The Acholis’ difficult situation

There are several interrelated explanations as to why the LRA gradually started to change its focus and tactics away from fighting against the NRA by instead through violent attacks targeting the very same people whose cause it claimed to be fighting for. This subsection will describe how the LRA started out as the latest manifestation of the several attempts made by the Acholis to address the deeper underlying root causes of their sense of betrayal, but ended up becoming the very reason for why its own people is still experiencing continued marginalisation, as they are placed in a very difficult situation between the LRA and the GoU (Bøås, 2004:290).

Seen in a historical perspective, the ideological foundation of the LRA’s violent rebellion was seemingly the same as its predecessors, by articulating the religious and political objectives that the UPDA and the HSM had done before it, respectively (Bøås, 2004:289-290). But Kony would, however, soon distinguish himself with an even more extreme millennial belief in spiritual symbolism than Lakwena had, by declaring that he was chosen by God to create a ‘new’ Acholi society based on the Biblical Ten Commandments, which had to be punished and cleansed through violence (Doom and Vlassenroot, 1999; ICG; 2005a:3; Ruaudel and Timpson, 2005:4; Van Acker, 2004). Allen (2006:40) points to how the LRA, because of this, has utilised extremely violent methods as some sort of sacred tool in order to remove the unholy and impure Acholis from the ‘new’ generation of pure and holy.

Compared with the HSM’s military offensives mainly against the NRM, the LRA unleashed violent attacks especially aimed at targeting their fellow Acholis (Ruaudel and Timpson, 2005:4). The pursuit of Kony’s idea of a ‘new society’ was given as a reason by the LRA to legitimise the abduction of children to serve as fighters in his rebel movement that would indoctrinate them into this ‘new society’. This violent strategy has also been used to explain why the LRA has especially targeted Acholi elders worshipping traditional beliefs that represents a threat against their ‘new society’ by killing or mutilating them (Ruaudel and

71 Timpson, 2005:3; Van Acker, 2004). As the whole notion of spiritual cleansing through killing and violence goes against everything that the Acholis traditional beliefs, norms and values stand for, the elders has dismissed Kony as a false prophet (Hovil and Lomo, 2004). In 1991, the NRA government launched the military offensive ‘Operation North’ which failed to defeat the LRA insurgency, and it was at this stage that the Acholis’ complete dismissal of the LRA became obvious, as many Acholis participated on the government’s side against the LRA in local militias (Ruaudel and Timpson, 2005:4; Hovil and Lomo, 2004). This was eventually the event that ‘finally drove Kony over the edge’ as he began accusing the Acholis of grave betrayal by abandoning the cause he fought for, as it was they who in the first place had given the LRA its blessings to fight against the NRA on their behalf (Bøås: 2004:290; Doom and Vlassenroot, 1999:24-25). Since the LRA could no longer rely on the Acholis’ support in the insurgency, Kony argued that it was necessary for the LRA to target its own people to have access to a steady flow of supplies and new fighters by forcibly recruiting children through abductions (Allen, 2006; Branch, 2005; Hovil and Lomo, 2004; Van Acker, 2004). This indicated a total change in tactics, strategy and policy, as the LRA from now on turned its weapons against its very own people (Branch, 2005; Bøås, 2004:290; Doom and Vlassenroot, 1999:24-25; Hovil and Lomo, 2004).

One of the most effective ways for the LRA to make sure that the Acholi population is prevented from supporting the UPDF is by abducting their children (Allen, 2006; Branch, 2005; Doom and Vlassenroot, 1999:25-26; Van Acker, 2004). This abduction of children has not only become a central element in the LRA’s strategy to terrorise the Acholis, but also proved to be an effective solution for the LRA to deal with the lack of a steady flow of voluntary recruits, and by now it is relying on forcibly recruiting children through abductions. If the LRA had not utilised abduction of children and by turning them into child soldiers as a mechanism, it would soon have been completely undermined, and one of the main descriptions of the LRA has therefore been the use of child soldiers throughout its insurgency (Branch, 2005; Doom and Vlassenroot, 1999; ICG, 2004; Oomen and Marchand, 2007:165; Van Acker, 2004). According to a study conducted by Pham et al (quoted in Oomen and Marchand, 2007:165), at least 20,000 children have been abducted and trained by the LRA to commit atrocities against their own communities.

Another reason behind this change of tactics was that, by joining the militias and taking up the fight against the LRA, the Acholis had shown their support to the government, and this move

72 was clearly perceived by the rebels as a betrayal of their common cause. It was therefore at this stage that the LRA began their infamous atrocities through reprisal attacks with a massive use of violence by spreading fear and terror among the Acholi civilians to prevent them from taking the government’s side ever again. The militias are therefore partly to blame for the change in the tactics from a war mainly being fought between the LRA and the UPDF to increased targeting and use of violence by the rebels against the civilians (Allen, 2006; Branch, 2005; Bøås, 2004:289-290; Doom and Vlassenroot, 1999:23-24; Hovil and Lomo, 2004; Van Acker, 2004).

