UGANDAÂÂ4/2/2004Â15:20
LIRA: RED DUST, DISPLACED AND VIOLENCE THAT IS NO LONGER NEWS
There is no end to the inaudible cruelty of the âolumâ, rebels of the LRA (lordâs Resistance Army). For over a decade, but particularly in these past six months, on a daily basis they terrorise the Lango ethnic population living in the North Ugandan districts of Lira and Apac. The earth is red everywhere, a land scorched by the sun that glares all those living on the great highland that from the Nile takes to the north, along the borders with Sudan.
We are in the full dry season and the dust is coating the roads, seeping in the homes and rendering the air in the refugee camps to say the least unbreathable. âBut this land is red particularly because it is blood-stainedâ, explained Father Sebhat Ayele, an Eritrean Comboni missionary, engaged for the past twenty years in first evangelisation service in the Catholic diocese of Lira. âSince November 15 the rebels have killed 277 civilians in the Lango territory. Hand to hand killings perpetrated with unprecedented ferocity in the historical memory of this population that only asks to live in peaceâ. Just in the town of Lira, 340km north-east of the capital Kampala, over 300-thousand refugees are living in subhuman conditions along with the 90-thousand residents.
Lira, crossed by a long street with stone huts, from colonial times, covered with the traditional âmabatiâ, corrugated iron roofs that at around midday turn into a giant solar mirror, is the centre of solidarity with 9 assistance camps. âErute Campâ is situated in the extreme eastern outskirts, not far from the territories infested by the followers of Joseph Kony, the sanguinary founder of the LRA that since the late 80âs has reaped death and destruction in the northern districts of the former British protectorate. âThe humanitarian situation is dramaticâ, explained in a distressed voice Father Sebhat, who is also secretary of the Lango Religious Leaders Forum (LRLF), a cartel that unites the representatives of the various confessions present in the territory. âThere is need for everything here: from potable water to waterproof sheets to over the huts of the displaced, from pans to food provisions.
Not to mention that the lacking in services and infrastructures, despite the efforts of some foreign NGOâs â such as the 'Coopi' of Milan (Italy), the 'Co-operation and Development' of Piacenza (Italy) or the solidarity association of Belluno (Italy) âTogether we canâ â go well beyond the good will of those who want to give a hand to these desperatesâ.
In the camps five people die each day of famine or disease, a tragic toll that adds to the countless victims of the raids carried out by the âolumâ. As if it were not enough, there are over 200-thousand people living out in the open in the camps spread throughout the rural areas. They are settlements where no humanitarian organisations have still been able to put foot due to the insecurity of the roads.
According to Fr. Sebhat, the situation is intolerable and a direct involvement of the international community is vital. âIf the Ugandan regular troops have still not been able to guarantee the safety of the civilians, the time has come for someone of the United Nations to get it through their head that here there is need for a serious peacekeeping operation to save many innocent livesâ. While Fr. Sebhat was speaking, an around fifty year-old woman called Veronica Akello arrived at the Catholic mission of Ngeta. She is very thin and can hardly talk through her tears. The rebels slaughtered her husband with machetes, hacking him to pieces. âI saw the bones and blood spraying onto my clothes, while my husband cried in painâ, she cried.
In those horrifying moments she screamed at the slaughterers that she also wanted to die because she could not live after such a scene. But the rebel leader, no more than twenty years-old, told her: âYou mourn your man, this is enough for us!â.
Veronica attends mass every day in the Ngeta parish. âI pray for the soul of my husband, but also for the olum, burnt childhood forced to combat an absurd war: they are the first victims of this landâ, a red land like the blood that continues seeping in the cracks of this remote outskirt of the world.
[BO]
"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
