A LAST SHOW OF THE BOOK IN UGANDA and at a time like this.  This last one is to raise some stinking money for the Marty Singer Scholarship Fund and finally finish that house for one of Kony’s former sex slaves, so I can go back to writing nob gags for a living.

Friday April 20th 8.30pm at MISHMASH in Kampala, tickets here.

We would have called the proposal Ask a Black Bloke but I can’t see it holding up in Parliament.

Jane

REBEL VIOLENCE AND INTELLIGENCE SHARING

Offering British Expertise to Protect Women and Children

Despite the UK’s huge financial commitment to protecting women and children, the LRA[i] has grown into the deadliest force in the DRC[ii], the FDLR attacked INGOS and key UK trade interests[iii] while the Muslim militia ADF developed links to al-Shabaab.  Better, cheaper results are achievable in line with the bilateral aid review.  This proposal focuses on the LRA but serves as a model for tackling regional militia.

Philip Lancaster, co-author of the International Working Group’s Diagnostic Study of the LRA, the most authoritative and up to date assessment available, cites lack of intelligence and poor intelligence sharing as the critical stumbling block[1].  The UN cites lack of actionable intelligence as their stumbling block[iv]. Meanwhile available intelligence is wasted.  Regional armies cannot prioritise it.  The AU is not operational. There is no major peace negotiation.  The Security Council has “grave concerns”[2].  Civilians are caught in the gap, unprotected, despite Britain’s substantial funding.

We propose Britain helps bridge this gap with two small, cheap teams of experts.  The first coordinates civilian intelligence, a crucial missing link.  The second bolsters MONUSCO’s Joint Information and Operations Cell (JIOC) in preparation for, and support of, the AU.

OFFERING BRITISH CIVILIAN INTELLIGENCE

The official line is the LRA can’t be stopped because ‘no one knows where they are.’ This is not true. Local people always know. If someone is twisting the heads of toddlers[3] in your neighbourhood, you tend to keep an ear out.

Civilian intelligence is a huge, untapped and free resource.  We suggest sending a tiny team of civilian intelligence-gathering experts to help the three key groups – local people, NGOs and Clergy – coordinate their extensive networks.  For the 25-year history of the crisis, vital information from civil society has been squandered where it could have saved lives and prevented mass kidnapping.  A civilian-only unit is needed, since NGOs cannot fully cooperate with the military, and the military’s human rights record means local people and clergy don’t always bring them information.  Likewise despite MONUSCO’s recent ops, civilians risk LRA reprisals.

The aim of this civilian support team would be to centralise information into attack prevention.  Local actors cite how verbal accounts of LRA can be used to identify and track different LRA cells (eg by type of weapons used) and warn communities in their path. The team would centralize records to make the DDRRR process more effective and give families a chance to at least keep tabs on their kidnapped children.  Right now, even the names of children kidnapped are not centrally recorded. This undermines DDRRR. Young people leaving the LRA risk torture and death from both locals and captors.  Having to overcome shoddy record keeping to prove you were kidnapped in the first place should not be part of that.

OFFERING BRITISH TACTICAL INTELLIGENCE SUPPORT

The JIOC suffers from lack of resourcing and senior staff appropriate to the tenacity and impact of the LRA.  Throw in mistrust between local armies, and it can’t get much done.  People on the ground have long said the JIOC in its current form can’t work; now Human Rights Watch is publicly citing the JIOC as a problem.  The US is proposing sending four expert ‘mentors’, two intelligence-trained and two operationally-trained, as an alternative to boots on the ground in their contribution to the region.  We suggest Britain match the US’s commitment.  The UK has the expertise to deliver, at a fraction of the cost of our current £60million investment in MONUSCO, a two-person civilian Special Projects team working within the UN to gather intelligence.  One part-time post supports from the UK.[v] Right now the US do not share intelligence, a glaring omission in this region.  This UK team would work on a two-year mission, gathering, analysing and sharing intelligence in a trusted environment while building accountability.  The aim is to bolster existing intelligence to protect civilians before the AU becomes operational and support the AU when it does.  The experts themselves don’t have to be British, just British-backed.

