Conflict, Displacement, and Interfaith Activism

The Acholi Religious Leaders’ Peace Initiative was formed in the late 1990s, when courageous leaders of Protestant, Catholic, and Muslim communities set their differences aside to help their communities cope with LRA occupation. An initial goal was passage of an amnesty law, inspired in part by post-apartheid reconciliation efforts in South Africa, that would encourage rebel soldiers to return to their communities without fear of imprisonment, or worse. Two other important developments followed: forced relocation of most rural residents from their villages to overcrowded internal displacement camps, where they were confined for a decade or more; and nighttime movements of children still living in rural villages to the school grounds and churchyards of the towns, where they would be safe from nighttime raids. Religious leaders joined the “night commuters” to sleep in their courtyards, and this development at last brought wider attention to the suffering caused by the LRA conflict.