Manna

So, I decided to start a small project to donate items to people living in the IDP camps I visited in northern Uganda.

I feel a special responsibility to honor my promise to everyone I met and spoke with in the camps to stay in touch and provide an avenue of communication and hope through whatever means I can. I have a few contacts in northern Uganda and have been communicating with one dear friend there to find out what needs there are among the seven camps I visited during my trip.

Humanitarian organizations and international organizations like the World Food Programme, UNHCR, UNDP, UNICEF, the IRC, etc. have done much to alleviate the food and nutritional needs of people living in the camps. However, my friend in Gulu has shared with me that there is a deep desire for educational materials: books, pens and pencils, notebooks, textbooks and enrichment materials.

Few of the people in the camps have access to schools or books. And they desperately want to have their children go to school.

My translator, Joseph, a fellow Christian and dear friend, has agreed to help deliver the items I send to the people we met in the camps. The items would be given to the camp commander who would be responsible for distributing the materials sent.

I would appreciate any advice, contacts, or contributions. Barring that, prayers would be more than sufficient and very appreciated as well.

Here is the basic information you will need to participate:

If you feel compelled to share information or donate any items, please visit: Manna

1) If you have access to or know of institutions, like schools, or stores that have excess materials like books, textbooks, school supplies (even used ones!) to donate, please contact them and put them in touch with: manna.seedsofhope@gmail.com or they may go to the website above.

2) If you yourself would like to contribute any materials, please contact me at the same email address indicated in the first line. Include what items and how many of each you would be able to donate.

3) If you cannot donate, but have any advice, tips, suggestions or information that may be useful to know, please send them to: manna.seedsofhope@gmail.com
Comments, questions, tips, are all most welcome.

This is a work in progress, but I feel that whatever small donations you or someone you know can make will go a long way towards providing hope and improving the prospects of education for the many people living in camps in northern Uganda.

Thank you!

Heeding Truce, Rebel Leader From Uganda Waits in Sudan

UPDATES ON THE PEACE TALKS - TWO NEWS ARTICLES in the NYTIMES

September 18, 2006
By REUTERS
NABANGA, Sudan, Sept. 17 (Reuters) — The leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army rebels of Uganda has arrived at an assembly point in Sudan as agreed in a truce to end his devastating insurgency, a rebel delegate to the mediating team said Sunday.

The presence of the rebel leader, Joseph Kony, if confirmed, would strengthen the truce, widely seen as the best chance for an end to the two-decade war in northern Uganda.

“They’re all there,” said Martin Ojul, the leader of the rebels’ negotiating team. He said that both Vincent Otti, the rebels’ No. 2 leader, and Mr. Kony were at the assembly point. “We are going to discuss the next phase: a comprehensive solution,” Mr. Ojul said.

Mr. Kony and Mr. Otti are among the five leaders of the rebel group indicted by the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

Mr. Ojul was speaking in this village four miles from the assembly point in Sudan, Ri-Kwangba. A delegation of rebel representatives and southern Sudanese mediators were here Sunday, en route to the assembly point.

Last month, the Ugandan government signed a truce with the rebel group, one of the most feared in Africa, raising hopes of an end to an uprising that has killed tens of thousands of people and displaced nearly two million.

Led by Mr. Kony, a self-styled mystic, the rebels gained notoriety for their brutal killings of civilians, and for slicing off the lips and ears of people they accused of being government informers.

The truce gave the rebels three weeks, until Tuesday, to gather in two agreed-on locations in Sudan while peace talks continued in the south Sudanese capital, Juba.

Mr. Ojul said that as many as 4,000 rebel fighters might have arrived at those locations. He said they would discuss issues like the resettlement of Ugandans living in refugee camps set up by the government to protect civilians from rebel attacks.

President Yoweri Museveni has drawn criticism for Uganda’s policy of herding civilians into squalid refugee camps. Critics say that conditions are miserable and that security forces often abuse the people they are meant to be protecting.

“Now the cessation of hostilities is in place and is working, we can dismantle the camps,” Mr. Ojul said.

Mr. Museveni had initially urged the international court to issue warrants for the rebels indicted on war crimes charges, but now he is offering them amnesty if peace is struck.

The court, concerned that its work might be compromised, on Friday ordered an urgent investigation into Uganda’s efforts to arrest and hand over the rebel leaders.

But the United Nations emergency relief coordinator, Jan Egeland, after a trip to northern Uganda and southern Sudan, urged the Security Council to back the peace efforts rather than push for putting rebel leaders on trial immediately.

