Rosalind I.J. Hackett

I saw quite a number of children killed. Most of them were killed with clubs. They would take five or six of the newly abducted children and make them kill those who had fallen or tried to escape. It was so painful to watch. Twice I had to help. And to do it was so bad, it was very bad to have to do. --"Thomas," age 14, as reported to Human Rights Watch

The war in Northern Uganda between the Lord’s Resistance Army, led by Joseph Kony, and the Ugandan government, led by President Yoweri Museveni, is unbelievably in its eighteenth year. It has engendered such a massive humanitarian crisis that international relief workers and some Ugandan leaders now speak of “genocide” and “disaster.”

In April 2004 I was invited to visit Northern Uganda, in particular the town of Gulu, 220 miles (360kms) north of the capital Kampala, and center of military and humanitarian operations for the region. My mission was to speak to students at the new Gulu University, and to gain a deeper understanding of this ongoing human tragedy.

I was already aware of the crisis through media and human rights reports, and stories from my Ugandan friends and colleagues. Moreover, in the last year I had heard two heartrending addresses on the subject by one of the key peacebuilders in the conflict, Archbishop John Baptist Odama, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Gulu Diocese. He is renowned for bringing to international awareness the plight of the thousands of night commuter-children who still trek several kilometers each night to sleep in shelters in Gulu (and other towns in the region) to avoid being abducted and turned into child soldiers or sex slaves. That notwithstanding, the northern Ugandan conflict is referred to as the “forgotten war” or “the world’s most underreported war.”

I could not keep count with the number of people who thanked me for having ventured up there to see for myself. For, as my host from that area noted, bus and taxi drivers in Kampala say to him, “Who goes to Gulu?” People are either afraid of the conflict, or have negative attitudes about the people to the north.

An outsider might be tempted to perceive this running battle between rebels, government troops and local communities as an ethnic or regional problem. Indeed the national press, in particular the state-run New Vision, conveys the tensions between Kampala and the northern part of the country frequently in this light. Yet Kony has his headquarters in Sudan. The harboring of Kony and the supply of arms from the Sudanese government in Khartoum, purportedly as a retaliation for Uganda’s support for the Sudan People’s Liberation Army SPLA in Southern Sudan, have heightened the geo-political significance of the war. Rumors of Kony’s conversion to Islam only fuel suspicions about the machinations of Uganda’s “fundamentalist” Muslim neighbors.

The religious element in this conflict is both intriguing and perplexing. The founder of the resistance movement was Alice Lakwena. Alice Auma, an Acholi healer and prophet, took the name Lakwena (meaning “messenger”), invoking the spirit or jok of an Italian army officer who had died near the source of the Nile during the First World War. She was given command of a battalion of the Uganda People’s Defense Army (UPDA), a coalition of rebel forces opposed to President Museveni. She evolved into a successful military leader because of her ability to unite the people with her rituals of purification and millenarian promises of peace and prosperity. The soldiers in her Holy Spirit Movement used only primitive weapons. They were also subject to strict prohibitions, and anointed with shea butter oil so that the bullets would be deflected from their bodies. After inflicting a number of embarrassing defeats on the National Resistance Army (NRA), modern weapons finally put an end to Lakwena’s advance on Kampala in 1987. The remnants of the movement were taken over by her cousin, Joseph Kony in 1988, and renamed the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA).

While Lakwena taught that violence was justified in cleansing the Acholi of their evil ways and their enemies, the LRA under Kony has assumed an even more violent and destructive character. They cut off the lips of their own people, the Acholi, for informing the enemy. They plunder their land, destroy their camps and homesteads, rape their girls and women, and abduct their children for not collaborating with the LRA, or simply massacre them. These tactics intimidate not only those living in the villages and camps, but also the government troops. They seem to have contributed to the sensationalist, rather than serious, media treatment of the movement on an international scale.

Talking with those who know or who are related to Joseph Kony highlighted for me the spiritual interpretations of his power, as well as the aura of secrecy, mysticism and fear surrounding his activities. This aspect is well brought out by the Refugee Law Project report of February 2004 which talks of his “apocalyptic spiritualism.” By “apocalyptic” the authors of the report seem to mean an increase in violent and destructive practices, rather than any belief in an imminent, violent world transformation. They do not view him as a “cult leader” as such, in that most LRA members are not “brainwashed” into following Kony, but rather are drawn in by his divinatory and therapeutic skills. Ex-abductee and former wife of an LRA commander, Betty, spoke to us of having witnessed firsthand Kony’s power to predict the movement of government troops in addition to manipulating the weather to thwart the activities of helicopter gunships. Kony is also reputed to have predicted the outbreak of the Ebola virus in Gulu in 2000.

