UN Integrated Regional Information Networks
September 15, 2003
Posted to the web September 15, 2003
In this Web Special, IRIN examines the humanitarian consequences of continued conflict, the shocking plight of northern Uganda's children, and the attempts, so far unsuccessful, to bring an end to this merciless war. To view the entire Web Special go here.
For the last 17 years the Acholi people of northern Uganda have been the victims of a brutal, unrelenting rebel insurgency.
Innocent civilians have been killed or mutilated; thousands of children have been abducted, forced into combat, and subjected to torture and sexual violence. It is now estimated that about 80 percent of the entire Acholi population are internally displaced, living in camps with little food and poor sanitation.
Since 1986, the rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) of self-styled mystic Joseph Kony has carried out merciless attacks across the north, ostensibly in an attempt to overthrow the government of President Yoweri Museveni and to have Uganda ruled in accordance with the Biblical Ten Commandments.
Over the last year there has been a sharp increase in the number of rebel attacks, leading to roughly a doubling in the population of the IDP camps, and a dramatic rise in the number of child abductions.
This escalation has come after the Ugandan army intensified its efforts to wipe out the rebels. In March 2002, the Uganda People's Defence Force (UPDF) launched 'Operation Iron Fist', which for the first time allowed the Uganda military to root out and destroy LRA rear bases inside southern Sudan. Rather than ending the war, however, the main effect of the campaign has been to push LRA fighters into northern Uganda where they have wreaked havoc on the local population.
Shadowy enemy
The UPDF's attempts to destroy Kony's militia have been greatly hampered by the shadowy nature of its enemy. Little is known of the LRA beyond its heinous, widespread human rights abuses. Its soldiers - the great majority of them children - emerge from the bush to raid villages, looting and often burning them as they return to their hideouts.
The Ugandan army does not recognize the LRA as a bona fide rebel group, denouncing it simply as a terrorist organization. There is some support for this view; the group has been denoted a terrorist organisation by the US government, and has been included on the US State Department's 'Terrorist Exclusion List' since December 2001.
The LRA does not have a political wing, and is divided into small 'cells' operating across the north. This has made both combat and attempts at peace negotiations, which would be tough enough anyway, even harder. Indeed, some observers believe that the only person with the authority to conduct negotiations on behalf of the LRA is Kony himself, a man frequently described as 'insane'.
Some children have been caught in the crossfire between the LRA and the Ugandan army. Credit: Sven Torfinn (2002)
Internal displacement
According to recent estimates from the UN World Food Programme (WFP), over 800,000 people in the three northern Ugandan districts of Gulu, Kitgum, and Pader have now been forced from their homes and are living in camps for internally displaced persons (IDPs). This figure represents 70 to 80 percent of the entire Acholi population, as measured in Uganda's 2002 census.
Although the camps were initially created to protect civilians from rebel attacks, they have now become just as much of a target for these attacks as the villages once were. As the Acholi people have been forced to crowd together in the camp, so the LRA, in their search for food and slaves, have followed them.
The Uganda Red Cross Society (URCS) said recently that a major aspect of the LRA military strategy seemed to be to force IDPs out of the camps protected by the UPDF. "According to some rumours circulating, the LRA has intention to [sic] dismantle the camps by force," URCS said in its June situation report.
While the UPDF has attempted to protect the camps by stationing small detachments in their midst, they have found protecting such a massive displaced population spread over such a large area to be extremely difficult.
Delivering humanitarian assistance to the widely dispersed camps has also become a treacherous business. Aid convoys themselves have come under regular attack, and a number of aid workers have lost their lives in rebel ambushes. At present, only WFP has been able to establish regular aid deliveries, and it relies on a heavy UPDF military escort to provide security.
In addition, the rebels have tended to view the camp populations as their enemies, and as supporters of the government. As a result, they have, during raids, left behind written demands that the IDPs must vacate the camps or face death. As IDPs know, however, they are just as likely to face death outside the camps as inside them.
In a recent report on the crisis in the north, the US-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) quoted a former abductee as saying the LRA did not hesitate to kill IDPs as a warning of what would happen to those who did not follow instructions.