“This is the best chance we have ever had for peace in northern Uganda,” he said.

***



September 15, 2006
Uganda Peace Hinges on Amnesty for Brutality
By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN
In the beginning, it was simply called the Acholi war, and despite its brutality, few people outside Uganda paid attention.

The Lord's Resistance Army, a messianic rebel group, was exploring a new dimension of violence by building an army of abducted children and forcing them to burn down huts, slice off lips and pound newborn babies to death in wooden mortars, as though they were grinding grain.

''I killed and killed and killed,'' said Christopher Oyet, an 18-year-old former rebel who was kidnapped at age 9. ''Now, I am scared of myself.''

But, for the first time in 20 years, the killing has stopped. The rebel leaders, boxed in and with dwindling support, signed a cease-fire agreement on Aug. 26. Whether it lasts depends on whether Joseph Kony, the phantom rebel commander who is said to live deep in the jungle with 60 child brides, and his top deputies are given amnesty.

That is uncertain, because they have been charged with crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court in The Hague. Still, this is the furthest any peace deal has come, fueling hopes that one of Africa's most grotesque and bizarre wars, which cost tens of thousands of lives, may finally be over.

White flags are already fluttering in Gulu, the hub of Acholiland, even from the antennas of government trucks. People are no longer night commuting, the signature north Ugandan exodus from villages to towns every evening for safety's sake. Instead, they are returning to the carpeted green hillsides to plant cassava, corn and beans, and this time their hoes and machetes are being swung to make things grow, not to destroy them.

The victims of this war are so desperate to put the nightmarish days behind them that they want to forgive, just as much as they want to forget. Typical is Christa Labol, whose ears and lips were cut off by bayonet-wielding prepubescent soldiers she now says she would welcome home.

''Only God can judge,'' Mrs. Labol said through a mouth that is always open.

Of course, the rebels are not out of the bush yet. Many still hide in a remote, lawless corner of northern Congo. Some people wonder if Mr. Kony, who has told his troops he is possessed by spirits, will ever give up.

Mr. Kony has said he will but only if he is not prosecuted.

The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Mr. Kony and four of his commanders. Ugandan government officials have said they will ensure that the rebels get amnesty if they surrender. But the rebels have said the amnesty must come first. It is an impasse that possibly only the international court can break, but the court, established in 1998, has not indicated what it will do.

''We've never had such a situation,'' said Claudia Perdomo, a court spokeswoman.

The Acholi people have their own solution. It is the mataput -- the word means drinking a bitter root from a common cup -- and it is a traditional reconciliation ceremony. Peace is more important than punishment, Acholi elders say, and they would rather have Mr. Kony return to Gulu for a mataput than rot in some European prison. Although the fighting may be over, it seems a new battle has begun: tradition versus modernity.

''In our culture, we don't like to punish people,'' said Collins Opoka, an Acholi chief. ''It doesn't really get you anywhere.''

The Acholis know something about punishment. For decades, it was customary for members of southern tribes to get the prized university spots and good office jobs, while northerners like the Acholis were stuck in the fields. The Acholis were known as superstitious -- and tough -- and filled the ranks of the national army. They fought rebel forces led by Yoweri Museveni, and after Mr. Museveni seized power in 1986 -- he has been president since -- the Acholis were marginalized and persecuted.

Enter Mr. Kony, a former Catholic altar boy revered in his village near Gulu as a prophet since he was 12. He smeared himself with shea butter, said his body and those of his Acholi followers were impervious to bullets and vowed to overthrow the government.

''We saw him as our savior,'' said Mary Olanya, who knew Mr. Kony growing up.

Mr. Kony claimed to be guided by the Ten Commandments but soon his army was violating each and every one.

From about 1988 on, the rebels terrorized their own people, raping, robbing and killing across Acholiland. According to former rebels, Mr. Kony communed with spirits and his rules became stranger by the minute -- anyone caught bicycling had to have his feet chopped off; all white chickens were to be destroyed; no farming on Fridays.

Few adults wanted to join his cultish, bloodthirsty movement, and soon the only recruits were children, most against their will.

Mr. Oyet said he was snatched one night nine years ago from his hut near Gulu and forced to march miles into the bush. The boys whose feet swelled and could no longer walk were clubbed to death -- by other boys. All new recruits had to help with the killing. It was called registration. The population responded to the rebel violence by seeking safety in numbers. Nearly two million people abandoned their villages and crowded into government camps. ''It was a desperate time,'' said Quinto Otika, a Gulu elder.

