His left leg missing, Jackson Acama stands uneasily on crutches. At 42, he is one of the oldest former rebels from the Lord’s Resistance Army to have taken up residence at the World Vision rehabilitation centre in Gulu, northern Uganda. By Acama’s own account, he was a major in the notorious guerilla movement.
Like the 174 other men at the centre, Jackson has been given amnesty by the Ugandan government.
”I had all along known about the amnesty because I could hear about it on the radio,” he says. In April of this year, Jackson arranged for government forces to fly him back from neighbouring Sudan, where many Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) fighters are still based.
In previous years, acrimonious relations between Kampala and Khartoum ensured that LRA rebels were allowed to operate from Sudan. Uganda, in its turn, was accused of giving support to the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA).
However, peace talks between Sudanese officials and the SPLA have altered the political situation in this corner of East Africa. And even though Ugandan officials have not begun formal negotiations with the LRA, the surrender of soldiers such as Acama may also be a sign that Uganda’s 17-year war against the movement is finally coming to an end.
Government’s amnesty programme was established in 2000. As of April this year, more than 6 500 LRA rebels have emerged from the bush to join the programme — with a further 823 signing up between June and August 2004.
A commander in the Ugandan defence force, Nathan Mugisha, says that an average of eight to 10 LRA rebels report to the Gulu military barracks each day: ”They have no base, they are moving all the time. They are starving — no food. And every day they defect.”
Like Acama, many ex-rebels say they heard about the amnesty on the radio, especially Gulu’s Mega FM. The most popular radio station in northern Uganda, Mega FM has a two-kilowatt transmitter that reaches the entire region.
Mega FM’s most well-known programme is Dwogpaco, broadcast three nights a week in the local Acholi language, and hosted by the gregarious John Lacambel. The Acholis make up the largest ethnic group in the area.
Dwogpaco, which means ”Come back home”, is also broadcast on Radio Juba in southern Sudan. It features ex-LRA members, often just after they return from reporting to the military, appealing to their colleagues to come in from the bush.
On a recent evening, the show hosted ”Dr Ocitti”, age 23, and Walter Olanya, 20, both of whom had applied for amnesty earlier that day. They were thin, with ragged clothing; Ocitti, who was abducted by the LRA in 1995, also had several injuries.
Said Lacambel, ”The radio programme has made it possible for rebels to understand the value of amnesty. Otherwise they would be scared to come in for fear of being killed.”
According to Stephen Opio, a senior producer at Mega FM, the station was established to foster conflict resolution and peace building in the region. Besides Dwogpaco, Mega FM broadcasts political talk shows that sometimes receive telephone calls from LRA commanders in the bush, and once even from the group’s leader, Joseph Kony.
”The fact that they were able to call on the radio, to talk to us when people were listening — it was really a good way of (conducting) dialogue,” Opio says, adding that the station often walks a fine line between gaining the rebels’ trust — and angering the government and military.
”If we are to side fully with government, the rebels won’t listen to us — they won’t believe in the radio anymore,” he notes. ”There is that trust in the radio, which is an opportunity that the government can use. If the rebels trust the radio, use the radio to get to the rebels.”
Unfortunately, some of those who most need to hear this message may not be doing so.
The LRA has earned notoriety not only for its brutal attacks on civilians — but also the mass abduction of Acholi children for use as soldiers and sex slaves. The United Nations Children’s Fund recently reported that 12 000 children had been abducted by the group since June 2002, and over 20 000 between 1986 and 2004. Though many have come home over the years, thousands are still missing.
Children still in the service of the LRA rarely get to hear the radio, and may still be unaware of the amnesty. One of the reasons many abductees remain with the LRA, according to those who’ve escaped, is that their commanders say the Ugandan military will kill them if they return home.
Francis Komakech, 18, who was abducted at such a young age that he’s not even certain about which year this took place, believes that if his former comrades knew about the amnesty, they would leave the LRA.
”As a soldier in the bush you cannot listen to the radio, so those still in the bush don’t know. But if they could hear it, they would believe it and the war could come to an end,” Komakech said.
Getting amnesty often marks the beginning of a new struggle for ex-LRA rebels, however. Many are haunted by their terrible experiences, as well as the brutality they were forced to inflict on others.
James Wokoroch, 20, was abducted in 1995, and marched on foot to southern Sudan. Whilst in the LRA, he participated in an attack on a Ugandan military detachment in which many soldiers were killed. But, ”I didn’t feel bad, because it was soldiers who died. I rejoiced,” Wokoroch said.
David Odong, a World Vision counselor, adds that rebels are often forced to commit atrocities in areas near their homes, in a bid to make them feel that a return to their former lives is impossible. In some cases, this even involves killing members of the rebels’ own families.
Despite their decision to quit the LRA, certain returnees also remain in thrall to Kony. Some believe the rebel leader can cure Aids; others speak of the fact that he has foreseen his own end and prophesied that a child will emerge to lead the LRA.
”Kony has prophesized that most of his people will leave and the senior commanders will die, and this is happening. He is just containing his forces to wait for the child to be inspired,” Acama says.
Returnees are sent to reception centres like the one run by World Vision for rehabilitation and counseling, (World Vision is a global aid agency). The staff members at the centres trace their families so that former rebels can be sent to live with them, and undergo a traditional Acholi forgiveness ritual. However some ex-fighters, like Acama, find that most of their relatives are gone. ”There is nowhere I can go and begin my life,” he laments.
The reintegration of former rebels is further complicated by the fact that society is ill-equipped to receive them on a material, as well as an emotional level. Due to insecurity, most of Uganda’s northern population still lives in crowded, squalid camps for internally displaced persons (IDPs) where malaria, malnutrition, and diarrhea are rife.
The UN World Food Programme (WFP) estimates that 1,5-million Ugandans are now residing in camps for IDPs — including 95% of the population in the three major northern districts of Gulu, Kitgum, and Pader. In Gulu district alone there are over 400 000 IDPs.
Camp residents are not able to cultivate much land, and are dependent on handouts from the WFP. Returnees, who already fear re-abduction and the possibility of ill-treatment by their neighbours, are often reluctant to move into the camps for these reasons.
Acama fears that poor living conditions in northern Uganda and resettlement difficulties may lure fighters back to the LRA. Even if Kony is captured or killed, he says, conflict over land may continue.
Kony, who took up arms in 1986, has little in the way of a political agenda, saying only that he wants to rule Uganda by the Biblical Ten Commandments and rescue the Acholi people of the north from spiritual decay. His followers consider him a prophet.
The Ugandan army has reportedly had several successes against the LRA recently, nearly capturing Kony during a July attack on his base in southern Sudan.
Rebels continue to launch sporadic attacks, but the military claims that they are down to less than 500 members spread throughout northern Uganda and southern Sudan. — IPS