Kony started out as a healer from a peasant family, and is also described as a “former altar boy.” In the 1980s he recast himself as chosen to lead the Acholi out of subjugation using forms of “spiritual cleansing.” Eclectic in his ritual strategies, he reportedly speaks in tongues and occasionally dresses in women’s clothes. He prescribes prayer and strict discipline. Prayer warriors (mainly women) are deployed prior to military engagement. Leadership in the movement is recognized by the wearing of Christian and Muslim rosaries. Kony claims to be led by spirits and biblical revelations. Yet he manipulates this prophetic vision and religious eclecticism to perpetuate a reign of terror.

In conducting research on such a movement, it was nigh impossible for me to claim any sort of defensive objectivity. Coming as I did as a fellow of the Joan B. Kroc Institute of International Peace Studies, people asked me for advice about how to end the conflict. Bearing both British and American identities I was asked for appropriate steps about how to generate more diplomatic activity. Being a professor I was invited to speak to students in conflict management and development studies at the new Gulu University. Having an interest in the media, I was interviewed on a local community radio station which broadcasts to the camps. Being a woman with an interest in human rights, I was drawn into discussions with women political leaders expressing outrage at the exploitation and suffering of women. Claiming the label of anthropologist and scholar of religion, I was asked to comment on the stories of Kony’s spiritual powers and ritual practices. Since I returned to the United States, my photos of the suffering people of Northern Uganda have been requested by Ugandan exiles and American politicians.

It was the visits to the IDP (Internally Displaced Persons) and night-commuter camps, and the meetings with escaped child soldiers, that will remain most deeply etched on my mind. On Good Friday, I walked through Palenga camp with Roman Catholic and Anglican church leaders. Pain and humiliation were written on the faces of both old and young, forced to live in crowded and unhealthy conditions.

The next day we raced along bush roads known for recent rebel activity, mercifully with a military escort. There was nervous laughter about the driver from Kampala who cowered in the back of the vehicle, too scared to drive. Our visit to Pabbo camp had a more political orientation, occasioned by the fact-finding mission of Honorable Betty Udongo, member of Parliament for Nebbi District. She was investigating deteriorating living conditions in the camps due to fires and rain damage. She attributed the rain, which fell heavily as we entered the camp, to God’s intervention. It meant that she could now report back firsthand to Parliament and the Defense and Internal Affairs committee on the extreme measures that were required at the onset of the rainy season. We spoke briefly with staff from Médecins sans Frontières who were just completing a project on the rampant skin diseases in the camp. On the way back, this time minus the military escort, a woman in our vehicle pointed to some fields and said in a low voice that six women had been killed a few days previously while trying to harvest cassava. Not long after that we reached the outskirts of Gulu and passed Lacor Seminary, which lost more than forty of its seminarians one night in June 2003 when they were abducted by the rebels. Only about 20 have been accounted for.

Back in Gulu that Saturday evening, we visited one of the largest of the night-commuter camps for children, known as Noah’s Ark. Accompanied by the spirited young Kenyan camp director, we visited the various tents and makeshift dormitories where more than 5,000 children come to sleep each night. Many have trekked more than 10 miles from their villages. Someone commented that the conditions were much improved compared to when the children slept in the streets of Gulu town last year. The most crowded section was the one for young boys, who are the prime targets of the rebels for abduction. Camp administrators are trying to organize creative activities and some medical care, but are overwhelmed by the psychiatric trauma of many of the children.

On Easter Sunday, an intense conversation over breakfast with a Human Rights Watch reporter turned into a visit to the Child Protection Unit at the barracks. Lt..Col. Charles Otema-Awany, the chief military intelligence officer for the region, wanted us to meet the child soldiers who had been rescued from the bush the day before. The reporter tried to get some of the disheveled and malnourished boys to admit to being forced to commit atrocities, but they seemed too traumatized to admit to anything. There were also young women there who had been abducted many years ago to serve as “wives” to the rebel commanders. One said she wanted to return to the bush, saying life was better there. Perhaps like many other “defiled” young women, she knew that her future in her own community was grim.

One reason the conflict has lasted so long is its “low intensity” nature — marked by sporadic attacks and killings rather than large-scale massacres on a shorter time-scale, as in Rwanda. Another reason advanced is the inaction and lack of political will by state and international actors because the region is not economically or politically strategic. The inability to bring closure is also attributed to the failure of the LRA to articulate a clear political agenda. It has led to a variety of speculations about Kony’s intentions, not least that he wants to impose his own version of a theocracy in Uganda based on strict adherence to the Ten Commandments.

