All Join Hands: Uganda
How Uganda's anguish evolved - and why it endures
Northern Uganda - These are the moments children and young adults in the war zone of northern Uganda mark as milestones.
Alex Ocen was abducted in 1997, the same day rebels from a group called the Lord's Resistance Army attacked his village and slaughtered his sister. The next year, at age 17, he killed for the first time.
"I prayed from my heart that God forgive me," he said.
Susan Innocent Ejang was 14 when the Lord's Resistance Army, also known as the LRA, took her eight years ago.
Now 22, she is at last free, though she gave birth after commanders raped her. And she finally has confirmed the rumor she heard in captivity: Her beloved father died while searching for her.
A 19-year civil war has pitted government forces against the rebel LRA, which is known for its ghoulish tactics, aimless marching and vague goals. The war has displaced up to 1.6 million people, more than 80 percent of the population of Gulu, Kitgum and Pader districts.
They live in camps with too little food and bad sanitation. Attacks against them continue, even though the government promised northerners it would protect them there.
The United Nations estimates that at least 28,000 children have been abducted during the war by the LRA, led by a mystic named Joseph Kony.
Two of the north's largest reception centers for abducted children have registered 18,000 children who have returned, according to UNICEF. That leaves a minimum of 10,000 others who are unaccounted for.
The fighting is not a simple case of one tribe against another, though that is how it began.
The Acholis, who live in the north, had dominated the Ugandan military since independence in 1962. Tito Okello became the first Acholi president in 1985, but Yoweri Museveni overthrew him the following year. Museveni's family is from western Uganda; his father was from the Banyankole tribe and his mother from the Banyarwanda.
Besides resenting the loss of power, Acholis feared Museveni would take revenge for atrocities they had committed in the military. So a number of Acholi rebel groups emerged to challenge Museveni after his guerrilla forces won Kampala. Kony's is the last one fighting.
At first, Kony targeted government soldiers. But when Acholis rejected him, Kony turned on his own people. He would purify them through violence, according to the Refugee Law Project in Uganda.
Kony, believed to be in his 40s, fills his ranks by kidnapping boys and forcing them to become killers. They loot and burn villages and abduct more children.
He teaches his troops to show no mercy to those he suspects of working with the government: Cutting off children's lips is common.
Abducted girls usually become soldiers, porters and sex slaves for Kony and his commanders.
Children who have been stolen from their homes, repeatedly raped or forced to kill return with deep psychological wounds.
Michael D. Oruni is the codirector of World Vision's Children of War Rehabilitation Project in Gulu. The project's center helps children who have come back from the bush. First, they get medical treatment, then counseling.
They barely talk when they arrive. They give phony names; rebels have told them that anyone outside the LRA is an enemy.
Some kids are withdrawn, moody and aggressive. Others act as if nothing is wrong. But their drawings reveal what they've been through.
After a few weeks, Oruni says, "They begin to break down. They say, 'I did A, B, C.' Then they can begin to heal. "
About 30 parents daily visit the center, for information about missing children or to reunite with their own. Counselors help them cope with seeing a son with an amputated limb or a daughter cradling a baby. Accepting these grandchildren can be hard.
"I think girls have more problems" when they come back, said Edward Sembidde program coordinator of Save the Children's Children Affected by Conflict Disaster in northern Uganda.
"They are victimized twice, by being defiled and raped in the bush and then suffering that stigma when they return. That's where you find a lot more issues of coping," Sembidde said.
The war has created multiple layers of suffering.
When the children finally are sent home, it is often to squalid, insecure camps where their families now live.
The government does not provide food to the camps, relying instead upon the World Food Program, which does not provide all of the minimum human dietary requirement of 2,100 kilocalories per person per day. But growing vegetables and fruits outside the camps to augment that ration is dangerous, and malnutrition is a leading cause of death in the north.
Why has this war - seemingly so solvable compared with other global conflicts - gone on for nearly two decades? What keeps it from being resolved?
One theory holds that the conflict is really three wars, not one: between Kony's LRA and the Ugandan Army; between the Acholis and the rest of the country; and among the Acholis themselves.
"If one war ends, the others are still there," UNICEF's Martin Mogwanja said. "So it hasn't been the same war all along. "
Until 2002, Sudan played a huge role in fueling the violence. Angry that Museveni had supported a Sudanese rebel group, it gave Kony supplies and a safe haven in its south. Since March 2002, Sudan has allowed the Ugandan military into its territory to chase the LRA.
Other explanations blame the war's longevity on Museveni. The president, who can claim success in Uganda's growing economy, presides over a country that has never had a peaceful transition of power. He undercuts multiparty politics and wants to change the constitution so he can run for a third term.
Critics believe Museveni doesn't mind instability in a part of the country that opposes him.
"Nobody in his right mind would think that's a serious statement," says Nsaba Buturo, Ugandan minister of state for information and broadcasting. "He wants to see peace under his leadership. "
Certainly, Kony is adept at mixing Acholi political grievances, his people's belief in spirits, and a strategy of unrepentant violence to sustain his rebellion, even though he cannot win.
It is the senselessness of his cause - along with his brutality - that lead many people to claim he is insane.
Mediator Joyce Neu, who met him in 2000, disagrees.
Instead of a wild-eyed rebel, she met a soft-spoken, subdued man. He was dressed in a crisp, baby-blue shirt and gray slacks, she recalled, and "looked like anybody off the street."
