Child to Soldier: Stories from Joseph Kony's Lord's Resistance Army

by Opiyo Oloya

  For the Acholi, there also were other considerations. As discussed earlier, the Acholi viewed the NRM/A as luloka, foreigners who were about to breach the very boundary of the Acholi’s ethnocultural identity as defenders of the homestead. This fear was rooted in the colo- nial project that classified and highlighted cultural differences rather than similarities, thereby fragmenting Uganda’s indigenous people into ‘bantu,’ ‘nilotes,’ ‘hamitics,’ and so forth (Oliver, 1986). The NRM/A consisted mostly of fighters from south-central and western Uganda who were perceived as the enemies of the Acholi, and, consequently, they were met with intolerance, suspicion, and outright hostility. This made the war different from Sierra Leone’s deadly civil war (1991–8), which pitted the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) against the Sierra Leone army in a struggle for control of diamond fields (see Abdullah, 2004; Richards, 1996; Rosen, 2005, 81–5) and the sale of ‘blood diamonds’ (Roberts, 2003, 218), or Liberia’s war (1989–97), fought between the rebel National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) and the Armed Forces of Liberia (AFL) over control of the country’s rich mineral fields and timber resources (see Adebajo, 2002; Sayndee, 2008). In the case of northern Uganda, notwithstanding continuing Acholi suspicion that the Museveni government wanted to take away their land, the war was not over resources but over dominating, and not being dominated by, other ethnicities.

  As Robert Gersony (1997) aptly observes, ‘many Acholi shared a collective identity as proud and able professional soldiers in the Colonial and post-Independence uniformed services. This included the long-held view that Acholis do not surrender, especially in their home areas, and to some degree that “only Acholis should rule in Acholi”’ (15). This attitude would harden over the next several months as the successful NRM/A, with growing ruthlessness, extended and established control over the Acholi region.

  The Cultural Devastation of Acholi

  At first, as the NRM/A took control of the entire Acholi area in February and March 1986, there appeared to be no persecution of the Acholi population by the victorious NRM/A soldiers. Reporting to the U.S. government, Gersony (1997) noted that the NRM/A ‘conducted itself in an exemplary and restrained manner in the first few months’ (14). But this was only temporary, according to C. Keitesi (2004), a former CI soldier who served with the NRM/A in northern Uganda. In her autobiography, Keitesi notes that the Acholi had good reason to be afraid of the new army. Recalling her first few months in northern Uganda as part of the advancing NRM/A, she writes: ‘Many Acholi people were considered rebels, and even if some of us knew that they were not, we still looked at them as one. The hate we had for Obote, the former Uganda president, never changed, and the Acholi seemed to be paying the price. Drago’s second-in-command spoke Kinyankole, and he took everything personal. To him every Acholi was a rebel, and they deserved nothing but death. Every time we captured an Acholi, we had to kill them, and Drago hated this’ (204).

  In time, the Acholi began believing that the era of the NRM/A was worse than Idi Amin’s eight-year dictatorship (Finnstrom, 2008). When interviewed by Human Rights Watch (1997), Paulino Nyeko, my former principal at Sir Samuel Baker Secondary School in Gulu, painted a grim picture of NRM/A violence:

  National Resistance Army soldiers would do all they could to make things difficult here (in Gulu and Kitgum). They would defecate in water supplies, and in the mouth of slaughtered animals. They would tie people’s hands behind their backs so tightly that people would be left paralyzed. They went into villages and took guns by force. They looted Acholi cattle and did nothing to prevent [cattle raiders from Karamajong district] from stealing the rest. Over three million heads of cattle were soon lost, and it made the people embittered. (Human Rights Watch, 1997, 63–4)

