{UAH} IDDI AMIN NEVER TARGETED LANGIs/ACHOLIs, THEY TARGETED HIM {---Series One-Hundred and thirty five}

Friends

 

One of the point some of us have tried to post zillion times is that the people of Luwero never wanted to join NRA, but the violence that John Ogole forced on the population, he literary drove the population to Museveni's protection. UNLA was simply a pile of violent thugs. Now look closely at the starting sentence on this series and this is a direct quote "The NRA's bad behavior toward people in the north—including harassment, rape, and looting—tended to engender support for Kony's rebels until the early 1990s, when Kony's brutality began to outweigh that of Museveni's army With waning Acholi support, theLRA began large-scale attacks on Acholi land civilian targets. LRA abductee Richard believed " End quote. It just amazes me how Acholi failed learn that they lost the support of the people of Luwero due to violence, but still did the very same violence in Acholi land to the very same results. KRISTEN E. CHENEY Anthropology Board, University of California at Santa Cruz, USA flew to Uganda and wrote a thesis under a heading 'Our Children Have Only Known War': Children's Experiences and the Uses of Childhood in Northern Uganda Children's Geographies, Vol. 3, No. 1, 23–45, April 2005. We are posting from page 25

 

Ugandans we need to discuss Acholi violence candidly.

 

 

The NRA's bad behavior toward people in the north—including harassment, rape, and looting—tended to engender support for Kony's rebels until the early 1990s, when Kony's brutality began to outweigh that of Museveni's army. With waning Acholi support, theLRA began large-scale attacks on Acholi land civilian targets. LRA abductee Richard believed, 'They abduct people and they mistreat tribe mates because they claim that the people used to report them to the government troops, especially [when they give the government] instruction; maybe they have then shot one of their rebels, their commanders, so they mistreat people seriously. They were doing that to [get] revenge'. The LRA increased abductions, especially of children, who were easier to control and indoctrinate. Chancy and Richard's stories are typical of children abducted by the LRA. Survivors' stories of LRA captivity are characterized by extreme brutality, elaborate ritual, fear, and hunger. When children are abducted, they are typically tied together and forced to march without rest or food while carrying stolen goods for rebels.

 

Chancy

 

Chancy was born in 1986,the year Museveni came to power. It was also the year that Alice Lakwena started the Holy Spirit Movement. Chancy was the third of six children. Her parents subsistence-farmed at their Gulu District village home, and her father occasionally got work as a farmhand on commercial farms. When her parents separated in 1996, she stayed with her father and stepmother, who was abusive. She went to live with her aunt instead, and in 1998, she rejoined her mother in Anaka IDP camp. We stayed in that camp because the rebels were disturbing people in the village. Because in the camp there are no gardens, you have to go sometimes to the village to collect food from your home garden. So we had gone to dig cassava. We could not come back immediately so we slept in the village. Sometimes we would hear that rebels are around, but that day when we went home, we had not even heard of the presence of rebels, so we stayed there thinking nothing would happen at night. We were not sleeping in the house; we were sleeping in the bush. We thought it was safe to sleep in the bush and wake up in the morning. But the rebels got ascertain lady who knew where we were sleeping so she led them to us: my mother, my elder sister, and me. They walked around us with torches as we were sleeping. They told us to get up and they started asking us why we have slept outside. They asked, 'Are there government soldiers around?' And then they asked, 'Is there a trading center around?' So that's when I knew they were rebels. So my sister was made to carry luggage a distance and they set her free, but I was the youngest so they took me away. Her abductors joined up with the rest of their battalion and reported their new acquisitions. Chancy estimated there were about one hundred rebel soldiers, and she was one of fifteen children abducted that night, bringing their total number of recent captives to about fifty. When she was abducted, Chancy said, 'I found some children who were from the same school, and I found some others who were from our village. I knew them

. . .

