ஆப்பிரிக்காவின் கிறிஸ்துவ பயங்கரவாத குழு எல்.ஆர்.ஏ

ஆப்பிரிக்காவின் மிகப்பெரிய மிக நீண்டகாலமாக இருந்துவரும் கொடூரமான கிறிஸ்துவ பயங்கரவாத குழு பற்றிய கட்டுரை.
எல்/ஆர்.ஏ என்ற Lords Resistance Army என்ற இந்த பயங்கரவாத குழு உகாண்டா காங்கோவில் பைபிளின் பத்து கட்டளைகளை நிறுவப்போவதாக கூறிக்கொண்டு அட்டூழியம் பண்ணிக்கொண்டு இருக்கிறது.

இதுவரை 20000 சிறுவர்களையும் சிறுமிகளையும் கடத்திச்சென்று தன்னுடைய ராணுவத்துக்கு காலாட்படையாகவும் பாலுறவு அடிமைகளாகவும் உபயோகப்படுத்தியிருக்கிறது.

Inside LRA camp in Congo
Lucy Hannan
Ri-Kwangba

"I want to go to school and learn things about the world," says 16-year-old self styled Sergeant Anyor who would like to ride in a car and remembers he has a sister, Lucy at home in Gulu, northern Uganda.

He has been with the Lords Resistance Army since he was eight years old. Anyor has very little to say about his childhood in the bush; but insists he joined voluntarily 'to fight for my motherland, against all the bad things Museveni is doing'.

He keeps glancing over his shoulder as he talks about how many people he has shot, and is vague about his daily duties - washing clothes for his commanders, gathering mangoes, and hunting forest birds with a sling shot.

Anyor asks for a small bar of soap to take as a present for the wife of his friend with whom he shares a compound in a camp in a thick belt of trees in the Congo. "I am not allowed a wife until I am 18," he explains.

Another young LRA soldier, with the characteristic short beaded dreads and brown gum boots, says he was abducted from a bus station in Nairobi, Kenya.
The young boys are overcome by curiosity but accept nothing from outsiders without permission from the commanders.

Packets of chewing gum slide into a back pocket. Cigarettes are strictly forbidden. Alcohol is evil. Conversation is careful. But at heart they are teenagers - they want to know about cars, girls, clothes and the world beyond their reach.


MENACING: Some of the rebels forming part of Kony’s guard in Ri-Kwangba. Courtesy photo

Being a soldier is a main point of reference: what makes a good soldier or a bad soldier; what is allowed, what is not; who is strong, who is not. These children and young adults, with weapons oddly disproportionate to their youthful bodies, have become completely absorbed into the LRA system. Unlike former abductees who have horrific tales of escape and fear, or children who have been murdered and tortured in the bush, these are the kids who will kill for the mystical, militarised cult.

During the talks in April, about 100 such LRA soldiers made themselves at home on the outskirts of the mediation site in Ri-Kwangba, on the undemarcated Sudan-Congo border. It became a teenager’s hangout; an interface to the outside world. The clearing - only a few hundred metres away from the LRA bush headquarters - has a water point, portable toilets and storage huts.

International delegates are flown in and out by helicopter, along with hundreds of plastic chairs, a generator, and a lunch of rice and stew. Facilities for the international delegates has effectively institutionalised the LRA in Ri-Kwangba; a major political and social shift for the secretive group which has hidden in the shadows for almost two decades.

Joseph Kony - still clearly revered by his followers as the spiritual head of the LRA - fiddles nervously in the meetings, clasping a small black diary like a prayer book, as he listens to international delegates discussing charges laid against him by the International Criminal Court.

Tall and slight, he made his first public appearance in a suit bought in London. The man who says he lives life by God's Ten Commandments maintains the puzzled look of a spectator.

He only becomes animated - a sudden wide smile and an extended hand - when greeted in Acholi by Ugandan observers from the Church and the northern constituencies.
Mostly, Kony appears to follow the lead of his second in command, Vincent Otti.

In the Ri-Kwangba talks, he often stood one pace behind Otti, watching him bargain and banter, following Otti's finger, line by line as the terms of a new agreement were patiently read to him. Otti is referred to as 'the boss' by the LRA soldiers and delegates.

"When you talk to Otti, Kony is always lurking behind. Otti is the medium through which Kony does his thing. It puts Otti in a very central role," says Prof. Morris Ogenga-Latigo, MP Agago County who was part of the observers.

"Many people have mistaken Otti as the driving force. But no, not at all, it's still Joseph Kony driving the whole process." Chief mediator Riek Machar agrees that although Otti is the 'front man', Kony remains in charge.

ICC charges against Kony and Otti, include killings, mutilations, sexual enslavement, mass burning of houses and camp settlements, child abductions, forced recruitment, and the massacre of 300 people in Otti's own village.

Traditional justice
Kony and Otti say they will submit to traditional justice instead (Mato oput), which focuses on reconciling communities rather than prosecuting individuals. And they want the Ugandan government - which asked the ICC to investigate the LRA - to be investigated too.

"Traditional justice we appreciate, but it must be taken on both sides. The Ugandan government did some atrocities as well," insists Otti. He is vague about what the LRA is fighting for, other than supporting a federal system in northern Uganda based on the Ten Commandments where 'nobody will accept people to steal, or go and take somebody's wife, or accepts innocent killings.' Otti accuses the Ugandan military of using HIV/Aids 'against northerners'.

In the absence of a more conventional political agenda by the cultish LRA, the ICC charges have become a crucial bargaining chip in this bizarre and brutal war, say delegates and observers.

David Gressly, a senior UN representative in Juba South Sudan, believes that both sides of the conflict are motivated to reach a settlement because of 'fatigue' with the long running crisis. Some delegates say President Museveni has become nervous that ICC investigations in northern Uganda will throw up damning evidence on his own soldiers.

And the LRA? They say they want to 'go home'. There are rumours about the health of both Otti and Kony; but there is still scant information about either men or their lifestyle.
Kony gets 'very tired' after long meetings, according to some of the LRA members. Otti is the man at the forefront but has a hunted look. As the communicator and the strategist, Otti is more unpredictable and obstructive, say those working on a peaceful settlement of the 20-year conflict.

Kony, Otti afraid
The scale of the ICC charges against Otti means he will be unable to go back to northern Uganda, many observers muse. One of the challenges of peace and justice may be finding a country to accommodate Otti. Sudan and a southern African state have been mentioned.

It appears Kony and Otti have come to the table in fear of their future. Lawyers have been flown in to explain the process of the ICC to the LRA leaders who apparently, were convinced they would be seized and hung in Europe. At the talks, they are terrified for their personal security. In Ri-Kwangba, they were guarded by expressionless young soldiers, armed with machine guns and grenade launchers.

With Kony and Otti unwilling to take more than a few paces out of the forest, peace talks in Juba will be a distant struggle for power and representation. The Ugandan government doggedly claims there are no more than about 800 LRA rebels left. But the government figures are not convincing in a conflict that has had no military or political solution for 20 years.

Humanitarian agencies calculate up 20,000 children have been abducted or killed in the north and child soldiers are the core fighting force of the LRA. Regional military sources estimate there are about 3,000 LRA fighters, with some 1,500 women and children in tow - which would explain why there is international motivation to get a lasting settlement in northern Uganda, before the LRA becomes newly employed as a highly effective, ruthless mercenary force in the shadowy conflicts on the border regions.