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Sowing the Seeds of Tomorrow: Success Stories in Photographs

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Margret leads JRP Staff to her Sorghum plantation near Pedar Town. Photo Credit, Sophia Neiman.

Conflict not only robs people of the present. It does not only cause constant fear, or snatch autonomy. It can also alter the future. Those in Lord’s Resistance Army captivity lost youth and education. They returned home deeply traumatized and with children born of war, who also bear trauma. Many are still treated as social pariahs, and excluded from day-to-day activities.

Justice and Reconciliation Project programs use community-based livelihood support to create a better and brighter future for the formerly abducted. In 2017 JRP, with support from the Uganda Fund, worked to uplift six different Women’s Advocacy Network (WAN) groups, with loan capital and income generating items, such as seedlings and livestock. This November, JRP returned to those groups once again, and observed the incredible progress made. Members have improved and continued to improve their lives.

Here are a few of their stories.

Alero

Pauline gives JRP staff a tour of her farm in Alero. She raises chickens, goats and pigs and has also planted bananas, rice, oranges, pawpaw, and pineapples. Photo Credit, Sophia Neiman.

Pauline’s husband often denied her money, making it hard to care for the children, and causing discord between the couple. She lacked the resources to properly support herself. Joining the Tam pi Anyim Child Mother’s Group in Alero provided her with new opportunities and connected her to a powerful network of women. Inspired by the hard work of her fellow group members, Pauline took a loan from the group saving scheme to purchase pigs, and another to buy seeds.

She has since planted bananas, pineapple, pawpaw, oranges, cassava and rice. Pauline works the land each day, and cares for the animals.  Her farm is a beautiful and sun-soaked place; the plants lush and fertile.

She is now able to pay her children’s school fees, and to support her family independently.  She hopes one day to build a permanent house for her children.

Beatrice makes local brew outside of her home in Alero. Photo Credit, Sophia Neiman.

The LRA took Beatrice when she was still a teenager. She was forced to become a rebel’s wife in captivity, and was infected with HIV/AIDs. She had been abducted in her youth, but her youth ended in captivity, and she returned with a child.

Home again, Beatrice married and had three more children. She passed HIV/AIDs on to her husband, and he died of the disease. She struggled, often working in neighbors’ farms to make some small money. Beatrice married once more. That man impregnated and abandoned her, leaving her with another child to care for, and no support.

She joined the group in Alero at the urging of a friend, and used a loan to purchase maize and cassava, in order to make local alcohol. She now sells the alcohol, and is able to pay rent and her children’s school fees.

She plans to purchase additional tools for her business, and eventually to buy land and a home for her children.

Gulu

Nighty laughs while selling cabbages at Ceraleno Market in Gulu Town. Photo Credit, Sophia Neiman.

Nighty is a member of Can Rwede Pe WAN group in Gulu municipality. She runs a small business selling cabbage. Nighty took a loan from the group saving scheme and used it to buy vegetables. She was able to quickly turn a profit and continues to do so. Nighty believes that additional financial training from JRP helped to make her work successful.

Another loan from the group helped her to pay her children’s school fees. Nighty asserts that it is particularly important that her children study, as captivity stole her chance to do so.

Grace stands among other group members in Gulu, holding a chicken and the eggs she has collected. Photo Credit, Sophia Neiman.

Grace is a young, single mother, with three children. She is a member of Kica Pa Rwot Women’s group in Gulu municipality. Before joining the group, Grace often struggled to provide for her children. She took a loan from the group saving scheme, and used it to begin a tailoring business. She also collects and sells the eggs from chickens given to group members by JRP.

The group and program have had enormous impact on her life.  “Being in this group has lifted me up to the level that I am. If it wasn’t for that, I’d be nobody,” she said.

Grace hopes that the women will continue to care for each other in years to come. “Our future plan is to keep uplifting each other so we can get out of this life that we are in and be in a better life,” she said.

Pabo

Charles works outside of his metal shop in Pabo. Photo Credit, Patrick Odong and Yorandos Melake.