but we were not supposed to talk about wanting to go home, or escape, because if you do it you are going to be beaten or killed'. Children who attempt but fail to escape face death at the hands of other captives, who are forced to beat the accused to death with a log or machete. You are told to kill. One day a boy escaped and they went to his home and they got him there so they brought him and told all the captives to come and kill him. A few of us were called to the well, so I didn't kill the boy. I came and found they had already killed him. They used clubs or big sticks and they beat and hit him. They always hit the back of the head. After that, those who have participated in the beating, they will do a ritual ceremony for cleansing. They sprinkle water on them. They say the ritual is to cleanse them from that killing. Some successfully escape, but others are fully socialized into the LRA lifestyle. Until recently, many had eventually been force-marched across the border into Sudan, where boys (and some girls) were trained as soldiers and often ordered to attack their own villages. Chancy was not taken to Sudan right away, but she was trained to shoot a weapon over the course of one month and was forced to loot villages and homesteads as they made their way through Gulu and Kitgum Districts. She said that at one time they tried to enter Sudan but were shot at and so retreated. She was relieved. I was thinking that if they took us to Sudan it would be difficult to come back or to escape. We were always guarded by soldiers, even when we were going to fetch water or we were moving anywhere. They were always watching. And whenever you do something wrong you are beaten and sometimes when we meet with the government[army] and they start shooting, we run away and we throw our luggage. If you throw your luggage you are beaten, so you have to run with your luggage. Shortly after she was abducted in 1999, the rebels told her group that the angels had said they would overtake the government in 2000. When nothing happened in 2000, they revised their projected takeover for 2002. That's when Chancy knew they were lying. 'I did not feel good', she said. 'All the time I would think if the there is a way I would escape

. . .

but it was very difficult because of the soldiers looking at us, watching us all the time. So life was hard with no peace, no happiness. I escaped because of the suffering you can't imagine. They can kill you anytime. They don't care about people. They don't really care about anybody 'Girls suffer particular hardships in LRA captivity. They are commonly given as 'wives' to commanders. Chancy said that when she was told to go to a commander, 'I was so scared but I could not refuse. I had seen a girl refuse to go to a man. She was beaten so bad and she was tied on a tree to be shot

. . .

When she was about to be killed, she went to him'. Girls are forced to perform domestic tasks for their 'husbands' and are regularly raped. When they bear children at the hands of their captors, it lessens their possibility for successful escape. Chancy and others finally found their chance to escape in the summer of 2001. When they came close to a small town, government forces ambushed their camp. When we had gone in the villages to loot chicken and some food, we didn't know that the government soldiers were there. So one boy, as he entered a house to loot, the government soldiers caught him. But for us, we ran away. And then this boy led the government soldiers to where we were. We were already camped and were trying to look for firewood to cook. All of a sudden, another rebel group—the one which had gone to loot—was also coming back. The government soldiers saw them before they saw us, so when they started shooting is when we realized they were there, so we all started running. And as we ran I branched away from the main group and the girl we had planned with, my co-wife, went on her own. But fortunately she also branched away although we did not meet. So they continued to run in one direction as I was running in another direction. I crossed the river and the other girls had crossed the river and I realized they had already gone. I was alone. As I was moving ahead I saw my friend with two other boys. So I ran to them. As we were moving the government soldiers again saw us because they still had that boy they had captured. And so they asked the boy and I think he told them, 'These are part of the rebels'. So they followed [us] and they started shooting guns at us but they were shooting high. They wanted us to stop but we were already running. As we ran we also separated again from the two boys, who went on their own. The two of us went on our own, but they were still following us. So we went to the village, we got the chairman of the local council, and we were asking him to show us the way to town. The chairman refused; he said he wanted to take us to the government detach, so we accepted. As we were still moving, the rebels we were with were also looking for us. As we crossed the road to the detach they had also come. So we went and reported to the army. The rebel lieutenant whom I was given to as a wife came up to the road and the government again shot him and I heard they broke his arm. The government brought us to the main barracks in Gulu Town, and then they brought me to World Vision.

 

Chancy was in the barracks for a while as the army debriefed her about her rebel activities in the bush in efforts to gather intelligence to help defeat the rebels. Chancy was one of a half dozen girls at the rehabilitation center when I met her. Others had had children by their captors and had escaped with babies on their backs. Now that she and the other girls felt they were safe, they were trying to put the past behind them and look forward to the future. 'At World Vision', Chancy said, 'We don't talk much about the bush, but we talk about home'. Unfortunately, girls usually face the double stigma of having been raped and having contracted HIV/AIDS or other venereal diseases.

2

They therefore utilize different reintegration strategies than boys, trying as quickly as possible to blend back into society(Shepler, 2002).

 

 

 

Series one hundred and thirty six is going to be a continuation of this study.

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"