{UAH} IDDI AMIN NEVER TARGETED LANGIs/ACHOLIs, THEY TARGETED HIM {---Series fifty-two }

Friends

 

In as much as I am pushing this knowledge of Acholi violence forward, we always need to remember that NRA and Museveni committed massive crimes in Northern Uganda. I have read many accounts on what happened up three and it is simply astounding. There has to be a time and we put those to justice, This study however is very interesting that it separates what NRA/UPDF did in Northern Uganda and what LRA did. And what I am interested into today is what LRA did to the people that NRA was attacking. Remember that LRA is the Konny army which comprised solely of Acholi. So as Museveni and NRA were attacking, how were The Acholi fighters treating Acholi population? This is a study titled "Making peace of our own"  by the United Nations.

 

We are posting from page 4

 

Nature and Impact of Harms

Focus groups in Acholi land, Lango and Teso indicated that as a result of conflict victims have suffered a wide

range of physical, emotional, psychological, cultural and economic harms, both as individuals and communities.

Broadly speaking, across the three sub-regions the most common forms of harm identified were murder, torture,

abduction, rape, mutilation, arson, displacement of the population into IDP camps, and the theft or destruction of property. As a result of these harms, the population expressed feelings of immense loss, sustained physical and

emotional trauma, and severe psychological disorientation.

Many respondents provided graphic accounts of their experiences during conflict. One formerly abducted Langi

boy from Lira district said, "When we were abducted, [the rebels] made us sit on eight people who were killed.

We were made to drink the blood of the corpses and some of the blood was rubbed into our chests…They cut

people and cooked the bodies in drums. We were then made to eat the flesh that was cooked." An Acholi victim

of economic loss in Gulu district said, "Besides losing our relatives in mass killings at Lukodi, we have now been

rendered economically helpless. I lost a whole kraal of cattle. The loss hurts me a great deal and when I see lorries

full of cattle passing through here, I feel like committing suicide."

Just as victims have suffered a wide range of harms, the effects of the conflict have also been highly varied. In

many cases, different harms have had a compounding effect. For example, some victims have suffered mutilation,

maiming, gunshot wounds or injuries from landmines and are therefore disabled to the extent that they cannot

participate in economic and other activities in the community. This poses great difficulties especially for victims

in communities where the main economic activity is subsistence farming, in which all community members are

expected to participate. Many victims stated in the focus groups that they have suffered not only individual physical

and psychological harms but also subsequent social dislocation because of their inability to contribute meaningfully

to the economic wellbeing of the community. Internally displaced persons were often confined within a boundary

of a few kilometers, severely limiting their access to land for agricultural purposes. One Acholi who suffered

economic loss stated, "Hunger is a result of the violence because there are no fields for the IDPs to practice

agriculture. There is even no land for burials as there was in the past when we buried our people in our ancestral

lands".

As one Acholi female victim of physical violence in Pader district said, "I am a very weak person now because of

the severe beatings by the LRA. My children are not in school because I cannot do anything in the way of work

for them to go to school and pay their fees. The poverty in my household is unbelievable." A formerly abducted

woman from Lango district recounted her experience: "The LRA robbed food from my house and beat me. I knelt

pleading with them not to take me with them but the more I pleaded, the more they kicked me. They took me to

their commander. I was abducted with my grandchildren for a month. For four days we did not eat food".

An Acholi victim of physical violence in Amuru district said:

I lost my son who was shot dead by the Government soldiers who thought he was a

rebel and other family members were all burnt in their hut. Now I have no children

and am physically disabled because I was tortured by the rebels. Currently I have

no shelter because of strange happenings like huts that just start burning without

anyone setting them on fire. I am really suffering.

Respondents in all sub-regions identified extreme poverty as a major effect of the conflict, exacerbating other

harms they have suffered. Many respondents stated that they have lost property or been displaced from their lands

and are therefore unable to meet the basic needs of their families. Particularly in Lango and Teso, respondents

claimed that many children have been forced to live on the streets because of a lack of food and general care in their homes. One Langi male victim of physical violence in Lira district said, "Orphaned children who ran to other

places like Lira town and Baala became street children and it is hard to bring most of them back home from the

streets."

Several respondents in Teso described a lack of food as such a widespread problem that many people have been

forced to eat cats, dogs and lizards. Descriptions of abject poverty were most common and vivid in Lango and

Teso, possibly suggesting that development programmes have been less sustained in these sub-regions than in

Acholiland.