What makes this programme different is it does not represent a money drain: if after 12 months the team is not providing quality information, or if the information is not being acted on, the project would close.  Either way it would bring transparency to end the mystery around the 25-year survival of Joseph Kony and the LRA.

REOPENING PEACE CHANNELS

Since the military process has not eliminated the LRA high command in 25 years, and 90% of the fighters are kidnapped, peace must always be an option.  Key UN actors agree an ineffective military process is worse than no military process when the LRA follow attacks on their personnel with bloody reprisals of up to 900 civilians at a time.

Britain saying that Kony has a mediator’s phone number and hasn’t used it is not the same as Britain actively supporting peace. The UK has a long-standing and extremely expensive relationship with Uganda.  The LRA are also expensive: post-conflict being a fat chunk of our £2bn investment to date.  Could asking President Museveni to tell the LRA the peace agreement is still open be a part of our special relationship?

The LRA can legally sign the final peace agreement but no one is making it happen.  If Britain’s feeling is that there must be a concrete sign from the LRA they are serious first, let’s have someone actually make that possible.  In practical terms, take the LRA that message.  The Regional Task Force led by Archbishop John Odama is ready and willing: Odama repeatedly persuaded Kony to release children in batches of up to 90 before the Ugandan army stopped the process.  Let’s ask Museveni to meet Odama and make it official.  What’s to lose?

Key Juba actors and researchers suggest it is time to take the peace focus beyond the famously unreliable Kony.  He is not the only powerbase in the LRA.  Abductees report to UN staff that their commander wanted to defect but didn’t know how.  A renewed negotiation reaches those commanders, rather than passively waiting.

Joseph Kony and the LRA are not about to go away.  Al-Jazeera reported that the LRA met with Khartoum and could reprise their role in a proxy war between Bashir and the new S Sudan administration.  Reports from the ground suggest Kony is regrouping in CAR.  His military campaign has one constant: his tool is civilians.

[2] http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2011/sc10335.doc.htm

[3] http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/07/world/africa/07congo.html ‘rebels even tried to twist off toddlers’ heads’.

, joint NGO report (Oxfam lead) Dec 2010.

[ii] In 2010, there were more than 200 separate attacks in North Eastern DRC alone. OCHA

[iii] FDLR rebels attacked UK oil firm SOCO’s convoy in Feb 2011, kidnapping two. BBC, Feb 17 2011 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-12492906

[iv] ‘We have no actionable intelligence on where Joseph Kony is where his main leaders are. So that is the first job: to equip the international community to get in there and find where these leaders are. Everyone agrees that is what should happen.’

The UN Department of Peace Keeping’s Kevin Kennedy, speaking on BBC Today.

[v] The proposed low cost intelligence gathering operation takes the form of a civilian Special Projects team supplied by the UK to work for the UN, with one senior local negotiator and two ex-military personnel (one officer, one junior rate) in country reporting to the Deputy Force Commander. Continuity is key; the person heading the team needs to stay in the role for the full two years. A senior rate specialist working part time from the UK would support the team with Intelligence Preparation of the Battlespace and Requests For Information.

Meanwhile, we’re being told the LRA are on their way out. This is not true: reports from the field say they’re building training/rape camps (someone text Ben Affleck!) and on a massive kidnapping spree to fill those camps.

On the ground – Uganda’s army (UPDF), Congo’s army (FARDC), the UN’s team (MONUSCO), the USA and the Central African Republic’s fantastically named FACAs. However, the Congolese don’t have the capacity to stop the LRA. The Ugandans are on the point of being kicked out by the Congolese for their history of looting. The UN are restricted to the less dangerous places and the LRA prefer the, as it were, dangerous places. The Americans are running out of cash investing against a grudge match. And the FACAs fuck off at the first sign of trouble, there being about 12 of them. As with all phony wars kept going as a nice little earner, money pours in and everybody wins except the kids getting kidnapped.

In January I went back to Africa on a two-pronged attack of finishing my NGO comedy drama, while finding out what is actually being done about the LRA, as opposed to ‘condemning them in the strongest possible terms’.

