|
By Henry Lubega
BOGUS foreign journalists are beginning to cash in on the misery of Gulu’s school children. The greedy “journalists” are reportedly peddling pictures and videos of kids, who sleep on the streets of Gulu for fear of being abducted from their homes by LRA rebels, as those of child soldiers.
The army recently held five such journalists and blocked them from further filming. Military sources say the UPDF is now seeking the deportation of the five scribes, all of them Danes.
The five were found in Gulu town taking photographs of Acholi children sleeping in the taxi park and on the verandas.
An officer from the 4th Division said the five were taking video footage of the children to peddle claims that UPDF uses child soldiers. The street with the sleeping kids is what the newsmen seek to portray as a UPDF camp, the Division officials said.
In the middle of this week the police chased away another Spanish female journalist.
She was in the park to film the sleeping children without permission.
For some time now children staying in the suburbs of Gulu have been flocking to the main town to escape possible abduction by the LRA rebels. Thousands of children mostly aged between five and fifteen years of age leave their homes in the evenings and spend the night in open places in town where they feel more secure from the rebels.
Some of them walk from as far away as seven kilometres every evening to come to the city centre for the night. They repeat the journey in the morning. This age group has been the most vulnerable to abduction by the rebels.
Queues of young children both boys and girls start to form towards town as early as 5:00pm. On a bad night like the one I spent in Gulu it rained. Despite the heavy downpour which lasted over four hours the children are not deterred. They scramble for the only open building with a roof. Just a few metres away from the suffering children is
the Alobo night club.
With music coming from there the children at least have something to keep them company over night. The brave ones get out into the open and dance to the Lingala tunes.
The few who are attending school carry their books to the park and do their revision at the park. With free lighting unlike at home they can read at leisure. The majority of them have resigned to the fate of sleeping in the park.
David Onen, a 12-year-old boy, is a primary five pupil at Gulu Public School. He has been spending his nights in the taxi park for one and half years and he is looking forward to the end of the war.
Coming from Lacor area he prefers to sleep in town.
“It is safer here that at Lacor Hospital. It is not in the city centre. It can be attacked anytime. But the rebels have never attacked the town. They cannot get here. Three of my brothers were abducted and I never saw them again. Now I’m the only son left in the family. I have to make
sure am safe from the rebels,” he says. Onen is the second last-born in a family of five.
Six in the morning is time for the children to start the long journey home. Unfortunately, some men have taken advantage of these children, mostly the girls by approaching them under the guise of trying to help give them a better accommodation for the night. They end up being sexually abused by these men.
This introduces more danger to the children: that of HIV/AIDS and early pregnancies.
Some of the girls confess to the presence of such people. The Gulu Resident District Commissioner, Max Omeda, says such people are believed to be in town and the authorities have deployed security personnel to deal with the situation.
Last week Johan Van Hecke, a Belgian member of the European Parliament, who is also the chairman of Friends for Uganda Association in Belgium, paid a visit to the children in the park and promised to spend a night with them. Van Hecke says that he
has requested the district authorities to grant him permission spend a night with the children for a night next month.
Van Hecke has been instrumental in tabling the issue of the northern Uganda in the European Parliament which has resulted in the passing of three resolutions. The most recent was passed three weeks ago in Brussels and it was agreed that the European Parliament asked the United Nations Security Council to pass a resolution on the crisis in northern Uganda. The parliamentarian says the aim of his sleeping there will be to raise awareness that this is not only political disaster but a humanitarian one too.
Van Hecke says when the European Parliament returns from recess he is going to ask it to ensure that the international community stops using double standards.
“When fighting terrorism, other parts of the world like Iraq gets action while for Africa it is just declaration,” he says.
Enda
Published on: Sunday, 20th July, 2003 |
