The Great Lakes Region of Africa has been plagued with rampant abuses of human rights at the hands of government armies and state-sponsored militias, resulting in the deaths of millions of innocent people.

Northern Uganda

Decades of war and human rights abuses in Acholiland (Northern Uganda) have created a crisis of enormous proportions. Once called the "world's worst, forgotten" humanitarian crisis by Jan Egeland, former UN Undersecretary General for Humanitarian affairs, and despite extensive documentation of horrific human rights abuses from both rebel and government forces, northern Uganda hasn't received the attention or action other crises, such as Darfur have commanded.

In many ways, the duration of the suffering of northern Ugandans, in particular the Acholi ethnic group, has become what Olara Otunnu, former UN official and primary author of UN Resolution 1612, which criminalizes the use of children in armed combat, terms a 'silent genocide.'

Besides a newly resumed war, the Acholi people, who have survived decades of war and forced displacement in squalid camps, may also be denied their only possession: land. Even as people begin the process of rebuilding lives from scratch, large investors (with the assistance of the Ugandan government) are settling upon the land, in efforts to seize the fertile, well-rested soil.

For more information about Uganda's 'silent genocide', please visit UgandaGenocide.info and FriendsForPeaceInAfrica.org

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