On 19 May 2016 survivors of the Lukodi massacre with the chiefdom of Patiko, Ker Kal Kwaro Patiko, members of the community and well wishers will host their annual prayers to commemorate the 2004 LRA massacre.
The theme of this years event is “living in unity and seeking justice” and it will take place at Lukodi P7 School in Bungatira sub-county just outside of Gulu.
When the Justice and Reconciliation Project’s Documentation team began working with the community of Odek in Gulu district in 2014, the sense was that the community wanted acknowledgment for the many violations they experienced during the war. As the ancestral home of LRA commander Joseph Kony, the area suffered the stigma of that association, and many there said that their experiences had been ignored over the years.
A similar feeling was held in Burcoro, a village in Awach sub-county, for survivors of an NRA operation where civilians, accused of being rebel supporters, were tortured, sexually violated, abducted and killed over the course of four days in April 1991.
So when this past week, the JRP’s Community Mobilisation department worked with those two communities to launch monuments to commemorate those experiences, it felt like the communities calls had come full circle.
In Odek, at the sub-county headquarters, on a white-tiled block the names of 44 people that died during an attack by the LRA on an internally-displaced persons’ camp there on 29 April 2004 are listed on a plaque (the LRA’s massacre, and other experiences are documented in JRP’s 2014 field note, “Forgotten Victims: Recounting Atrocities Committed in Odek sub-county by the LRA and NRA”). Clan chief Rwot Ocan Jimmy Luwala of Puranga and Gulu District Council Speaker, Okello Douglas Peter Okao, joined the community, survivors and relatives of the victims to officially launch this monument on 2 December 2015.
A week later, on 8 December, Burcoro Primary School – the scene of the NRA’s 1991 operation – also hosted community members, survivors and relatives to launch a monument in the shape of a tree for their experiences. The tree symbolizes the community’s experiences, in particular the place where a man called Kapere Alfoncio, who was accused of being a rebel, was shot and killed by fire squad on the final days of the operation. The launch of the monument was also used to share JRP’s field note “The Beasts at Burcoro”, which recounts events that took place, with the community.
Following a blessing of the monument by religious leaders in Burcoro, Resident District Commissioner (RDC) for Gulu, Okot Lapolo, received a memorandum from the Burcoro 1991 Military Operation Survivors Association addressed to Ugandan president, Yoweri Museveni, and calling for support. The RDC promised to deliver it to the president and to remind him about pledges he made in 2011 to provide compensation.
Now that both communities have their experiences documented and have monuments in place, they plan to host memorial prayers at their respective monument sites in the future to commemorate the events.
“Many people were thinking that their plight was not known but now they feel relieved,” a survivor of the Burcoro incident told me, “What was disturbing was the [fear that because the Burcoro incident was state-led] that if you exposed yourself as a victim, you may be in trouble.”
See pictures of both launches on JRP’s Facebook page.
Oryem Nyeko is the Communications and Advocacy Team Leader at JRP.
Namokora is located 56 kilometres east of Kitgum town and is one of the sub-counties that frequently come up when there are discussions or debates regarding state orchestrated abuses in northern Uganda. On the 19th of August 1986, the 35th Battalion of the National Resistance Army (NRA) allegedly massacred up to 71 men and women from Namokora and other surrounding sub-counties in a lorry at Wiigweng in Oryang village, and Namokora sub-county. These men and women were accused of being rebel collaborators and/or having plans to oust the newly formed NRA government in Kampala.
Herded into the lorry, over 89 civilians founded themselves being piled onto each other with hardly any space as they were driven to an unknown destination while being closely followed by a white pickup filled with armed NRA soldiers. After driving for about three kilometes, they were indiscriminately shot at, resulting in the death of 71 men and women and the injury of scores of others. Since burials did not happen immediately after the shooting most of the bodies were feasted on by dogs and other beasts within that area.
