being killed. There was a period when these events even entered into the songs people sang. Eventually local leaders protested and the whole unit was transferred.10
The toll on the economic and social fabric was beginning to be felt. Dowries were given in cash as cattle had been rustled, sexually transmitted diseases were perceived to be rising, the only large-scale industry in the area (the foam mattress factory in Gulu) relocated to Jinja, and there were repeated army ‘operations’ to identify rebel collaborators. Abuse of civilians remained the order of the day. One respondent who lost twenty-nine head of cattle in 1990 to soldiers, recalled being told that ‘it was government policy to remove all the Acholi animals to be eaten by the army’.
1991 saw the beginning of LRA mutilations and maimings reminiscent of those of RENAMO in Mozambique, including the cutting of lips and noses and the use of padlocks on the mouths of people they thought might report them to the authorities. In April a major four-month Government anti-insurgency operation known as Operation North was launched under which travel was severely restricted and people were rounded up for screening. During this period 890 elders met in Viva Rest-house in Gulu (where they were fed courtesy of the 4th Division Commander) and passed a resolution that the population should be organised into ‘bow-and-arrow defence units’ to fight the rebels – a collaboration with the Government which did not escape the watchful eyes of the LRA (see Chapter 4).11
1992 saw the launch of the first Northern Uganda Reconstruction Program (NURP I), ostensibly ‘an emergency operation aimed at restoring basic economic and social infrastructure as well as reviving economic activities in the northern region.’ This targeted fourteen districts in total. While budgeted at U.S. $600 million in 1991, only $93.6 million would ultimately be disbursed (COWI 1999: 20–28).
The tit-for-tat relationship between Uganda and Sudan, which was to become more prominent in later years, was already visible at this point, with the bombing of Moyo by the Sudanese in 1990, and sightings in Gulu of the SPLA leader, John Garang, in 1991. International interest was demonstrated when Pope John Paul II visited Gulu in 1993 to pray for peace from a specially constructed podium which was still standing in the centre of Kaunda Ground six years later.12
In 1992 and 1993 violence abated, prompting several secondary schools displaced from 1988 onwards to return to their original sites.13 Mrs Betty Bigombe, then Minister for Pacification of the North, led a series of face-to-face meetings between representatives of both Government and LRA in late 1993 and early 1994, raising hopes that peace was just around the corner (see Chapter 4).14 In-stead, an ultimatum from Museveni to the LRA in early February to come out of the bush within seven days or be killed, led to the collapse of talks and a dramatic resurgence of violence.
Phase III (1994 to 1999)
This third phase of the conflict took place against a changing national backdrop. Following the adoption of the 1995 Constitution, which limited the office of President to two five-year terms, Museveni was elected for a first term under the new constitution in May 1996 – effectively ignoring his previous ten years in power – and declared his intention to defeat the LRA militarily. The Local Government Act of 1997 devolved many functions and powers previously exercised by the Central Government, further deepening capacity problems in northern Uganda. Two years later a report for the second Northern Uganda Reconstruction Programme noted that ‘under current decentralisation, districts have a tendency to compromise quality because of biases to recruit local ethnic personnel’ (COWI 1999a: 21). A further development after the 1996 elections was the formation of the Acholi Parliamentary Group comprising all eleven elected Acholi MPs. This grouping would play some role in raising national awareness of the war, particularly in pushing a motion through Parliament calling for a national investigation into the situation.
Phase III was marked by ongoing LRA insurgency from rear bases in the Sudan, allegations of increased Sudanese support to the LRA, and a number of major atrocities which are generally attributed to the LRA. These included the Attiak massacre of 22 April 1995, the ambush of the Karuma/Pakwach convoy of 8 March 1996, the Acholpi refugee camp massacre of July 1996, St Mary's College abductions in October 1996 (the ‘Aboke Girls’), and the Lokung/Palabek massacre of some 412 people in January 1997 (Gersony 1997: 38–44).
People began commuting into safer areas by night and returning to their homes during the day-time. Places such as Gulu town and Lacor hospital were overflowing with people sleeping in any available spot. One elder recalled;
Before the protected villages in 1997 everybody was forced to come and stay in town. Some people sneaked back to the village because they had no money for food or rent. The churches were full, so was Kaunda Ground, Pece Stadium was full of tents, also Gulu medical [hospital]. Food was supplied by Red Cross, World Vision, Church of Uganda and Catholic Church. They [the displaced] were known as ‘Oring Ayela’, ‘Those who have run from the problem.15
By late 1996 the Government began a strategy of ‘protected villages’. Located in pre-existing hubs of local economic and administrative activity otherwise known as trading centres, these brought people from widely scattered small villages together into much larger aggregates ranging from a few thousands up to tens of thousands. They generally had a military presence (a ‘detach’) for the ostensible purposes of protection from the LRA. Although some people chose to move into such camps voluntarily, others were forced by the UPDF (see Chapter 5).
Together with LRA atrocities, the formation of the protected villages was the defining feature of phase III of the conflict, and in many respects remained so from that point forwards. From late 1996 there was a flurry of screening exercises known as panda gari (Swahili for ‘climb into the truck’). Whereas the one in 1991 included women and children, most of the later ones focused on rounding up hundreds of men who were then obliged to identify themselves to the army – failure to do so could result in arrest on suspicion of being a rebel or a rebel collaborator.16
External factors were increasingly acknowledged. In 1997, for example, The Monitor reported that ‘President Yoweri Museveni, after years of denials, has finally acknowledged United States assistance in its protracted northern war with Sudan-backed rebels’.17 In June 1998, when the Uganda Young Democrats (with partial sponsorship from the British Labour party) organised a seminar on the theme ‘Human Rights and Democracy’, their Vice-President argued that ‘This war is not ours. It is a war of imperialistic interests; a war of mineral wealth and oil in southern Sudan; it is a war of influence. That woman (Albright), who promised us nothing but guns to kill our own people and to protect American interests in this region, is bad’.18 At the conference on ‘Peace Research and the Reconciliation Agenda’ held in Gulu in September 1999 the fact that the SPLA were hosted in northern Uganda was publicly acknowledged, and both the Local Council Chairman and the Resident District Commissioner argued that ‘the major stumbling block is the problematic relationship with the Sudan’. An Acholi elder concurred: ‘The war is not between Kony and the government – it is between the governments of Sudan and Uganda. The peace talks and conferences will not stop the war unless the Sudan and Uganda governments understand each other and Sudan stop support [to the] LRA and Uganda stop support [to the] SPLA’.19 The MP for Gulu Municipality, while chairing a debate on the Sudan, asked the panellists to address a number of questions:
‘What is Sudan's government stands towards neighbours and their intentions for the Region? What are the regime's chances of survival? I mean the Sudan regime, not any other regime.20 What are the strength and the weakness of SPLA and the Northern opposition alliance? How are they affected by changes in tactics of those who back them in the region, and globally? What is the form and extent of greater power involvement? When we talk of the greater power, we mean those who
