- West Nile Bank Front
The West Nile Bank Front (WNBF) was a rebel
armed force inUganda under the command ofJuma Oris . The WNBF began a campaign against PresidentYoweri Museveni in1995 . It appears to have been a West Nile offshoot of theUganda People's Democratic Army and recruited primarily inKoboko County,Arua andObongi , Moyo.It was active up through the end of the
First Congo War in1997 , fighting fromSudan and theDemocratic Republic of Congo against theUganda People's Defense Force . The WNBF worked at destabilizing northern Uganda. It was responsible for manykidnapping s and violent raids, and had similar goals and tactics to theLord's Resistance Army . While it had initially recruited with promises of generous pay, which proved to be false, it eventually turned to forced recruitment to replenish its ranks. The brutal tactics of the WNBF, including the laying of landmines, made it lose popular support in the region. They were in competition for popular support with the rebelUganda National Rescue Front II that was operating in the same region simultaneously.The fortunes of the WNBF did not really change until UPDF Major General
Katumba Wamala arrived in 1996 and initiated a policy of civil-military cooperation. He has stated::"Seeing that the people didn’t support the war, my approach was to reach out to them and deny the enemy fertile ground to work on. So I had to combine a military approach with a political strategy... Rather than just sitting in the barracks, I decided to go out and spend time with the communities to work on calling the rebels back. It was very important that we never mistreated reporters (people who reported on rebel activity), so we built up trust." [West Nile Bank Front#References|1 ]By working through local and traditional authority structures and enforcing a measured approach to the counter-insurgency, Wamala earned the trust of much of the populace and was able to arrange for numerous rebels to return to their former lives. This diplomatic initiative was coupled by military pressure upon WNBF bases in southern Sudan by the Ugandan-backed
Sudan People's Liberation Army . The last WNBF bases in Sudan were destroyed at a major battle at Kaya in which the SPLA, UPDF and several Congolese armed groups took part, though some former members joined small rebel movements based in the DRC. By 1998 the WNBF as a group was no longer capable of significant activity.References
* [http://www.refugeelawproject.org/working%20papers/RLP%20Workingpaper%2012.pdf Negotiating Peace] , p. 18.
* [http://www.fas.org/irp/world/para/wnbf.htm F.A.S.]External links
* [http://www.refugeelawproject.org/working%20papers/RLP%20Workingpaper%2012.pdf Negotiating Peace: Resolution of Conflicts in Uganda’s West Nile Region] (PDF) offers an overview of rebel activity in the West Nile, including the genesis of the WNBF
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