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

Friends

Every war that goes through our lives, produces a by-product that affects our lives at a later time. Bodaboda is a by product of The Luwero war. As I continue witht the Acholi violence series, I have repeated over and over that we must be very carefull for the children kidnaped are going to be your neighbours come next ten or so years. Well there is another indvidual that is so concerned about the children, not the kidnapped children but the children born by the kidnapped children. What happens to them and how do they grow up?  Eunice Apio wrote a very interesting paper entitled "Uganda's forgotten children of war" It is interesting for when you tell Ugandans to adress these issues before they get out of hand they simply don't care till when Rwandese start to run their country, then they turn arround and question how it happened. They were breeding when you are discussing Kenya politics you fool.  We are posting from page 3 of the study.

Ugandans we need to discuss Acholi violence candidly.

Physical/Health Impacts of Birth in Captivity

 

Based on the data gathered, it is evident that children born in captivity are deprived relative to children in the broader population in terms of food, medical care, and other basic means of life. They have also been exposed to violence and the threat of death since birth, and some have lost their mothers. All of these factors will impact the child physically and developmentally. As children fathered by the LRA army ranks, these children originally formed part and parcel of an outlawed group hunted night and day by the UPDF, especially during the Operation Iron Fist (OIF), a government of Uganda effort to flush out the LRA once and for all. At the same time, other LRA enemies including the SPLA and sometimes the Sudan government troops poised a great threat to the security of the children during confrontations. During such ventures, many children's lives were lost alongside those of the mothers and the LRA. Some children were stuck onto their dead mothers' bodies and many may have been left undiscovered at the mercy of the wild; others sustained bullet wounds. To strap a baby on one's back and turn round to open fire at an enemy was not uncommon for abducted girls turned mothers.7 All the children born of the LRA have suffered starvation during the entire length of time spent with the LRA. For children born within the enclaves of the LRA to abducted girl soldiers, food was scarce right from birth because the breast-feeding mother did not have enough to eat. Supplementary foodstuff was also hard to come by in the unfriendly jungles of Southern Sudan and northern Uganda.

 

It was often worsened by the need to be constantly on the run from the Ugandan army.6 This has had an impact on the rate of growth and the general health conditions of the children. Comparatively, the 18 children born in ordinary Acholi settlement were better off with adequate sources of food except in Unyama IDP camp, where families lived mainly on relief handouts. That the children born in captivity suffered starvation while marauding the bushes in the hands of the LRA is further emphasized by the percentage of children interviewed (29%) who singled out 'food' in the interviews as the thing s/he loves most. Medical attention for these children while in the bush was also compromised relative to children in the Acholi settlement. Of the 69 children born in captivity, 66 were never immunized while in captivity but got immunized upon return. Two other children were not yet immunized at the time of the research because they had only just returned from captivity with their mothers. One other child was immunized back in the Sudan LRA camp because he was son to a high-ranking Commander and thus had the privilege to benefit from the preferential treatment of accessing health facilities in Khartoum.5 The 18 children not born in captivity had all been immunized as recommended by the Ministry of Health Guidelines in Uganda, which is in line with that of World Health Organization (WHO). This implies that the health of these children as long as they remained in the enclaves of the LRA was jeopardized relative to the broader population.

 

Exposure to immunizable diseases (including tuberculosis, poliomyelitis, diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough, hepatitis B/haemophilus influenza type B, and measles) could hamper the child's progress for survival and development. Some children born in captivity and now back in Acholi community are now growing up into maturity without having undergone immunization. These are children who by-passed reception centers and joined their families immediately upon return. Since majority of abducted children are from the less educated families, they may not take it upon themselves to follow up on the child's health. The 69 children born in captivity all had a near-uniform mention of basic issues centering on the lives of children while still in captivity with their mothers. According to the child mothers interviewed, parenting in the confines of the LRA enclaves was a most difficult experience. 100% of the mothers sampled acknowledged that life in captivity before motherhood was extremely harsh with inhumane conditions ranging from diseases, starvation, thirst, rape, and arbitrary punishment to imminent death. 64% (44) mothers however emphasis that life was even worse when one became a mother compared to 36% (25) mothers who thought life had a brighter lining for them the moment they became mothers while with the LRA.