Charles is a father of five, and a member of Dii Cwinyi Child Mothers’ group in Pabo. While WAN groups are primarily made up of war-affected women, men are also welcome, as true equality is only possible when all advocate for it.

 Charles used a loan from the group to open a metal workshop, where he also teaches young people his trade.  The money from his business has helped him send his children to school. Charles hopes to continue teaching youth group about metal work, in order to provide them with new knowledge and a source of income.

Atiak

Lucy and her children display freshly harvested Cassava to JRP staff. Photo Credit, Patrick Odong and Yordanos Melake.

Lucy used a loan from Lacan Pe Nino Group in Atiak to purchase and plant two hectars of cassava and three hectars of SimSim.  She used the money to pay her children’s school fees, and to purchase a cow which has since given birth.

She is proud of all she has accomplished so far, and wants to work to be more independent and self-reliant.

Pader

Margret shows the Sorghum she has planted. Photo Credit, Sophia Neiman.

Margret daughter was abducted was abducted by the LRA, and was a member of Okony Waa Group in Pader. She was often too busy farming to attend group meetings, so sent Margret in her place. Being in the group taught Margret about the horrors so many endured in captivity, and the obstacles they must surmount today.

When her daughter married and moved to a different district, Margret became an official group member. She took a loan to pay school fees for her grandchild, and used the balance to buy and plant sorghum.

The sorghum has grown tall. Margret will soon harvest and sell it, using the funds to feed her family.

A member of Can Rwede Pe group leads JRP staff to her home in Gulu, her baby strapped to her back. Photo Credit, Sophia Neiman.

These are just a few voices, but they are proof of the power, hard work and determination in the community.

Show how very possible it is to construct a better life.

***

JRP is grateful to the Uganda Fund for its support in 2017. The program continues this year with the support of the Welfare fund, as JRP delivered livestock and income generating items to five WAN groups in various locations.

 

“Amnesty is the price northern Uganda paid for peace in the region,” Daily Monitor, 4 Oct 2011

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“Amnesty is the price northern Uganda paid for peace in the region,” Daily Monitor, 4 Oct 2011
http://www.monitor.co.ug/OpEd/Letters/-/806314/1247450/-/10tmcoj/-/index.html

By Lino Owor Ogora

On September 22, the Constitutional Court ruled that ex- LRA commander Thomas Kwoyelo, was entitled to amnesty in line with Uganda’s Amnesty Act 2000. This ruling attracted mixed reactions from various sections of the public.

The question of whether or not to offer war criminals amnesty has always been controversial. It is a question that peacemakers around the world have had to grapple with. Many peace processes have been successful because of amnesty offered to perpetrators. In South Africa for example, amnesty was pivotal in ensuring that the leaders of the apartheid regime negotiated with and eventually handed over power to the African National Congress. It also encouraged many perpetrators who had committed war crimes to confess, which in some instances even led to the recovery of human remains which had been secretly buried. In West Nile, amnesty proved a critical factor in determining the surrender of the West Nile Bank Front II.

Likewise, in northern Uganda, amnesty is the price we have had to pay for peace. Amnesty in northern Uganda was so effective that it led to the surrender of many top commanders. According to the Amnesty Commission’s records, over 10,000 LRA combatants abandoned rebellion and were granted amnesty. Amnesty was even more critical given that the majority of the LRA army was composed of children abducted and turned into rebels. Kwoyelo falls into this category, having been abducted when he was only 15 years old.

But for many people, this part of Kwoyelo’s history does not matter. They feel he has to be punished for what he is now. While I agree that Kwoyelo must be held accountable, we should also keep in mind the circumstances surrounding him. The case of Kwoyelo is critical in ensuring that not all LRA fighters are viewed as a homogenous group of killers, which will enable us devise means of handling them on a case by case basis, a factor which was missing in Kwoyelo’s trial.

If it were not for amnesty, millions of people would still be living within IDP camps. Thousands more children would have been abducted, and even the Juba peace talks which ushered in the prevailing peace in northern Uganda would not have taken place.