  Meanwhile, reports of civilian deaths began to surface in the months after the NRM/A established control in the two Acholi districts of Gulu and Kitgum. A pattern of brutal extrajudicial killings was set by the NRA’s 35th Battalion, stationed in the Namukora area in Kitgum (Gersony, 1997). In one incident, on 16 August 1986, NRM/A soldiers burned down over 100 homes and arrested 44 men and one woman in villages around Namukora. The unarmed detainees were placed on the back of a truck while armed NRM/A soldiers followed in a pick-up truck commandeered from the Catholic mission nearby. A short time later, all the men and woman were shot dead. According to the NRM/A, the prisoners had attempted to escape. But Amnesty International (AI) reports on Uganda for 1990, 1991, 1992, and 1999 detail many similar killings by the NRM/A. For example, on 18 August 1986, the 13th NRM/A battalion, based at Akilok, killed eighteen unarmed civilians, some of whom had been burnt alive in their homes; and on 20 September 1986 the 7th NRM/A battalion, located at Oryang, in the Labongo region, killed twenty-two unarmed civilians. The intensification of atrocities against unarmed and defenceless Acholi civilians went far beyond what the government designated euphemistically as ‘mopping operations’ or ‘pacification of the north.’

  The NRM/A killing of civilians became more frequent over the next several months, with reports implicating other battalions. A July 2001 report by Isis-Women’s International Cross Cultural Exchange (Isis-WICCE) quoted an Acholi informant who referred to ‘killing of civilians some of whom were buried in latrines and mass graves or burnt alive in their grass-thatched huts as in Pabo, Opidi, Anaka, Ongako, Pagoro sub-counties; and suffocating prisoners in pits dug in the ground as in Burcoro and Palenga sub-counties’ (24). The Bur Coro incident gained notoriety as much for the fact that innocent civilians were killed as for the manner in which they were killed. Though the actual number of victims is disputed, with some reports putting the figure at ‘scores’ (Adyanga, 2006; Onyango-Obbo, 1997), another at three (Dolan, 2000, 2), and still another at ‘hundreds’ (Curtus, 2005), what is certain is that many civilians were rounded up by NRM/A soldiers in a place called Bur Coro. The unarmed civilians were forced into a large pit dug into the earth. The top of the pit was then covered with soil and grass, which was then set on fire. In another version, pepper was set on fire and the bitter smoke piped into the covered pit (Onyango-Obbo, 1997). Victims screaming with terror slowly suffocated from smoke and heat. Such sadistic and, for the Acholi, humiliating deaths became ever more common, confirming Acholi suspicion that the NRM/A was bent on revenging the killings in Luwero which had been attributed to Acholi soldiers serving in Obote’s UNLA.

  Some elements within the NRM/A, meanwhile, further victimized the civilian population through rape. As an act of intimidation, rape has a long and well-documented historical association with war (see Brownmiller, 1975; Chang, 1997; Nikoli´c-Ristanovi´c, 2000; Sanders, 1980). This violent physical act has far-reaching psychological consequences not only for the victims but also for those who witness it. In the context of war, rape is directed at ‘all women who belong to other men’ (Brownmiller, 1994, 81). Rape, usually of a woman, is a severe cultural taboo among the Acholi, and the perpetrator is treated with severe sanctions (Liu Institute for Global Issues and the Gulu Justice Forum, 2006). But in northern Uganda, rape became a way for the rogue groups within the NRM/A to show how powerless the Acholi men were in protecting themselves and their womenfolk. In the early months of its conquest of Acholiland, some soldiers within the NRM/A began to rape both men and women, which to the Acholi would have amounted to excruciating cultural and psychological abuse. Representative of the numerous reports of rape emanating from all over Acholiland in the period from 1986 to 1988 was the testimony of a victim named Sabina, as reported by O. Bennett, J. Bexley and K. Warnock (1995): ‘The [worst thing about] the NRA soldiers was having forced sex with women one after the other. Men and women were collected during what they called a “screening exercise to flush” out the rebels from the community. The men and women were then put in separate groups. Then in the evening, the NRA soldiers started fucking the women in the compound. One woman could be fucked by up to six men; and this went on for three days’ (99).

  The rape of a man in front of other men and family had no cultural desc
ription or name among the Acholi because of its outrageous and alien nature. To describe the brutality of rape orchestrated by the NRM/A on Acholi men in villages in places like Alero, Amuru, and Guruguru, the Acholi developed the phrase tek gungu (as soon as one kneels one is raped from behind) (Dolan, 2002, 74; Dolan, 2009; Finnstrom, 2003). The phrase could also be translated as ‘the pain of kneeling’ or ‘the difficulty with kneeling’ and interpreted to mean that the simple act of gungu (kneeling) is associated with immediate severe pain. In any case, it telegraphed the cultural humiliation and degradation that Acholi men, culturally seen as the protectors of their families, were now subjected to by the NRM/A. Some men were reported to have committed suicide after such rapes (Bennett, Bexley, & Warnock, 1995).