 

The 44 mothers gave reasons for worsening conditions which included extra responsibilities associated with raising a child in line with feeding, clothing, fleeing from enemies, tending to a sick child, having no access to pre- and post-natal services and as a result, the agony of watching one's infant struggle to overcome imminent death. The 36% mothers claimed better life in captivity as a mother because mothers were reportedly sometimes exempted from drastic task like going to battle, arbitrary punishment and, for mothers attached to high ranking LRA commanders, young captives were allocated as maids or helpers to support them. 100% of the children interviewed themselves mentioned severely lacking basic needs (food, medicines, water, clothing, and shelter). The children witnessed horrible scenes, suffered from horrible diseases which were in most cases never treated (particularly mentioned were diarrhea, cholera, malaria and worms), no knowledge of school what so ever and having to accompany mothers to battle grounds. Upon return, the children may continue to want for basic needs since their mothers are economically insecure.

 

Psychosocial Impacts of Birth in Captivity

 

In addition to physical deprivation, children born in captivity face a number of specific forms of psycho-social difficulty based on practices such as labeling, stigma, lack of parental care, negative labels, and lack of security and the ability to play. All the 69 children sampled had been fathered by members of the LRA. Their mothers were girls abducted from northern Uganda and forced to become wives to the LRA ranks. All these (69) children had returned to freedom fatherless, either because their fathers had been tallied among the battle casualties (39 children) or were still marauding the bushes of southern Sudan and northern Uganda (18).8 This means 57% will never set eyes on their fathers again, while 43% may depending on what prevails later in terms of peace. This includes whether their fathers surrender or come out of the bush, whether they become interested in and manage to trace the children, and the willingness of mothers to acknowledge parenthood to the fathers. Typically, mothers are with their children except in circumstances where the mother gets killed or lost during battle. Yet, as will be discussed in the next section, these mothers themselves are not receiving the support they need to parent effectively or raise their children. A few such children who have no parents at all have been discovered. 9 Some later get reunited with their mothers when they come back while others have their grandparents traced and brought on board as will be discussed later in this section under integration. Naming practices affect these children's' identities, positive sense of self, and ability to reintegrate.

 

All the 69 children sampled had acquired names upon birth. This rings true to the legal provision of every child having the right from birth to a name, codified in the Convention on the Rights of the Child. However, 49 of them had names with meanings depicting the plight of their mothers. Such names included 'Komakech', meaning 'I am unfortunate', Anenocan, 'I have suffered', Odokorac, 'Things have gone bad', and Lubanga kene, 'only God knows why this happened to me.' These names compile all the bad experiences of a mother into a name2 and give it a life in the nature of her baby. In this way the baby is turned into a live reminder of her sufferings so long as that baby is alive and staying with her. This therefore affects her integration as well, as the scars of her captivity will be by her side in the form of her child and confirmed by the meaningful name still on him. On the part of the child, innocent as s/he may be, in the long run, the name can lead to self-chastisement as the child may consider him or herself an accident that brought an overwhelming suffering on his young mother. At the reception centers the social workers attempt to give these children fresh names with ordinary meaning, for example, Komakech is converted to Komagum (I am fortunate) and Odokorac to Odoko ber (things have turned good). The mothers are however reluctant to pick up these changes. They prefer the old names.3 Nine children had ordinary names, not associated with any predicament. These children were conceived in captivity and delivered upon their mothers' return in the hands of reception centers. The officers at the reception centers then gave them ordinary names, mostly after relations of the mother. Another 11 children conceived or born in captivity had names given due to other circumstances. These include names given by the LRA father after his relatives or himself or his Arab friends and children named after the LRA leader Joseph Kony as a tribute. This has no negative implication except for the name of Joseph Kony, which is associated so much with suffering in Acholi. In terms of nationality, all the 69 children, basing on the response given by their mothers and the humanitarian agencies, are considered Ugandans. The traditional leadership in Acholi also stressed this fact. All these people backed up their responses in line with the government of Uganda's 1995 constitution of citizen by birth.

