On Friday, September 16, 2011, JRP facilitated survivors and families of the 1989 Mukura massacre to hold a community theater performance. The performance was part of an ongoing engagement with the Mukura Memorial Development Initiative (MUMEDI) and aimed at generating a discussion on how to best seek justice and reconciliation after the conflict in the area. The drama’s script and theme of reconciliation with the President of Uganda was entirely drafted by the actors.
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“Mukura Reconciliation Feature,” Etop Radio, 16 Sept 2011
On September 16th, JRP facilitated a community theatre presentation in Mukura by survivors and families of the deceased of the 1989 Mukura massacre. An Etop/New Vision journalist, Godfrey Ojore, attended the event and captured the community’s call for reconciliation with the government in a 4-minute radio feature that aired on Etop Radio on the 16th.
By Godfrey Ojore
Intro (Translated from Ateso):
After 22 years of pain after losing the beloved ones, Mukura massacre survivors, widows and widowers have accepted to reconcile with government. In 1989 during insurgency in Teso region, soldiers rounded up people suspected to be rebels and herded them into a train wagon before setting fire beneath it. 69 people perished while many sustain serious injuries. Last year government sent a compensation of 200 million to Mukura. So how exactly do the survivors of the Mukura massacre want to reconcile with government? Etop radio’s Godfrey Ojore now answers that question in the following report. (Cue feature)
To listen to the feature report in Ateso, click here.
“First LRA Trial Before the International Crimes Division of the Ugandan Hight Court,” Coalition for the International Criminal Court,” September 2011
http://iccnow.org/documents/
Note: JRP’s Lino Owor Ogora’s photos from the opening of the Thomas Kwoyelo trial in Gulu on July 11th appeared on page 4 of the September 2011 edition of the CICC Africa Update newsletter. The accompanying article was written by a representative of the Lira NGO Forum.
“The roots of war: Atiak massacre, new wave of LRA brutality,” The Observer, 3 Oct 2011
http://www.observer.ug/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=15266&Itemid=59
By Emma Mutaizibwa
Otti turned his village into a slaughterhouse by killing 300
The bright sun lit the sky on a Tuesday morning in Atiak, about 70km north of Gulu in present-day Amuru district. It was market day and traders, some having trekked miles from as far as Moyo district, had arrived as early as 5am to sell their merchandise.
Little did they know that LRA rebels had arrived earlier and were waiting to pounce. Vincent Otti, born and bred in Atiak, and by then a senior commander in the LRA, had often warned that he would turn his birthplace into a slaughterhouse. That warning became reality on Tuesday, April 22, 1995 and marked a new chapter in the civil war — a rare kind of violence the locals had never seen, and one the rebels had never unleashed.
On that day, in one of the ghastliest LRA episodes in northern Uganda that would come to transcend any earlier bloodbath, Otti, a profoundly violent man, ordered his soldiers to shoot civilians lying face-down until they were dead.
Emma Mutaizibwa revisits that day and the macabre massacre in Ayugi valley — the valley of death.
It was a chronicle of deaths foretold; an orgy of killing that would come to define the LRA’s brutal narrative in Northern Uganda. Atiak, 70km north of Gulu town, was a shabby outpost that had remained largely booming with trade even as the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebellion raged on. Locals here say if the National Resistance Army (NRA), as the Ugandan army was known then, had heeded the warning by Joseph Kony’s henchman, Vincent Otti, perhaps the loss of lives on such a large scale could have been forestalled on the day of infamy.
Otti had warned for some time that he would carry out mass slaughter in his birthplace to punish the locals who had often said the LRA guns were rusty. Otti was then heading the LRA’s Red Brigade echelon, notorious for ambushes on vehicles, looting and abductions on the Gulu-Pakwach road up to Atiak in Kilak county.
A victim of his own brutality, he would later be killed after ascending to the second position in the rebel outfit, as Kony’s deputy. Kony, the LRA leader, ordered his execution in 2008 on allegations of an attempted palace coup. In 1995, Otti knew the terrain so well that by the time he planned the attack, he was fully aware that Atiak was poorly guarded and that, despite pleas from civilians that an attack was eminent, the NRA had not shored up enough troops.
To date, that massacre remains a black spot on the conscience of the army. At dawn, Otti, one of the most ruthless instruments of the LRA, and his motley bands, struck Atiak trading centre, first targeting the 75 local defence unit personnel (LDUs), a homegrown militia established to fend off rebel attacks. About 15 LDUs were killed and the others fled town, leaving the LRA to overrun the area.
