- "...the [Lord's Resistance Army] swells its ranks
by abducting children, training the boys into killing machines and forcing
girls into sexual slavery. They target children because they are easy to
indoctrinate and manipulate."
-
- DAY 1 TUESDAY 23/09/03
-
- In a rather marked change from my normal schedule, today
I leave comfortable Notting Hill for Northern Uganda - to visit an area
which the Foreign Office warns you to avoid. The trip is a fact-finding
mission with Oxfam and Amnesty International as part of their new Control
Arms campaign. I am going to see first hand the effects of a vicious guerrilla
war which has been raging for more than 10 years between the Ugandan government
and a group of rebels known as the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) - more
than 80 per cent of which is made up of child soldiers. The itinerary looks
daunting, the security procedures ominous - I've been told to keep a picture
of my family in my wallet, to act as a bargaining tool in case I'm abducted.
-
- DAY 2 WEDNESDAY 24/09/03
-
- Dawn is breaking through thick cloud as we land in Kampala,
Uganda's capital. It is busy and chaotic, and the airport road is lined
with people making coffins. We go straight to the hotel for a briefing.
I learn that the LRA swells its ranks by abducting children, training the
boys into killing machines and forcing girls into sexual slavery. They
target children because they are easy to indoctrinate and manipulate. Led
by Joseph Kony - a charismatic but unstable leader who claims to have religious
powers - the LRA has abducted more than 20,000 children, a quarter of them
in the past 15 months alone. Grotesquely, Kony aims to create a country
built round the Ten Commandments. Quite how you can kill, rape and mutilate
while adhering to those Commandments is beyond my comprehension.
-
- After the briefing, we visit a local MP whose constituents
are caught up in the conflict. Historically the north of Uganda has been
marginalised by President Musevini's government but this MP is unusually
outspoken. He argues passionately that the government is ignoring the plight
of his people, obstructing the peace process and spreading arms across
the region. The official strategy of the Ugandan government is three pronged
- military intervention, peaceful negotiation, and prayer - but in reality
they focus only on the military approach with "Operation Iron Fist"
intended to eliminate the rebels. A terrifying 26 per cent of the national
budget is now spent on arms. The trouble is that most of those killed by
this hard-line military approach are children, themselves victims of the
LRA and unwilling participants in the bloody conflict.
-
- I'm feeling shell-shocked already and we haven't even
arrived in the conflict zone.
-
- DAY 3 THURSDAY 25/09/03
-
- We leave the hotel at 5.30 am. As the sun rises we walk
over the airport tarmac to our 8-seater plane. The conflict means it's
unsafe to travel to the north by road. An hour later, we land in Kitgum,
avoiding people, cars and animals on the dirt-track runway.
-
- There is no sign of the conflict except for a couple
of troop carriers moving government forces. The soldiers look ill-equipped,
wearing only flip-flops on their feet. At our first security briefing we're
told there was a raid by the LRA the night before and our movements will
therefore be highly restricted. The war in Uganda suddenly feels uncomfortably
close.
-
- First stop is a school in the town where more than 2,000
pupils are crammed together in seven classrooms. The children originally
attended six different schools in surrounding villages, until LRA raids
forced them to close. For safety, the children now sleep at the school
rather than return to their homes. But the conditions here are terrible.
The headmistress tells me how worms from the mud floor bury their way into
the children's feet and cause them serious health problems.
-
- We go on to a rehabilitation centre for young people
who have escaped from the LRA or been rescued by government forces. Here
staff help them to regain a sense of normality and try to mend their broken
lives. Bazil is 17. He is a huge football fan, and idolises David Beckham.
Unlike most 17-year-old soccer fans, however, he estimates that in his
short life he has killed 35 people. He's lost count. The rebels don't want
to waste bullets on children trying to escape, so they get other kids to
beat them to death. The reason Bazil has lost count of how many he killed
is because he was not always sure if he was the one who dealt the fatal
blow. Abducted by the LRA aged 14, he was forced to walk miles into the
bush, where he was beaten, abused and made to watch those who tried to
escape being hacked to death in front of him. Later, at gun point, he was
himself forced to cut off the limbs of a fellow child soldier who was trying
to escape. When I ask him what his hopes are for the future, he tells me
that he wishes the demons that haunt him may one day go away.
-
- I've never met a mass murderer before. I would have thought
I'd be angry, or repulsed, yet I feel only sympathy for Bazil, a child
with an impossible past to overcome. Before we leave, about 50 of the children
stand and sing together, the strangest choir that I've ever heard.
-
- Our next stop is a hospital. Three people are allocated
to every bed here and the wounds, smells and screams are extremely shocking.
Sam was shot by the LRA when they sprayed machine-gun fire into his village;
both his legs are shattered by the bullets. He lies there in pain, knowing
he'll never be able to walk again properly. In fact, he's only alive because
the rebels assumed he was dead.
-
- Later that evening, as we leave the hospital, a stream
of children march past, carrying blankets. Each night, thousands of children
- known as "night commuters" - walk into town from the surrounding
villages, seeking protection from the rebels who might kill or abduct them
if they slept in their beds. At first there are just a few kids, but soon
there will be thousands, all heading towards the hospital or school for
protection. The older girls look after the younger children, acting like
self-appointed prefects and each night forming themselves into small "family"
groups.