"At one time, we went to a displaced persons camp and immediately killed three people. This was done to warn people not to stay in the camps but to move back to their villages. I don't know why these three were selected. We later abducted many children from that camp," HRW quoted the former abductee as saying in the report, entitled: 'Abducted and Abused: Renewed Conflict in Northern Uganda'.
Abductions
Until the Ugandan army offensive pushed the LRA back over the border into Uganda, the rebels would typically abduct children from schools, boarding schools, homes and villages, and force them to walk, often carrying LRA loot, to LRA rear bases inside southern Sudan. For children unable to manage the long trek through the bush, the prospects were frightening - some would simply be left behind while others would be punished for lagging behind the group. One 10-year-old girl told IRIN recently how she had had part of her foot cut off by a rebel commander for failing to keep pace.
Of those able to complete the arduous journey to Sudan, many of the girls would be forced to become the slaves or 'wives' of LRA commanders, while many of the boys, some as young as seven, would then be initiated into the rebel army.
However, since the destruction by the UPDF of several LRA rear bases in Sudan and the consequent mid-June 2002 upsurge in rebel attacks, many captives are not taken to camps in Sudan, but are kept with LRA units inside Uganda. While this has enabled escapees to return home more easily, the harsh treatment meted out to abducted children can be just as brutal.
According to UN estimates, some 8,400 children have been registered as abducted during LRA raids between June 2002 and June 2003. This represents a sharp increase in the level of abductions, and brings to over 20,000 the total number of registered child abductions since 1990. Fewer than 100 children were reported to be abducted during 2001, a period when hopes were high that the conflict was slowly dying out.
Initiation
Once captured, abducted children are often forced to take part in horrifying initiation practices, including the torture and murder of others. Many other children are forced to watch helplessly the beatings, killings, abductions, rape and murder of other people, who are sometimes their close relatives.
These dehumanising practices serve as a warning to them about their fate should they attempt to escape. "The practice of using the recently abducted children and adults to collectively kill fosters guilt and fear among them," HRW says.
HRW quoted one abducted child as saying he had been forced to mutilate the corpse of a boy beaten to death by other child abductees. "One time I was ordered to cut up a dead body with a knife. I was then forced to pick up the pieces of flesh and throw them down on the ground to show my loyalty," HRW quoted the 17-year-old Samuel B. as saying.
Night Commuters
In a desperate attempt to avoid abduction and subsequent abuses in captivity, thousands of northern Ugandan children are now forced to 'commute' from their villages and the IDP camps to spend the night in the relative safety of the towns.
In Gulu town, for example, this phenomenon of 'child night commuters' involves large numbers of children walking several kilometers from their home villages to crowd into empty buildings, and to seek refuge on verandahs, in the bus park, on church grounds and in local factories before returning home each morning.
According to HRW, the number of 'night stayers' in Gulu town tripled between February 2003 and May 2003 to stand at over 13,000. While their daily journeys make them a little safer from LRA attacks, they have become increasingly vulnerable to abuse from adults and older children, and do not receive any official assistance.
The international community
Apart from the Ugandan army's troubled campaign against Kony, there have been some, so far unsuccessful, attempts to bring a peaceful end to the war. These peace initiatives have included a presidential peace team, which was established by Museveni with a view to starting serious negotiations.
However, the initiative has floundered after a ceasefire agreement was dishonoured, and it is now a widely held view in the north that the Ugandan government is primarily interested in wiping out the LRA by force, rather than reaching a settlement through dialogue.
Some civil society groups, most notably the Acholi Religious Leaders Peace Initiative (ARPLI), have tried to fill the vacuum left by the failure of government-led initiatives. However, members of this team have also been frustrated by an apparent unwillingness on the part of the rebels to come out of the bush to negotiate, and by the difficulties in talking peace while war is still being waged.
Fr. Carlos Rodriguez, a high-profile member of the ARPLI, says the time has come for international mediation to resolve the conflict, and that the LRA would also respond positively to such engagement.
This is a sentiment shared by Baker Ochola, the retired Bishop of Kitgum. "Those being targeted are the children, women and the elderly. This is why we feel there is a need for the international community to put pressure on the Ugandan government and Sudan in order to give a break to the people," he told IRIN.
