{UAH} THE MULINDWA NOTES ON VIOLENCE IN UGANDA {---Series two-Hundred but thirty nine}

Friends

 

As the series on Acholi violence continues, it is important to realize that Acholi have become this comfortable in violence, for no one actually goes after it. And one can look at what they did in Luwero, the day you stand and call for a commission on Luwero, George Okello a Langi their employer stands up and pleads how he carried the investigation in Luwero already and none is needed. When you look at atrocities they committed in Uganda under Obote two government, my God that is not talked about either, for all UPC members in UAH will stand up with all kinds of threats. Many Ugandans that were murdered in Uganda under Iddi Amin government were actually murdered by Acholi that were sneaking back into Uganda through Kenya. But such documentations are not available for whenever you ask for them to be established, George Okello and Allan Barigye go after you. It is very troubling that Acholi have been violent in Luwero, in West Nile, in Eastern Uganda, in Kampala and to their very own people, yet no one allows anyone to record those atrocities.

 

Few weeks ago I posted a series about the Acholi violence in West Nile,  they walked in and simply murdered every one. Acholi as George Okello,  believe that every Lugbara, Munubbi Kakwa Madi and Banubbi are related to Iddi Amin. They both believe that they should leave Uganda, and George Okello's daily attack to Banubbi refers. What these friends fail to realize is that some Acholi atrocities have actually been recorded, and in this series what I am going to do is to post the voices of Ugandans in West Nile as they came face to face to the Acholi violence. I have pulled this from a study by Evelyn Akullo Otwili and Victoria Esquivel-Korsiak. Acknowledgment goes to Lino Owor Ogora, Harriet Aloyo, and Jennifer Gigliotti. Also Stephen Acidri, Father Alex, Father Elio Zanei, Sister Paola, Veronica Eyotaru and all of the survivors and relatives of victims who took the time to speak with JRP. Thanks also to the Royal Norwegian Embassy for their financial support.  May all Ugandans that were brutally butchered in West Nile by Acholi rest in peace.

Fellow Ugandans Acholi violence is a very serious national problem that we all as Ugandans, need to address, but candidly.

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Where the Tanzanian soldiers had been generally considered fair by civilians in West Nile, the UNLA soldiers that replaced them were feared. One man JRP spoke to explained:

 

"As soon as the Tanzanians withdrew in 1980 life became very difficult because our own soldiers, that is UNLA, were looting and killing almost on a daily basis. They were mainly after three things: they wanted property, they wanted people to provide them with food, money, radios, wrist watches and so on; and they wanted women.1"

 

Starting about one year before the Ombaci massacre, religious persons and civilians at Ediofe, the mission in Arua town, began suffering at the hands of UNLA soldiers. One Sister who was at Ediofe at the time remembered the first time the soldiers came to the mission:

It was around 9am because they had completed their job in [Arua] town. They had blown up some houses [in the town] and there was completely nothing left [for them to loot] in Arua. [When they arrived here they] found our gate locked, so I went there to open it and then they shot right towards my hand. Then I said, "If you shoot I won't find the hole to the padlock and open it. Just stand still till I open it." [The moment] I opened the gate and they came in and started looting.3

 

The Sisters were all rounded up by the soldiers, as were the men and the Bishop. When the Sisters requested to be taken to the Bishop, one of the soldiers tried to protect them, but was almost shot by his colleagues:

He said, "Sisters are people of God I am taking them to Episcopate." They [the soldiers] wanted to shoot him so I put him behind me then I got the other sister and put her in front and said, "Now if they shoot, they shoot me." [Laughs] He took us there. We slept in the house of the Bishop. […] I had with me other Sisters about six or seven and the girls working at the Convent. The soldiers had to come five or six times to count us during the night to see if we had ran away or not.4

 

The UNLA regrouped and launched an attack on Lodonga on June 1, 1981, aiming their long-range weapons at the mission where they believed the rebels were retreating. One man's cousin survived the attack and shared with him the terrible story of the day Lodonga mission was attacked:

When the government's soldiers got reinforcement they began shelling the mission and the areas around. The rebels withdrew, persuading the people in the mission to go away because the force with which the government soldiers were coming was very strong. My cousin refused to go. When he refused to go my uncle, his wife, and my niece also refused to go without him. A big bombshell fell on the room that was sheltering my uncle, his wife and other Christians. My cousin told me that was how those people were killed. Now, when the government soldiers arrived at the scene they began entering the rooms to find the survivors and kill them. They actually found Brother Jacob and [Ipolto] burying my uncle, my stepmother, my aunt, and my niece, and killed them on the spot. There was nothing Father Pedrini could do. He had advised my cousin Augustus to hide in the church behind the tabernacle. Father Pedrini came to look for my cousin because he liked him so much and told him, "Your parents are killed and very many are killed, but they are outside and I cannot bury them with you alone. You know they will come back and kill you, so find a way, you better run away."8

One woman recalled:

For us, we knew very well that there would be danger because the Red Cross' David and Bernard were saying we should all enter the college. We all went inside because of the bombs they were exchanging. Once inside [the Red Cross and the priests] came and they locked the main gate here [at the front] and then they locked the other main gate there [at the back].21

A man who was inside the mission at the time recounted:

When the Acholi arrived at the college, they said there must be rebels in the college and that they didn't believe that only civilians were occupying the college. They tried to shoot from outside the college and failed, then they crossed through the gate of the mission, went to the mission compound and broke in to the school from the small gate that joins the school to the mission. As soon as they entered the college that is when they started killing people.25

One man's account recalled the soldiers moving on from the kitchen to the dining hall where he and his family were hiding:

They were shooting through the window because the door was locked. […] My small son was running around because of the sound of the gun and my wife ran out after him, that was when she was shot in the back. […] She collapsed inside and I remained with her there until people came to help me carry her to the vehicle to be taken to hospital. From there I was now left holding our small son.

One man who was hiding in a laboratory room recalled how the physics teacher saved the lives and property of those hiding by charging a battery for one of the soldiers:

[The soldier] came directly to the laboratory room, to the teacher and said, "Where is my battery?" Immediately the teacher went to get the battery from where he had hidden it. He took the battery and gave it to the soldier, who then stood watch in the door as security because there were soldiers who were trying to loot our things.

one man tragically lost all of his children when the soldiers entered the room where they were hiding:

I was in the technical school. We were in the lower block with the kids and all the family. We could see through the window, but you only had to peep out briefly, because if you peeped for long they could shoot you. Five soldiers entered and shot people there. We were hiding now among those who had died because those five soldiers were shooting directly at us. I had 12 children; they shot all of my 12 children. My wife and I were the only ones that survived. She was injured and all of our children were killed there.

One man narrowly escaped with his life as the attack was called to a halt:

I was in the senior four classroom; that main building by the main gate. We were more than twenty people. […] Bullets were still falling on our room, but some of us were hiding under the bed though the majority of the people from our room had run away. From the senior two classroom, the soldiers entered. They got me alone as the only man among women. I was holding my baby in my hands. They ordered me to put the baby down. I did. They ordered me to pick it up again. I did. They made me do this three times. After that they asked me to introduce myself by showing them my graduated tax ticket lest they take me as the person who was firing bullets at them [breaks down crying]. I gave them the ticket. They grabbed it from my hands and threw it on the floor. After that they got a bayonet and pierced the corner of my eyebrow and I began to bleed, the blood flowed to my trousers. Immediately after that their commander blew the whistle to stop the attack. That was the point the Red Cross asked us to go and check for our dead ones.

One man recalled surviving the massacre but losing all of his possessions:

We were hiding inside that hole. All of our luggage was picked up [by the soldiers] and there was some money which was also taken with the luggage. […] They were saying the reason they were not going to finish [us] was because they were also wounded, so instead we should give them some money. I heard them; I was very near. The person who came to collect my money was injured in the head."