For six hours, the LRA tormented their victims. Army units that had received advanced warnings only arrived much later in the afternoon after the bloodbath. Civilian eyewitnesses report that between 5am and 10am on the fateful day, there was exchange of heavy gunfire and grenades, before the LDUs was eventually overpowered by rebels. The LRA reportedly set fire to huts and began looting from local shops.
Individuals recalled that they sought out whatever hiding places they could find — fleeing to the bush, jumping into newly dug pit latrines, or simply remaining in their huts. Despite efforts to protect themselves, many civilians were directly caught in the crossfire or specially targeted, with an unknown number of casualties.
One survivor’s narration, according to research by the Justice and Reconciliation Project, reads: “At dawn, we started hearing gunshots. At about 8am, the rates of gunshots reduced. We came to learn that the rebels had entered the centre and were already abducting people, burning houses and killing people.
“Just as we were still trying to get refuge somewhere, the rebels got us and arrested us. They gathered us in one place and when we were still in the centre, we could see some dead bodies and wounded people lying about the centre.”
Another woman recalled: “When the battle had raged for some time, the rebels headed for the barracks. On their way, they fired randomly at the house. One of my youngest children said to me, ‘Mum, get my books so that we can run.’ I was so afraid and I had to restrain my kids. The boys in the other room got out, two of them ran away. It was only the elder boy who was too afraid to run because he had been abducted before.”
She continues: “He entered the house where we were. The battle went on all morning. When there was a lull, we tried getting out and making a run for it. The [rebels] saw us and fired at us.
“So, we had to take refuge in the house once again. Then I heard one of the soldiers saying that the house we were in should be set ablaze. I got afraid and got out with all the children.”
Once the LRA had captured the trading centre, civilians were rounded up and forced to walk into the bush. Some were forced to carry looted property.
“The rebels told us not to run away. We were surrounded and taken to a shop. I was given a sack of sugar to carry, while my eldest boy was given a sack of salt,” said a survivor.
Another witness of the massacre said: “They came and pointed a rifle at me. I dropped the child I was carrying and raised my hands. They asked me if all the children were mine. I told them they were my children. They told the children to go home, and told them their mother would follow later after carrying some loads.”
The woman carried her baby again and walked with the rebels. “When we had walked for about a mile, they ordered me to put down the child. I refused. They pierced me with a bayonet on the thigh. Then we went for another mile and I was pierced again on the thigh.
“We walked and when we had reached Ayugi, I was again pierced in the neck. I was now dripping with blood (sic). Then we walked and met with the rest of the people who had been abducted.”
En route, military helicopters arrived on the scene. But this was later in the afternoon. The LRA rebels instructed civilians to remove all light-coloured clothing and to take cover under the brush to avoid detection by the soldiers in the helicopters. During this time, the LRA attempted to bomb Atiak Technical School, the bombs narrowly missing the dormitories.
The rebels raided the dorms and forced students to join the group of civilians that had been rounded up in the town centre and made to march into the bush. It is estimated that approximately 60 students, some from Lango and Teso and a few from southern Uganda, were among those killed later.
The captured civilians arrived in a valley called Ayugi, where there is a stream called Kitang. There, able-bodied men and boys were separated from women, young children and the elderly. Otti lectured the civilians, chastising them for siding with the government.
According to one witness, “Otti told us that we were undermining their power. He also said we people of Atiak were saying that LRA guns have rusted. He said he had come to show us that his guns were still functioning. For that matter he ordered us to see how his guns can still work.”
He then ordered his men to shoot at the civilians. According to another eyewitness, Otti ordered his soldiers to kill “anything that breathed”.
They then commanded children below eleven years, pregnant women and breastfeeding mothers to stand aside. Recounting the day of terror, another survivor said: “I had a sizeable child I was carrying. I shifted with them to where they told us to stand. I could not reach my little boy, who was seated with students of Atiak technical school.
“The remaining group of people was then commanded to lie down. Then they were showered with bullets. Nobody got up to attempt running away. After the bullets went silent, the soldiers were ordered to fire a second time on the dead corpses, to make sure nobody survived. They even fired a third time to make sure all the people had been killed.”
Many of the survivors watched in horror as their children were killed.
