‘Negotiating with ghosts’: Religion, conflict and peace in Northern Uganda’

This article outlines the current situation with regard to the Lord’s Resistance Army and the possibilities for peace in Northern Uganda. It seeks to add to the discourse on rethinking Africa’s international relations in the context of a specific conflict and with regard to a specific tool of the international community: the International Criminal Court (ICC) and its involvement in issuing warrants for insurgency leaders in October 2005. The article discusses the role of traditional justice systems and the ICC in ending the war, concluding that justice in Northern Uganda requires an end to the false dichotomy of ‘traditional’ and ICC approaches and that the two must complement each other in order to address the different groups within the LRA and the Acholi population