POLITICS-UGANDA: Women Join the Peace Wagon, As Rebels Wreak Havoc

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Joyce Mulama

NAIROBI, Sep 24 2003 (IPS) - Rosemary Nyeko is a bitter woman. She remembers how rebels ruined her life when they burned her house in northern Uganda last year.

"As if that was not enough, they kidnapped my 18-year-old niece and two nephews aged 10 and 12 last September. The girl was later rescued by government forces but the rest have not been found," she told IPS in an exclusive interview this week.

Nyeko, who lives eight kms from the beleaguered northern town of Gulu, says children have become the target of the rebels because they can be easily manipulated to commit violence.

The rebels of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) have been fighting the government of President Yoweri Museveni since 1986, initially as part of Alice Lakwena’s rebel army. But, after the defeat of Lakwena in 1988, her cousin Joseph Kony took over and formed the LRA, at a great human cost.

"The war has had a devastating impact on the Acholi people of northern Uganda, and its human rights abuses have included summary executions and looting and destruction of civilian property. The Ugandan government has sought a military solution, deepening the destruction of Acholi society by forcing tens of thousands into displaced camps, where they have nevertheless not been safe from LRA attackers and have been subjected to arbitrary arrests, torture including rape, and other abuses by Ugandan army soldiers," according to a recent report by the Washington-based Human Rights Watch.

Up to 850,000 people of Acholi, out of a population of 1.2 million, have been displaced from their homes.

The LRA, under its dreadlocked leader Kony, has been kidnapping young children; raping, kidnapping, murdering and torturing them. The children are often forced to participate in killing of their colleagues who try to escape from the rebel army.

Young girls are abducted and turned into sex or labour slaves. Others are sold, traded or offered as gifts by the LRA to arms merchants in neighbouring Sudan, where the rebels have rare bases.

A 30-page report on the security situation in Uganda, presented to the House by Parliamentary Committee on Defence on Sep. 23, said Kony, a former Catholic catechist, has 50 wives and over 100 children.

Rights groups say about 80 percent of LRA’s estimated 5,000 soldiers are children aged between six and 17 years. Many operate in northern Uganda, the rest in southern Sudan.

The LRA, which has been declared a terrorist group, among others, after the Sep. 11 attacks by the U.S. government, is now moving to other regions. Its army recently lodged attacks in eastern Uganda.

"We are confused and do not what to do or where to start. The rebels have just struck. We have never seen anything like this before," says a shaken Ogelan Margaret from eastern Uganda.

Concerned Ugandan women have formed peace groups in an attempt to get the abducted children back. One such organisation is the Gulu Women Movement for Peace (GWMP), formed last year.

"We move from door to door asking parents whose children are fighting in the bush to go look for them and persuade them to come back home. Although the number of children out there is large, about 50 have returned so far," says Nyeko, a member of the movement.

The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) estimates that 8,400 children have been abducted in the last 12 months. Other reports indicate that LRA seizes 20 to 30 children per day.

GWMP also offers counselling to children who return from fighting. "These children have been traumatised and they need healing," explains Nyeko.

Last week president Museveni said the army was determined to crash the rebels. He said the army was mobilising and deploying in all rebel-infested areas.

Museveni’s assurance came after he failed to meet his Aug. 28 deadline to end the insurgency in eastern Uganda in one week.

Ugandan authorities accuse Sudan of supporting the rebels. While addressing parliament in the capital Kampala last week, Museveni warned Khartoum against helping the LRA.

Sudan, too, accuses Uganda of supporting the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), which has been fighting the Islamic regime in Khartoum for 20 years.

Thirty Ugandan women, including Nyeko, met in Limuru, 35 kilometres from the Kenyan capital Nairobi, to mark the International Day of Peace on Sep. 21, and chart out ways of bringing peace to war ravaged regions of their country.

The women, majority of them from the war-torn northern Uganda, also attended a four-day peace and reconciliation conference (Sep16-19) in Limuru organised by People for Peace in Africa, a pressure group, and Uganda Gender Resource Centre.