Contact Carolyn Davis at 215-854-4214 or cdavis@phillynews.com.
Alex Ocen was abducted in 1997, the same day rebels from a group called the Lord's Resistance Army attacked his village and slaughtered his sister. The next year, at age 17, he killed for the first time.
"I prayed from my heart that God forgive me," he said.
Susan Innocent Ejang was 14 when the Lord's Resistance Army, also known as the LRA, took her eight years ago.
Now 22, she is at last free, though she gave birth after commanders raped her. And she finally has confirmed the rumor she heard in captivity: Her beloved father died while searching for her.
A 19-year civil war has pitted government forces against the rebel LRA, which is known for its ghoulish tactics, aimless marching and vague goals. The war has displaced up to 1.6 million people, more than 80 percent of the population of Gulu, Kitgum and Pader districts.
They live in camps with too little food and bad sanitation. Attacks against them continue, even though the government promised northerners it would protect them there.
The United Nations estimates that at least 28,000 children have been abducted during the war by the LRA, led by a mystic named Joseph Kony.
Two of the north's largest reception centers for abducted children have registered 18,000 children who have returned, according to UNICEF. That leaves a minimum of 10,000 others who are unaccounted for.
The fighting is not a simple case of one tribe against another, though that is how it began.
The Acholis, who live in the north, had dominated the Ugandan military since independence in 1962. Tito Okello became the first Acholi president in 1985, but Yoweri Museveni overthrew him the following year. Museveni's family is from western Uganda; his father was from the Banyankole tribe and his mother from the Banyarwanda.
Besides resenting the loss of power, Acholis feared Museveni would take revenge for atrocities they had committed in the military. So a number of Acholi rebel groups emerged to challenge Museveni after his guerrilla forces won Kampala. Kony's is the last one fighting.
At first, Kony targeted government soldiers. But when Acholis rejected him, Kony turned on his own people. He would purify them through violence, according to the Refugee Law Project in Uganda.
Kony, believed to be in his 40s, fills his ranks by kidnapping boys and forcing them to become killers. They loot and burn villages and abduct more children.
He teaches his troops to show no mercy to those he suspects of working with the government: Cutting off children's lips is common.
Abducted girls usually become soldiers, porters and sex slaves for Kony and his commanders.
Children who have been stolen from their homes, repeatedly raped or forced to kill return with deep psychological wounds.
Michael D. Oruni is the codirector of World Vision's Children of War Rehabilitation Project in Gulu. The project's center helps children who have come back from the bush. First, they get medical treatment, then counseling.
They barely talk when they arrive. They give phony names; rebels have told them that anyone outside the LRA is an enemy.
Some kids are withdrawn, moody and aggressive. Others act as if nothing is wrong. But their drawings reveal what they've been through.
After a few weeks, Oruni says, "They begin to break down. They say, 'I did A, B, C.' Then they can begin to heal. "
About 30 parents daily visit the center, for information about missing children or to reunite with their own. Counselors help them cope with seeing a son with an amputated limb or a daughter cradling a baby. Accepting these grandchildren can be hard.
"I think girls have more problems" when they come back, said Edward Sembidde program coordinator of Save the Children's Children Affected by Conflict Disaster in northern Uganda.
"They are victimized twice, by being defiled and raped in the bush and then suffering that stigma when they return. That's where you find a lot more issues of coping," Sembidde said.
The war has created multiple layers of suffering.
When the children finally are sent home, it is often to squalid, insecure camps where their families now live.
The government does not provide food to the camps, relying instead upon the World Food Program, which does not provide all of the minimum human dietary requirement of 2,100 kilocalories per person per day. But growing vegetables and fruits outside the camps to augment that ration is dangerous, and malnutrition is a leading cause of death in the north.
Why has this war - seemingly so solvable compared with other global conflicts - gone on for nearly two decades? What keeps it from being resolved?
One theory holds that the conflict is really three wars, not one: between Kony's LRA and the Ugandan Army; between the Acholis and the rest of the country; and among the Acholis themselves.
"If one war ends, the others are still there," UNICEF's Martin Mogwanja said. "So it hasn't been the same war all along. "
Until 2002, Sudan played a huge role in fueling the violence. Angry that Museveni had supported a Sudanese rebel group, it gave Kony supplies and a safe haven in its south. Since March 2002, Sudan has allowed the Ugandan military into its territory to chase the LRA.
Other explanations blame the war's longevity on Museveni. The president, who can claim success in Uganda's growing economy, presides over a country that has never had a peaceful transition of power. He undercuts multiparty politics and wants to change the constitution so he can run for a third term.
Critics believe Museveni doesn't mind instability in a part of the country that opposes him.
"Nobody in his right mind would think that's a serious statement," says Nsaba Buturo, Ugandan minister of state for information and broadcasting. "He wants to see peace under his leadership. "
Certainly, Kony is adept at mixing Acholi political grievances, his people's belief in spirits, and a strategy of unrepentant violence to sustain his rebellion, even though he cannot win.
It is the senselessness of his cause - along with his brutality - that lead many people to claim he is insane.
Mediator Joyce Neu, who met him in 2000, disagrees.
Instead of a wild-eyed rebel, she met a soft-spoken, subdued man. He was dressed in a crisp, baby-blue shirt and gray slacks, she recalled, and "looked like anybody off the street."
Contact Carolyn Davis at 215-854-4214 or cdavis@phillynews.com.
