{UAH} IDDI AMIN NEVER TARGETED LANGIs/ACHOLIs, THEY TARGETED HIM {---Series two-Hundred but twenty-nine}

Friends

 

They then commanded children below eleven years and pregnant women and breast-feeding women to stand aside. I had a sizeable child I was carrying. I shifted with them to where they told us to stand. I could not reach my little boy who was seated with students of Atiak technical institute. The remaining group of people was then commanded to lie down. Then they were showered with bullets. Nobody got up to attempt running away. After the bullets were silent, the soldiers were ordered to fire a second time on the dead corpses, probably to make sure. Then they fired a third time to make sure all the people had been shot. Then they turned to us and asked us if we had seen what had happened. We accepted that we had seen. I was so scared because I had seen my boy being shot. I wept silently and my children told me not to cry…My boy had been shot in the leg and was still alive when the rebels came back. They finished him off with a bayonet.

 

As we so walk this Acholi violence journey, it is imperative that we read these reports but understand them, and for a very simple reason, Because we as Ugandans do not collect this kind of data, we allowed Acholi to carry weapons in our country, when they should have not to start with, and the tragedy that followed is known by every sensible Ugandan that was in the country at a time. I have stated over but over that Acholi and Langi actually destroy public property, a property we all build on our taxes for the future of our kids, it is interesting that this report states that actually they attempted to destroy Atiak Technical Secondary, they threw a bomb to destroy it but the bomb narrowly missed the dormitories. They collected students and took them. And here is where I need my educated friends like Ocen Nekyon to guide me, of what value was the destruction of Atiak Secondary Technical school to Acholi and Langi? An institution that was built to educate your very own kids. The Liu Institute for Global Issues wrote a paper on Acholi violence under a heading Remembering The Atiak Massacre April 20^th 1995, it was presented during The Justice and Reconciliation Project :Field Notes.

 

Ugandans we so need to discuss Acholi violence but candidly.

 

 

 

Survivors of the Atiak Massacre. These men were among the 300 persons shot en masse three times. They continue to live with bullets embedded in their bodies.

 

 

 

An elderly woman stands next to the graves of some of the massacre victims.

 

PRE-MASSACRE BACKGROUND

 

In 1986, the guerrilla movement known as

the National Resistance Army (NRA, now

called the Uganda Peoples Defence Forces

or UPDF) seized power in Kampala. Remnants

of the Ugandan Army (composed

mainly of Acholi soldiers from the North)

retreated north and formed rebel groups,

including the Uganda National Liberation

Army (UNLA) and Cilil. When these rebel

groups were defeated, spirit medium Alice

Lakwena's Holy Spirit Movement lead

resistance efforts in the North, only to be

defeated in turn in the late 1980s on its

advance to Kampala. A cousin of

Lakwena's, Joseph Kony, then formed the

Lord's Resistance Army which fought the

Government until the current cessation of

hostilities under the Juba peace talks.

Prior to the massacre, Atiak camp was a

small trading centre, with most of the people

living in homesteads in the outskirts. About

150 home guards protected the trading

centre and the area surrounding it, with

about forty government soldiers left to guard

the centre itself.

Respondents argued that when the LRA

came onto the scene in the late eighties and

early nineties, its relationship with locals in

Atiak was good. The LRA did not engage in

forceful abduction, nor did it kill civilians.

Instead, LRA soldiers asked local people for

food and recruited youth from willing

families.

The relationship between the local populace

and the NRA soldiers, on the other hand,

was reportedly poor. The NRA was accused

by respondents of harassing civilians who

came to the centre; asking them for

information regarding the rebels. Civilians

were divided and confused. There were

those who had sons in the LRA, and those

who had sons in the NRA. As a result, local

loyalty and allegiance was divided, with

some civilians helping government soldiers

and others aiding the rebels.

When the LRA discovered that some people

were collaborating with government soldiers

by revealing information regarding rebel

hideouts and the locations of weapons

caches, the rebels' approach towards the

civilian population changed dramatically.

Indeed, they turned on the civilian

population with a deep vengeance. As a

result, most civilians moved closer to the

trading centre in order to escape the wrath of

the LRA. Others were harassed to move

there by government soldiers. However,

there were no clear geographical boundaries

for Atiak camp at the time of the massacre,

and most people settled as closely as they

wished to the trading centre.

