Sandrine Perrot

Museveni’s Best Enemies: Dilemmas and Political Uses of the Reintegration of Former Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) Commanders in Northern Uganda

The return to northern Uganda after 2003 of adults and commanders of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) in a no peace no war context has posed legal, political, and security challenges for the Ugandan government. This chapter shows that by encouraging and politically exploiting the successful reintegration of a few high ranking ex-commanders, the Ugandan government has been trying to win over—or at least control—this stronghold of political and military opposition. However, by perpetuating war hierarchies, chains of command, and mobilization networks, the political use of LRA chiefs by the government is simply putting off the “civilianization” of former combatants and the pacification of the political arena, in other words, the demilitarization of political relations between northern Uganda and the central government.