This report provides narratives of key events leading to the Namokora massacre of 1986 based on the testimonies of survivors and relatives. It also looks at developments in that community from 1986 to date and makes specific recommendations to the government and non-governmental organisations to provide compensation to the survivors of the massacre, to address the health consequences of the NRA operation in Namokora and to support the formation of a community based victims support groups.
Read the entire Field Note here: Namokora (pdf)
Recently, members of JRP’s Community Documentation and Mobilization Departments attended the 10th anniversary of the “Mucwini Massacre” which was celebrated in Mucwini, Kitgum District.
The sinister events that took place in and around Mucwini date back to the ill-fated evening of the 23th of July, 2002. As the local inhabitants were settling down for their evening meals, they remained unaware of the imminent danger that lurked at a close distance. The gruesome events that were to unfold on that sad July evening would only conclude after the massacre of 56 innocent men, women, and children, and with a whole community wrapped in chaos and despair.
On that evening the inhabitants Muchwini, as well as surrounding parishes were attacked by a heavily armed group of LRA rebels. It is widely believed that this was a reprisal-attack undertaken by the LRA as a response to the escape of a man called Omara, a member of the community that had been abducted by the rebels a couple of days before. Apparently Omara had been able to quickly flee from captivity a couple of days before the attack, deeply angering his captors in the process. Rumors say that the news of his escape quickly made their way to the Sudan, where the LRA’s top leader Joseph Kony is believed to have ordered the local unit commander to attack the village of Mucwini and to “slaughter everything that breaths”.
Several interviewed people have alleged that during Omara’s abduction, he was forced to confess the name of his direct relatives, as well as the description of his place of residence in the village. It seems that Omara, a member of the Pubec clan, was so embittered by a long standing land dispute between his clan and the Pajong clan that when interrogated by the rebels he provided them with the name and place of residence of an influential elder and leader of the Pajong clan which he claimed was his father. After the massacre, accounts of Omara’s role in the attack quickly came to light, and since according to Acholi culture, one person’s crime extends to his or her entire clan, the blame quickly fell on the Pubec clan to take responsibility for the apparent misdeed of one of its members.
The event commemorating the 10th anniversary of the massacre was led by Bishop Macleord Ochola, an important local religious leader who has been working with this community for several years, and who is one of the main actors of a long mediation process that has allowed for the Pubec and Pajong clans to meet face to face and discuss reparations after years of animosity and hostility between one another.
Significant progress has been made ever since that dreadful July day and the community has overcome many of the challenges that it has faced in the past. Nevertheless, unresolved issues still remain, most notably with regards the payment of reparations and a more comprehensive settling of the land disputed. This commemoration ceremony thus presented the community of Mucwini with a good opportunity to not only honor its dead, but also to openly voice and discuss those issues that remain a constant cause of tension until this day.
Related: Massacre in Mucwini, Field Note VIII
“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.
On the 19th of May 2004, the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) raided the village of Lukodi, and carried out a massacre that led to the death of over sixty people. Lukodi village is located seventeen kilometers north of Gulu town, in Gulu district. It is one of the many villages in northern Uganda that suffered from persistent LRA attacks, leading to the death of several people. Northern Uganda has been under conflict for over twenty years, as a result of a civil war waged mainly between the rebels of the LRA and the Government of Uganda (GoU). The impacts of the conflict have been devastating, characterized by the displacement of over 1.8 million people into IDP camps, loss of lives, and abduction of over 38,000 children by the LRA to serve as child soldiers and sex slaves.1 Lukodi, like many other villages in northern Uganda, was severely affected by the conflict, leading to the displacement of the inhabitants of the village who were forced to seek refuge in the congested camp of Coope2 for three years. The people of Lukodi were able to begin returning to their homes as a result of the relative peace which ensued in northern Uganda after the conclusion of the Juba peace talks in November 2008.
