{UAH} ACHOLI DESTROYED THE ONLY TWO BEST SCHOOLS IN NORTHERN UGANDA

Uganda: Sad October for Aboke Girls And Ombaci College

 

By George Laghu

Kampala — Set 340 miles apart, the story of boys' and girls' schools bound by dedication to the parents of Jesus Christ have interesting accounts of their background and fate fused into a sad tale of terror, rape and death in October.

St Joseph's College Ombaci in Arua district and St Mary's Aboke Girls school in Lira district are among the best schools in northern Uganda.

Both schools were founded by the Comboni Missionaries.

The schools were dedicated to Mary and Joseph. Their dedication, however, would fit very well in the Catholic dogma of the alliance of two hearts of Mary and Joseph in building the holy family.

Symbolically, Ombaci and Aboke would unite in building better families in northern Uganda, were it not for the attacks by brutal gun-wielding men on the two schools in October 1980 and 1996, respectively.

On October 7, 1980 and on October 9, 1996, rag-tag troops in military outfits invaded the two schools. They killed, abducted, raped and traumatised hundreds of students in the two schools, turning October into a month of terror.

In the case of Ombaci, it all started on October 7, 1980 when the Uganda National Liberation Front (UNLF) high command ordered its troops in West Nile to make a "tactical withdrawal" to areas outside the region. They were fearing an invasion by the Uganda National Rescue Front (UNRF) and the former Uganda Army based in Sudan.

The withdrawal, which was truly tactical created a security vacuum. This precipitated a war in which dozens of students were massacred and hundreds of residents were forced to take refuge in the school, under the shield of an Italian headmaster, the late Fr Minch.

The withdrawal was meant for the creation of a situation for revenging on the people of West Nile for their supposed support for the regime of Idi Amin.

The largely Acholi-based UNLF blamed for killing their kinsmen. Others included a ploy to depopulate a region, which was largely seen as anti-UPC and create an atmosphere where free and fair elections were impossible. This enabled the unopposed return of UPC candidates, Ronald Badanyanya of Arua and Dr Moses Apiliga of Moyo.

Ombaci College became the epicentre of a regionwide massacre, which is only best described as genocide. The period between October 7 and 23, 1980 saw the execution of a nearly undocumented, but vicious savagery and a barbaric attack on defenceless people.

Journalist Ben Bella Illakut, then reporting for the Uganda Times, was hounded out of Uganda by government operatives for bringing to light the atrocities committed in West Nile.

John Manano, a survivor of the Ombaci butchery, tearfully recollected the fate of his neighbouring dormitory then referred to as 'dorm D' as the dormitory of death.

"Dozens of my colleagues and villagers were shepherded into dorm D or now call it 'dorm of doom', where in an act reminiscent of the Nazi torture chambers, they were killed with heavy artillery fire.

Ombaci turned into a mini-Atuziwich," Manano said. In Aboke, the morning of October 9, 1996, the anniversary of Uganda's independence, turned out to be the 'black day' when men clad in crude military attire broke into one of the girls' dormitories and abducted 190 girls.

The men belonging to the notorious Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) herded the girls to the Sudan where they were shared as wives by their captors' leaders.

Most of the girls have been rescued - thanks to the efforts of the Uganda Peoples Defence Forces (UPDF) and the acclaimed efforts of the school's headmistress and the Association of concerned Parents.

However, many of these girls have either been infected with HIV/AIDS or are single parents. And St Mary's Aboke Girls has never recovered from the shock of October 9, as 30 of their colleagues remain unaccounted for.

Both Ombaci and Aboke were started as vocational institutions for training young boys and girls into responsible men and women based on the Catholic values.

In 1935, the Italian Comboni Missionaries founded Ombaci, six kilometres north of Arua town, to provide technical skills in carpentry, brick-laying and building, and metal work. In line with the profession of Joseph, the father of Jesus, as a carpenter, the school was dedicated to him.

Observing a very strict catholic discipline, Ombaci soon became one of the greatest schools in the north in line with the ideals of its motto: 'Primus inter-pares' or First among Equals. The outstanding headmaster, the late Fr. Minch, abandoned his training and profession as an anti-mafia police squad in Italy and joined the priesthood and trained as a teacher. He guided the school to its current fame and was a witness to the darkest days of a school he helped to build.

As the need for domestic science training was considered paramount for the largely uneducated African women, the growth of Aboke was unstoppable. Taking Mary, the mother of Jesus, who cooked good food for the family and remained faithful and simple as a matron of their institution, the school expanded to attract the attention of a government programme of supporting community schools in 1980.

Rachael Fassera, then a 19-year-old girl, left a course of salesmanship to work in an electrical warehouse in the US, to join the Comboni Sisters and train as a teacher of biology.

She, with other sisters, founded St Mary's Aboke Girls and turned it into one of the outstanding girls' schools in the region.

On October 9, 1996, Fassera saw her efforts tumble like blocks of dominoes.

Like Fr. Minch, who went into the bushes to bury the remains of his students, Sr. Rachael trecked the bushes of Sudan in search of her girls.

She met no less person than Pope John Paul II and Koffi Annan, the UN secretary general, in efforts to secure the girls.

Fassera also went to South Africa to meet Nelson Mandela to seek his influence. She also met President Yoweri Museveni and dared emissaries of Joseph Kony.

Ugandans of good will join students of St. Mary's Aboke Girls and St Joseph's College Ombaci as they go into their school chapels to pray the solemn and somber memorial requiem masses.

 

EM

On the 49^th Parallel          

                 Thé Mulindwas Communication Group
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                    Kuungana Mulindwa Mawasiliano Kikundi
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