One woman whose entire family survived the massacre recounted their time in the workshop:

We were in that room all gathered hiding under the chairs and under the tables. The Acholi soldiers entered but they were not shooting. They started collecting money from people. After they collected money they left. They did not shoot anyone. In other rooms they shot a lot of people. Even outside. Those who were running around were killed, but the soldiers that entered our room did not kill. Later other soldiers entered, but did not do us any harm. Instead they told us to run, to escape if we loved our lives. We remained inside, but this Red Cross man, David, came in and told us to remain there until he returned. We waited to leave until this man came back. When we were escaping that's when we saw so many dead bodies. Animals, chickens, so many people were all dead.

One survivor recounted how she lost members of her family that day:

We sat near our aunt in the school, in this front building of the school. I first heard a whistle which was blown and then the shooting started. They were just shooting anyhow. A bullet caught my brother and tore off his forehead. His brain spilled out onto the floor where it remained . My aunt was also shot and died there. When the shooting stopped I came out and started running anyhow until I found another woman who was also running and took me. I went with her [to Congo.] My father found me there later.

One woman recalled multiple soldiers coming into the room where she and her husband were sheltering:

Now when we were in the room, the soldiers were inside [the school] shooting people. The first one came [into our room] and fired up. After firing, the bullets came down and caught this boy who died. The second one came and shot my husband after covering his face with a hat. The two soldiers did not speak, it was only the gun speaking. Then the third one came in, the commander, and he was shouting, "Why are you killing civilians? We were not sent here to kill civilians! Why are you killing civilians? You must now come out."

Another survivor remembered soldiers also coming to the dormitory to ask for money:

At the beginning these soldiers were entering the rooms in groups. Then one soldier entered our room alone and asked the civilians for money, but the money was finished and he decided to shoot people at random. That was how my father was shot in that dormitory. Only five people survived, I, my mother and two sisters and one elderly man. A bullet entered my leg and a fragment remained. I was operated on to remove it.

Another woman recalled soldiers looting bicycles from the dormitory in which she was hiding:

All of a sudden I saw army men in uniforms with guns in their hands storm the dormitory. There were some bicycles which were locked there. They started removing the padlocks from the bicycles and demanding money from each and every one of us. They went away with the bicycles. There were no casualties except my mother who was shot in the jaw and she was taken to Kuluva Hospital.

One woman described how the soldiers broke down the gate to the mission and started firing at the approximately 250 people sheltered in the compound:

When the soldiers attacked, I threw myself down as soon as I heard the first bullet. Immediately the shooting intensified and dead bodies started falling over me. Because I was covered with blood all over my body everyone thought I was dead. They killed my brother on that day.54

One man recounted the harrowing escape to the Italians' quarters:

In the running process people were shot like bees; so many people were falling to the ground. There was a mother who had tied her baby on her back, and as she was running the baby was shot and died. When she reached the father's house to breastfeed the child, she realized that her child was dead. When we reached the fathers' house, we found soldiers in the fathers' house already shooting civilians and they were also using bayonets to stab people. That is how I ended up being hit on my face and got this scar.

Survivors from the school kitchen also chose to take refuge in the priests' house only to be confronted with the armed soldiers once more:

Four people who came from the kitchen to take refuge were killed in the Italians' quarters. When we reached the Italians' quarters we went to the small kitchen. The soldiers then entered and asked for money. […] They took 50,000/= from me and 800,000/= from my friend Paul. The soldiers then entered another room to the south of the Italian' quarters, we were watching from the window, the men were told to lay down flat and the women stood on the men because the room was small. Another soldier came and told the others not to kill the civilians. We were then told to come out of the room at gunpoint. We came out and the soldiers took us with them to collect dead bodies.