And it continued for years, nourished by the Arab-led government of Sudan, which gave the rebels arms and sanctuary as payback for Ugandan support for the Christian rebellion in southern Sudan.

But by 2002, the Sudanese government was making peace with southern separatists and no longer supporting the Lord's Resistance Army.

Mr. Kony -- and his bodyguards and harem -- fled to Congo, where, according to Ugandan military sources, they set up a slave kingdom, living off the land and slaughtering wildlife. By then, the elusive rebel army had shrunk to a shadow of a shadow, with fewer than 2,000 fighters left. The West mostly ignored this war, more focused on Rwanda, Somalia, and Darfur, Sudan. But in 2005, the Ugandan government persuaded the international court to issue arrest warrants against rebel leaders, despite pleas from Acholi elders.

In Acholi culture, killers are accepted back into the community after they have paid compensation, admitted to their misdeeds and shared a meal, usually a roasted sheep, with the relatives of their victim. This is the mataput ceremony, and it comes from the days when clans were tightly intertwined by marriage and trade and could not afford to alienate one another.

The Ugandan government eventually warmed to the idea and signed a cease-fire with the rebels that took effect on Aug. 29. Since then, some rebel soldiers have emerged from hiding. They plan to assemble at collection points in southern Sudan, where they will wait until a full peace agreement is reached.

Though some United Nations officials have bristled at the idea of granting immunity to Mr. Kony and his top commanders, Ugandan officials say they are confident a deal can be reached.

''We can go to the judges and say there are new circumstances and that the indictments are no longer needed,'' said a Ugandan government spokesman, Robert Kabushenga.

People are already beginning to wonder what Mr. Kony will do if he comes home a free man.

''He never aspired to be a politician,'' said Florence Adokorach, now in her early 20's, who was kidnapped at age 14 and forced to be one of Mr. Kony's brides. Instead, he told his young wife, he just wanted to return to spreading God's word.

Running it By Dad

So, it's always a good idea to temper one's thoughts by sharing them with friends and family and seeing how they react. My parents have read this blog (finally, ha). And my dad had some good critiques. Firstly, I should be careful to separate two issues here (written in the previous post). Those responsible for committing genocide (Nazi regime) and those allowing it to occur (UN) are guilty of two very different things. Yep, very true, dad. Also, I seemed with the anecdote at the end to be talking more about, in my dad's words, "how to nurture personal and collective moral sensitivity of human beings," not necessarily about evils being committed by the UN. Again, very good point.

I guess it is one thing to argue that the UN is guilty of genocide and of committing evil in the name of good; and another to argue that as a bureaucratic organization, it is hamstrung and often unable to respond effectively to humanitarian crises or even genocides, as occurred in Rwanda in 1994. Having made that important distinction, however; I guess I am struck by how often the UN is invoked as a 'final solution' to the world's problems - the Darfur crisis, which I will get back to - is one recent example. The belief that somehow this organization will solve the world's problems and provide final solutions troubles me. (Incidentally, the implications of the double entendre do, too).

What I witnessed and experienced in Uganda and in working for the organization on numerous occasions, albeit on the bottom of the totem pole of power - was the insidiousness of worldly success, power and glory, as the basis for, or the basic ambition driving much of the personalities and characters responsible for making decisions about people's lives around the world. I do not doubt that there are 'decent, honorable and hardworking' people working for the organization and committed to doing good - but I also see how the culture of the organization and the bureaucracy, breeds a certain myopia and high degree of self-deception. I got sucked into it myself. But I soon became very disillusioned with the rhetoric when I began to see the reality: that organizations that function professionally to promote peace, justice and cooperation on the basis of worldly power, individual merit, glory and hype are inevitably handicapped by the fact that the organization is a business and in the interest of maintaining its (his/her) own well-being, even at the expense of the very people's it is established to protect and promote.

I remember working at a desk in one of the divisions and seeing how blithely people talked about their lavish lifestyles and homes - how they were constantly vying for more power, the next P-D level job, more success, prestige and how weird and sickening it felt to realize that they were doing this by capitalizing in some ways on the suffering and sickness of people around the world. When I actually witnessed how officials conducted themselves with people in these areas, I became even more disillusioned at the way in which margnalized people were being used and manipulated by outside parties to either benefit themselves in some way or serve as a notch in the belt of one's prestige and power. There are very few individuals who are working genuinely out of love, self-sacrifice and for the greater good. Doing so, inevitably entails suffering, rejection, difficult sacrifices: someone _has_ to pay. When you see 'helpers' wearing fancy clothes and driving nice cars, you cannot help but wonder who is paying the cost. How is suffering really being alleviated?

