But the results of the assault were inconclusive, the only satisfaction being that the operation had actually come together as planned. Almost invariably in this mission, we’d been forced—by fuel deficits or bad weather or a thousand other variables—to change our plans. But this time, with the exception of the discarded rope, things had happened exactly as planned, confirming the efficacy of Colonel Kabango’s strategy and the soldiers’ execution of it.
We’d always thought that technology was the necessary and often missing ingredient in operations. Technology had sometimes given an advantage—helped put puzzle pieces together, or provided the confidence to take a risk. But the assault on Odhiambo’s group revealed once again that the biggest asset, the truest advantage, was the sweat, persistence, and determination of the Ugandan soldiers. With or without aerial surveillance footage, whether there was complete or patchy or faulty intelligence, the whole mission rested on the shoulders of a handful of skilled and hardworking men.
Then, that afternoon, we heard the LRA on the radio talking to one another. “Big man wounded,” someone said. Shortly after, Odhiambo’s call sign, Two Victor, was noticeably absent from the radio. It appeared that Odhiambo had been the man hit, but we didn’t know for sure; and if he had been hit, we didn’t know how severely.
* * *
—
A week later, we learned of an encounter between Odhiambo’s two bodyguards and another LRA group. Odhiambo wasn’t there, but his distinctive weapon was, the unusual rifle he’d taken from one of the Guatemalan peacekeepers who had been killed by the LRA many years ago. During the meeting his bodyguards began dispersing the captive women Odhiambo had considered his wives, deciding which new groups and commanders they would join. This didn’t prove that Odhiambo the Butcher was dead, but when a defector from Odhiambo’s group told us that Odhiambo had been shot in the stomach during the battle and taken away from his main group, the evidence strongly suggested that the Ugandan assault by the river had pulled our mission’s first International Criminal Court indictee from the field.
I felt no rejoicing at the news of Odhiambo’s probable death. But I did see a certain sense of justice in the fact that the man charged with three counts of crimes against humanity and seven counts of war crimes, who had led numerous massacres and commanded attacks against displaced-person camps, burning, shooting, and hacking innocents to death, was likely no longer perpetrating crimes, and I celebrated the triumphs of the many good people who had risked their lives to make the world safe from his violence. We couldn’t bring back the many whose lives Odhiambo had already destroyed. There was no redemption in his death. But he could do no more harm. We were one step closer to stopping the top leadership and preventing the cycle of destruction from repeating.
* * *
—
The Ugandan military couldn’t announce that Odhiambo had been removed from the field unless they had hard evidence. It had been rumored once years ago that Odhiambo had been killed in battle, and we couldn’t risk perpetuating false information.
One afternoon, a team of Ugandans stood in a wet stretch of forest. They could hear the rush of the river through the trees. They’d returned to the site of the battle to see if they could find any signs of Odhiambo’s body or grave. By then the fight was more than a week old. Their boots sank in the mud, spent cartridges sometimes visible in the water that pooled in the holes left by their footprints.
They had no idea how far the wounded Odhiambo had run, or in which direction, if he’d been carried or if he’d fled on his own two feet. And even if they’d known where to start looking, the rain had already washed away the trail.
We had to settle for a silent and inconclusive victory. Back at the forward base in Djemah, Laren opened a box of red flyers—US military bounty flyers, picturing Odhiambo, Ongwen, and Kony, the last three remaining ICC indictees—and took one into his tent. He crossed out Odhiambo’s picture with a black Sharpie.
* * *
—
Eighteen months later, the International Criminal Court contacted us, asking if we could prove that Odhiambo was dead so they could release his indictment. We shared with them what we knew, and that no body had been recovered. To do so would mean hiring expensive cadaver dogs—it would cost at least two hundred thousand dollars—to try to discover where Odhiambo was buried. I balked at spending the money on something that didn’t directly help people living in the conflict zone, especially when finding his grave seemed like such a long shot. Before I could decide what to do, an LRA soldier walked out of the bush and defected near Obo. He happened to be one of Odhiambo’s former bodyguards—one of the men who had buried Odhiambo.
But when he took Laren and some Ugandan troops to the gravesite—much farther from the battle site than we would have guessed—the grave was indiscernible. Odhiambo had been buried in the wet season, and now it was dry and the forest looked completely different. There was nothing to do but start digging holes and hope that they’d get lucky. They dug and dug most of a day. Finally, one of the Ugandan soldiers called out—he’d struck what looked like a piece of blue tarpaulin, the same color of the tarp in which Odhiambo had been buried. They finished opening the grave and loaded the remains into the helo so they could be flown to Kampala for DNA testing. Within a few months, we were able to go public with the news that Odhiambo “the Butcher” was dead.
HISTORY CHECKS IN
David Ocitti
DAVID HAD RECENTLY come home to Uganda after his last roadie tour when he heard that his former LRA commander was dead. Images flashed up—Odhiambo’s strong face and intimidating eyes, the feel of the panga handle still warm from his thick hands. David tossed and turned in bed that night, his sleep disturbed by the old, bad dreams.