“I was so scared because I had seen my boy being shot. I wept silently and my children told me not to cry . . . My boy had been shot in the leg but still alive. They later finished him off with a bayonet.”
Another survivor recounted: “They began by telling us mothers, pregnant women and children below 13 years to move aside. They told the rest of the people to lie down and for us to look straight at them — if you look at a different direction, they can shoot you dead.
“They fired at the people first, and then again for the second time to ensure that they are all dead . . . My first-born child, mother-in-law, father-in law and my husband were all killed as I watched them die. I returned with four children whom I am struggling to take care of now.”
After the massacre, others were forced to go with the LRA to carry looted goods. As one survivor explained after showing us the scars on his face and back, many of those abducted did not survive. Others abducted that day were initiated into the LRA through brutal tactics and went on to fight or act as sex slaves for senior commanders.
The total number of persons killed in the massacre varies between 200 and 300. Some people disappeared and their whereabouts are still unknown — after the massacre, it was not possible to identify all of the dead. Government, in the aftermath of the Atiak massacre, severed diplomatic ties with the Khartoum regime.
But the massacres in the Acholi-sub-region did not relent. As a result of the bloodletting, President Yoweri Museveni, in May 1996, appointed his brother, then Maj Gen Salim Saleh, to try to bring an end to the LRA conflict.
Col James Kazini, who was murdered in 2009, was appointed 4 Division commander based in Gulu. But why did the NRA, which later became the Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF), fail to defeat the LRA?
In the next series, we revisit Saleh’s mission to decimate the LRA and why Kony and his bands remained undefeated.
“In Brief: Tracking the LRA,” IRIN News, 30 Sept 2011
http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=93852
NAIROBI, 30 September 2011 (IRIN) – Detailed updates about the activity of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) are now available in near real-time, thanks to a partnership between two US-based NGOs.
The LRA Crisis Tracker, a joint venture between Invisible Children and Resolve provides data on attacks, killings, abductions, injuries and looting by the LRA, an insurgency that began in northern Uganda in the 1980s, whose fighters are now scattered across remote areas of South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Central African Republic.
Data is published on the tracker’s website as well as on social media such as Twitter and Facebook and via apps for iPad and iPhone. Historical monthly data going back to December 2009 is also available. The information derives from the Invisible Children early warning radio network, NGOs, UN agencies and other sources.
“I feel it’s interesting but it wasn’t available during the height of the conflict in northern Uganda,” Lindsay McClain of the Justice and Reconciliation project in Gulu district, northern Uganda said. “I have seen the systems and it provides early warning systems to protect civilians but it’s a challenge to these rural communities without access to the internet.”
js/ca/am/mw
Talk Show on International Peace Day, Voice of Life FM100.9, 20 Sept 2011
To listen to a full recording of the Voice of Life talk show, click here.
On Tuesday, September 20, 2011, JRP held a one-hour talk show on Arua radio station Voice of Life FM 100.9. The show featured JRP’s Sylvia Opinia, Lindsay McClain, Isaac Okwir, Mzee Nahari Oyaa of the Madi-Lugbara Cultural Foundation, and presenter Jonathan Driliga.
The purpose of the talk show was to discuss International Day of Peace, celebrated every year on September 21st, and the programmes scheduled for West Nile. JRP, in conjunction with the MAYANK Development Association, organized celebrations in Yumbe. Survivors of the UNRF II conflict in Yumbe who have formed a JRP-supported theatre group performed a drama that traced the historical events of the UNRF II conflict and the 2002 Yumbe peace accords.
To listen to a full recording of the Voice of Life talk show, click here.
JRP’s Gender Justice Research Offier Nancy Apio wrote an article on formerly-abducted women that appeared in the Peace X Peace blog on September 19, 2011. To view the article on the Peace X Peace blog, click here. Otherwise, it has been re-posted in its entirety below.
“A Childhood Cut Short,” Peace X Peace Blog, 19 Sept. 2011
http://www.peacexpeace.org/2011/09/a-childhood-cut-short/
By Nancy Apiyo
Editor’s Note: Below, Nancy Apiyo tells the story of her countrywoman Anne, who was kidnapped by the Lord’s Resistance Army as a child. Nancy works with women who were once abducted at Justice and Reconciliation Project in Gulu, Uganda.
