LIRA: "REBELS" ATTACK MARKET/NEW DETAILS
There are new details concerning yesterdayâs attack by the rebels of the self-styled LRA (Lordâs Resistance Army), who killed around 20 people in a village in north Uganda. Three eyewitnesses â who are currently in hospital in Lira, the chief town in the northern district of the same name â have told MISNA that the militias arrived in the market of Igwenya, 35 kilometres east of the city, around midday. To fool the civilians, they presented themselves as âAmukaâ, one of the self-defence groups (also called âRhino groupsâ) organised by the civilian population in recent months to protect themselves against the rebel attacks. Numbered around 60 and led by a woman, the rebels said that they wanted to speak to the people at the market. A crowd of 100 gathered to listen, duped by the fact that the âAmukaâ still do not wear proper uniforms. One of the members of the crowd then recognised the âOlumâ (as the LRA rebels are called in the local Acholi language) and sounded the alarm. The people made to flee, at which point the militias opened fire. It is thought that at least 20 people died in the attack, while a further ten are missing (they have either been killed or abducted by the rebels) and a dozen are wounded. Between 13 and 14 January the LRA massacred 21 people, most of whom women. The slaughter of innocent civilians by the armed group led by Joseph Kony has been going on uninterrupted for over 17 years. To date, local sources say that the rebels have killed at least 100,000 people and displaced a million people from their homes, while thousands of children (25,000 according to recent estimates) have been abducted. [LC]
"The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth becomes the greatest enemy of the state."
- Dr. Joseph M. Goebbels - Hitler's propaganda minister
