Social Torture. Chris Dolan
any other case, be liable to suffer death.’
43. Ibid, Section 10, as well as the Second Schedule thereto.
44. IGAD comprises Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Sudan, Somalia and Uganda.
45. Justice and Peace News, May 2002, Vol. 2 No. 2.
46. Announced on 22January by Army Commander Kazini (KM e-newsletter no 6).
47. IRIN, 25 May 2002, UGANDA-SUDAN: No Rapid Solutions in Anti-LRA Campaign.
48. IRIN, 6 June 2002, UGANDA: Little Acholi Gain from Anti-LRA Campaign. See Also KM E-Newsletter No 10.
49. IRIN, 19 June 2002, UGANDA: Government in Peace Deal With UNRF-II Rebels.
50. IRIN, 6 June 2002, UGANDA: Little Acholi Gain from Anti-LRA Campaign. See also KM E-newsletter No 10.
51. The Monitor, 24 August 2002, Army Deploys ’30,000’ Troops Against Kony.
52. IRIN, 21 October 2002, Budget Cuts Aimed At Boosting War Against Rebels.
53. IRIN, 6 November 2002, President Sets Up Team For Talks With Rebels.
54. IRIN, 3 December 2002, Anti-LRA Pact Extended.
55. Gulu, 19 January 2004.
56. Interview with UN official, Kitgum, 16/8/06.
57. Decentralisation, advocated by the World Bank, took on its own peculiarly politicised momentum in Uganda. From 1999 to 2006 the number of districts virtually doubled from 43 to 81, at times leading to increased ethnic tensions and even splits within ethnic groups. Yet at the same time, there was a re-centralisation of certain key powers. Thus the appointment of the Chief Administrative Officer was taken away from District level and centralised. Equally, the removal of graduated tax, which had been collected by District authorities, decreased local control of the tax base.
58. IRIN, 28 January 2004, The 18-Year Old War That Refuses To Go Away.
59. As pressure grows for multi-party democracy in Uganda, Museveni continued to warn ‘against pluralism based on ethnicity, religion and other divisive factors’ (New Vision, 9 June 2004, ‘Museveni Advises on Multipartyism’).
60. This was also true of the NRA in Teso sub-region according to one respondent who had been tortured there in the late 1980s: ‘Each of us was caned 12 strokes on the buttocks and then told to lie facing the sun for the entire day. We had to keep turning so that we really faced the sun. Every two hours we were asked [various questions].…At that time all the NRA commanders were Rwandese, and they were the torturers’ (Gulu, 7 June 1998).
61. New Vision, 9 April 1998, ‘Accept talks, Cardinal tells Kony’.
62. New Vision, 20 January 1999, ‘Acholi Want Disaster Zone’.
63. In late 1999, for example, the LCV Chairman of Kitgum district, without consulting the District Council, closed down the ACORD programme in the district. The then Minister for the North was unable to call this self-styled district ‘President’ to order.
64. E.g. UNICEF, 2001: 3–13
65. Bedo Piny pi Kuc, 27 June 1998.
66. The Monitor, 8 March 2004.
67. For full text see KM E-newsletter No 47, 7 April 2004 (www.km-net.org).
68. This exemplifies the (unconscious) collaboration of the oppressed with the agents of oppression and domination discussed in Finnström (2003: 68), but contradicts his view that ‘secession of the north has never been an issue’ (2003: 148, 160).
69. Hon. Owiny Dollo MP, Gulu conference, 29 September 1999.
70. Interview, Gulu, 4 August 1998.
71. Perhaps this prompted the resolution passed at a meeting in Kitgum district ‘that if you want to bring a solution, you have to accept that you are both an Acholi and a Ugandan’ (comment by participant at Bedo Piny pi Kuc meeting, Gulu, 26 June 1998).
72. New Vision, 22 March 1998, ‘Fats kill in Kampala as Kony kills Acholis’.
73. The Monitor, 17 May 2004.
74. This comprised the head of delegation from the European Commission, the ambassadors of Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, The Netherlands, Sweden, United Kingdom, Norway, U.S.A., Japan, as well as representatives from UNDP, World Bank and USAID.
75. IRIN, 14 May 2004, Donors Reject Proposed Budget on Grounds of Defence Spending.
76. The relationship between what Girling terms ‘domains’ within Acholi is a historically complex one, with the western domains (effectively Gulu district) more closely linked to the Bunyoro kingdom than the eastern ones (Kitgum/Pader), and quicker to make alliances with the British (Girling 1960). The reality of divisions within the Acholi was apparent in the run up to the Betty Bigombe peace talks when elders from Kitgum were pitted against those from Gulu (see Chapter 4).
77. This was in contrast to the steps taken with regard to the Darfur situation in Western Sudan from 2003 onwards.
4
RECONSIDERING THE LRA–GOVERNMENT DYNAMIC
‘People say that Kony is uneducated, but the uneducated man has killed people for the last fifteen years; what have the educated done to solve the problem of war in Acholi land?’1
Introduction
The situation in Northern Uganda is generally presented as a war between two actors, the LRA and the Government of Uganda. There is, though, little consensus on the nature of the two parties, particularly the LRA, or the reasons for their involvement. Under the various labels of ‘madmen’, ‘religious fundamentalists’, ‘messengers of God’, ‘criminals’, ‘bandits’, ‘terrorists’ and ‘dogs of war’, at least four characterisations of the LRA are discernible; the LRA as a an irrational organisation without political purpose (e.g. Bramucci, 2001: ii, Weeks, 2002: 9), the LRA as seeking to install a Christian fundamentalist government in Uganda (e.g. USDS, 2002: 124, IRIN, 12 September 2002), the LRA as a personality cult (e.g. Vlassenroot and Doom, 1999: 19–22), and the LRA as proxy warriors for the Sudanese Government and thus as legitimate targets in the wider ‘war on terror’ (e.g. Vlassenroot and Doom, idem, New Vision, 7 February 1998, The Monitor, 11 December 1997). What links these otherwise conflicting representations is an implicit model of the LRA as the aggressor and of the GoU as reacting to aggression, active in the search for solutions, and focused on the protection of its citizens.
Looked at in quantitative terms alone, the UPDF should have been easily capable of dealing with the LRA and protecting civilians. Compared with the LRA's guessed size of 1,000–5,000, it numbered at least 50,000–60,000 troops (excluding ethnic militias), of whom at least 20,000 were deployed in the north. It had its own track record as a rebel group to inform its understanding of the LRA, and it had military successes against other insurgent groups, most pertinently the ADF in western Uganda in the late 1990s. At various times it had collaborative support for military activity inside Sudan from both the SPLA2 and the Government of Sudan. And it had ‘non-lethal’ support from the U.S., including military training and information, as well as the room for manoeuvre created by Uganda's international reputation and the global ‘war on terrorism’.
Notwithstanding all these advantages, it did not provide adequate protection to its civilian population in the north, let alone root out the LRA. Museveni himself, on a visit to Amuru protected village in 1998, reportedly said ‘I am very sorry to find you in such a situation. I am sorry to find you not in your homes. The fact that you are still suffering is the fault of the army and government’.3
Explanations for such failures centred on a lack of resources (e.g. The Monitor,