Civilization

Child murderers and the self - proclaimed "army of God"

The children of Kony's militia murdered and raped just as much as the adults. Some attacks were carried out exclusively by minors and it was they who kidnapped the next 'recruits'. This is precisely the reason why people in Uganda find it so difficult to feel compassion for kid napped children. On the one hand, they were victims themselves; on the other, they very quickly became executioners.

It was 1988 and on a day like any other, Dominic Ongwen was walking to school when armed guerrillas suddenly stood in his way. The 14-year-old boy was kidnapped and taken to a camp hidden in the bush. He was not the only kidnapped boy there. To force the children to obey, the rebels beat and tortured them. Soon, along with several others, Ongwen planned an escape. It did not work out. The escapees were brutally punished.

However, the rebels gave Ongwen a chance to survive. He was to skin one of his comrades with whom he had recently tried to escape, or else a similar fate might await him. The terrified boy did as he was told.

Thus began the career of one of Uganda's greatest criminals belonging to the Lord's Resistance Army, over which one man held full power - the self - proclaimed prophet Joseph Kony.

Uganda in chaos

In the mid - 1980s, after years of rule by the mad Idi Amin and repression under the presidency of - nomen omen - national hero (he led Uganda to independence in 1962) Milton Obote, it seemed that Uganda would finally get off the ground. In 1986, after a year-long civil war, Yoweri Museveni took power in the country.

He gave the impression that he was the right man for the job: he was pro - Western and offered hope for stabilising the country. Initially, everything seemed to indicate this. Museveni sou ght to reform Uganda. He met with the most important leaders in the world, including US President Ronald Reagan. Uganda began to participate in the International Monetary Fund's economic recovery programme. Jobs were created in the country, laws that had p reviously restricted the private sector were changed and trade was liberalised.

On taking power, Museveni assured that people would henceforth have a better and safer life. "[Part - ed.] of our programme is security of persons and property. Every individual in Uganda must be absolutely safe. Every person can live where they want to live. Any individual, any group that threatens the security of our people must be crushed without mercy. The people of Uganda should only die from natural causes that ar e beyond our control and not from other people who continue to roam our land," Museveni said in 1986.
US President Bill Clinton and his wife Hillary, surrounded by local children, greeted by Ugandan President General Yoweri Kaguta Museveni (right), 1998. Photo by Ira Wyman/Sygma via Getty Images
It could be said that the assurances of President Museveni (who, by the way, has been in power in Uganda ever since and probably never won a fair elect ion) and the reforms he introduced reassured the West. They believed, or wanted to believe, that Uganda was finally on its way to a happy time. This was a terrible mistake. Once again, the West has shown that it simply does not understand Africa and its pr oblems.

Yoweri Museveni comes from the south of Uganda, from the Mpororo ethnic group. On a continent where ethnicity, rather than nationality, is often far more important, this is very fundamental.

People in the north of Uganda did not consider Museveni "their own" and thus did not accept his power. He also surrounded himself mainly with people from the south of the country. In the north, meanwhile, there was a growing rebellion. There they remembere d with sentiment the rule of Milton Obote, whom Museveni had overthrown.

A self - proclaimed medium, Alice Auma called Lakwena, meaning "Alice of the Holy Spirit", was "born" among the opposition. The Holy Spirit allegedly appeared to Auma and told her to purge Uganda of enemies and infidels and defeat Museveni. To Alice Auma's Christian rhetoric she added a heavy dose of mysticism and various elements of African traditional beliefs. To this was added the hatred of her compatriots from the south. Thi s explosive mixture meant that more and more people started to gather around Alice Auma, ready to obey her every command.

The Holy Spirit Movement - so named by Auma - began its rebellion in the second half of the 1980s. Museveni threw his army in to the fight against them. Alice Auma's guerrilla force was broken up and she fled to Kenya, where she lived in a refugee camp for the next 20 years - she died in 2007.

The birth of evil

It seemed that after Auma's escape, relativ e stability would return to northern Uganda. Unfortunately, this did not happen. The "mission" of leading the Acholi people against Museveni was taken over by Alice Auma's nephew Joseph Kony. His rebellion became many times more bloody and cruel than that of his aunt.
Joseph Kony was born probably in 1962. Very little is known about him. Not even a photograph of Kony was available to the American secret service until 2000. Joseph Kony is probably still alive, although there are reports of his death from time to time. His whereabouts are unknown. Some say that in recent months he was living somewhere between Sudan and South Sudan, as the German newspaper Die Welt reported in January thi s year.

Kony was probably brought up in a Catholic family, was an altar boy, but left the church as a teenager. In 1987, he took over the "mission" from his aunt. His organisation, formed in 1987, was called the Lord's Resistance Army. This moveme nt adopted the most violent methods possible, but its existence was initially downplayed by the government. It soon became clear that the fight against Kony would be much more difficult than the offensive against the Auma rebellion.

