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APOCALYPSE NOW? IN GODS ARMY

The devastated streets of south Beirut had a visitor this week, a representative of almost every nation on Earth. His name was Kofi Annan and he is the Secretary general of the United Nations. The UN are about to install a “Peacekeeping” force in southern Lebanon with a brief to prevent any reoccurrence of the events of the past five weeks in that small country but before the main force arrived he wanted to see for himself the extent of the damage. His reception as he toured through the rubble was less than welcoming but his achievement of bringing about a ceasefire has at least allowed the protestors to remain alive to voice their opinion.
Coinciding with his visit a statement from the leader of Hezbollah Sheik Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah claimed that “If he had known that the capture of two Israeli soldiers would bring such a war then he would not have ordered it” An admission if one was needed that Hezbollah were responsible for the outrage that began the conflict but the capture of the two Israelis was only a small part of the aggression by Hezbollah that led to the hostilities, the parts unmentioned were the rocket attacks by Hezbollah upon Israeli civilian targets. Hezbollah was obviously forced to make some small act of contrition by the UN which could explain why the streets of south Beirut were awash with an orchestrated protest against Kofi Annan, orchestrated by Hezbollah who still control more of south Beirut than the Lebanese government and claim that no one walks the streets of the Party of God unless they allow it.

To the south west of Lebanon halfway down the length of Africa there is another army that claims god as its patron, it is the “Lords Resistance Army” and for more than 20 years the troubled state of Uganda has been fighting a war in its northern provinces against an army that are little more than children who have brought terror to millions of people.
Uganda is a predominantly Christian country and was made so by the scores of missionaries of both the Protestant and Catholic persuasion leaving it around 66% Christian with 16% being Muslim and the remaining population subscribing to indigenous religions that were there long before the white men came. The most widely spoken language is English, a colonial legacy; its legal system owes much to English common law. The sanitation and water supply is poor and typhoid fever/waterborne diseases are common along with Malaria and Sleeping Sickness but the biggest health issue has been the spread of HIV/AIDS.
The country took independence in 1962 and has suffered several military coups’, one of them left Idi Amin in 1971 in control for what was certainly the darkest period of its history. In the days of the most active period of the PLO, Hamas and Black September the airport at Entebbe in Uganda was the scene of a notorious hijacking incident that resulted in several deaths and the destruction of at least two airliners, a rescue attempt by USA Special Forces and international condemnation of what took place there. In eight years in office he was known to have put 300,000 of his political opponents to death. In 1979 he was forced into exile in Saudi Arabia by a trans African force. By 1980 Milton Obote took control and took another 100,000 lives with an appalling record of human rights until he too was removed [NOT ONCE BUT TWICEby the man who is now the current President] . In 1986 the country settled to a form of government under a new President Yoweri Museveni, it is still a republic but it had no constitution until 1996.The removal of Milton Obote from power is the catalyst that began the bush war that has been going on since Museveni took power. Africa, by and large consists of countries run along “Tribal Concepts” and Uganda has many tribes that vie for supremacy. Milton Obote was of the Acoli ethnic group whilst Museveni is from the Nyankole group in the Ntungamo district of southern Uganda. His allegiances owe nothing to the Acoli and he was as instrumental in the removal of Idi Amin as he was in the overthrow of Milton Obote. When he took power in 1986 he became both Head of State and the Head of Government and the Prime Minister Apollo Nsibambi merely “Assists the President” in the supervision of the cabinet. The President from the ranks of “Elected Legislators” appoints all the cabinet. It is, in all but name a one party state that forbids any other party whilst it governs though Museveni claims it is not a political party but a movement that claims the loyalty of all Ugandans. “Elections” take place every five years and there should be one in 2006 but there is little prospect of change if the only party a candidate can belong to is already in power.

In the north of Uganda a war has been in progress since Museveni came to power, they call themselves “The Lords Resistance Army” [Hezbollah also claim to be the party of god] and they claim to be fighting to establish a system of government based on the observance of the Ten Commandments [The Moses version] although they seem to have broken most of the ten in their struggle for power.

