers, porters, ‘wifelets’ for army commanders or sex slaves. And the Ugandan army itself has not always behaved professionally in this regard.
Malcolm helped in 2004 to set up a small charity, The Friends of Northern Uganda, which works very closely with the inter-faith Acholi Religious Leaders’ Peace Initiative to advocate the use of traditional Acholi peace processes in seeking to bring the rebellion to an end. It also seeks sponsorship for secondary school bursaries or for skills training in carpentry, motor mechanics and the like.
The evening raised £450 for the charity, which will enable the Archbishop Janani Luwum Secondary School at Mucweni in northern Uganda to get a local carpenter to supply a number of desks for students. Over the years, the war has caused the school to close on several occasions when either the army or the rebels ransacked it. Now that there is a ceasefire in place the school is seeking urgently to rehabilitate itself, largely through the efforts of parents and others in the local community and with help from groups like the Friends.