Joseph Kony su pposedly, like Auma, saw a "Messenger" giving him directions. In his dreams, various saints are said to have spoken to him and told him what to do. He convinced his soldiers that holy water would protect them, and if they painted a cross on their chests wi th special oil - bullets flying at them would turn into water. Kony's men were to carry stones with them. Their guru convinced them that in case of danger a stone would turn into a mountain that would protect them.

But Kony became most famous for something else: the creation of a child army of killers.

Survive the night

"Recruits" were obtained through kidnappings. It is little consolation that Kony was not the originator of this practice. The recruitment of children into the army has its own sorrowful "tradition" in Africa. It was also practised in Uganda before, for example during the civil war between Obote and Museveni. The fact is, however, that it was the Lord's Resistance Army that became famous for this.

Kony's "fame" was actually brought about by the scale of the abductions. How many children and teenagers were kidnapped? It is not known exactly, but it is estimated that it may have been between 60 000 and 100 000 children. They were abducted from their own hom es, at times when they were heading to school or playing with friends. However, most kidnappings take place at night.
Joseph Kony, leader of the Lord's Resistance Army, during a meeting with journalists on 11 June 2006 in Nbanga, Democratic Republic of Congo. He denied LRA atrocities and describes himself as a freedom fighter. Photo by Sam Farmar/Getty Images
Kony's men attacked the village. Women were raped and later killed. All adult men were also killed or mutilated. Children were kidnappe d. Their family was dead. They had nowhere to go back to.

Even children of a few years old were abducted (they were the easiest to "train") and teenagers. Left without relatives, they had no alternative but to serve in the Lord's Resistance Army. There, they were subjected to fierce indoctrination, trained as soldiers and taught to murder in many very cruel ways. Those who disobeyed were tortured. Any attempt to escape could end in disaster - as in the case of Dominic Ongwen, mentioned at the begin ning. The best and most zealous could count on promotion in a strange hierarchy dependent on Kony's whims.

The first test were the moments just after the abduction: you had to survive the murderous, fast march through the bush, the escape from the scene of the crime. And not to be caught by the government forces. If one could not keep up was killed instantly.

Girls were also abducted from the villages. These were given to fighters to marry. No one cared about their age or health. Kony hims elf assigned the wives. It is said that he himself had 50 of them. Women in the Lord's Resistance Army had only one task: to give birth to more fighters. Since 1987, Kony's army has been at war with government troops. Over the next ten years, the rebellio n in northern Uganda - which soon became an international conflict - cost the lives of around 100 000 people. At the same time, almost a million people were forced to flee because of fear of the Lord's Resistance Army.

In Uganda of the 1990s and t he first decade of the 21st century, it became common for parents to send their children to the cities for the night. Wojciech Jagielski wrote about this heartbreaking sight in his book "Night Wanderers". In Uganda, for many years children wandered before dusk into towns or larger cities. They stayed there until morning, in some random buildings or simply in the street. You can see how terrified Kony's army was. Parents preferred their children to spend the night on the street in the city, rather than being at home. For in the cities the rebels did not attack, or at least they did so very rarely. In the village, on the other hand, every night was a risk.

Is it possible to go on living
The children of Kony's army murdered and raped just as much as the adults. Some attacks were carried out exclusively by minors and it was they who kidnapped the next 'recruits'. This is precisely the reason why people in Uganda find it so difficult to feel compassion for kidnap ped children. How can we clearly judge their attitude? On the one hand, they were victims themselves; on the other, they very quickly turned into executioners.

After all, it is hard to forget the thousands of dead and mutilated (the Lord's Resista nce Army 'enjoyed' mutilating people by cutting off limbs, noses or ears), the women raped and villages set on fire.

Some of the Lord's Resistance Army managed to escape. However, their situation is extremely difficult. People are afraid of them, they know what they did until recently. No one wants someone in their village who a while ago was murdering and torturing others. This is hardly surprising.

Men sometimes manage somehow, they can at least find some work. A woman, however, has no chance. If she has spent most of her life in the bush, she can do nothing. Nor will anyone take her as a wife. This is why it is so common for women who have fled (thi s also applies to young men, although less often), unable to cope with the world around them, to return to Kony's army. The government has been trying for years to prevent their alienation by creating special rehabilitation centres, but even despite therap y, former soldiers rarely find social acceptance.

International conflict

The war between the Lord's Resistance Army and the government troops became internationalised around 1994. At that time, Kony's fighters established - with th e consent of the Sudanese authorities - a base in the southern part of that country. Accusations from Kampala (Uganda's capital) that Khartoum was supporting LRA murderers were answered that the Ugandan government had instead given support to the Sudan Peo ple's Liberation Army fighting the Sudanese government.