Over the past twenty years the LRA have driven more than two million people from their homes, they have kidnapped over twenty thousand children and forced them to fight for the LRA. They have been responsible for the deaths of more than 100,000 thousand Ugandans, some Sudanese, and a substantial number of Kenyans and citizens of the Republic of Congo. Rapes, murder, maiming’s beatings arson and cross border attacks have become commonplace in northern Uganda. The famine and starvation that accompanies such fighting often attracts international humanitarian aid but even the trucks carrying the aid have been attacked and looted by the LRA. The evidence against the leaders of the LRA is damming and virtually undeniable. Yet perhaps the worst tactic of the LRA is one of the ways that they raise funds for their cause. As night descends in many of the northern townships and cities of Uganda an army of children take to the streets to sell their bodies for food or cash for the cause, forced into child prostitution on a massive scale in a country racked with the modern plague of AIDs. They risk death nightly from the creeping contamination of a disease that is claiming more African victims every day or a quicker death at the hands of one of their “clients”. In Europe such “Slave masters” would spend a lifetime in gaol, in Thailand or Vietnam they would face the death penalty.
The war has been funded until recently by the Sudanese government who were happy to accept the LRA onto their territory because the LRA were also a counter measure against Sudan’s own terror groups along its southern border but that has now changed largely due to the US “Crusade” against international terrorism and where Sudan was a Muslim state Uganda is Christian, The LRA would be a way of undermining a Christian neighbour and perhaps further the cause if Islam in the area. Several heavy defeats of Sudanese rebels have weakened the usefulness of the LRA to Sudan.

This week, yesterday in fact a truce was signed between the LRA and the Ugandan government in Juba in Southern Sudan putting an end to twenty years of terrorism, war, and downright criminal activity. The leader of the LRA Joseph Kony utterly refutes any charge of “War crimes” levelled by Uganda or any other body. The International Criminal Court want Joseph Kony and many of the leaders of the LRA to stand trial on charges of Murder, Rape, Kidnapping and forcibly enlisting children to fight but the Ugandan government has guaranteed that none of the LRA will face any charges as a condition of the peace settlement and has set a deadline for a final agreement by September 12th 2006but specifically excluded Joseph Kony and all of his senior commanders from the deal. Then in a change of tactics the Ugandan government offered the same amnesty to Joseph Kony, by Wednesday Kony had ridiculed the offer maintaining his innocence of all charges.
After twenty years of conflict the Ugandan people just want it to end, at any price.
Surprisingly few Ugandans want Kony to pay for his crimes with his life, their view is how can one life pay for 100,000 known deaths, 2 million people driven from their homes, the twenty thousand missing children, the beatings, the rapes, the disfigurement inflicted upon some victims [cut off their ears, blinded, cut off their lips, facially scalded by boiling water and much, much worse] their view is that he should be allowed to live freely in shame in Uganda, if he can which very few believe possible.

The children of the night or “The commuters” as the child prostitutes have become known still work the streets of the townships but the merest hint that one of their number is unaccounted for brings the memory of the LRA kidnappings flooding back as they flee the streets to the safety of a secret hiding place which each child has. The war may be over but the fear instilled into the population of northern Uganda and the countries it shares its border with remains vivid.

In November 2005 the UN sent a high ranking envoy to the area to “Assess” whatever action was required to bring the fighting to an end. In the opinion of the envoy the situation in the countryside and inside the northern townships was far worse than it was in Iraq. He could not express his embarrassment and dismay that the tragedy of northern Uganda was receiving so little international attention but as his senior military guide/host pointed out Uganda has little by way of commercial interest, very few minerals and no oil why would anyone want to become involved in settling a conflict with no pay off. When it comes right down to practicalities if there is no money to be made from a settlement the only other way is international intervention and that seems a log way off because this war is almost invisible to the outside world.

On Tuesday morning LRA fighters began to emerge from the bush near the designated assembly points to take advantage of the amnesty offered by the Ugandan Government. To accept the amnesty all they had to do was surrender their weapons and then break an egg with their foot, why an egg? Because in northern Uganda the egg is a sign of innocence. It is estimated that the LRA numbers are around one thousand to fifteen hundred; to date no more than 400 eggshells lie on the ground.
The question preying on Ugandan minds today is “Is this particular apocalypse at an end” or will the next thirteen days be merely a respite until it returns?

JP.

Posted: August 30, 2006 , Modified: August 31, 2006

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