The Lord's Resistance Army
Violence and Peacemaking in Africa

Based on interviews with the notorious armed rebel group, the LRA, this study explores why efforts at contemporary peacemaking so often fail.

Mareike Schomerus (Author)

9781108725354, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 2 March 2023

330 pages
22.7 x 15.1 x 1.9 cm, 0.49 kg

'The book's rich and nuanced theoretical insights and the empirical ground that it covers makes it an invaluable reference for con?ict studies and peace building in Africa and elsewhere. Its methodology and its close observation of processes and participants results in a uniquely appealing and elegant narrative.' Moses Khisa, Journal of Interdisciplinary History

The Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) is one of Africa's most notorious armed rebel groups, having operated across Uganda, South Sudan, Sudan, the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. When they entered the Juba Peace Talks with the Ugandan Government in 2006, the peace deal seemed like a gift to fighters who had for years barely been surviving in Central Africa's jungles. Yet the talks failed. Why? Based on exclusive interviews with LRA fighters and their notorious leader Joseph Kony, Mareike Schomerus provides insights into how the LRA experienced the Juba Talks, revealing developing dynamics and deep distrust within a conflict system and how these became entrenched through the peace negotiations. In so doing, Schomerus offers an explanation as to why current approaches to ending armed violence not only fail but how they actively contribute to their own failure, and calls for a new approach to contemporary peacemaking.

1. Introduction: Seeking Peace with the Lord's Resistance Army
2. The Lord's Resistance Army: A Continuum of War, Peace and Information
3. The Juba Peace Talks with the Lord's Resistance Army in 2006: 'While Talking, There Is Troop Movement'
4. 'Am I an Animal?': Identity, Rules and Loss in the Lord's Resistance Army
5. The Juba Peace Talks with the Lord's Resistance Army in 2007: 'We Don't Know If We Can Trust'
6. 'Reach Out a Hand and Pull It Back': The Lord's Resistance Army's 'Connect/Disconnect' Meets International Galvanic Surges
7. The Juba Peace Talks with the Lord's Resistance Army in 2008: 'Maybe We Came Too Close to the Enemy'
8. 'LRA Has Already Become a System': Representation and Distrust in the Lord's Resistance Army
9. 'We Are All Learning in This Peace Process': Peacemaking and the Legacy of the Juba Peace Talks with the Lord's Resistance Army.

Subject Areas: Non-governmental organizations [NGOs JPWH], Revolutions, uprisings, rebellions [HBTV], 21st century history: from c 2000 - [HBLX], African history [HBJH]