However, the situation began to spiral out of control in Sudan itself, where the Lord's Resistance Army started the same thing it had done in Uganda: it started raiding villages, murdering, r aping and kidnapping children. From 1997, Sudan stopped supporting Kony and started working with Uganda to drive the LRA out of their country. The offensive only succeeded in 2001. Kony's child army was getting weaker, but still wreaked havoc. A few years later, the LRA moved some of its bases to the Democratic Republic of Congo. Its presence on the territory of the former Zaire led to a hardening of relations between that country and Uganda. The government in Kampala was even ready to enter the DRC militar ily in order to continue the pursuit of the Lord's Resistance Army, but did not obtain the consent of Kinshasa
Since 2003, the crimes committed by Joseph Kony's army have been under investigation by the International Criminal Court. The United Nations, too, has finally taken up the matter with greater attention. This led the governments of Uganda, Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo - together with, among others, the American intelligence service (which, after 2001, recognised the Lord's Resistance Army as a terrorist organisation) - to adopt a joint strategy to combat the Kony fighters, which soon began to bring success.

However, the LRA has not s topped being brutal. In December 2009, there was a massacre in north - eastern DRC during which Kony fighters killed and mutilated several hundred people. Another 250 were abducted.

Following these events, the United States stepped up its involvemen t in the region. Barack Obama decided to send military advisers to Uganda to train the country's troops. Unfortunately, it seems that this action was too little too late.

The situation became even more complicated when a coup d'état took place in the Central African Republic in 2013. The new authorities refused to cooperate further in the fight against the Lord's Resistance Army, changing their minds only after a long time.

No happy end

"No one knows if Kony is alive at all, if the LRA fighters are still under his leadership or if the militants are only held together by some ideology. What is certain is that the Lord's Resistance Army is very weak militarily today," Adolphe Agenonga, a geopolitics expert from the University of Kinsangani in the Democratic Republic of Congo, recently told the newspaper Die Welt. And he added: "Today's LRA cannot be compared with the notorious army that hit the headlines in 2012."

Indeed, after 2013, the Lord's Resistan ce Army has lost its momentum. Murders and kidnappings do occur, but they are relatively few. Nevertheless, it is astonishing that for so many years and despite "investing" around a billion dollars a year in the fight against the LRA, it has so far not bee n possible to catch the self - proclaimed guru Joseph Kony. However, one must bear in mind the specifics of fighting in the African bush, the extremely vast terrain and the fact that the LRA moves (probably) across the territory of three - four countries. The armies of individual states do not have such 'freedom' of mobility.

Added to this is the lack of more knowledge about Kony himself. It is not even known exactly what he looks like at present. Besides, it seems, Kony must still be held in high este em by his people. Not even the $5 million reward offered by the United States has encouraged anyone to extradite him.

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The LRA has been struggling just to survive for a few years now, and to make a living, Kony's child army has rather turned into a crimi nal gang. Kony is said to have ordered the killing of forest elephants living in the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of Congo. The ivory obtained in this way is later sold by his men to Arab merchants in Sudan.

Earlier this year it was rumoured that Joseph Kony wanted to negotiate a 'ceasefire' with the Ugandan and Central African governments, and in return he would be granted citizenship of the Central African Republic. For the moment, the CAR government remains distrustful of Kony's assurances that he intends to stop fighting.

It is possible that this mistrust is being encouraged by the Americans, who since last year have been strengthening their relations with this one of the poorest countries in the w orld. It may be mischievous to say that the US has only remembered the Central African Republic now that Russia has managed to establish a solid sphere of influence there. But if it is to help in the fight against the LRA - better late than never.

Executioner or victim?

Dominic Ongwen was captured in 2015 in the Central African Republic. He was one of the children kidnapped. However, he quickly adapted to the conditions in which he had to live. He was "brainwashed" by the Lord's Re sistance Army, which turned him into a monster.
Joseph Kony, leader of the Lord's Resistance Army, during a meeting with journalists on 11 June 2006 in Nbanga, Democratic Republic of Congo. He denied LRA atrocities and describes himself as a freedom fighter. Photo by Sam Farmar/Getty Images
So who was to blame for the crimes he committed? Did his abduction and the harm he suffered absolve him of responsibility for his actions? The answers to these questions were not easy, but the International Criminal Court had to separate what Ongwen was forced to do from what he did as one of the commanders of the LRA. And for these crimes he was sentenced to 25 years in prison. The ICC considered his actions to be crimes against humanity and war crimes.

Four thousand people testified against Ongwen. According to some accounts, he was supposed to have led attacks on villages, ordered his men to kill the villagers and then cooked and ate his victims. The most important evidence against him were records of conversations held on satellite phones and transcripts of radio communications between the commanders of different groups. It was clear from these conversations that Ongwen was one of Kony's most trusted men and had a huge influence on the LRA's actions.

The Ongwen trial has the potential to be a landmark. The judges have proved that in cases of extremely serious crimes, former child soldiers will be trialled as adults. And the fact that they themselves were once victims of crimes that they later also committed does not absolve them of criminal responsibility.

– Anna Szczepańska

TVP WEEKLY. Editorial team and jornalists


– Translated by Tomasz Krzyżanowski

Main photo: Soldiers of Ugandan rebel group the Lord's Resistance Army, 11 June 2006 in Nbanga, Democratic Republic of Congo. Photo by Sam Farmar/Getty Images
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