A unique aspect about the war in Northern Uganda compared to conflicts elsewhere is how the LRA, through its insurgency, has targeted its very own people, as the majority of the rebel fighters are Acholi children, who after being abducted are forced to take part in the violence against their own people or risk being killed themselves. Estimates by Annan et al (quoted in Oomen and Marchand, 2007:165) have indicated that the amount of violence related to the war has affected most people living in Northern Uganda either directly or indirectly. Even if more precise numbers are difficult to come by because of inaccurate and unsystematic reports, throughout the conflict tens of thousands of civilians have been targeted by both sides and resulted in them being killed, mutilated or otherwise affected and that these atrocities are often committed by close relatives, who are themselves forced to do this against their parents, siblings and extended clan members (Oomen and Marchand, 2007:164-166).

But if this was not bad enough, in September 1996 the GoU launched a new military counterinsurgency strategy to defeat the LRA, by forcibly removing the Acholis from their villages in their thousands all over Northern Uganda into ‘protected villages’ (Bøås, 2004:286; Doom and Vlassenroot, 1999:30-31; Bøås and Hatløy, 2005; Van Acker, 2004). The main intention behind this new strategy was allegedly to protect them from continued rebel attacks, by denying the LRA’s easy access to supplies in the villages, as well as isolating them from any potential supporters they still had left (Bøås, 2004:290; Bøås and Hatløy, 2005).

After that, these ‘protected villages’, better known as IDP camps, were established all over Acholiland until they totalled more than 200, and although they were intended to provide shelter and protection as a temporary solution, they have, after more than a decade, become a permanent institution in Northern Uganda, as the amount of people living in them has

73 constantly increased ever since (Bøås and Hatløy, 2005; Doom and Vlassenroot, 1999; Dunn, 2007; Van Acker, 2004). Since their establishment in 1996, between 75 and 90 percent of the Acholis, almost the entire Acholi population, or somewhere between one and two million, have for various reasons been moving into the IDP camps7 _{(Oomen and Marchand, 2007:164;} Ruaudel and Timpson, 2007). Here they experience appalling living conditions with a combination of constant hunger and sickness, as a result of being forced to live cramped together in extremely squalid and unhygienic conditions (Ruaudel and Timpson, 2005), and the ICG (2004:14-15) argues that because of this ‘many of the humanitarian problems facing the population living in the conflict area result from displacement’. This is a consequence of how the GoU forced the Acholis into these IDP camps in a rushed and unplanned manner, with no basic plan for how to run them, resulting in the camps lacking even the most basic infrastructure, such as water, food and sanitation, thereby making their inhabitants totally dependent on voluntary food aid from organisations like the World Food Programme (WFP) (Allen, 2006; Branch, 2005; Gosling and Prendergast and Pham et al quoted in Oomen and Marchand, 2007:164; Hovil and Lomo, 2004; Ruaudel and Timpson, 2005:4). As such, this permanent displacement symbolises an enormous humanitarian disaster to the Acholis instead of providing them with an end to the conflict in the foreseeable future (Bøås, 2004: 290). Unfortunately for the Acholi people, this counterinsurgency strategy has not benefited them at all, as they have not received the much needed protection in these IDP camps. By being put so close together without any kind of effective protection by the UPDF has offered the LRA an easy target (Ruaudel and Timpson, 2005). The result of this is that these IDP camps have not served their original purpose, by instead becoming the very symbol of the UPDF’s complete inability to protect their inhabitants (Bøås and Hatløy, 2005; Dunn, 2007; ICG, 2004). As the villages were emptied, the LRA perceived the IDP camps as their new resource base, resulting in that the Acholis are still experiencing abductions, mutilations and killings, as the camps have become main targets for the rebels who frequently attack them (Bøås and Hatløy, 2005; Dunn, 2007; ICG, 2004:15).

Few, if any, Acholis any longer support or sympathise with the cause of the LRA’s brutal insurgency against Museveni’s policies and the complete political dominance by his ruling

7 _{Another study quoted by Ruaudel and Timpson (2005:2) reports that internal displacements now affects even}

more than 90 percent of the total population in the Acholi districts, as the number of people living in IDP camps increased from 500,000 to 1,3 millions when the fighting spread into new areas between 2002 and 2003 in the aftermath of Operation Iron Fist, which is discussed below.

74 elite in the south. But neither do they trust the government either, as they also disapprove of the way national politics is run in Uganda through the exclusive ethnic basis of Museveni’s regime (Bøås, 2004:289). This is coupled with the fact that after 1996, Museveni sent a large number of troops to fight against the LRA in Northern Uganda, but according to Baker (quoted in Bøås, 2004:289-290), numerous reports have documented a worrying trend about how the UPDF as the main representative of the GoU in the north, who are supposed to protect the population against the LRA in the IDP camps, are instead accused of ‘extrajudicial killings, irregular arrests and detention, torture and displacement’. The Acholis are thereby being placed in a very difficult position, in the sense that in addition to fearing the constant threat of LRA attacks, they also have to face the harsh treatment of the UPDF.