In a world saturated with bad news, something very, very good could be unfolding in the eastern African nation of Uganda.
The achievement belongs mainly to the government of southern Sudan, whose mediation has led to a cease-fire between the Ugandan government and the rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA).
Yesterday, a truce began - heaven and humans willing - as the first step in a comprehensive accord to end a 20-year-old armed conflict.
Both Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni's troops and the LRA, led by Joseph Kony, have hurt children and families through two decades of fighting. But Kony, despite his hollow claims of innocence, is the worst villain.
He has filled his army by abducting an estimated 30,000 children. Boys were forced to become soldiers and commit atrocities against their neighbors and family. Girls were assigned to LRA commanders as "wives" and repeatedly raped. Tens of thousands of northern Ugandans have died and been maimed. Nearly two million live in squalid camps.
As part of the truce, rebel soldiers have three weeks to gather at two locales in southern Sudan, where they will stay as negotiations continue. That exodus will be a critical test of whether the talks continue or fall apart.
Imagine the sight, if it does happen. Lines of abducted children - some grown to adulthood during years of captivity - walking out of the beastly, bizarre world Kony took them to in Uganda, Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Imagine the tears. Many parents have been looking for their stolen children for years, yearning to know whether their child was alive.
To cement this early success and keep progress going, the U.S. officials need to press President Museveni, a U.S. ally, as hard as possible to follow through on the talks.
The United Nations, United States, and other interested countries can help end this war by supporting southern Sudanese leaders and urging them to keep pressure on the LRA to continue negotiations.
One more scenario looms. After the initial joy over peace, imagine the problems that will arise when the child soldiers who followed instructions and attacked ferociously, and girls who will bring home babies fathered by rebel commanders, go back to live in a society disfigured by the war.
This is the cruelest twist of the northern Uganda conflict. The abducted children are both victims and victimizers. They will not be welcomed home by all.