This report reconstructs a narrative of the Lukodi massacre and the major events that unfolded on that fateful day of 19th May 2004. The documentation centered on learning the experiences of this community prior to and during the massacre, the impact the massacre had on the population and the transitional justice challenges they continue to face today. It tells the story of a people that suffered from a horrible attack on their village in 2004, and were subsequently displaced for almost three years. It further looks at the current reintegration challenges faced by the people of Lukodi, now that the people are returning from displacement and trying to rebuild their lives, but in the process have to struggle with daunting resettlement challenges, in addition to complex questions on how to approach issues of reconciliation between victims and alleged perpetrators within the community. Many war affected communities in northern Uganda are faced with a similar scenario as they struggle to pick up the pieces of their lives in the wake of the conflict, characterized by difficulty to cope with their trauma, and challenges in the pursuit of their justice and reconciliation needs, specifically the need for accountability and reparations.
This report also briefly reflects on the visit and investigation carried out by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in Lukodi. As revealed by respondents, the Office of the Chief Prosecutor and the Ugandan Police visited Lukodi several times in the wake of the massacre, with the aim of gathering evidence for the case against the LRA. The report shows that, however well intended this intervention may have been, it has failed to serve the justice needs of the people in Lukodi. Rather than providing them with a solution, the ICC intervention has left the victims with more questions than answers regarding how to approach the question of accountability for perpetrators. Giving the victims a voice, this report therefore makes suggestions to the policy makers, practitioners and other stakeholders on how to address accountability issues using more appropriate means.
The report finally concludes with recommendations to the Government of Uganda and other stakeholders, in line with views and opinions gathered from the people of Lukodi. The people of Lukodi call for reparations, sharing of the findings of the official investigations carried out after the massacre, support for community reconciliation initiatives and a truth-telling process in which the community, the LRA and the Government of Uganda will take part. These views are shared by many war affected people all over northern Uganda, and therefore require the attention of the stakeholders in question.
To access the report, click here.
On July 11, 1989, the 106th battalion of the National Resistance Army (NRA)1 allegedly rounded up 300 men from Mukura and other surrounding areas and incarcerated some of them in train wagon number
C521083. These men were suspected of being rebel collaborators against the NRA regime, but there is little evidence to suggest that most of them were anything other than innocent civilians. Trapped in the crowded train wagon, trying not to trample on one another, the men struggled to breathe, and by the time they were released after more than four hours, 69 of them had suffocated to death, while 47 of them survived.
Twenty two years after the occurrence of this massacre, the Justice and Reconciliation Project (JRP) reconstructs an account of what took place, using narratives from survivors, in order to bring the concerns of victims to the attention of the Government and other stakeholders. Through our interactions with survivors of the massacre, we learnt that besides constructing a memorial mass grave in which the dead were buried, the Government also supported the construction of the Mukura Memorial Senior Secondary School and a public library in memory of those who lost their lives.
This report aims at providing a narrative of key events leading up to the massacre, based on the testimonies of survivors, and explores the major initiatives which were used by the incumbent Government to promote accountability, healing and reconciliation for the families of the Mukura victims and the survivors from the train wagon. A central finding of this report is that most of these initiatives to provide reparation—though likely well intentioned—were implemented in an untimely manner, with little involvement and consultation of the victims and in times of increased political incentive for Government. As such, the people do not attach much significance and ownership to structures such as the mass grave and Mukura Memorial Senior Secondary School. The report concludes with lessons learnt and recommendations aimed at improving the implementation of future post-conflict transitional justice (TJ) initiatives which the government may undertake in other parts of the country, such as northern Uganda which has recently emerged from conflict.
To access the report, click here.
On October 23rd 2002, an estimated forty-four fighters of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) entered Omot sub-county from Par Samuelo Acak, near the river Agogo. They were given instruction by their LRA Commander, “as soon as we cross the river, abduct whoever you come across until we reach Corner Gang pa Aculu in Opota Trading Centre.”3 The team, consisting mostly of young soldiers, first moved North East, abducting twelve people in Lawal Ode, an additional eight people in Lalur Onyol and finally another twelve people were abducted from Latin Ling before they reached the point of slaughter.