-
- Tonight it's raining and most of them are sleeping outside
as there's no shelter. I'm amazed by their strength of spirit.
-
- DAY 4 FRIDAY 26/09/03
-
- I didn't sleep well. Maybe I need time to acclimatise
to the intensity, the sheer level of horror. Maybe I'll never comprehend
it. I'm feeling angry that the international community is doing nothing
about this guerrilla war which has devastated the people of Northern Uganda.
Uganda is generally heralded as an African success story, even buying into
the World Bank and IMF agendas, which perhaps explains why the government
remains keen not to publicise its bloody war in the north.
-
- Today we visit a hospital-feeding centre and see severely
malnourished children, with distended stomachs, covered in flies. Children
are starving here not because there's a famine or a drought but because
it's too dangerous to farm the fields. Anyone going out into the open becomes
an instant sitting target.
-
- Today we also meet representatives from three "protected"
villages, otherwise known as Internally Displaced People (IDP) camps. Many
people have fled to these camps to escape the rebels. Many others have
been herded into them by the army, with those who stay outside treated
as suspected LRA collaborators. It is too dangerous for us to travel to
the camps but their representatives have travelled 40 miles on foot through
rebel territory, risking their lives to talk to us. They tell us that the
camps are grim disease-ridden settlements with little or no sanitation.
The people are supposed to be protected by government soldiers but in reality
the barracks are often built in the centre with the people acting as a
buffer zone all around. When starvation looms, the people have no choice
but to go out and farm their land - many are killed in doing so.
-
- DAY 5 SATURDAY 27/09/03
-
- Met more former abductees this morning. Justin, 14, has
killed five people. Hilda, 20, was raped by an LRA commander. Samuel, 9,
was given a pistol and told to kill. In some ways the girls' experiences
are more horrific. Used as sex slaves by rebel commanders, many are now
HIV positive. The stigma of rape is so great that they hate to talk of
their experience but you can see the trauma in their eyes.
-
- One little girl is smiling, however. She's about the
only child I've met whose innocence has not been destroyed by the conflict.
She's an extraordinary child, about a year old, who was born in captivity.
Her young mother, who was abducted as a sex slave, died in the jungle but
somehow the baby was rescued. Too young to be traumatised, her smiles provide
a marked contrast to the other children who have vacant eyes and a ghost-like
expression on their faces.
-
- Our next stop is Kotido, in the north-eastern Karamojo
region. Again we fly in a tiny plane because the roads are too unsafe.
We've come to talk to local cattle herders - to see how gun proliferation
has affected the farmers here.
-
- Historically these nomadic pastoralists have carried
out comparatively bloodless raids on the cattle of rival tribes. Now with
the introduction of AK-47s, cattle raids have been transformed into massacres.
In recent years, the price of a gun has dropped from 20 cows to just two.
-
- We visit a village which has recently been raided and
in which there are only women, children and old men left. The young men
have all been killed and the cattle stolen. The surviving villagers are
now killing their last calves for food. Soon they'll have nothing.
-
- As we are talking we are suddenly warned of approaching
warriors and another raid. It's a tense moment and we climb quickly back
into the Jeep. We're lucky to be able to leave; the villagers do not have
that option.
-
- DAY 6 SUNDAY 28/09/03
-
- On my last day in Uganda we drive two hours into the
bush where suddenly ahead of us we see an encampment of about 100 cattle
farmers sitting on rocks. All are carrying AK-47s.
-
- One of the farmers tells me the Karamijong used to fight
and defend their herds with sticks but then guns poured into the region,
turning cattle raids into lethal battles. Government promises to provide
security have come to nothing. They tell us the people who raid now kill
men, children and cattle. They too carry AK-47s to protect their livelihoods.
As we leave they show off their guns by firing several rounds into the
air. I pick up one of the empty cases. (Later, back in the UK, it is traced
back to a Royal Ordnance Factory in Cheshire.)
-
- On the long Jeep journey back to Kampala, I reflect on
my time in Uganda, on the horror and devastation caused by armed conflict,
but also on the pride and resilience, even among the most brutalised kids.
What has amazed me, too, is how compassionate the adults are - willing
to accept children back into their community even when they know those
children have murdered their neighbours.
-
- The Ugandans I met weren't asking for charity; they just
want the international community to help stop the fighting that is destroying
their country. The arms trade is fuelling conflicts like the one in Northern
Uganda, and at present there are virtually no international controls to
stop it. The Control Arms campaign launched by Amnesty International, Oxfam
and IANSA (the International Action Network on Small Arms) calls for an
international arms-trade treaty to stop guns getting into conflict zones
and to human-rights abusers. As the world's second-biggest arms exporter,
it's vital that the UK Government gets behind it. We can no longer ignore
the desperate plight of these people, and millions like them around the
world.
-
- - For more information on the Control Arms campaign (including
how to join the 'Million Faces Project', a global photo petition), visit
www.controlarms.org
-
- © 2003 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd
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- http://news.independent.co.uk/world/africa/story.jsp?story=461563
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