This is why I find the message of Jesus Christ so compelling. He paid the ultimate cost for all the suffering we brought on OURSELVES and He did so, so that we didn't have to pay that cost. And we are called to follow his example in order to make the world a better place. So, when I see the suffering of people in Uganda, for example, or even in Darfur, and when I hear people talk about doing something, I ask, who is paying the cost for the allevation of suffering? If it is not you or I, it is someone. And unfortunately, I am guessing it is often the very person who is already suffering...I suppose that's why I admire the work of the Comboni missionaries (see previous post) so much. They have been working for years with and among the people of Kitgum, Gulu and Pader. They are paying the cost for alleviating suffering and promoting peace. Unlike many, who came and left when it was convenient and often to promote their own agenda, these missionaries have no agenda - except to love and give out of the richness of their love for God and for Jesus. I hope to emulate them in some way...

I think it's important to make the distinctions my dad pointed out above; but I still hold to a high degree of ambivalence and disillusionment about the organization and the enterprise of humanitarianism, despite its good intentions. Who was it that said, "the road to hell is paved with good intentions..."? I need to reflect and think on this alot more, obviously. Perhaps my ambivalence and disappointment are merely a reflection of what God repeatedly refers to as the brokeness and fallenness of man - the fact that we live in a world where institutions and people (like myself) are flawed, far from perfect and abounding in shortcomings and sin.

If it were not for Christ, where would we be?

Yet, God promises to bind up the brokenhearted and to create a new heaven and a new earth, so my disappointment and cynicism have no other place to go, except back to His promises. My mouth and heart have nothing more to utter than a plaintive sigh and a hope and faith that transcends the seeming disappointments that bombard me as I think through what people do and how they do it to promote their own ends.

I know I am all too susceptible to the same things - the pursuit of glory, power and success - in the name of some higher good. It's a sobering reminder that as Christians we are called to 'die to self' to renounce our good for the greater good, the ultimate good, which is the building of God's kingdom on earth. And that we are called to bring joy, peace and love to others in the same way that He brings it to us when we find new life in Him. Well, despite this all, I thank you, God. I trust you despite the disturbances of my heart and the irregularity of my faith...and I know that you ultimately do work all things for the good of those who love you.

I will still be wrestling with the role of the UN. As regards Darfur and even the situation in northern Uganda, well. I hear lots of cries of "genocide" in both situations. I know that the governments of both countries are responsible for the deaths of many innocent lives in the neglected regions of their respective countries. However, I cringe at the notion that sending in blue helmets is the ultimate answer to these problems. These are short-term and intended to be short-term measures to address what are fundamentally very deeply entrenched issues and problems.

I attended the "Save Darfur" rally on Sunday here in NYC and was happy to be there, but somewhat saddened that the only solution being offered was sending UN peacekeepers. Why are our imaginations so limited? Why do we grasp onto the belief that the UN can be the 'final solution' to this and so many of the world's problems? Something in me says that we do so, because we want answers and solutions to troubling problems, but we often look in the wrong places. As Bilbo has been quoted to say, "all that glitters is not gold..." perhaps we need new eyes to see and ears to hear what has been obvious and stated all along. That which is true and right and good in this world can only come through a power altogether not our own...

Psalm 146: Do not put your trust in princes or other people who cannot save you...happy are those who are helped by the God of Jacob. Their hope is in the Lord their God. The Lord sets the prisoners free. The Lord gives sight to the blind. The Lord lifts up people who are in trouble. The Lord loves those who do right. The Lord protect the foreigners. He defends the orphans and the widows, but he blocks the way of the wicked...Praise the Lord!"

It's about the Lord giving, and working through and in people like you and me to build up what was broken and to find those who were lost...let us keep our focus on Him.

Bureaucracy and the Banality of Evil

I am currently reading a book by Michael Barnett called, "Eyewitness to a Genocide: The United Nations and Rwanda," a fascinating account of the decisionmaking occurring within the UN during the outbreak of the genocide.