It is not surprising that most of the people baying for Kwoyelo’s blood are those who live in comfort and safety outside northern Uganda. While such people may sympathise with victims, they do not understand the situation on the ground. If you lived in northern Uganda during the period of the insurgency, you would understand and appreciate the prioritisation of ‘peace first justice later’. It is because of this prioritisation that northern Ugandans were at the forefront of advocating amnesty as a crucial factor in ending the conflict.

Lino Owor Ogora,
Justice & Reconciliation Project, Gulu District

“The roots of war: Atiak massacre, new wave of LRA brutality,” The Observer, 3 Oct 2011

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“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.

mutaizibwa@observer.ug

“Give LRA victims justice, says ex-bishop,” Daily Monitor, 20 July 2011

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Give LRA victims justice, says ex-bishop,” Daily Monitor, 20 July 2011

http://www.monitor.co.ug/News/National/-/688334/1204356/-/bl4ltxz/-/index.html

By Sam Lawino

 

Gulu

The government and Judiciary should deliver true justice to survivors of war in northern Uganda, civic and religious leaders have said. Addressing a rally during the International Day of Justice celebration in Gulu Town on Sunday, the retired Bishop of Kitgum Anglican Diocese, Macleod Baker Ochola, said the day should remind the government and its partners that they have failed to dispense justice to the victims of the 23-year-old Lords Resistance Army (LRA) rebellion.

Government blamed
He said: “Uganda has failed to support victims and survivors of the LRA and government mayhems in Acholi yet it also deliberately refused to accept responsibilities for the crimes they may have committed.”

Bishop Ochola said: “Everyone in Uganda and the rebels must be brought to book for atrocities they may have committed against unarmed civilians during the war. It is one way through which we can attain peace and justice,” Bishop Ochola said. He criticised the government for not coming up with a clear policy on compensation of the families of those killed, and the survivors.

A programme officer with Justice and Reconciliation Project in Northern Uganda, Mr Lino Owor Ogora, said: “Justice and accountability or the quest to end impunity should not be limited to criminal prosecution.” He said there should be other solutions like reconciliation.

A programme officer for Advocate Sans Frontiere, an association of lawyers supporting the fight against impunity, Mr Vincent Babaranda, said victims of the LRA atrocities should be granted access to the ongoing trial of former rebel commander Thomas Kwoyelo in the International Crime Division of the High Court to enable them know what is being done to address injustices perpetrated against them. Kwoyelo is facing 53 counts of murder, destruction of properties and abductions, accusations he denied.

“Public divided over Kwoyelo trial,” Daily Monitor, 10 July 2011

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“Public divided over Kwoyelo trial,” Daily Monitor, 10 July 2011

http://www.monitor.co.ug/News/National/-/688334/1197660/-/bylc79z/-/index.html

By Moses Akena

 

In Summary

About the War Crimes Division

  • The ICD is one of the specialised divisions set up in the High Court to try the commanders of the LRA and other rebel groups, who have violated human rights during the two-decade war in Northern Uganda.
    Initially known as the War Crimes Division, it was set up in 2009 by the government as part of its efforts to implement the 2008 Juba peace agreements between the Ugandan government and the LRA.
  • The division has the authority to try genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, terrorism, human trafficking, piracy and any other international crime defined in Uganda’s Penal Code Act, the 1964 Geneva Conventions Act and the 2010 International Criminal Court Act (ICCA).
  • The division may sit as a bench of three judges. The Court is headed by Justice Dan Akiiki-Kiiza and other judges are Justice Anup Singh Choudry and Justice Owiny Dolo.

As he steps into the dock tomorrow for trial by the War Crimes Division of the High Court of Uganda, former Lord’s Resistance Army colonel Thomas Kwoyelo, will write a chapter in the history books as the first commander of the rebel outfit, to be tried in the court.

The trial comes three years after the formation of the Court. The trial of Kwoyelo will also be the first for war crimes that a prosecution will take place under the Geneva Conventions Act since it was passed in 1964.