  The increase of HIV/AIDS, likely because of the deteriorating conditions of war, was viewed as suspicious by the Acholi, with some accusing the regime of Yoweri Museveni of deliberately sending HIV/AIDS- afflicted soldiers to infect the population with the deadly virus as part of an extermination program (Finnstrom, 2008). This notion of an HIV/AIDS pogrom was given further credence when various reports indicated that the rate of HIV/AIDS infection in Acholi was higher than elsewhere in Uganda (Fabiani et al., 2007; Muleme, 2004; Spiegel & Harroff-Tavel, 2006).

  The war’s greatest impact, however, resulted from the widespread looting of foodstuff, especially livestock, by NRM/A soldiers, Karimojong raiders, local militia groups, and others. Livestock had always been an integral part of Acholi culture, used to determine wealth, social status, and personal worth. So important was livestock to the Acholi that money earned from wages was translated into what the Acholi called lim ma kwo (living wealth) (Girling, 1960; Finnstrom, 2008). A person could be very rich with money saved in the bank, but if he did not have lim makwo he was considered poor. The wealthy household possessed several head of cattle, which served as a ‘store of wealth’ (Leggett, 2001, 28) for hard times such as drought, for paying school fees, for daily sustenance, and for ploughing the field in the rainy season. But, most important, cattle were used for meeting the Acholi customary obligation of paying dowry.

  The centrality of livestock in Acholi culture was idealized by Acholi poet Okot p’Bitek in Song of Lawino. The protagonist Lawino reminds her estranged husband about her worth in dowry before he married her, saying:

  And my brothers called me Nya-Dyang

  For my breasts shook

  And beckoned the cattle

  And they sang silently:

  Father prepare the kraal

  Father prepare the kraal

  The cattle are coming

  (44)

  During the first year of NRM/A’s entry into Acholiland, there were an estimated 300,000 to 1,000,000 heads of cattle. Gersony (1997) observes that ‘the area possessed large herds of cattle, goats, sheep and other livestock and the potential for almost 100 percent on-farm employment’ (18). Within a very short time, as I. Leggett (2001) puts it, ‘the productive base of the Acholi rural economy was removed wholesale’ (28). Leggett blames the Karimojong cattle rustlers for the unprecedented loss of livestock. Gersony, for his part, spreads the blame evenly among owners who pre-emptively liquidated part of their herd, provided livestock to the anti-NRM/A Uganda People’s Democratic Army (UPDA), or lost cattle to NRM/A, while also noting the role of diseases like rinderpest and pneumonia. The Acholi, however, were very clear about who was responsible for the devastation of the livestock herd. Reports emanating from the villages indicted the NRM/A soldiers as the primary looters of livestock and other property from Acholi villages in 1986 and 1987 (Dolan, 2000). Later, in 1987 and 1988, Karimojong warriors from northeastern Uganda appeared to take advantage of the insecurity in Acholiland and began rustling cattle in large numbers (Dolan, 2000).

  Without exaggeration, the cultural devastation arising from the decimation of the livestock was felt immediately and for a long time afterwards in Acholiland. According to C. Dolan (2000), ‘the toll on the economic and social fabric had already begun to be felt. Dowries began to be given in the form of cash rather than cattle due to the extensive rustling of 87/88’ (10). Dolan also recorded stories of suicides due to the loss of cattle: one respondent reported that such loss of property pushed a close family member to take his own life, stating, ‘My brother drowned himself after NRA took 100 cattle.’ The incredible devastation suffered by the Acholi was summed up by Acholi Bishop Macleod Baker Ochola II of Kitgum Diocese when he said, ‘Amin’s terror affected the military, the civil servants, but it did not really affect ordinary people. That’s the difference with this government – our cattle, granaries and houses. The cattle rustling of the Karimojong was the first step in a process that has left the Acholi people deep in the pit of poverty’ (as quoted in Leggett, 2001, 29).