While both parties call for dialogue, they also commit acts of sabotage and violence against local communities, undermining confidence in them. The optimism of late April and early May regarding moves to hold peace talks was dashed by brutal attacks in mid-May on camps near to Gulu, resulting in the loss of scores of lives and more displacements of thousands of people. United Nations representatives asking for $128 million to cope with the 1.5 million displaced people in the region, more than half of whom are children. It is estimated that more than 20,000 children have been abducted during the war. When school children in the neighboring town of Kitgum were asked if they had ever been abducted by the LRA, 75 percent of those who had not been abducted replied by saying “not yet.” The different religious readings of the LRA naturally engender different solutions to the problem. Those who subscribe to Pentecostalist deliverance interpretations of Kony’s demonic activities believe that one cannot talk with a barbaric, satanic “religious cult.” It needs to be exterminated by military force, they say.

Others insist on the need to find a negotiated settlement to the conflict, and preferably one that draws upon traditional Acholi practices of forgiveness and reconciliation. This was well articulated to us by the Paramount Chief of the Acholi, Rwot David Onen Acana II, who has maintained contact with the rebels and performs rituals of reintegration for returning combatants. This relatively young but wise traditional leader has received conflict management training in South Africa and the United Kingdom. He is not alone among the community leaders who are pursuing further education in this area. Several of them, including even an ex-military officer, are taking advantage of the new Centre for Peace Studies and Conflict Management at Gulu University, under the guidance of its able director, and my jovial host, George Piwang-Jalobo.

If there is one web site that outsiders and insiders should frequently consult in connection with the war, it is that of the Acholi Religious Leaders Peace Initiative (www.acholipeace.org). Founded in 1998 as a consortium of Catholic, Anglican, Muslim, and Orthodox Christian religious leaders, and chaired by Archbishop Odama, they have not only been responsible for training hundreds of local leaders and students in peacebuilding, confidence-building, and conflict resolution, but also in spearheading the passage of the Amnesty Act in 1999. Its members have promoted dialogue rather than military operations and local militias, and criticized the potential prosecution of Kony by the International Criminal Court. Despite (or at times because of) winning prestigious international awards, they find themselves frequently under attack from government, rebels and local leaders for having become too political and proactive. Because of that, they have been advocating third-party mediation and diplomacy.

The Acholi religious leaders’ efforts seem to be bearing fruits with the introduction in April of a bill by two U.S. senators (Lamar Alexander, Republican, Tennessee and Russ Feingold, Democrat, Wisconsin) calling for a report within six months from Secretary of State Colin Powell on the sources of support to the LRA, and the actions taken by the U.S. and Ugandan governments, as well as the international community, to protect civilians in the region.

While there have been criticisms of the government for not providing sufficient protection for the embattled people of Northern Uganda, there seems to be little support for the “military solution” of trying to exterminate the rebel forces. This is in part because many of them are children abducted from local families. Also this approach has failed due to the incapacity and/or unwillingness of the Uganda forces. In fact, some would attribute the worsening situation in the last year or so to the government’s Operation Iron Fist. The terrorist card played by Museveni is unpopular (the U.S. State Department listed the LRA as a “terrorist organization” in late 2001). It may boost anti-terrorism funds from the United States and may have served to help sever the links between the Sudanese government and the LRA, but it means that those who try to engage in dialogue with the rebels are reportedly subjected to arrest and harassment by the government.

As we drove back to Kampala that Monday, the contrast between the deserted roads in the north and the crowds of people further south celebrating in their Easter clothes was painfully evident. I tried vainly to process all that I experienced in a matter of days: the encounter with Alice Lawena’s elderly, “born-again” mother, the smells of hundreds of children sleeping in close confinement, the political gossip over Ugandan native gin, the sight of children silently making their way at dusk into the shelters, the avoiding of traumatized people walking in the middle of the road, the roar of the helicopter gunship over my head as it returned from a mission. One African proverb kept resounding in my head, also cited by Archbishop Odama: When two elephants fight, it is the grass that gets trampled. The trampling of the people of Northern Uganda, notably the children, youth and women, is a blight upon the country, upon the continent, as well as our shared humanity.

Rosalind Hackett is a Distinguished Professor in the Humanities at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, where she teaches religious studies and anthropology. She was a 2003-04 Rockefeller Visiting Fellow at the Kroc Institute.

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