In the introduction entitled, "Depraved Indifference?" Barnett tries to articulate a theoretical basis for why the United Nations and individuals within it, failed to do the right thing when the time called for it...and why they continue to fail.

Much of the first chapter sets the basis for understanding how and why bureaucracies dehumanize not only the people who work for them, but the people on behalf of whom they work. Drawing from the illuminating insights of Max Weber and Hannah Arendt, Barnett shows that evil is very easily committed by organizations in the name of a higher good, because people within them learn to separate individual responsibility within a complex bureaucracy or organization.

"The UN becomes either a veil of ignorance or a bureaucratic restraint. Their excuses point to a troubling truth: the larger and more complex the organization, the more difficult it is to recover individual responsibility...The UN staff and diplomats in New York, in the main, were highly decent, hardworking, and honorable individuals who believed that they were acting properly when they decided not to try to put an end to genocide. It is this history that stays with me."

..it is impossible to put the words bureaucracies and evil together in the same sentence without evoking Hannah Arendt's controversial prhase "banality of evil." She famously argued that the Nazi bureaucratic machine that engineered the Holocaust transformed "normal" and "respectable" people like Adolf Eichmann into purveyors of evil."

"Arendt envisioned an omnipotent institution that so thoroughly socialized individuals that they lost the capacity for independent judgment....bureaucrats easily lost their private morality in a bureaucratic world."

Indeed, Barnett's characterization of UN staff as "hardworking, decent and honorable" people struck a chord in me - but so did his observation that somehow such individuals can become the very agents of evil - whether it is in orchestrating and engineering a genocide or allowing it to occur in full knowledge of the situation...

In my numerous interactions with UN officials and working within the organization, this disturbing characterization has shown itself to be true time and time again. I have met "highly decent, hardworking, honorable" individuals working for noble ideals, but observed that there is much pomp and circumstance amidst it all, and a tragic failure for individuals to assume responsibility because of the culture of the organization. It is disconcerting, disturbing, and so very sobering to see how bureaucratic cultures shape and define the limits and boundaries of individual accountability and responsibility, distorting it to such an extent that 'good' is called 'bad' and bad, good.

I raise this issue because it relates to my experience in Uganda and to a personal issue that has arisen over and over again as I study, write and reflect on humanitarianism, and the role of organizations like the UN in assisting those who are suffering. I have seen "the banality of evil" operating in a very insidious way...insidious because people working in the name of good, often end up becoming the purveyors of evil...and being completely blind to it.

As I spent time in northern Uganda, I observed a distinct hierarchy between UN officials and NGOs and the local people. UN officials lived in comfortable lush complexes, walled off from the rest of the community. Workers drove around in large SUVs. As an independent researcher, I would walk alongside the dirt roads and observe how people carried on and went about their daily lives...the sudden rush of wind, the loud blare of an engine or horn would sound and all of the sudden a cloud of dust and then an SUV would woosh by speeding through the civilian group, and I would feel humiliated and somewhat disgusted...I apologize, but this image stuck with me because it occurred time and time again. In person, these individuals were honorable, decent, hardworking, but as I looked at how they conducted themselves in relation to the local civilians and what they were really doing, I couldn't help but wonder whether this was not another form of colonialism writ-large. Rich, white or foreign folk making money and careers off the suffering of civilians in poor countries. They leave when it's convenient or too dangerous. The poverty and their efforts to do something become convenient photo-ops and by-lines on an impressive resume and list of credentials to tout to colleagues and people back home and a way to step up the ladder of success. Their impressive work is rarely about really alleviating suffering or pursuing justice for the oppressed - it becomes something altogether different - how to make it big, how to become powerful, and successful - how to become the next under-secretary general or big-shot at the UN or some NGO...

Sorry. But this is what I came to conclude about many of the organizations and especially the UN, though I respected and admired the individuals I met within these organizations. Even when I visited the camps, I was appalled at the way these organizations brisked in, offered handouts or workshops on "AIDS awareness" for 30 mins or more and then whisked away...with information to include on their brochures and annual reports to get more money from donors...

Local people hired to do some of the more menial work were grateful for a job that would pay a few months' salary, but many were not hired for more than a month or two at a time and then they were left to wait for some other opportunity to come their way. But they were not being invested in long-term, they were being used, so that individuals with status in the UN or some other organization could have another report to their name or a project under their title to add to their long list of credentials.

