IRIN Web Special on the crisis in Northern Uganda

For the last 17 years the Acholi people of northern Uganda have been the victims of a brutal, unrelenting rebel insurgency.

Innocent civilians have been killed or mutilated; thousands of children have been abducted, forced into combat, and subjected to torture and sexual violence. It is now estimated that about 80 percent of the entire Acholi population are internally displaced, living in camps with little food and poor sanitation.

Since 1986, the rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) of self-styled mystic Joseph Kony has carried out merciless attacks across the north, ostensibly in an attempt to overthrow the government of President Yoweri Museveni and to have Uganda ruled in accordance with the Biblical Ten Commandments.

Over the last year there has been a sharp increase in the number of rebel attacks, leading to roughly a doubling in the population of the IDP camps, and a dramatic rise in the number of child abductions.

This escalation has come after the Ugandan army intensified its efforts to wipe out the rebels. In March 2002, the Uganda People's Defence Force (UPDF) launched 'Operation Iron Fist', which for the first time allowed the Uganda military to root out and destroy LRA rear bases inside southern Sudan. Rather than ending the war, however, the main effect of the campaign has been to push LRA fighters into northern Uganda where they have wreaked havoc on the local population.

Shadowy enemy

The UPDF's attempts to destroy Kony's militia have been greatly hampered by the shadowy nature of its enemy. Little is known of the LRA beyond its heinous, widespread human rights abuses. Its soldiers - the great majority of them children - emerge from the bush to raid villages, looting and often burning them as they return to their hideouts.

The Ugandan army does not recognize the LRA as a bona fide rebel group, denouncing it simply as a terrorist organization. There is some support for this view; the group has been denoted a terrorist organisation by the US government, and has been included on the US State Department's 'Terrorist Exclusion List' since December 2001.

The LRA does not have a political wing, and is divided into small 'cells' operating across the north. This has made both combat and attempts at peace negotiations, which would be tough enough anyway, even harder. Indeed, some observers believe that the only person with the authority to conduct negotiations on behalf of the LRA is Kony himself, a man frequently described as 'insane'.

Some children have been caught in the crossfire between the LRA and the Ugandan army. Credit: Sven Torfinn (2002)

Internal displacement

According to recent estimates from the UN World Food Programme (WFP), over 800,000 people in the three northern Ugandan districts of Gulu, Kitgum, and Pader have now been forced from their homes and are living in camps for internally displaced persons (IDPs). This figure represents 70 to 80 percent of the entire Acholi population, as measured in Uganda's 2002 census.

Although the camps were initially created to protect civilians from rebel attacks, they have now become just as much of a target for these attacks as the villages once were. As the Acholi people have been forced to crowd together in the camp, so the LRA, in their search for food and slaves, have followed them.

The Uganda Red Cross Society (URCS) said recently that a major aspect of the LRA military strategy seemed to be to force IDPs out of the camps protected by the UPDF. "According to some rumours circulating, the LRA has intention to [sic] dismantle the camps by force," URCS said in its June situation report.

While the UPDF has attempted to protect the camps by stationing small detachments in their midst, they have found protecting such a massive displaced population spread over such a large area to be extremely difficult.

Delivering humanitarian assistance to the widely dispersed camps has also become a treacherous business. Aid convoys themselves have come under regular attack, and a number of aid workers have lost their lives in rebel ambushes. At present, only WFP has been able to establish regular aid deliveries, and it relies on a heavy UPDF military escort to provide security.

In addition, the rebels have tended to view the camp populations as their enemies, and as supporters of the government. As a result, they have, during raids, left behind written demands that the IDPs must vacate the camps or face death. As IDPs know, however, they are just as likely to face death outside the camps as inside them.

In a recent report on the crisis in the north, the US-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) quoted a former abductee as saying the LRA did not hesitate to kill IDPs as a warning of what would happen to those who did not follow instructions.

"At one time, we went to a displaced persons camp and immediately killed three people. This was done to warn people not to stay in the camps but to move back to their villages. I don't know why these three were selected. We later abducted many children from that camp," HRW quoted the former abductee as saying in the report, entitled: 'Abducted and Abused: Renewed Conflict in Northern Uganda'.

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