  In deciding whether or not to fight back, the Acholi faced the same dilemma that other ethnicities in central and western Uganda had previously confronted in the face of the extreme violence perpetrated the by the Uganda National Liberation Army during the regimes of Milton Obote and General Tito Lutwa Okello. The first resistance against the NRM/A was a haphazard grass-roots defence of the homestead that spanned many ethnicities, with an illiterate Acholi woman leading the fight. The second insurgency targeted the Acholi as much as other ethnicities in its ruthless quest for power and control in northern Uganda. The latter insurgency became known to the world as the Lord’s Resistance Army.

  The Rise of the Holy Spirit Movement

  From an Acholi perspective, the arrival of the NRM/A could be likened, metaphorically speaking, to Obibi penetrating the defence erected around the village by the young warriors and then entering the village itself. The only question worth considering at the time, given the Acholi tradition of gwooko dog paco, was whether the brave warriors should fight such a powerful foe or simply give up to avoid further casualties. Following the defeat of the Tito Okello government in January 1986, the Acholi saw the prevailing wind of change in apocalyptic terms, as signifying nothing less than their impending extinction. In the initial phases of the NRM/A invasion of Acholiland, uprisings against the unfolding calamity were restricted to the former members of the Uganda National Liberation Army. When these failed, the Uganda People’s Democratic Army, a resistance force, was founded in May 1986 in Juba, southern Sudan. It was comprised mainly of former professional soldiers loyal to Bazilio Okello, who conducted a classical guerrilla war against the NRM/A. Despite some limited successes, the UPDA collapsed owing to indiscipline and low morale among the troops (Behrend, 1999).

  The instinctual response for self-preservation, I contend, was a critical factor for the grass-roots uprising led by Alice Auma Abongowat Lakwena that began in August 1986. Although disguised with all sorts of magic and claims to superhuman powers, Auma’s Holy Spirit Movement (HSM) adhered to the principles of gwooko dog paco, which include assessing the likelihood of success of war, the justness of the war, and the human cost of declaring war. The HSM was based loosely on biblical references to the oppressed Israelites, who were simultaneously the victims of malevolence and the beneficiaries of God’s unwavering support. An Acholi spirit healer and barely literate market vendor, Alice Abongowat Auma portrayed herself as the spirit medium for this Christian movement. She said that she was sent to rescue the Acholi from their own sinful excesses as well as from oppression and certain annihilation at the hands of the invaders (Behrend, 1999). Auma also claimed that she was possessed by various spirits, the leading one being Lakwena (the messenger), the spirit of an Italian captain who died at Murchison Falls in northern Uganda in the First or Second World War (Behrend, 1999). Lakwena suffused her movement with mystical qualities. The various spirits that possessed her at different times conducted the war, she said, and her soldiers were asked to obey every single command, however bizarre.

  Contrary to the argument that the Acholi responded to Lakwena because of her message that ‘they should repent their sins’ and because they wanted ‘to put an end to the bloodshed in Acholi’ (Behr
end, 1999, 31), I would suggest that, in the absence of an alternative political leadership and credible defensive response to their humiliating defeat and subsequent cultural devastation following the incursion by the NRM/A, the Acholi were desperate to find a rallying point. Lakwena raised that alarm, and many responded to the call.

  Although interpreted by some as ‘most bizarre’ (Woodward, 1991, 181), and dismissively described as ‘a combination of myth, superstition and voodoo to enchant the population to rally to its cause’ (Nantulya, 2001, 88), the HSM uprising in northern and eastern Uganda was a populist phenomenon in the original Acholi sense of gwooko dog paco. Lakwena was able to mobilize a sizable army that at its apex numbered several thousand recruits, many of them hastily trained civilian volunteers. HSM soldiers smeared their bodies with shea-butter oil, believing it made them impervious to bullets. Indeed, the HSM strategy of singing while fighting strengthens the argument that the uprising was initially conceived as gwooko dog paco. In traditional Acholi battles, soldiers often sang war songs as they faced the enemy (p’Bitek, 1974). Singing provided the warriors with courage to keep moving forward. In one of the early battles against the better-organized and well-armed NRM/A soldiers, the HSM sang hymns as it advanced.5 This behaviour, which, Behrend points out, ‘contradicted all military principles’ (1999, 57), might have been prompted by a fear of engendering more violence.