 

This is because both the LRA and the mothers of the children are citizens of Uganda by birth. For the children allegedly picked from battlefields by UPDF or others, such children are also citizens of Uganda. Since they were found within battlegrounds either in Uganda or in Southern Sudan confrontation with rebel LRA who are also Ugandans. The interviews sought to evaluate what recreational games if any, these 69 children were attached to. This is in line with the internationally codified 'right to play', which is designed to ensure proper growth and development. Of these 74% (49) children were involved in games associated with violence. These games ranged from tying up fellow kids and marching them away, pretending to administer canes of the stroke onto a stubborn playmate, opening up imaginary gun fire on to playmates, and hurriedly tying up luggage to flee from an imaginary raid.3 15% of the children were engaged in ordinary child games like imitating phone talk, racing, football, peddling tires, blowing balloons and playing parent. 16% of the children were too young (still breast feeding infants) and not yet old enough for significant play. The children interviewed singled out several issues that gave them sense of insecurity, especially in the event of their return from the LRA enclaves. The fact that none of the children sampled stipulated 'darkness' as cause for fear is interesting because ordinarily children are afraid of darkness. That these children find solace in darkness suggests of these children for survival: only in the cover of darkness can they go unnoticed and uncondemned. 57% of these children mentioned the Military as their greatest fear. Ordinarily, the military is meant to protect the civilians and the innocent from enemies.

 

The LRA have been terrorizing the Ugandan populace for close to two decades and they have been under persistent fire from the UPDF. It is therefore not strange that these children fear the military above all else: they are part of the LRA and therefore have been hunted down by the UPDF whom they see as enemy. Whereas 11% of the sampled children were too young to respond, the remaining 32% of the sample however singled out other causes of fear ranging from death, strangers, losing mother, starvation and wild animals. These numbers compare to the 18 children born in the ordinary Acholi settlement, who all singled out their fears along noticeably different lines. Among these are issues like lack of school fees, fear of abduction, losing a parent and death. It can be concluded that nearly all children born in captivity have emerged into Ugandan society with a variety of physical and psychosocial vulnerabilities. Upon integration into Ugandan society, these children and their mothers face a variety of reactions from the communities. 19 mothers interviewed acknowledged a good reception while back in the community, but nine reported a negative reception, including one mother who stated that the community through which she came nearly lynched her as a rebel but was rescued by the UPDF that fired in the air to disperse civilians. Twenty-two mothers indicated that children they have bore in captivity are treated differently from those not born in captivity. Despite the fact that 94% of the child mothers expressed joy at being out of captivity, they also described negative consequences of integration, including above all, the negative reception of their babies and children born in the enclaves of the LRA. In two cases, mothers mentioned the option to go back to the LRA because of the stigma they were experiencing outside LRA captivity, and comparatively, they thought life was better for them and their children under the LRA.

 

They further said while with the LRA, nobody discriminated against their children because all babies there belonged to the LRA and they had easy access to basics because they did not need to buy but to plunder from the civilian populace. The fact that these children were forced on innocent girls with impunity has contributed highest in isolating these children from enjoying the privileges of normal growth and development. Also the fact that the LRA has meted endless sufferings on the same families and communities does not auger well with them. Thus, the children they father are taken as scars and symbols of the more than a decade long sufferings meted on them through rape, defilement, cold blooded murders and massacres, abductions, pillage and wreckage of the once very peaceful and progressive society as well as of displacement of whole communities, disruption and stoppage of social amenities including education and health services among others. These children are therefore automatically and unanimously blamed for the acts of their parents. And it does not matter whether they chose to be born or not. They grow up being looked at as a rebel, a thief, a murderer, an accident, an outcome of rape and defilement, a Joseph Kony among others. The stigma by the families of their parents suffuses the entire community where they live. In these communities the children are regarded with disdain, as the evidence of atrocities committed on the community by their parents as members of the LRA. They are stigmatized even if a family decides to treat the child well. Such families then carry the burden of prejudice from the community to the extent that they are accused of liaising and therefore sympathizing with the LRA father.

 

 

Stay in the forum for Series One hundred and seventy-four 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"