In March 2009, Kwoyelo was injured and taken into custody following fighting between the Ugandan army and LRA fighters in Ukwa, DR Congo. He was subsequently treated by the government of his bullet wounds.

He was first held in unknown military intelligence facilities, then Gulu Prison in late 2009 and has been held in Luzira maximum prison for a while.

Kwoyelo was first produced in a fully parked Chief Magistrate’s Court in Gulu in September 2009, to answer to 12 counts of kidnap with intent to murder which, was read out to him by then Gulu Chief Magistrate, Joseph Omodo Nyanga.

 

Amnesty in vail
A year later, in August 2010, he was charged with violations of the 1964 Geneva Conventions Act, including the grave crimes of willful killing, taking hostages and extensive destruction of property in the Amuru and Gulu districts of northern Uganda.

Though he applied for Amnesty last year, Amnesty Commission is yet to reply to his request. The Commission said it referred the case to the Directorate of Public Prosecutions as required under the act when individuals are in custody, for determination of eligibility.

The DPP has not responded to the Amnesty Commission’s request, raising some questions about the arbitrariness of the process.

It is not known how long the trial will but government said it will call close to 90 witnesses to testify. Cases involving war crimes and those against humanity tend to be difficult, because of the range of incidents and extended time period involved in the charges.

Since November 2010, Kwoyelo has been represented by private lawyer Caleb Alaka.

Though not one of the indicted five top commanders of LRA, Kwoyelo was captured by UPDF in battle and has since been treated as a prisoner of war.

The LRA top leadership is accused of crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court (ICC). And in 2005, it issued arrest warrant for its elusive leader Joseph Kony, Dominic Ogwen and Okot Odhiambo. Others Raska Lukwiya and Vincent Otti have since died.

Kwoyelo is the first member of the LRA to be in this situation and if found guilty, he will be sentenced to life imprisonment as per the Uganda’s Geneva Convention Act. It also provides a maximum penalty of 14 years imprisonment for the other crimes.

The impending trial has generated huge public interest in northern Uganda with mixed reaction about the trial. Gulu, where the trial will take place bears the brunt of the two-decade war.

 

Justice wanted
Mary Adibu, 61, who said she fell into a man hole while running from the LRA and broke a collar bone in Laliya, near Gulu town, says she wants to see justice done for the LRA victims.

“They should be tried because they made us suffer so much in their hands,” she said. Gulu district boss Martin Ojara Mapenduzi, said the trial should open the eyes of some LRA commanders and some senior figures in the government that they cannot commit crimes with impunity and get away with it.

He said this will help reassure the people of northern Uganda who want the perpetrators of the atrocities answer for their actions.

“I am very confident that the war crime division will do what is believed to be true justice and the people of northern Uganda are waiting to hear the outcome of this,” he said.

However, others like Lino Owor Ogora, the Team Leader Research Advocacy and Documentation at the Justice and Reconciliation Project in Gulu, Kwoyelo’s trial is selective.

“I think the war crime division really wanted to have a case on the ground because we are failing to understand why and how they arrived at Kwoyelo,” he said.

Some people Sunday Monitor talked to had little knowledge of Kwoyelo, compared to other LRA leaders like Onen Kamdulu and Kenneth Banya. Many insist that since he was following orders from his superiors, he should not be sacrificed for the ‘big fish’.

“I don’t think he is guilty because he was acting on orders from his bosses,” said a 50-year-old woman who refused to be named because she is a wife to a soldier.

LRA Victims like Ms Irene Laker argue that allowing the rebels to integrate into the community and engage in projects to help the people they maimed is more realistic.

Laker was hit by land mine planted by the LRA on her door steps.

She has an artificial right leg and she is one of the 268 members of land mine survivors association from Gulu, Amuru and Nwoya districts.

“I think they should just forgive him because for me, I am already lame and there is nothing he can do to bring back my legs,” said Ms Laker.

Critics of the trial have claimed that the fact that Kwoyelo has not been granted amnesty and is to be prosecuted is politically motivated, given that so many other LRA commanders have benefited from amnesty.


