This is the best chance for peace in 20 years. The warring parties, the LRA and the Ugandan government, are both looking for a deal, writes Brian Scott
A week ago I visited the town of Kitgum in northern Uganda. I wanted to see for myself the effects of the prolonged conflict involving the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) in this remote area.
What I saw, and the stories people told me, were shocking.
Imagine 40,000 people crammed into a space the size of your local park.
Consider further the fact that they have been forced to live there for 20 years, all the time lacking almost all the basics of life - clean water, proper housing, sanitation, healthcare, work, security, normal family life. Multiply this 38 times and you have the miserable condition of the entire population of this part of Africa. In total, these camps, in effect, incarcerate 1.8 million men, women, and children.
These people have also endured continual violence over the past 20 years.
The rebel Lord's Resistance Army raid the camps for food, and abduct the inhabitants, forcing them to carry the supplies.
When they are finished with these unfortunates they may be freed, but just as likely they are simply bludgeoned to death and their bodies left in the bush to rot.
Others, especially the more vulnerable young people, are kept, brainwashed, and forced to become boy soldiers or sex slaves.
Meanwhile, the Uganda government forces opposing the rebels often behave with a heavy and clumsy hand. Again, the innocent civilians suffer.
One of the camp leaders told me that some captured rebels turned out to be the teenage children of families living in his camp. They had massacred their camp neighbours; and now they and their families had to live alongside those they had hurt so grievously.
What normal life is possible in such circumstances!
One of the worst aspects of this sorry situation is the indifference of the rest of the world. The great powers have no interest in this part of Africa. There is no oil here, no coltan, no precious stones or gold.
The locals are predominantly Christian, both Catholic and Protestant, so there is no Islamic extremism. The upshot is that the world's leaders have, for the most part, "passed by on the other side".
There has been little interest in trying to bring to an end this festering conflict - until now.
Today, there is the best chance for peace in 20 years. The warring parties - the LRA and the Uganda government - have come together, in Juba, south Sudan, to negotiate a possible settlement. But there have been several similar efforts in the past, all of which have broken down, sometimes for what seemed trivial reasons.
Perhaps one side decided to posture for the sake of some domestic constituency; or combatants wanted time to rest and re-group.
This time, it would appear that both parties and their respective advisers - pressed hard by various diplomatic supporters - are seriously looking for a deal.
The people of the camps yearn for peace and to return to their homes and a normal life - although the thousands of children born during the conflict have only a hazy notion of what a normal life means.
The human value of peace would be enormous. Some 1.8 million people could re-settle a territory half the size of Ireland. They could re-build their homesteads, with proper living quarters for the different generations and sexes as is the local custom, and escape the shame of entire families having to share a single cramped hut rammed up against scores of others similarly occupied.
They could re-claim their fields and farm their land again; they could earn an independent living instead of merely surviving on World Food Programme handouts and the support of aid agencies like Oxfam. They could live in peace and security, harassed by neither rebels nor the Uganda military.
Fortunately, too, the international community is poised to assist such a return to normal life.
Last week the German government announced a substantial package of aid. A joint monitoring committee has been formed to co-ordinate this post-conflict reconstruction; and it is good to know that the Irish Government is playing a full part in this effort.
A peace deal, too, would strengthen the fragile peace northwards over the border in south Sudan, which is recovering from 25 years of its own civil war. It would also offer some hope to the west in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where rival paramilitary bands and other forces have ravaged the countryside for years, killing perhaps 4.5 million in the process.
The cost of failure now would be immense. No similar opportunity for a settlement is likely to emerge for a generation. So, the pain and suffering would continue for many years more, perhaps on an even larger scale than before.
The Juba talks are crucial. Every effort is vital - by all who have even the smallest crumb of influence with either side. Everyone wants peace - perhaps, one hopes, this time even the belligerents.
• Brian Scott is executive director Oxfam Ireland www.oxfamireland.org