David had shared his story countless times, but he had never named Odhiambo as his commander, never said that Odhiambo was the one who had ordered the attack on Pabbo the night he was abducted and his father killed, the one who commanded him to take the panga and kill his friend. David would never forget the fire in Odhiambo’s eyes as he raised a blade above an innocent’s head. Thinking of Odhiambo, it was hard not to open the way for blame and anger. But he didn’t want to live in that storm. It has already happened, he told himself. That was the thing about history. You couldn’t undo it. You could only learn to coexist with it. And once in a while history checked up on you, as if to ask, “Hey, how’s it going?”
In his heart, if he could choose, he would have had Odhiambo taken out alive. He would have had him face justice and be accountable to everybody for all the people he had captured and indoctrinated and killed. Sometimes David even imagined testifying at Odhiambo’s trial, accusing him for all the world to see.
But Odhiambo was dead. And there was justice, too, in this. And hope that soon he would live in a world where there was no more LRA.
48
BLUE-EYED ACHOLI
IN EARLY DECEMBER 2013, about two months after Odhiambo was shot, a hunter near Zemio, a village in the Central African Republic, along the border with Congo, bumped into a group of rebels traveling in the forest. When he realized the rebels were LRA, the hunter tried to run away, but they called out to him in Swahili, saying they wanted to surrender. They gave him a note to deliver to the Ugandan army. It was from an LRA group subcommander. He said his group was ready to defect, and asked for villagers’ help in escorting them to safety.
Locals, fearing for their lives, on rare occasions had killed defectors, so it wasn’t surprising that an LRA group would ask in advance for civilians to help escort them to a safe surrender point. But so, too, had LRA groups used surrender notes as a strategy to kill community members. People living in major defection points had been alerted to bring such surrender notes to the attention of the Ugandan military stationed in the area. The army was trained to investigate and differentiate between an authentic surrender note and a ruse.
This
time, the note wasn’t a fake. With the assistance of local villagers, a remarkably blue-eyed LRA commander and his subcommander led their group of nineteen men, women, and children out of the bush in one day. Everyone in the group made it out, not a single person injured. It was one of the largest groups to have ever escaped the LRA.
* * *
—
The commander of the group was known as Lieutenant Colonel Okello Okuti, one of the most notorious brigade commanders to have operated in the Pader District of Uganda, and one of Kony’s most trusted commanders. But unbeknownst to Kony, he had been considering leaving the LRA for a long time. In mid-2006, when the Juba peace talks had been initiated, in order to encourage a positive LRA response and outcome to the negotiations, the LRA was given a safe passage to move through to southern Sudan. During this period, Okuti had met some Ugandan military leaders and discussed the prospect of defection. But at that time Okuti enjoyed Kony’s absolute trust and the consequent privileges of it, and he saw no need or opportunity to defect.
By early 2013, however, Okuti and Kony had suffered a falling-out. Kony had demoted Okuti two ranks, from brigadier general down to colonel, and had begun talking ill of Okuti during his speeches, using him as a case study of a good commander gone rotten. Kony even spoke of his intention to execute Okuti, and probably would have already acted on it if not for the geographic distance separating them.
Okuti had heard aerial loudspeaker messages and had also found and studied defection flyers. In addition, commanders in Okuti’s group typically gathered around a handheld radio once a week to hear the come-home radio program Invisible Children broadcast over shortwave radio every Thursday at 10 p.m. It was a way to receive news from home and from defectors who had recently escaped. Although as a rule lower-level fighters and captive women could not listen to the radio, some were able to pass near to where the commanders were gathered in order to listen, and even to share what they heard with the rest of the group.
As a commander, Okuti heard the come-home messages firsthand. One night, after listening, Okuti had gone to his subcommander and said, “I’m tired of this. I want to go home.” Kony always put a loyal soldier in the position of second in command. If the commander tried to escape, the second in command was supposed to kill him. Okuti expected his subcommander to execute him. But instead, the subcommander had said, “If you go, I’ll go with you.” They agreed to surrender together, to leave the bush with their entire group.
No LRA commander had ever before risked a mass defection. Once his group was safely at the Ugandan military camp, women smiled, children tried on new pairs of flip-flops, boys traded their camouflage fatigues for khaki trousers or loosely fitting black pants. And when he was finally home in Uganda, Okuti sat in a bright red button-up shirt and recorded a message: “We heard our brothers who previously escaped on the radio. Then we also got the defection flyers. To those who are still back in the bush: I reached safety and I am well. Nothing bad has happened to me. Each and every one of you should think about the value of your life and come back home.”
FIVE-PIECE SUIT
David Ocitti
THE SPARKLING GUITAR lines and upbeat bass and horn riffs of Lucky Bosmic, one of northern Uganda’s most popular musicians, blasted through the open stalls of Gulu market. David wove past the fresh produce carefully stacked on low tables and blankets. He had returned to Gulu to finish his studies and was still adjusting to the heat and pulse of home. He turned a corner, past appealing stacks of tomatoes, peppers, bananas, and carrots, and was surprised to see a blond head bobbing through the crowd. As the mzungu approached, David was even more surprised to discover that he recognized him—it was Adam, whom he’d first met in 2011 during his work with Invisible Children. They had become friends over time, and now they were meeting by chance. Adam was moving fast, running from one stall to the next, carrying armloads of clothing and supplies.