Off the hook
“For example, the former LRA high-ranking commanders Brig. Kenneth Banya and Brig. Sam Kolo Otto, as well as Lt Col. Opio Makasi, who served as the LRA director of operations, have all received amnesty under the act over the last several years. Several other LRA members who applied for amnesty were not prosecuted and instead joined the Ugandan army to fight the LRA,” said Human Rights Watch on its website.

HRW points that amnesties for crimes such as war crimes and crimes against humanity run counter to international law and practice, which rejects impunity for the gravest crimes. “International and hybrid international-national war crimes courts outside Uganda have rejected amnesties for serious crimes,” said the Rights body.

 

Who is Thomas Kwoyelo?

Thomas Kwoyelo is a former commander in the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), who is from Acut Cama village, Pabbo Sub-county in Amuru district.

His exact birth date is not known, but is he said to have been born between 1968 and 1972.

He went to Pawel Langeta Primary School but dropped out in primary four due to lack of school fees.

His peers describe him as a jolly person. Kwoyelos’s childhood friends fondly referred to as a scooter (a famous kind of motorcycle) because of his athletic abilities. He was also a passionate performer of a traditional dance called ayije. He was also a farmer and hunter.

Kwoyelo is said to have joined the Uganda Peoples Democratic Army rebels in the late 1980s. However, when the rebel outfit was disbanded, he returned home but was reportedly arrested by the National Resistance Army (now UPDF) at the age of 17 together with his two brothers after he was found in possession of a gun. He was jailed for three years in Luzira before he was released around 1990.

Little is known of how he joined the rebels. Kwoyelo held the rank of colonel in the LRA and commanded the Sinia Brigade.

Former abductees describe him a reserved man and say he largely kept to himself.

He was injured and captured in March 2009 in a battle with UPDF in DR Congo and flown into the country. Images of a frail man, on drip as he was helped out of the UPDF plane appeared on front pages of newspapers.

Lukodi Massacre Report Launch, 25 May 2011

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On Wednesday, 25th May 2011, a week after the annual Lukodi massacre memorial day, JRP held a community launch at Lukodi Market,  Lukodi village, Bungatira sub-county, Gulu district, for its latest report, The Lukodi Massacre: 19th May 2004.

The report reconstructs a narrative of the Lukodi massacre and the major events that unfolded on May 19, 2004. It came about as a response to community leaders in Lukodi asking for the documentation of their conflict experiences for purpose of acknowledgement and preserving memory. The report contains key recommendations to the Government of Uganda and other stakeholders, in line with the people of Lukodi — calling for reparations, the sharing of findings of the official investigation carried out after the massacre, and support for community initiatives, including a truth-telling process in which the community, the Government and LRA take part.

To read the full report, click here.

“Mukura compensation report disputed,” New Vision, 22 May 2011

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“Mukura compensation report disputed,” New Vision, 22 May 2011

http://www.newvision.co.ug/D/8/13/755418/mukura

By Pascal Kwesiga

FORMER Kumi district Woman MP Agnes Akiror has disputed a report by Justice and reconciliation project, a local non-governmental organisation, on the compensation of the 1989 mukura massacre victims.

Akiror described the report as false, saying it was aimed at maligning her name and President Yoweri Museveni who appointed her to deliver the compensation package.

“There should have been an element of truth telling since they are talking of justice and reconciliation. The report depicts the Government as insensitive to the victims,” she said.

The report, which was launched recently alleged that the second compensation last year was mishandled. It said out of the 47 survivors, six were compensated.

President Museveni gave Akiror sh200m as compensation to the victims during his visit to their families in 2010.

The move was part of efforts to heal the wounds left by the incident.

A total of 69 suspected rebels were suffocated to death in a train wagon by the government forces on July 11, 1989 a Mukura sub-county in Ngora district.

“The President has often apologised to us for the incident. When he gave me the money, he said it could not compensate the lost lives, but would help the victims,” Akiror said.

She produced a statement from Stanbic Bank, Kumi branch containing the list of 43 survivors, relatives and widows of the victims who received sh3m each. They received over sh127.5m.

