Religion, Nationalism, and Terror

Uganda/Lord’s Resistance Army Peace Negotiations by David Smock, U.S. Institute of Peace

Juba, Southern Sudan – Northern Uganda is one of the world’s humanitarian disaster areas. Twenty thousand have been killed and up to two million have been displaced in Internally Displaced Person (IDP) camps over the last 20 years. This havoc has been created by the notorious Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), whose agenda and purposes have remained murky. Joseph Kony, the rebel commander, asserts that the LRA political program is based on the Ten Commandments, despite the fact that the LRA routinely violates most of them.

Sven Torfinn/IRIN

Girls abducted by the Lord’s Resistance Army are beaten and sexually abused.

OCHA IRIN | In-depth | Life in northern Uganda | UGANDA: Overview

Since 1986, northern Uganda has been racked by insurgencies. The latest and longest of these rebellions, that of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), has devastated Acholi, an area close to Uganda’s border with Sudan, and has now spread to the neighbouring subregions of Teso and Lango. No one knows for sure how many people have died, but estimates run into the tens of thousands.

The war between the LRA and the national army, the Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF) has had a telling effect on the inhabitants of northern Uganda. The three districts of the Acholi subregion, Gulu, Kitgum and Pader, have been particularly hard hit. Death and disease rates are high, and food is scarce. About 80 percent of Acholi’s people live in “protected villages” and camps for IDPs, which are often overcrowded, and lack adequate water, sanitation and health services. Devoid of any means of livelihood in the camps, a people of farmers and cattle rearers have been reduced to near-total dependence on donated food and other humanitarian aid.

Child abductions have long been a major feature of the conflict, but the number shot up after the UPDF launched an offensive against the LRA in March 2002. The rebels kidnapped more than 10,000 children between June 2002 and October 2003, up from 101 in 2001. This brought the total number abducted by the LRA since the start of the conflict to more than 20,000.

Abductees are made to carry heavy loads over long distances. Those who lag behind or fall ill are beaten or killed. Some are forced to kill, maim, beat or abduct innocent victims, or to look on as such abuses are committed. Sexual violence against girls and women is rampant. They are used as domestic servants or forced into sexual slavery as LRA commanders’ ‘wives’. They are subject to rape, unwanted pregnancy and the risk of infection, including HIV.

Uganda and Rebels Agree to Third Phase of Five-Stage Peace Deal, Reuters, New York Times, July 1, 2007

KAMPALA, Uganda, June 30 (Reuters) — Uganda’s government and the Lord’s Resistance Army rebels have signed an agreement on how to deal with war crimes in the third phase of talks to end one of Africa’s worst conflicts, the rebels said Saturday.

The signing, at negotiations in southern Sudan, was a major development in an intended five-stage peace deal aiming to end two decades of violence in northern Uganda.

“We signed the agreement on reconciliation and accountability late last night, which moves us one step closer to a final peace agreement,” Martin Ojul, the leader of the rebel delegation in Sudan, said by phone.

Talks between the sides started last July, which raised hopes of an end to a war that has caused tens of thousands of deaths and forced nearly two million refugees into camps that aid workers say are among most squalid in the world.

Progress had been slow since a truce was signed last August. But last month the sides signed the second stage of the deal, breaking months of deadlock.

The third phase is supposed to set principles for dealing with war criminals — a thorny subject for a rebel group notorious for beating civilians to death, mutilating victims and abducting children.

The rebel leader, Joseph Kony, and three other top commanders are wanted by the International Criminal Court in The Hague, and have vowed never to leave their Congolese jungle hide-outs unless the court drops the indictments.

One of a series of photos by Francine Orr presented in Flash sequence with narration

Francine Orr, Horror in Uganda - Los Angeles Times, June 5, 2005

The Lord’s Resistance Army, or LRA, has been terrorizing villagers. It kidnaps adults to haul heavy loads over long distances. But it also steals children, some as young as 8. The LRA forces the boys to become soldiers; the girls become sex slaves.

It also compels its victims to victimize others. Reports abound of youngsters torturing or killing peers who had tried to escape or displeased their captors. Hundreds of youths have shared details of their ordeals with aid workers who have set up live-in trauma counseling centers.

The LRA is led by Joseph Kony, who claims to be acting under divine instruction. It says it is fighting for political recognition, and it denies brutality toward civilians. In one day last month, however, the rebels hacked at least 16 people to death with the victims’ own farming tools. The government of Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has tried to conduct negotiations with Korny, but there have been no firm results. Officials say that Kony is nothing more than a bandit and that it would be out of the question to give him either amnesty or a political office.

So the cruelty persists. International aid groups estimate that 30,000 children have been abducted in the slow-burning conflict. Although hundreds have escaped, they rarely find peace.

Villages across northern Uganda have been uprooted. The former residents languish in camps, which are cramped and unsanitary. Food, clean water and medical care are scarce. Malnutrition and diseases such as malaria, scabies and tuberculosis afflict many. Those who leave camp to look for work, firewood or edible plants risk being attacked by the rebels, captured in shootouts or blown up by mines that litter the landscape. The rebels often storm the camps to loot supplies and kidnap more victims.