BBC News 23 feb, 2004 Uganda's northern rebellion
The attack which left more than 200 people dead in northern Uganda has been blamed on the brutal Lord's Resistance Army, which has been trying to overthrow the government for 18 years. Some one million people have fled their homes and last year a senior United Nations official said it was the worst humanitarian situation in the world. Who are the Lord's Resistance Army? The rebels are led by the mysterious Joseph Kony, who was part of a previous rebel force in northern Uganda. He has said that he wants to rule Uganda according to the Biblical Ten Commandments. But the rebel practice of abducting schoolchildren, forcing the girls to be sex slaves and the boys to be brutal killers flies in the face of Christian teachings. He also says he is fighting for the rights of the region's Acholi people, against percieved discrimination by the government. However, residents of the north bear the brunt of the fighting and the LRA does not have much popular support, although many do agree that they are being ignored. Why can't the army defeat them? Guerilla armies are notoriously difficult to completely wipe out - as even the powerful United States military has found. Hopes were high that the LRA might be defeated in 2002, when Sudan allowed the Ugandan army to pursue the LRA across the border, where the rebels had their rear bases. But the fighters responded by increasing their attacks in Uganda. Uganda has recently renewed its accusations that the rebels are being armed by Sudan. MPs in the north say army leaders have become corrupt and are using the war to get rich. Recently there has been a big scandal of "ghost soldiers" where large sums of money were reportedly claimed for soldiers who were no longer on the army pay-roll and an investigation has been opened. Correspondents say foot soldiers have become demoralised and have lost the stomach to fight. Local self-defence militias have been formed but they are not well armed and there were just 30 of them when 200 rebels attacked at the weekend. How much of Uganda is affected? At first, the LRA confined its attacks to the north but last year, they spread to parts of the east as well. More than one million people have fled their homes and every night, many thousands abandon their villages in rural villages for the relative safety of big towns. What is the international community doing to help? Aid agencies are delivering relief supplies to the displaced but the camps where they work are increasingly becoming targeted by the LRA. Last year, UN Under Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs Jan Egeland said the humanitarian situation in northern Uganda was worse than anywhere else in the world. The government continues to insist that the army can defeat the rebels. Is anyone trying to find a peaceful solution? Some northern Ugandan religious leaders are trying to mediate between the rebels and the government, which has offered an amnesty to fighters to lay down their arms. But so far, neither the carrot of the amnesty nor the army stick has managed to end the misery of those living in the area. Appeals for international help have borne some fruit though. In January, after talks with the government, the International Criminal Court in the Hague announced plans to investigate the LRA for war crimes.
