Why Mighty Kampala is Unable
to Defeat Kony's 'Rag-Tag' Murderers
The continuing crisis in northern Uganda is beginning to look nastily like a deliberate policy of the Ugandan government. It is hard to escape that conclusion if you take a look at the facts and the different official strategies that the government of President Yoweri Museveni has deployed over the past 18 years, supposedly to bring an end to the terrorism of the rebel Lord�s Resistance Army.
Although the Ugandan army, the UPDF, is doing an admirable job and many young military professionals spend years of their lives in the bush hunting an elusive enemy, and sometimes sacrifice their lives in this struggle, the higher echelons of the UPDF, in cahoots with politicians of the regime, have for years misguided their soldiers.
The dramatic massacre near Lira last week, in which reportedly over 200 civilians died, gives a good example of such bad guidance � with a difference: in this case, the government admits that the army made strategic mistakes. However, questions remain: how is it possible that the LRA could kill and maim the displaced wananchi and set fire to the camp undisturbed for over three hours? Remember that this took place in an area barely 10 km away from another camp for displaced people, in Abia, where just over two weeks earlier a similar LRA attack had killed around 50 people.
Why are all these camps not better protected: by UPDF soldiers instead of by armed civilians who, according to a UPDF spokesman, have not been trained well enough? Are these just major errors, or is there evil intent at play??
For years it has been a government policy to shepherd people in the northern districts into so-called protected camps. Farmers who refuse to be herded into these camps are officially considered LRA supporters. Thereby, large parts of the Langi and Acholi populations of the north are cut off from their only sources of livelihood. The "protected camps" would be a laughing matter if the situation were not so bitter. Not only are food, drinking water and hygienic/sanitary facilities lacking direly. A series of attacks on these camps by the LRA shows that wananchi are far from protected here. Hundreds of men, women and children have lost their lives because the "protected camp" they were in was manned by only one or two soldiers. There are many examples of camps attacked by the LRA while UPDF units located at just a few kilometres away didn�t intervene.
Until here, it can all be seen as a combination of human errors and bad military coordination. Let�s turn therefore to the official reactions to these horrific events. Denial of obvious truths is a common trait in Kampala. The mass murder of around 50 civilians in Abia was, according to Museveni, not a massacre. An intelligence officer for Lira uttered the same nonsense on BBC radio after the drama in Ogur, while also stating that only 82 civilians had died.
According to Kampala, the LRA�s days are numbered. This has been the government position since the early 1990s. Several self-imposed deadlines for an end to the war have passed, without any consequences for those who set those deadlines, like Museveni or his younger brother and former UPDF commander Salim Saleh.
However, as we all know, the war is not being won. The UPDF is seemingly incapable of controlling Uganda�s north. Ironically, the same army division that is responsible for security in the north, only a few years ago effectively controlled almost one-fourth of DR Congo, an area roughly three times the size of the whole of Uganda!
There are always lousy, semi-military excuses for this failure to defeat the LRA. For a long time, it was alleged that the LRA couldn�t be defeated because the army could never hunt them down all the way to their bases in southern Sudan. Then the Sudanese government allowed the UPDF to operate inside Sudan. Operation Iron Fist would now bring the final blow to the rag-tag army of abducted child soldiers. As we all know, this final blow did not defeat the rebels at all. Instead, it served as a catalyst for terror. The destruction of the LRA camps in Sudan was like uprooting a nest of wasps, who subsequently spread and dispersed all over northern Uganda, creating greater havoc and destruction than ever before.
Kampala has always obstructed alternative military solutions to the conflict. When last year a group of MPs from the north suggested engaging mercenaries to root out the LRA, the government blocked this idea, arguing that it would be an embarrassment for the army to acknowledge that they are not up to the job. As if all those years of not defeating the LRA were not embarrassing. As if embarrassment were not a small price to pay to save the lives of hundreds, perhaps thousands of innocent civilians.
The latest strategy to supposedly contain the crisis is civilian self-defense groups, called Amuka or Rhino Boys in Lira. The government provides these civilians with arms and training. Here is another tragedy in the making. Kampala knows all too well what happens if you flood a region with small arms, and how difficult it is to control the ownership of these weapons. The government has had ample opportunities to learn this lesson in the Karamoja area. In a region where ethnic tensions are currently on the rise, Kampala has decided to pump more AK-47s into Lira district. This is a recipe for another civil war. It is very hard not to see an evil hand in this latest move.
The reasons for these sinister policies in the north are obvious. Uganda has ever since colonial times been divided between the north and the south. Throughout recent history, the populations of the south have feared the northerners. Many of Uganda�s post-colonial woes were unleashed upon the country by brutal northerners like Amin and Obote. Museveni is the first southerner to rule Uganda for a long time. It seems that he is all too happy to keep the north weak and in crisis. A weak north can never be a threat to the increasingly prosperous south.
If Museveni were sincere about winning the war with the LRA, he could do worse than reread his autobiography, Sowing the Mustard Seed. The book is an account of the difficult guerilla war that Museveni�s NRA rebels waged against the troops of Obote. A guerilla war can only be successful if it has support from the population, Museveni argues elaborately in his book.
The LRA, with its campaign of terror against its own people, can hardly be said to be popular anymore among the northerners. Instead of capitalising on this, and making sure that the UPDF gets the people�s support in their fight against the hard core of the rebels, the tactics of the past 18 years have only estranged the northern Ugandans from the army. Terror by army soldiers, southerners dispatched to the north, has for years driven the population into supporting the LRA. Although that situation has changed over the past few years, Museveni has sinned against his own rule No. 1 ever since LRA leader Kony took up arms.
Of course, all this is not to say that the LRA leadership is not to blame for the years of terror. Obviously these maniacs bear the first responsibility for the unmentionable suffering of northern Uganda's people. But the government, instead of fulfilling its responsibilities towards its own people, it is doing a good job pretending that it is doing everything in its power to bring an end to this drama. The president�s decision last week to set himself up in Lira "until the LRA is defeated" is only the most recent example of this successful PR campaign.
But let us not be duped. The facts speak for themselves. The way that the Museveni government has in fact chosen to ignore its responsibilities, and the way that it continues to deliberately let this terror simmer, amounts to a sin equal to that of the LRA.
The writer is an aid worker with extensive experience in northern Uganda.
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