I found myself having teas and African Guinness (sharper, less foamy) all over Nairobi, the epicentre of white folks in Africa. Usually, as we talked, a small white boy threw sticks in a hedge, crawled into the hedge and was dragged out of a hedge by a black nanny saying, ‘What are you doing that for, Jamie/Max/Ollie?” to a screamed explanation.

I established that Britain can’t stop the LRA because nobody knows where Kony is. “So what we are doing?” I asked. We’re endorsing the African Union’s newly launched four-country offensive to find the LRA, I was told. “Do you think they are going to find the LRA?” I asked various experts. “They’ve got a summit in Addis next month.” Cool. “But the LRA’s not on the agenda.” OK… “And Britain leads the LRA process on the security council. The SC just held a meeting about the LRA.” Oh. Good! What happened? “The AU didn’t turn up.” I emailed the AU to ask what their plan was. They were very nice, said they couldn’t tell me, but were planning to have a meeting about their plans.

“We must be doing more than that,” I said. All parties told me, “We’re increasing the aid budget to help the victims. Half a billion over five years.” “But doesn’t that go via local politicians and NGOs, who famously nick it?” I asked everyone. Then I learned this: one of the things the UK is giving money to is a project for local Ugandans to protest about the politicians stealing money given by foreign donors. I wish I had made this up, it’s glorious.

Many officials told me they fully believed the Ugandan army was doing a good job looking for Kony, and anyway, they couldn’t do a good job because they were in five countries including Somalia, so given that they couldn’t possibly do the job, they were doing a really good job, and while they had never stopped the LRA, they wouldn’t have been looking for them for 25 years if they didn’t want to find them. We would continue to support the Ugandan army’s attempts to rescue the kids. But no one knows where Kony is.

Then I put a different question to everyone I met. “OK, look,” I said, to everyone. “Let’s put a different question. Imagine I’ve been kidnapped as a sex slave by the LRA. I am, right now, being held by the LRA. How would you get me back?” The answer was different. “Local intelligence.” What do you mean? I said. “The local people… in contact with the LRA… they know.” “Is anyone asking them?” “Not really.”

After many, many phone calls with many, many parties, I have two plans to stop the LRA. Here is Plan A.

PLAN A: Ask a Black Bloke.

The UK government pays the salary of two people who are good at studying intelligence and someone in London to help them part time. These people Ask a Black Bloke if they’ve seen Kony. Or a black woman, or a black kid. ie bring local people into the process, since they are the ones actually being chopped up and getting their kids kidnapped, and ask them about the LRA. The two people also properly share information between the myriad UN agencies, the NGOs, the armies, clergy and civil societies, not forgetting the FACAs. They build a picture of how the LRA are operating and work on an early warning system. I’m simplifying, but only in detail.

Meanwhile, the UK actively back a civilian prepared to restart negotiations for a peaceful settlement, which given that the LRA are spread out into little groups no one can currently be arsed to find, would be handy… The Archbishop of Gulu, John Odama, came over at Christmas – I’m going to try to ask him and the Archbishop of York John Sentamu what they think. I’ve interviewed John Odama before and he’s great. The Archbishop of York is after my own heart (he cuts up his dog collar on Radio 4 because he’s pissed of with Mugabe! He jumps out of aeroplanes with the Red Devils! He’s an Honorary Para!) – really hope he’ll meet up.

That’s Plan A. It all comes down to whether DFID will pay the information gatherers’ salaries. They’d need to be there for at least 18 months, but if after a year they’re not getting good information, or that information isn’t being acted on (the real test…) they go home. Any other charities willing to make that promise?

No genuine peace negotiator would want paying, but they would need us to have their back. They’ve been stitched up in all manner of ways in the past (priests bombed while negotiating kids’ release in 2002, 2003… you name it).

Here is Plan B: it makes me considerably more money.

PLAN B: TENDER FOR DFID GRANT TO RESCUE CHILD SOLDIERS

1. Identified Problem a)

Large number of kidnapped Child soldiers across inland forests.

1. Identified Problem a) (2)

Lack of capacity, will, incentive to rescue children.