Respondents in all sub-regions described severe emotional and psychological effects of the harms they have

suffered during the conflict. A former female abductee in Pader district of the Acholi sub-region said, "I know I am

not normal. I am always haunted especially by the spirits of my grandfather who was axed into two parts. He was

then placed on the granary to roast. Till death I cannot forget this terrible act." An Iteso man who was abducted

by the LRA recalls: I was abducted, battered and my daughter was also abducted. The rebels made me walk for

long distances. When I tried to escape I was emotionally tortured and later when I escaped I joined the Arrow

militia.

An Acholi victim of violence in Amuru district said:

I was arrested by one UPDF Commander called [name withheld]. The UPDF

tortured me terribly for failing to tell them where the rebels were. As a punishment,

I was pushed back into my house and they set the hut on fire so that my family and

I would all die. God willing, I did not die but later all my children were abducted

by the rebels. My only son who had remained joined the army where he was later

killed during the war. Now I am childless and heartbroken.

Many respondents indicated that high levels of psychological trauma in the community have seriously affected

community relations, as manifest in domestic violence in the IDP camps and some reprisals against former

abductees upon their return. Complicating community relations in this setting is the fact that many of the

perpetrators of crimes in northern Uganda were themselves victims of abduction and forced to commit atrocities

in their own communities, sometimes against their own families (a theme explored in greater depth below in

the section on "Accountability and Reconciliation"). Similarly, some members of local militias, known as Local

Defence Units (LDUs), such as the Arrow Boys in Teso or Amuka Boys in Lango, have caused great harm to their

own communities. Consequently, there are often difficult social interactions in communities between victims and

perpetrators who know each other intimately and because many perpetrators also consider themselves victims of

atrocities. As one former male abductee interviewed in Gulu district said:

We now experience broken relations because of the revenge attitude of the people

in the communities. Most community members don't know who in particular led

the rebels to their communities or who was directly responsible for all the murder,

torture and other crimes like destruction of property. That is why community

attitudes are unforgiving towards all the returnees. There is a lot of finger pointing Many former abductees across all sub-regions expressed great doubts about whether they would ever be able to

truly reintegrate into their home communities.

Most focus groups described the wide range of negative effects of the Government actions to forcibly displace

civilians into IDPs camps. UPDF forces stationed near or within IDP camps were often described as the source

of violence against civilians living in the camps. A victim of gender-based violence in Gulu district described her

experience, "There were four UPDF soldiers who gang-raped me and threatened to kill me if I reported it. I was

frightened and I did not report it."

A male victim of violence in Gulu district identified the occurrence of gender-based violence against men perpetrated

by the UPDF, "The UPDF are currently raping our children. They had unnatural sex with other men."

A Langi member of a community-based organisation in Lira district described the impact of the UPDF presence

in the camps:

Soldiers were enlisted and not properly paid. They were even not given food rations

and yet they needed to survive, so in response they used our property that was left

back home to survive. These soldiers were both the UPDF and Amuka boys, but

leadership of both was UPDF command.

Respondents in all sub-regions described the various consequences of a lack of access to their ancestral lands,

including limited agricultural activity and a sense of social and spiritual dislocation. Many respondents described

cultural fragmentation and an overall loss of cultural norms and values as a result of life in the camps. Focus groups

of young community members and elders consistently described forms of cultural breakdown as a major impact

of other harms, including illiteracy and low levels of education, ignorance of important cultural rituals and forms of

"immoral behaviour" such as infidelity and rape, which in their view resulted in the rampant spread of HIV/AIDS

and other sexually transmitted diseases. Many elders complained of "wild" children who roamed the IDP camps

and surrounding towns, showing no respect for their parents and leaders. Some of these children were former

abductees but others were non-abductees who, the elders claimed, lacked moral and cultural guidance because

their elders had been killed, incapacitated during the conflict, or in the case of male adults, deprived of their

traditional role as bread-winner within the family. A former abductee from Amuru district described the current

socio-cultural fragmentation:

There is moral degeneration in the camp and this is why the children do not have

any respect for the elders as children had in the past. It is also because the parents

are not the providers anymore. It is the NGOs and other humanitarian workers

who are now our providers. Our parents are too poor to afford food, clothes and

other basic needs. Therefore, the children look at them as not really important in

the society.

 

Stay in the forum for Series fifty-three on the way   ------>

 

EM

On the 49^th Parallel          

                 Thé Mulindwas Communication Group
"With Yoweri Museveni, Ssabassajja and Dr. Kiiza Besigye, Uganda is in anarchy"
                    Kuungana Mulindwa Mawasiliano Kikundi
"Pamoja na Yoweri Museveni, Ssabassajja na Dk. Kiiza Besigye, Uganda ni katika machafuko"