Other documents show that 25 beneficiaries, who refused to be paid through the bank, appended their thumbprints and signatures after receiving the cash. A total of sh72.5m was spent on this category of beneficiaries.

Akiror said 15 people claimed compensation, saying they were traumatised after seeing the victims suffocating to death. They were given sh8.5m.

Five people, she added, received sh100,000 each after they claimed that they were tortured by soldiers during the incident.

Akiror also produced documents indicating that those who claimed to have been traumatised and tortured had been paid.

She attacked the authors of the report for questioning why the President came up with the initiative after several years.

JLOS/CSO Dialogue in Lira, 20 May 2011

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On Friday, May 20, 2011, the International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ), the Justice and Reconciliation Project (JRP), and the Uganda Victims Foundation (UVF), organized a one-day dialogue between representatives of the Justice, Law and Order Sector (JLOS) and civil society from northern Uganda. The event was held in Lira Town and was attended by 42 representatives, including His Worship Tadeo Asiimwe—Registrar of the War Crimes Division—and Ms. Rachel Odoi-Musoke—of the JLOS Secretariat.

The dialogue provided an opportunity for the two JLOS representatives to share updates and developments on TJ in Uganda, and more specifically the work of the JLOS Transitional Justice Working Group and the War Crimes Division (WCD), soon to be renamed the International Crimes Division (ICD). It also provided space for the various civil society representatives to ask questions and share comments on the processes involved and how these could impact their communities.

This event coincided with national community consultations by JLOS to gain perspectives on truth-seeking, traditional justice and reparations, and followed a consultative meeting organized by ICTJ and JRP on April 21st in Gulu with civil society on an outreach strategy for the WCD (report available upon request).

“Mukura victims poorly compensated- report,” New Vision, 19 May 2011

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“Mukura victims poorly compensated- report,” New Vision, 19 May 2011

http://www.newvision.co.ug/D/8/17/755202?highlight&q=In%20Memory%20of%20Mukura%20Victims

 

By Godfrey Ojore

A report by the justice and reconciliation project on the 1989 Mukura massacre has said compensation of relatives of the victims was poorly handled.

The report pinned former Kumi MP Jaff Akiror for excluding names of relatives who had missed out on the compensation package.

The report, compiled last year, said Akiror only paid six out of the 47 known survivors.

“This contradicts an article published in the media in January which said 88 families had been paid sh209m,” the report read in part.

The report was launched at Mukura Memorial Secondary School, which the Government built in memory of the victims.

“The President instructed the Attorney General to assess the damage and ensure full compensation to the victims and the families of the deceased. What then was Akiror’s role in the process,” the report questioned.

Lead researcher Lino Ongora said they were not happy with Akiror’s involvement because she did not conduct proper verification of the relatives of the deceased, resulting in many of them missing on the paying list.

However, Akiror rejected the report. “Did they show you bank statements indicating that I did not pay the relatives of the deceased? Didn’t they know that as an MP, I had a right to collect the money and distribute it?” she asked.

However, at the launch of the report, two old women, Tereza Amujal and Madelena Adongo who lost their sons, said they were not paid. “I was told the money was over. So I went back,” Adongo who lost her sons, John Olinga and Lawrence Oboi, said.

The Government has constructed a mass grave at the railway station where the incident occurred.
Kumi resident district commissioner Samuel Mpimbaza Hasaka received the report on behalf of the Government.

In 1989 during the insurgency in Teso region, soldiers rounded up people suspected to be rebels and herded them into a train wagon before setting fire beneath it.
About 69 people are said to have died due to suffocation.

He, however, pointed out that the report did not include the achievements done by the Government like erecting the monument, apology of the President to the people of Teso and constructing a secondary school.

“That was a stupid mistake by a few indisciplined army officers. It is regrettable and painful,” Hasaka said.

The report recommends government to bring to book the perpetrators of this horrendous act and finalise policy on reparation to provide clear guidelines for the victims of the past atrocities.

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.

About 69 people are said to have died due to suffocation in the wagon.