1. Identified Problem b) (1)

Large number of European paedophiles and sex tourists plaguing African coastal regions.

2. Proposed Project Proposal  c) (1,2,3)

Employ Human chain of  European paedophiles and sex tourists across inland central forest moving slowly north.

- Electronic tagging system (20,000 anklets) to be donated by SA police.

- Paedophiles given 24hour grace period (JAD4K*) between finding child and returning him to army reception centre.

*Just another day for the kids.

3. Proposed Project Costs  a) (4,5)

Zero dollars. Zero shillings. Zero pounds.

4. Proposed Project Budget c) (6,9-11)

Four million sterling (overheads, office management, staff, wardrobe budget, misc. expenses of J Bussmann Inc.)

4. Proposed Project Success  a) (100)

100%.

UPDATE: TENDER STATUS – April 2011

Rejected.

REASON FOR REJECTION: Does not address 2011 aid underspend.

In all seriousness, Plan A is a genuine proposal. Obviously there is more to it, but when I sit down with the politicians who could make a decision I’ll let you know what they say.

If you’d like to help it would be excellent if you could email your MP and ask if they think Britain’s current approach to the Lord’s Resistance Army is appropriate. We’re spending £60m annually on MONUSCO and giving £100m to Uganda, 50% directly to the Ugandan government. You can get your MP’s email by going to www.theyworkforyou.com. Ta!

*Chenery, she’s very good.

Come along and hurl bagels and Central Park horse detritus

http://www.cultureproject.org/wcs/artists/spotlight-jane-bussmann

On December 14, MPs and peers from all parties (and the Bishop of Wakefield!) skipped seasonal alcohol opportunities to watch The Worst Date Ever in the Grand Committee Room, the first ever XXX-Rated live comedy show performed in the Houses of Parliament.

This show came about at the invitation of Mary Creagh MP, shadow cabinet minister and future prime minister (all is not lost, British public – there’s one politician out there who isn’t a mockney psycho). The show was put on with Amnesty International.

Parliament was completely full of coppers seeing off student protesters and their selfish demands for lessons. Inside, the Grand Committee Room was wood-panelled with sweeping ceilings, full of green leather chairs with gold portcullises on them. See above. All reasonably terrifying but the show, the last one I’ll do in Britain, was fantastic: Sunday Times Foreign Editor Sean Ryan and the Mail on Sunday’s Travel Editor Frank Barrett played themselves sending me to Uganda, to much laughter. An audience of politicians, activists, comedy people and senior clergy (bravely shouldering paedo jokes) had fun and wished they’d thought to smuggle booze in. Then we all went to the Red Lion where we got to listen to Jon Snow giving the inside story on WikiLeaks, which this week finally exposed what I’ve been trying to say about the international community, Uganda and the LRA. Finally, landlord and comedy fan Peter Cliffe got us completely drunk.

Thanks to Mary and Amnesty, the result of the Worst Date Ever is an EARLY DAY MOTION that is currently up and running and ready for your MPs to sign. They are surprisingly likely to sign it if you ask them to. After the Houses of Parliament show, EARLY DAY MOTION 117: UGANDA AND THE LORD’S RESISTANCE ARMY got 17 signatures in three days, and MPs emailed people I knew to say they signed after someone drew their attention to what was happening out there.

What is happening out there is a child kidnapping / war profiteering outrage. Joseph Kony has kidnapped somewhere between 20,000 – 66,000 children and young people, and led some of the bloodiest massacres ever seen.  No one has stopped him: instead the ‘war’ has become a nice little earner for all parties, except the kids. Previous attempts to stop Kony were secretive, badly-planned disasters: Early Day Motion 117 calls on the British government to help local parties arrest Kony and key Lord’s Resistance Army members as Step One in ending the scam. It’s time to put the ‘war’ under public scrutiny.

If you get a chance, email your MP and ask them to sign. If you want to send them more info, send them here or download RESOLUTION:POSSIBLE LRA CAMPAIGN

The aim is simple: get the kids home.

Jane

And the The Worst Date Ever is inside.

is my blurt

Jane