Survivors of the Atiak Massacre. These men were

among the 300 persons shot en masse three times.

They continue to live with bullets embedded in their

bodies.

 

THE MASSACRE: 20 APRIL 1995,

ATIAK, UGANDA

5:00am

An unknown number of LRA rebels entered

the trading centre of Atiak, attacking

Government soldiers and home guards.

Civilian witnesses report that between the

hours of five and ten in the morning there

was an exchange of heavy gunfire and

grenades before the military was eventually

overrun by rebels. The LRA reportedly set

fire to huts and began looting from local shops.

Individuals recalled that they sought

out whatever hiding places they could find

by fleeing to the bush, jumping into newly

dug pit latrines, or by remaining in their

huts. Despite efforts to protect themselves,

many civilians were directly caught in the

crossfire or specially targeted, with an

unknown number of casualties.

 

At dawn, we started hearing gun shots. At

about 8:00am the rates of the gun shots

reduced. We came to learn that the rebels

had entered the centre and were already

abducting people, burning houses and

killing people. Just as we were still trying

to get refuge somewhere, the rebels got us

and arrested us. They gathered us in one

place and when we were still in the centre,

we could see some dead bodies and

wounded people lying about the centre.4

 

Another woman recalled the following:

 

When the battle had raged for sometime,

the rebels headed for the barrack. On their

way they fired randomly at the

houses…One of my youngest children said

to me, "Ma get my books so that we can

run." I was so afraid and I had to restrain

my kids. The boys in the other room got

out, two of them ran away. It was only the

elder boy who was too afraid to run

because he was a formerly abducted boy.5

He entered the house where we were. The

battle went all morning. When there was

lull, we tried getting out and making a run

for it. The [rebels] saw us and fired at us.

So we had to take refuge in the house once

again. Then I heard one of the soldiers

saying that the house we were in should be

set ablaze. I got afraid and got out with all

the children.

 

10:00am

 

5 It is common knowledge that persons who

escaped or abandoned the LRA were often

automatically killed if recaptured.

Once the LRA had captured the trading

centre, civilians were rounded up and forced

to walk into the bush. Some were forced to

carry looted goods:

 

The rebels told us not to run away. We

were surrounded and taken to a shop. I

was given a sack of sugar to carry, while

my eldest by was given a sack of salt.6

 

Another witness recounted their terror on

being forced to march into the bush:

 

They came and pointed a rifle at me. I

dropped the child I was carrying and

raised my hands. They asked me if all the

children were mine. I told them they were

my children. They told the children to go

home, and told them their mother would

follow later after carrying some loads. I

refused to surrender the child I was

carrying. They then told me to go with

them. When we had walked for about a

mile they ordered me to put down the child.

I refused. They pierced me with a bayonet

on the thigh. Then we went for another

mile and I was pierced again on the thigh.

We walked and when we had reached

Ayugi, I was again pierced in the neck. I

was now dripping with blood. Then we

walked and met with the rest of the people

who had been abducted.7

 

En route, military helicopters arrived on the

scene. The LRA rebels instructed civilians

to remove all light-coloured clothing and to

take cover under the brush to avoid

detection by the soldiers in the helicopters.

During this time, the LRA attempted to

bomb the Atiak Secondary Technical

School; the bombs narrowly missing the

dorms. Raiding the dormitories, students

were forced to join the group of civilians

who were rounded up in the town centre and

made to march into the bush. It is estimated

that approximately 60 students, some also

from Lango and Teso, and a few from the

South of the country were among those later

killed. As the present chairperson of the

Atiak Students Survivor group recalled of

his former classmates:

 

We used to read together, play and sleep

together. In fact we grew up together in

the same clan and homestead. Together

we planned a bright future. Now they are

gone. They left in the morning when we

were awakened by the sounds of a bomb

blast in our dormitory. It was meant to hit

us. We were captured alive and were

heading to unknown direction when a

helicopter came and I escaped. My

friends didn't. Two days later, I helped

their parents identify them among over

300 dead bodies.8

 

11:00am

The captured civilians arrived in a valley

called Ayugi, where there is a stream called

Kitang. There, able-bodied men and boys

were separated from women, young children

and the elderly.9 Vincent Otti, second-incommand

to LRA leader Joseph Kony,

lectured the civilians, chastising them for

siding with the Government. According to

one witness:

 

Otti told us that we were undermining their

power. He also said we people of Atiak

were saying that LRA guns have rusted. He

said he had come to show us that his guns

were still functioning. For that matter he

ordered us to see how his gun can still

work. He then ordered his men to shoot at

the civilians.

