The terror inflicted by the LRA

Over the past twenty years, Northern Uganda has been ripped apart by domestic violence – most notably by a group calling themselves the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). The LRA is led by a purely evil man named Joseph Kony and was at one time labeled a terrorist organization because they use terror as their primary strategy of accomplishing their missions. The saddest part in all of this is that they use innocent children as their soldiers. The LRA would go into villages, burn them to the ground, kill many of the men, rape the women, take the young girls as sexual slaves/ child wives for the leaders, and abduct the young boys of all ages. They would basically tell the boys that if they didn’t do everything they were told, they would simply kill them; the poor boys really had no choice but to obey orders. Horrifically, these orders were of the most inhumane nature. (The following paragraph contains some disturbing information, so please read at your own discretion.)

In order to make sure these boys wouldn’t return to their villages they used tactics of shame and guilt. The LRA would make the boys kill their own family members by either shooting or beating them to death with a club. Then to make it worse, they would take parts of their families’ bodies, cook them, and force the kids to eat their own family members. How could a boy ever return to his village, even if he escaped from the LRA, with that type of shame forced upon him? If children weren’t forced to kill people, they would often be forced to maim their victims by cutting off their ears, nose and lips as just another way of striking terror and fear into their opponents.

The other tactical (and sick) reason for using young boys is the moral dilemma of how Uganda’s army could wage war against its own sons? In other words, if they went into an all-out battle against the LRA, they would effectively be killing boys who would be the future of their country. The LRA only attacked innocent civilian villages and never military targets; thus, one of the reasons they were labeled terrorist even though over 80% of its combatants were children under the age of 16.

The best answer the Ugandan government could come up with for many years was to forcibly displace about 1.5 million people from their homes where they’d be possible targets of the LRA and move them into “protective camps,� (also known as IDP, Internally Displaced People, camps.) From the documentaries we’ve watched, these camps had worse conditions than many of the WWII Japanese-American internment camps, and this was Uganda’s own government trying to provide a safe haven for its own people. The camps at best were safe but unsanitary; at their worst, they didn’t even provide sufficient safety from the LRA. Instead, they became an easy target for the rebels as larger groups of civilians were down-herded into one location, and often times the camps didn’t even provide the protection that they were intended for. In fact, over 10,000 children were abducted from these so-called protective camps and in all, the government estimates that over 25,000 of Uganda’s children were taken captive by the LRA.

In order to protect themselves from abduction, thousands of children began flocking to local towns each night in order to sleep on the floors of abandoned churches, schools, and hospitals; their one goal was to make it through the night without being captured or killed by the LRA. Children would walk up to two or three hours every night from the camps to these abandoned buildings, sleeping packed in next to one another like sardines, simply hoping to have a chance of survival. They would then make the trek back “home� early the next morning in order to care for their families (some of them were the head of the household already and were forced to care for their younger siblings who had been orphaned by LRA attacks,) and if they were lucky attend school for the day. (The documentary Invisible Children goes into more depth about this issue and has different ways to get involved, so if you’re interested in learning more I highly recommend watching the film or looking into the organization. I did some work with them in college and was definitely glad I did.)

The IDP camps became breeding grounds for excessive alcoholism, as there was very little to do in terms of being able to work or entertain themselves in any way. Excessive drinking then led to violence, rape, and eventually all-out sodomy, which sky-rocketed the HIV prevalence throughout Northern Uganda during this time. Currently, the LRA has signed a peace agreement with Uganda’s government and many of its members have either returned home or enlisted with the Ugandan national army; however, Joseph Kony and his band of followers are still on the prowl and are currently finding harbor in a neighboring African country.

All this to say, many of the people here are still living in fear and hopelessness in the wake of this very recent atrocity. There are members in the local church we’ve been working with who have been directly and certainly indirectly affected by the brutality of the LRA. It’s incredibly difficult to find words to encourage someone who has had to live through these inhumanities, and certainly without God, I wouldn’t be able to give any sort of reassurance. But thank the Lord that He brings hope to the hopeless and provides comfort for those who may seem to us inconsolable. Isaiah 61 has been heavy on my heart for most of the race, and sometimes it’s all I can think about in times like these. Thank you, Jesus for these promises.

“Take heart! I HAVE OVERCOME THE WORLD� (Jesus in John 16:33).
 

Please join with us in keeping this country in your prayers. Thank you so much. 🙂

(Information in this blog was taken from a compilation of sources: through interactions with the people of Lira, a documentary on the war, the History Channel, and Justin Jue’s blog about the subject. Many thanks to you all!)