“What are you doing?” David asked as they gave each other a hug around the bundle of goods in Adam’s arms. “Can I help?”
Adam explained that he was gathering supplies for LRA returnees who had recently flown home to Uganda from the Central African Republic, where they’d defected en masse. It was Okuti’s group—who became known as “The Zemio 19.” They were staying in a government transit center where they would wait for their amnesty certificates to be processed, and try to find their families. Four more recent defectors, including Kony’s nephew, were due to arrive in Gulu the next day.
“You’re helping bring my brothers and sisters home,” David said. “Let me help you welcome them.”
* * *
—
The next morning, David was there on the landing strip in Gulu, the first person in northern Uganda to greet the newest returnees as their feet touched native soil. As the returnees carefully stepped down from the Cessna Caravan, David recognized the emotions on their faces: relief, apprehension, uncertainty. He remembered his surreal trek through Pabbo, looking for his mother, the way strangers had recoiled from his appearance, their suspicion and distance, and the crushing disappointment and fear when he discovered that his mother no longer lived there, when he’d had to face the possibility—the likelihood—that she was no longer living at all. And he’d only been away for six months. Those returning home now had been gone for years, maybe even decades. The child among them, Kony’s nephew, a boy about six years old, had been born in captivity. He knew no other life.
David greeted each person in turn. “Apwoyo,” he said. “Apwoyo dwogo gang.” Thank you for returning home.
David accompanied the group to the government-run transit holding center, a dingy and unwelcoming concrete structure where they would stay while arrangements were made for them to go home to their villages. He made sure each returnee had a bed and blankets, a toothbrush, and other basic necessities. Over the next few days and weeks, he would help them contact their families, a process that could be lengthy and difficult. Many LRA soldiers and captives had been abducted as young children and had spent decades in the bush. They didn’t really know where home was. They would remember the name of their village, and recall a few landmarks, but they didn’t know how to get there. And they had no idea if home would be at all recognizable even if they managed to return. Was anyone they’d known as a child still alive? Would they be remembered? Leaving the LRA was just the first hurdle to claiming a new life.
A few days later, he accompanied them to Gulu market to get shoes and pick out civilian clothes—each person selected two complete outfits. The group would stay while arrangements were made for them to go home to their villages.
At Gulu market, the group wound their way to the tables and blankets stacked with clothes and the stalls lined with bolts of fabric and tailored dresses, where vendors sat at sewing machines, making African print shirts and dresses. As they sifted through piles of jeans, T-shirts, blazers, and blouses, the returnees began to smile. They pressed shirts against their chests, testing for length. Kony’s young nephew chose a gray five-piece suit and shiny dress shoes. He insisted on taking off his shredded clothes right there in the market and wearing his new suit back to the transit center.
49
LET YOUR HEART SPEAK TO YOU
THE FIRST MASS defection involving LRA commanders was a huge victory. We were now seeing proof that the LRA could indeed be dismantled from the inside out. Odhiambo had been the commander in the LRA who moved between LRA groups, enforcing Kony’s orders, and instilling fear in the rebels, ensuring they would not try to escape. In his absence, and knowing that Kony’s enforcer was no longer on the battlefield and unable to come after them, people in the LRA were able to dream of leaving. We kept our strategy of pursuing the LRA day and night while simultaneously ramping up defection messaging.
And we began to address some of the gaps in our strategy that Okuti’s group revealed. Yet again in this unlikely mission, the gaps became opportunities to di
scover unprecedented resources, alliances, and superpowers. This time, they came in the form of passionate local leader David Ocitti. I learned through Adam of David’s incredible journey from LRA captive to activist and peacemaker and was again humbled and inspired by the power of individuals to respond to injustice and effect change.
One afternoon, shortly after Okuti’s group had returned to Uganda, David and Adam held a meeting with Okuti and several other recent LRA defectors. They sat in a circle on folding chairs in a dark room in the government transit center. Okuti’s expression changed frequently as he talked about his group’s escape and their future—grinning one moment, lips parted in a smile that showed his bright teeth, and studious the next, his mouth drawn tight, brow furrowed.
International funding for rehabilitation had long dried up in Uganda, and the government was not investing enough resources either. The transit center was in terrible shape. They lacked basic supplies, the latrines were overflowing, conditions unsanitary. Returnees’ stays were intended to be brief, but they often stretched to months. With a lack of personnel and funds, the family tracing and amnesty processes took a long time. David had visited the Amnesty Commission’s office to learn why the amnesty process was dragging on, and found that the run-down office was locked, the windows dark. No one was there. The commission was so under-resourced that there was no money to pay the employees or process the certificates. Although the law still mandated the commission, they were unable to operate.
To Stop a Warlord Page 24