 

According to another eyewitness, Otti

ordered his soldiers to kill "anything that

breathed":

 

They then commanded children below

eleven years and pregnant women and

breast-feeding women to stand aside. I had

a sizeable child I was carrying. I shifted

with them to where they told us to stand. I

could not reach my little boy who was

seated with students of Atiak technical

institute. The remaining group of people

was then commanded to lie down. Then

they were showered with bullets. Nobody

got up to attempt running away. After the

bullets were silent, the soldiers were

ordered to fire a second time on the dead

corpses, probably to make sure. Then they

fired a third time to make sure all the

people had been shot. Then they turned to

us and asked us if we had seen what had

happened. We accepted that we had seen. I

was so scared because I had seen my boy

being shot. I wept silently and my children

told me not to cry…My boy had been shot

in the leg and was still alive when the

rebels came back. They finished him off

with a bayonet.11

 

Another survivor recounted:

 

They began by telling us mothers, pregnant

women and children below 13 years to

move aside. They told the rest of the people

to lie down and for us to look straight at

them - if you look at a different direction,

they can shoot you dead. They fired at the

people first and then again for the second

time to ensure that they are all dead…My

first-born child, mother-in-law, father-inlaw

and my husband were all killed as I

watched them die. I returned with 4

children whom I am struggling to take care

of now.12

 

After the massacre, others were forced to go

with the LRA to carry looted goods. As one

survivor explained after showing us the

scars on his face and back, many of those

abducted did not survive:

 

They selected 10 of us to help them carry

wounded soldiers. When we reached Kilak,

they beat me up and pierced me with a

bayonet. Of the 10 of us who were

supposed to carry patients, 9 died; I am the

only one who survived.13

Others abducted that day were initiated into

the LRA through brutal tactics and went on

to fight or act as sexual slaves for senior

commanders.

The total number of persons killed in the

massacre varies from anywhere between 200

and 300 persons. Some people disappeared

and their whereabouts are still unknown, and

because in the post-massacre confusion it

was not possible to identify all of the dead.

 

IMMEDIATE POST-MASSACRE

The bodies of some people were never

brought back home, because there were no

relatives to carry them home.14

In the immediate aftermath of the massacre,

Betty Bigombe (then Minister for the North)

arrived by helicopter with 'many whites'

who wanted to photograph the massacre site.

Bigombe encouraged the people to go to

pick up the bodies from Ayugi and ready

them for burial. The process of recovering

bodies took several days, and not all could

be recovered.

 

Aid

Several organizations came in to provide

help for the survivors. According to the

camp authorities, about 2000 iron sheets

were delivered by the Government for

distribution to the surviving relatives of the

victims. Five hundred iron sheets got lost in

the process, and were suspected to have

been misappropriated. The other 1500 sheets

were distributed. Most of the sheets were

sold by the recipients. Survivors report

having also received blankets, maize and

iron sheets from the Government and other

organisations.

Survivors complained that although their

names have been recorded on several

occasions by non-governmental

organisations (NGOs), they have not

received material benefits. For orphaned

children, for adults who inherited orphaned

children, and for the disabled, poverty has

been pervasive. Many continue to display

signs of trauma, including reports of feeling

haunted by the ghosts of the dead, or the

inability to recover from feelings of loss and

fear.

 

I have a problem that has entered me due

to the massacre, I fear going under big

trees because I see very many dead bodies

lying there. This is because the people

were killed under a very big tree. My

children also have phobia for

thunderstorms due to the experience they

had during killing. I keep imagining that it

might one time happen again. I saw the

killing with my own eyes; it has remained

in my memory and my eyes forever. Even if

I go to fetch firewood, I become energyless

because I have phobia for bushes.

 

 

Stay in the forum for Series two hundred and thirty 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"