***
I always think about Anne. I wonder how she was able to go through that gruesome experience and still remain calm. She is a very gentle woman. When you look at her you can never tell what she has hidden within her. It is a story of her life, a story she has to live with for the rest of her life.
One Sunday evening, when the sun was setting on the hills of Palaro Village in Gulu District, she was abducted by the Lord’s Resistance Army rebels. She was on her way from collecting firewood. The sun was setting and the orange colour was so beautiful. It was not a bad omen at all. It was a sight she had always admired. The last thing on her mind was the insecurity that had loomed over her village for so long. She had heard of children who had been taken away from the village and never returned. Others managed to escape and narrated horrible tales of what happened to them. She heard stories about children who were forced to kill others.
Just as she was admiring the sunset and the beautiful sound from the birds that were singing, she heard a noise in the woods. She was startled. Her blood became cold. A huge man emerged from the woods. He was the ugliest man she had ever seen. He had unkempt hair and red eyes. He was a stranger in the village. She did not know that he was one of the commanders of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), one of the most notorious rebel groups in the world. Their leader, Joseph Kony, was one of the most wanted men in the world. Anne was nine years old at that time. She was the older among her father’s children. The man asked her where she was going. He told her to put down her firewood and show him the way to the main road. Her inner voice resisted. She knew it was a bad idea. During that time the LRA had began to abduct children and turn them into child soldiers. Girls carried luggage and also cooked for the rebels. Some of the girls were turned into wives at a very tender age. The man coaxed her to take him to the roadside.
That was how Anne was abducted. She walked with the man and they met a group of children holding guns. The guns seemed too big for them. She thought they were holding them for the older soldiers. She did not know these were child soldiers. These innocent children had already been turned to beasts. She wondered if the boys would put down their guns and play with her. One of the boys pointed a gun at her and told her to stop staring at him. That was when she realized the child in the boy was no more. There was a short man living in him. He was a soldier and not a playmate. They spent a night in that place and the next day they began the journey to go to Sudan.
Before the journey to Sudan they were smeared with sheer nut oil, a ceremony the rebels did to indicate you were part of them. It took them one week to walk to Sudan. I have always wondered how her fragile soft feet made it to Sudan. She walks gently, like an ostrich, and it is hard to tell she ever walked that far. If she had not been abducted perhaps she would have been a model. At 22 years, she is so beautiful. Many children did not make it to Sudan. They died on the way. Some were killed by the rebels because they were too tired to walk. By the time they reached Sudan, most of them had sore feet.
The journey to Sudan changed her life. Her innocence left her. She stopped admiring the sunset. The sound of the birds singing in Sudan was not the same like in her village. It was like her spirit left her. She ceased to exist. All she could think of was how to survive with the rebels and escape back home one day. She became part of the gruesome rebel group.
Anne returned home sixteen years later with five children. Her story gives me the courage to move on during difficult times. If she could survive with the rebels and come back home, then if you are determined to do something you will achieve it. Anne never forgot about home. To me she is the epitome of a strong, courageous young woman.
I always wonder if the abduction of so many children in Northern Uganda could have been avoided. It is time the human race found an alternative to wars. We should put down guns and use our voices. We can talk to each other and resolve conflict. The world is changing fast today. Our hearts should also change. We should stop acting like beasts. Let us talk instead of taking up firearms. Anne’s life, like those of other women who were abducted, will never be the same again because of a war they don’t understand. Her only hope is to share her story with the rest of the world so that others can learn from it.
JRP is highlighted on page 5 of the Transitional Justice Institute’s September newsletter in an article on the 2011 TJ Summer School. JRP’s Lindsay McClain received a competitive bursary to attend the course on public inquires from June 13-17, 2011. The full article is posted below. To access a PDF of the full newsletter, visit http://www.transitionaljustice.ulster.ac.uk/documents/NewsletterSEPT2011.f or click here.
“Summer School 2011,” News from TJI, September 2011
http://www.transitionaljustice.ulster.ac.uk/documents/NewsletterSEPT2011.pdf
The annual Summer School on Transitional Justice which incorporated two separate programmes: Gender, Conflict and Transition and The Use of Public Inquiries, took place at the Magee campus from 13 to 17 June 2011.
Now in its fourth year, the Summer School continues to attract participants from various conflict and post-conflict states around the world. Participants came from Austria, Bosnia and Herzigovina, Canada, Japan, Kenya, Uganda and US, in addition to representatives from various public bodies and NGOs in Northern Ireland.
