Oh Half-truths

Re: What price peace in Africa, Peter Goodspeed, April 23, 2007
While it's heartening to see Uganda's peace process get some press, it'd be a little more encouraging if the article in question forwarded something both factual and thoughtful.

The "phenomenon known as "night commuters" in which tens of thousands of children trek to nearby cities" Goodspeed writes of is no more, actually. Anyone who's been to Gulu in the last year – never mind someone who lives there – knows this to be true. It hasn't been factual for quite some time which I learned firsthand when I traveled to Gulu whilst shooting a story. Selfishly, I was disappointed to learn Gulu was no longer dangerous and the LRA was for the most part across the borders in the Democratic Republic of Congo or the southern Sudan. As such, the threat is virtually gone and any remaining night commuters do so largely out of habit, and fare better than any of the 1.6 million displaced peoples left to rot in the camps. Why Goodspeed repeats this semi-truth cynically perpetuated by World Vision and NGO's is beyond me. You'd think peace and justice would sell themselves.

Furthermore, the truth of the Matoput ritual – despite its many, occasionally understandably desperate supporters – is that while it maintains the façade of being an African solution to an African problem, is that it's simply not designed for a criminal who's guilty of such mass crimes. The ceremony is designed for neighbourhood type conflicts, for face to face meetings between perpetrator and victims. Even if Kony were convinced to take part in such a ceremony, it'd be impossible to rally everyone touched by his violence.

The Post ought to do a little more research before publishing such a piece. Is it any wonder people are lost on African affairs when a story that changed significantly a year ago is still reported as though it's happening? Perhaps we should continue reporting on Katrina as though it happened yesterday? What of the people living in the Astrodome?