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Betty Bigombe of northern Uganda, who led mediation efforts between the rebel Lord Resistance Army and the Ugandan government, will speak at 7 p.m. March 26 at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Betty Bigombe of northern Uganda, who led mediation efforts between the rebel Lord Resistance Army and the Ugandan government, will speak at 7 p.m. March 26 at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

In her free public talk at the FedEx Global Education Center, located at the corner of Pittsboro and McCauley streets, Bigombe will discuss her experiences negotiating with the insurgents and the impact of the enduring conflict on women and children. “Negotiating Peace” will be the title of the speech by Uganda’s 1994 Woman of the Year.

“It is very fitting that the University host Betty Bigombe, given our interest in promoting, and training in, peace and conflict resolution,” said Peter Coclanis, Ph.D., associate provost for international affairs. “We are extremely fortunate to be able to hear her personal story of diplomacy and courage.”

The Lord Resistance Army, designated as a terrorist organization by the U.S. Department of State, is blamed for atrocities in its more than 20-year insurgency in northern Uganda. The violence has spread to the Democratic Republic of Congo and southern Sudan. The conflict has claimed tens of thousands of lives and displaced approximately two million Ugandans into holding camps devoid of adequate food, water, sanitation and medical care, according to the BBC.  

Bigombe was appointed minister of the Ugandan Parliament in 1986 and minister of state for pacification of northern Uganda in 1988. Her task was to persuade the army of rebels to cease fighting and reach a peaceful resolution. In this role, she organized the first-ever face-to-face meeting between Lord Resistance Army head Joseph Kony and Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni. The meeting paved the way for additional peace talks.

Bigombe has said she believes that being a woman helped her communicate with Kony and other leaders in his army. Granted the title of Mother, an African term of respect, Bigombe said, “this enabled me to assume an almost parental tone of authority with them, one which was both reprimanding and hard-lined, and yet not perceived as threatening. This approach, if taken by a man, may well have been interpreted as aggressive or combative and might not have been as effective.”

Bigombe holds a master’s degree in public administration from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. Recently, she has been a fellow at the United States Institute of Peace, funded by Congress and tasked with seeking to build peace around the world, and an adviser at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.
Abraham McLaughlin, former Africa correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor, calls Bigombe “one of Africa’s peace seekers,” or “individuals willing to leave loved ones behind, shrug off personal threats and even spend significant amounts of their own money to end some of the continent’s most intractable conflicts.”

The lecture is hosted by Advocates for Human Rights, a UNC student organization, with support from the Duke (University)-UNC Rotary Peace Center and the following units at UNC: Campus Y, Office of International Affairs’ Global Education Distinguished Speakers Series, Carolina Women’s Center, James M. Johnston Center for Undergraduate Excellence, African Studies Center, Center for Global Initiatives, North Carolina Hillel and the curricula in women’s studies and in international and area studies.

For more information, visit www.global.unc.edu.

Note: To download a photo of Bigombe, visit http://www.usip.org/specialists/bios/archives/bigombe.html.

Office of International Affairs contact: Laura Griest, (919) 962-0318, lauragriest@unc.edu
Advocates for Human Rights contact: Merrybelle Guo, guo.merrybelle@gmail.com
News Services contact: LJ Toler, (919) 962-8589

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