The academic component of the programme was complemented by a full social pro-gramme providing the opportunity for participants to get to know a little about the local area – this in-cluded a walking tour of Derry city, a very popular tour to the North Coast, film screenings and a Summer School dinner.
The TJI was delighted to be able to offer bursaries to some participants through a competitive process: Megan Dersnah-Alexandra from the University of Toronto, Gorana Mlinarevic from the University of Sarajevo and Lindsay McClain from the Justice and Reconciliation Project in Uganda (pictured below, right).
The week long residential course provided a dynamic context for the exchange of views and ex-periences between academics, practitioners and students through a combination of interactive lectures, workshops and roundtable discussions on key aspects of transitional justice. Guest speakers on the Gen-der programme included: Dr Fidelma Ashe (UU); Professor Christine Bell (TJI); Claire Hackett (Falls Commu-nity Council); Sari Kouvo (International Center for Transitional Justice); Professor Fionnuala Ní Aoláin (TJI); Dr Catherine O‘Rourke (TJI); Mrs Eilish Rooney (TJI), Ms Aisling Swaine (TJI). Speakers on the Inquiries pro-gramme included: Professor Bill Rolston (TJI); Professor Fionnuala Ní Aoláin (TJI); Professor Christine Bell (TJI); Professor Colm Campbell (TJI); Dr Louise Mallinder (TJI); Professor Phil Scraton (Queen‘s University Belfast); Dr Vicky Conway (Queen‘s University Belfast); Ms Marny Requa (Queen‘s University Belfast); Ms Colleen Smyth (TJI); Mr John Leckey (Senior Coroner for Northern Ireland); Mr Neil Garnham QC; and Ms Caroline Cross (Barrister).
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On Thursday, September 15, 2011, JRP visited Abia Primary School in Lango to follow-up with students participating in our community theatre project. The students have developed a drama that highlights the situation in Abia and how the conflict has exacerbated the rampancy of HIV/AIDS.
The community-wide performance of this drama will tentatively take place on September 28th in Abia trading center.
“Absence Of Compensation Law Worries LRA War Victims,” Uganda Radio Network, 10 Aug. 2011
http://ugandaradionetwork.com/a/story.php?s=35992
By Joe Wacha
Absence of a law regulating compensation of war victims is causing worry among the people, who suffered losses during the two-decade insurgency in northern Uganda.
Absence of a law regulating compensation of war victims is causing worry among the people, who suffered losses during the two-decade insurgency in northern Uganda.
Several people who lost family members, suffered harm or lost property during the war between Joseph Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army rebels and government, have been demanding for compensation but such a move requires a legal basis for its successful realization.
During the Juba peace agreement, both government and the LRA rebels resolved that government should establish necessary arrangements for making reparations to victims of the conflict. The implementation protocol of the agreement signed on May 27th 2007 provides that government shall include a special fund for victims out of which, reparations shall be paid.
However, over four years later, no such arrangement has been initiated leaving some of the war victims to question the willingness of government to address their plight.
Already, a number of rights groups and civil society organizations have voiced their concerns over the absence of a policy providing for compensation of the war victims.
Catherine Lakareber, a twenty seven year old mother who was maimed during the war, says that for years they have continued to wait on government to pronounce itself on the issue of reparation.
Richard Todwong, the MP for Nwoya County in Nwoya district was previously assigned to compile the list of the war victims, when he was still a presidential adviser in charge of northern Uganda. Todwong says he registered over 6,000 war victims. He however notes that no attempt has been made to enact a law providing for the compensation of the victims.
As a result, Todwong says he is now preparing to move a Private Members Bill on Compensation of war victims.
Democratic Party president, Norbert Mao has underscored the need for such a law. He explains that the presence of a law governing compensation of war victims would make it a national government program and not for political patronage as is being practiced.
//Cue in: “Compensation to war victims…”
Cue out: “…victims’ compensation act.”//
Lino Ogora, a transitional justice expert in Gulu says that present attempts to provide compensation are biased. He cites the compensation of the Mukura victims that he said had no clear criteria and was conducted through an individual. In 2010, government paid 200 million shillings to the survivors and relatives of the 1989 Mukura massacre. On 11th July 1989 soldiers of the National Resistance Army suffocated to death 55 suspected rebels in a train wagon at Mukura in Ngora District.