Survivors from the carpentry workshop estimate that around 20 people were hiding there when the soldiers burst in:

A good number of soldiers entered the room where we were, amongst them there were about three officers who were commanding. One of them ordered everyone to stand up and hold their ID cards in hand so they would identify who we were, but the second officer said it was a waste of time. Instead he said the soldiers should begin to fire on everyone because we were the relatives and parents of the rebels, and immediately they started shooting

One survivor recalled that 17 of the 20 people in the workshop were killed while he himself was wounded:

I was standing at an angle while they were shooting in our direction. And good enough I also had a lot of property, so a few of [the soldiers] came for these properties, I think that is what saved my life. A few minutes later one of the soldiers returned asking if I could give him some money or property, but because they had already taken all of my things I told the man I didn't have anything to give him. He asked me to sit down which I did and immediately he started shooting. The first bullets missed me; it was the last two that hit me, one on the leg and another one in the buttocks.

While most people tried to hide within the fenced off school and mission, some sought shelter in the brothers' quarters just outside the fence of the mission. One of two survivors recalled what happened:

We came here to seek refuge in the mission at the brothers' quarters. When we got here we found the Acholi soldiers had already arrived and we were pushed inside the room. There were 12 in the room and they just started firing guns at us. Ten were killed and there were two who survived. I was one of them, my eye and my hand were affected. I was the first to be taken to Angal hospital because the situation was so serious.

After the massacre, those who were critically wounded were transferred to Angal Hospital for treatment. One woman who worked at Angal at the time recalled the morning they received word that the wounded would be arriving:

We received a message by radio at 9:00am at Angal saying that they [the Red Cross] were coming with wounded people. We prepared what we could because the hospital was full and it was the last hospital in West Nile. Arua hospital had been destroyed so there was no functional hospital. We prepared ourselves by collecting some water in the barrels because at that time the water would come slowly from the tank. We prepared food as well. And then all the verandas were full of government soldiers because they were afraid of going to fight so they pretended they were sick and stayed in the hospital. There was not a single place left [at the hospital].

For the injured, the trip to Angal was a harrowing journey which some did not survive. Medical personnel and volunteers had loaded the wounded into several lorries, which were stopped twice by UNLA soldiers at roadblocks for several hours:

We were carried in the vehicle to be taken to Angal hospital in Nebbi district, but we were stopped on the way as we reached Bondo roadblock and another bundle of money was given again [to let us pass]. In Bondo barracks, we were stopped again. Those who were on drips, the drips were plucked off, those with bandages, their bandages were removed by the soldiers and their wounds were left open. The soldiers just wanted to finish us. For over two hours we were stopped at the barracks and we finally left for the hospital

Another survivor recalled David of the Red Cross trying to stop the soldiers from hurting the injured people:

I was in the range rover with David, when the soldiers had begun misbehaving. He went to the barracks and talked to the commander and the commander tried to stop the soldiers from being harsh, but he couldn't do it because the soldiers had become rowdy. They started hitting the windows of the Range Rover, other soldiers were breaking the windows of the Scania [lorry] as they removed the drips from the injured people. Because of this, those who really needed the drips died. We reached the hospital at 10 pm. […] When we reached the hospital the news about the massacre had spread everywhere, the nurses and doctors were waiting for the injured people and when we reached, they started weeping as they quickly worked on the people.

She remembered seeing only one man among the living that were brought from Ombaci. She added:

The men all ran away to Congo. It was terrible because there was a mother who had three children and found all of them after three days because you take one here, one there and the mother went with one child who had two fingers missing from one hand and more three fingers missing from the second hand. So the young child had five of his fingers blown off by the bullets. Just imagine how the young children screamed! And this one being young could not stand this pain, he saw the 'red water' massively flowing from the lorry, he saw the women crying, the children crying. It was terrible

Witnesses' recollections of the number and size of the graves varied widely, as did the length of time it took to bury the dead and when the burial started. One woman, a young girl at the time of the massacre, remembered the burial taking place over the course of two days.78 One man thought the burial began.

That very day at 5pm. […] They began to put the dead bodies in it beginning with those ones who were big, to the ones who were medium and smallest. […] The number I managed to count were 48. But I did not participate in the next burial which took place a day after. The second burial happened because more bodies were collected

Another man remembers two graves being dug in his presence, but he left shortly thereafter thus he believes two additional graves were dug after his departure:

We started gathering dead bodies and we buried them in 2 graves in my presence, the children and adults were all buried differently. The people were buried in rows horizontal and vertically. There were 4 bodies per row horizontally and 6 bodies vertically and a total of 64 bodies were buried. […] Then I left and went home, the rest of the dead bodies were buried in my absence.