I need to reflect on this more and perhaps tempered with less anger and pessimism, but I was disgusted by what I saw, and Barnett's book articulates so well some of the things I observed in this different context. It may not have been the genocide, but wherever human suffering exists and people are trying to capitalize on it to promote their own interest in the name of some higher good, it's happening here and it's happening now: the banality of evil. And no one seems to be aware of it.

Friends

In Gulu, Kitgum, Pader, Kampala - heck, EVERYWHERE in Uganda - I met the nicest darn people you will ever come across in a lifetime.

Here's an homage to them - and not even all, unfortunately - via photographs, below.
Florence at Patoke in Kitgum
Martin at Kakanyero's
Young leaders, and Francis, my guide, at Laboge IDP camp in Kitgum
Joseph, well-spoken, nice and good friend-translator, in foreground at Cope IDP camp in Gulu
Charlie, Martin, me and Noel

We Begin

...with Atanga IDP Camp





Located in Pader District, close to the border with Kitgum and Gulu, this camp is led by camp commander, Odwar Orech. He can be reached by cellphone - the only form of communication some people are able to use. Cellphones are not what they seem to the American in the States. Cellphones in Uganda are usually relatively inexpensive to purchase, but once bought, talk time must be purchased by minute. "Airtime" is thus quite expensive - since people constantly buy cards to 'fill' their time allotment. Here is his number, as one would dial from the US: 011-256-47139024. I give this number to you, trusting that those reading this site (my few trusted family members and friends) might be moved to contact people in the camps and let them know you are thinking of them, and praying for their well-being.

Crazy-sounding, possibly - but as noted below an in earlier entry, I think people in the camps really appreciate CONTACT with the outside world and acknowledgment of their situation. One of the main problems with these camps is their utter isolation.

Atanga, by way of background, was established in March of 1997. I believe it now has about 1,200 people in the camps. People make some small money growing maize and potatoes, sugar cane and some fruit and selling them to passengers on local buses passing from between Gulu and Kitgum districts.

My bus from Kitgum to Gulu happened to breakdown because of a flat tire. The bus was forced to stop for several hours and I decided to unload my things and interview people in the camp. It took a number of hours before the next bus arrived, but it was well worth the stopover, as unexpected as it was.

(Well, not so unexpected. Atanga was the last camp that I visited before I departed from northern Uganda to head south. I remember praying that I would somehow have the opportunity to visit a camp in Pader - the one district still lacking representation in my visit to the north - and boom! the bus broke down. It was a bit surreal. I had actually pictured or asked myself, well, what if the bus just stopped or broke down in the middle of an IDP camp on the way to Gulu? Then I could stop and visit the people in the camps and hop on the same bus or a different one...and then it happened. Weird and wonderful at the same time.)

Moving Towards Peace...

This in from the Associated Press today. LRA rebels are moving to two camps in southern Sudan. Peace seems near, but tenuous. There is a palpable sense that people are holding their breaths, and are not willing to let out a sigh of relief that the war is over, until it really is...over.

September 12, 2006
Ugandan Rebels Enter Sudan Camp Under Truce
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
JUBA, Sudan, Sept. 11 — The first group of Ugandan rebels have turned up at a neutral camp in southern Sudan as part of a truce to end 19 years of conflict with the government, the chief mediator said Monday.

The Lord’s Resistance Army rebels, notorious for cutting off the tongues and lips of civilians during the insurgency, signed the truce with the government last month.

The deal calls for rebel fighters to gather in largely uninhabited areas across the border in southern Sudan, where they will be protected while a broader peace deal is negotiated.

Several hundred rebels — led by a deputy, Vincent Otti, with the leader, Joseph Kony, expected to follow — showed up at Ri-Kwangba camp, just north of the Congo border, said southern Sudan’s vice president, Riek Machar, who is mediating the talks.

A comprehensive peace deal would be a major breakthrough in pacifying this part of Central Africa where northern Uganda, eastern Congo and southern Sudan join.

Rebels from those nations had operated across the borders with impunity for decades until a peace accord ended Congo’s civil war in 2003 and southern Sudanese rebels joined Sudan’s government in 2005.

Under the truce, the rebels were given several weeks to gather at two designated sites. About 400 rebels have arrived at the other camp, Owiny-Ki-Bul, in southern Sudan just north of the Ugandan border, Mr. Machar said.

Earlier Monday, the rebels said they were willing to release women and children seized during the conflict. United Nations officials say the rebels have kidnapped an estimated 20,000 children over two decades, turning boys into soldiers and girls into sex slaves for commanders.