UGANDA: Tales Of Murder, Kidnap And Forced Recruitment Into Rebel Army

By Moyiga Nduru Reprint | | Print |

Moyiga Nduru

NAIROBI, Jun 10 1998 (IPS) - Tales of murder, kidnap and forced recruitment of children into the rag-tag rebel armies seem to be in a vogue in Uganda.

The latest incident occured after a rebel group attacked a technical training college in western Uganda this week.

Uganda newspapers said on Wednesday that the death toll in the Monday rebel attack had risen to 80 and that another 60 people were missing and feared abducted.

State-owned New Vision reported on Tuesday that 60 people — mostly students and soldiers — were killed in Kichwamba Technical Training College, 316 kilometres west of the capital Kampala, by the rebel Alliance of Democratic Forces (ADF).

The ADF, which is seeking to topple the government of President Yoweri Museveni, operates in western Uganda on the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

Museveni, himself a former rebel leader, said Tuesday ADF included notorious security agents in the regime of dictator Idi Amin whose soldiers slaughtered upto half-a-million Ugandans between 1971 and 1979.

Uganda army spokesman, Shaban Bantariza, told journalists this week that the Kichwamba incident occured after 40 government soldiers stationed at the college were overan by an ADF force of more than 100 soldiers.

He said the students, unwilling to abandon their studies and serve in the rebel ranks, barricaded themselves inside their dormitories and the rebels poured petrol before setting fire to it.

The New Vision said all the bodies of the victims were burned to ashes in the fire that kept burning up to late Monday afternoon. A stench of burning human flesh and thick smoke from the buring structures filled the air as wailing residents waded through scattered property in search of their loved ones.

It said residents managed to recover only one partially-burned head of a student which lay by the door way. The only girl’s dormitory was not set ablaze because the rebels ran out of petrol, said the newspaper.

The college had 420 students.

More than 10,000 children — mostly school children — have been abducted by rebels in Uganda during the past three years, according to the U.N. Children’s Fund (Unicef).

The main culprit is the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) which is holding 21 school girls abducted on Oct 10, 1996.

The LRA, headed by herbalist Joseph Kony, began its fight against Museveni’s National Resistance Movement (NRM) government in 1987, shortly after the defeat of a rebellion by the Holy Spirit Movement, led by kony’s cousin Alice Lakwena.

The LRA is dominated by people from the Acholi ethnic group, which straddles the Uganda/Sudan border. Its goal is to rule Uganda on the basis of the 10 biblical commandments.

The Ugandan government has often charged that the LRA uses bases in Sudan as a springboard for raids into Uganda.

The other rebel group also accused of child abduction is the West Nile Front Bank (WNBF).

The WNBF is dominated by people from the West Nile Region — Madis, Lugbaras, Aringas and Nubians — who had formed the bulk of the army of ousted dictator Idi Amin. The group’s leader, col. Juma Oris, was himself a senior official in Amin’s regime.

After Amin’s ouster in 1979, many of his henchmen fled to neighbouring countries, mainly Sudan and the DRC, from where they later infiltrated Uganda.

The Ugandan authorities allege that the Islamic fundamentalist regime in the Sudan is backing the three rebel groups. Sudan also counters that Uganda is supporting the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA).

Last month, Uganda handed over 42 Sudanese prisoners of war (POWs). A total of 114 Sudanese soldiers were captured on Arp 9 last year by Uganda troops in southern Sudan, where Kampala claims the LRA has bases.

“We are prpepared to release the remaining 72 Sudanese … if Sudan will help free the remaining Ugandans in southern Sudan,” said Amama Mbabazi, state minister for political affairs in the President’s office when receiving two freed Ugandan soldiers at Uganda’s Entebbe International Airport on May 24.

To improve relations, Lt-Gen Omar Hassan al Bashir of Sudan last month called for a “face-to-face talks” with Ugandan officials.

Bashir, who seized power in a military coup in 1989, is reported to have assured Uganda that Sudan was going to track down the girls — who are among 10,000 children and elder youths abducted by the rebels during the past three years — and return them to Uganda, probably in exchange for the remaining 72 Sudanese soldiers still held there.

Many in Uganda blame the army for doing little to protect civilians from the three-front rebel onslaught.

More than 300,000 people, mostly non-combatants have been displaced by the conflict between the LRA and government troops in the north. Similarly, ADF activities have displaced at least 80,000 people from their homes in western Uganda.