A group of men who had survived the attack on the kitchen also participated in the burial of the dead:

We collected 64 dead bodies and 3 graves were dug. The first grave had adult men and young male children buried together, the second grave had the adult women and young girls, buried together in the grave then the third had a mixture of both the adult and young children because we were tired. The rows were vertical and horizontal the adult men and women who were tall were buried vertically and the children were buried horizontally. In all the three graves, the vertical rows had 8 bodies wrapped up in blankets and the horizontal rows had the small children buried in 6 bodies per row wrapped up with blankets in all the graves. The women and young girls were buried together and the men and young boys were also buried together. The third grave had a mixture of men, women, young boys and girls because we were tired. After the burial we all went home in the villages and we don't know about the fourth grave. Other people say that the fourth grave was for the people who were killed outside the mission but their bodies were gathered and brought in to be buried in the mission.

It is important to note that a number of people killed in the wider community were reportedly buried in the mass grave and a number of people killed during the mission massacre were buried at their homes. A tragic example involves the man who lost his 12 children in the massacre:

My children were buried this side alone [gestures across the road from the mission]. They only buried Christians there [in the mission] but as mine were Muslims they were buried aside. There were Muslims [who survived] around that day so they selected the people they knew were Muslims and put them aside. [They] were buried separately, not all together as they did in the mission, only that now they were in a very closed area. I learned [this] later from a man called Mahmood. He told me he is the one who buried the children and showed me when I came back. He told me there were about 25 Muslims that died.

The majority believed it to be an act of revenge for the treatment that the Acholi people had received at the hands of Idi Amin's soldiers when he was in power. One survivors' statement sums up the feeling of most of the survivors:

[The soldiers] came and were asking the civilians in Acholi that "mama na tye kwene? (where is my mother?), baba na tye kwene? (where is my father?)." As you failed to answer they would shoot you and blow a billa (horn)." After shooting you they would stab you using a knife [to make sure you were dead]. We think they used these words because in 1979 there was war between the West Nile people and the Acholi during Amin's regime. Amin and his soldiers killed very many people [from Acholi]. Therefore these soldiers were revenging on the West Nile people. That is why they were asking the civilians "mama na tye kwene, baba na tye kwene, latin na tye kwene" meaning "where is my mother, where is my father, where is my child," implying their mothers, fathers and children were killed by Amin`s soldiers and these people were revenging [

While it is impossible to know whether or exactly when Ojok was present at Ombaci, those survivors who participated in verification of the report generally agreed that Ojok had visited the mission only once after the massacre. They recalled him arriving around 11am and staying for about one hour. One man who was hiding in the workshop of the school shared his memory of the day:

Oyite Ojok came and said that if an elephant enters a field of sim sim can he not crush the sim sim? He was talking about [the civilians] and that [Ombaci] is not a place where people should be packed. I saw when he was talking. […] He was talking in Swahili, and he was also talking a bit of English. He was talking to the Parish Priest in the football ground in front of the college. The soldiers and other people were also there. They were saying this is not a refugee camp, so why should people be packed there.

Several other survivors' recollections match this account:

The army commander called Oyite Ojok came at a time when the soldiers had stopped killing. He addressed the civilians, but in a very harsh way. He said that he would rather laugh with a dead Lugbara than the one who is alive. He continued and said that the report had reached him that all the civilians were dead, so how come he found people alive. [He] said in the Kiswahili that he received information that all the Lugbara were dead. [He said] he was shocked to see so many Lugbara still alive. He said that he would only laugh with a dead Lugbara than the one who is alive, and then he also said that Lugbara were very lucky people, they should stay well and know that they would be granted security – no soldiers would come to disturb them again.103

 

Stay in the forum for Series two hundred and forty is 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"