The Opota Trading Centre at Corner Gang Pa Aculu was the site where twenty-eight people lost their lives in the brutal and dehumanizing Omot massacre. People were murdered, cut into pieces and then placed in cooking pots in front of dozens of witnesses.
This report is the first systematic documentation of the massacre that took place in Omot. Eight years later, the community has far from achieved reconciliation and restitution. The people of Omot have been stripped of their right to justice; the wrongs committed against them unacknowledged by Government or LRA, no system of redress has been explored. What is more, the community is divided. Victims of the massacre continue to resent the clan of ‘Samuel’, a young resident who was recruited by the LRA and then later ran away with a gun, leading ultimately to the Omot massacre as retaliation. The community does not feel they have been compensated by Samuel’s family for the deaths that occurred as a result of his desertion. In Omot, it is important for support to be provided for community reconciliation.
As Long as You Live, You Will Survive recommends that the Government of Uganda:
To access the report, click here.
Twenty-six kilometres north of Lira town in northern Uganda, a quiet displaced person’s camp called Barlonyo lies inconspicuously next to the River Moroto. The tranquil setting belies its horrible distinction as the location of one of the largest single massacres committed by the Lord’s Resistance Army during its 23-year insurgency. In the space of less than three hours on the late afternoon of 21 February 2004, over 300 people were brutally murdered by LRA rebels and an unknown number were abducted.
Camp residents were burned alive inside their huts, hacked to death with machetes, stabbed with bayonets, clubbed with sticks and shot as they fled. The bellies of pregnant women were slit open, their not-yet-formed babies thrown into the fires. Others were abducted and marched north into Acholi-land. Many died in captivity of violence, sickness, or starvation. The ultimate fate of several abductees remains unknown.
This Field Note documents what happened in Barlonyo on that fateful day when LRA Commander Okot
Odhiambo ordered his soldiers to “kill every living thing.” The victims of Barlonyo beg for justice; not only for the unimaginable acts of the LRA, but the lack of protection afforded the civilian population that day, and in the absence of acknowledgment of what happened there. The Government of Uganda must forward a comprehensive justice strategy that addresses wrong doing and heals the wounds that continue to divide the country.
To access the report, click here.
On April 20th 1995, the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) entered the trading centre of Atiak and after an intense offensive, defeated the Ugandan army stationed there. Hundreds of men, women, students and young children were then rounded up by the LRA and marched a short distance into the bush until they reached a river. There, they were separated into two groups according to their sex and age. After being lectured for their alleged collaboration with the Government, the LRA commander in charge ordered his soldiers to open fire three times on a group of about 300 civilian men and boys as women and young children witnessed the horror. The LRA commander reportedly in charge – the now indicted second in command Vincent Otti – then turned to the women and children and told them to applaud the LRA’s work. Before leaving, youth were selectively rounded up and forced to join the LRA to serve as the next generation of combatants and sexual slaves.
Twelve years later, the wounds of the massacre have far from healed. As the survivor’s testimony at the beginning of this report puts it, “all of us live as if our bodies do not have souls.” Despite the massacre being one of the largest and by reputation most notorious in the twenty-one year history of the conflict, no official record, investigation or acknowledgement of events exists. No excavation of the mass grave has been conducted and therefore the exact number of persons killed is not known. Survivors literally live with the remains of bullet fragments inside them. Although the massacre site is only a few kilometres from the trading centre, a proper burial of those slaughtered 12 years ago is not complete: as one survivor reminds us, “the bodies of some people were never brought back home, because there were no relatives to carry them home.”
This report seeks to provide the first known written record of events leading to the massacre based on the testimony of 41 survivors and witnesses, as well as prominent community members. It does not claim to be complete, but rather provides a partial record in hopes of prompting the Government to begin an investigation into the multiple massacres that have taken place in Uganda. Ideally, this will lead the Government to advance a transitional justice strategy, together with civil society, that will begin to heal the open wounds of Atiak. To this end, recommendations are advanced in the final sections of this report.
To access the report, click here