Friends For Peace In Africa

Opinions | September 25, 2008 | Monitor

Looking at the lifeless eyes of the child that lay beside him, Omona thought he had died and gone to hell. The dead child, a boy, was strapped to the wrist of another dead child, his young chest had been ripped wide open. All Omona could see were the blood soiled brackets of his ribs.

Around these two lifeless innocent souls also lay other bodies, may be 20 or more- all children who had their hands strapped to the wrists of the next child.  But this one child was the only one Omona could focus on.  His dead face and his death embodied the suffering of each individual child in an incompressible disaster.  

He thought that this was the greatest cruelty to mankind that he had witnessed in his life. Although he had almost witnessed death on a daily basis, he had never been touched by death on such a scale. This was his brother, Okello. It was unimaginable that these were the same children he was enduring captivity with some few days ago.  Omona was one of 30 children that had been abducted by the LRA from Wol in Pader district four days to this fateful day.    

Gripped by a feeling of helplessness, grief and compassion, he was also overcome with a feeling of guilt and responsibility, as though all this was his fault, or perhaps like there was something he could have done to have stopped this.  

He felt that he had let down his brother, whose legs had been shattered, stomach bullet riddled and chest ripped wide open.  He kept asking himself why he had to live or why this had to happen at all.  There was no answer of course.

Then one by one, he started seeing men in army uniform emerge from the bushes, they were shouting something but he could hear nothing and besides, his whole body felt numb to move, so he awaited his fate.

This is the story of Omona who was abducted on February  26, 1998 from Pader district. After walking some kilometres their abductors set up camp while they “awaited another LRA unit that was linking up with them.”  With their hands tied to that of the next child, they were then ordered to fetch some water, under the watchful eye of about 15 LRA rebels, many of them also formerly abducted.   

Unknown to them, a UPDF unit was laying in wait and once they entered the ambush, the soldiers opened fire at close range. At least 30 child captives were killed. To this date the UPDF maintains it killed “LRA rebels” on March 1, 1998 at Ogole, 8kms west of Wol in Agago.

Omona’s experience is not exceptional. Like thousands of children in northern Uganda, he suffers mental torment. He says; “these have been very hard years for Acholi children, and there is not much that is good to be said about them. I still see no hint of approaching peace, due to the volcanically uncertain temper of both our captors and our army.”

One day soon, Omona hopes, he will mourn the loss of his brother, but not until, “the ability to destroy and kill more children is ended in Acholi.”  This war he says will “never be justified and it is frightening that the world allowed it to last this long.” Omona has continuous nightmares and wakes up in the middle of the night to the sound of screaming children and gunfire in his head, images of bullet riddled dead children; images he doubts he will ever stop seeing.  

So when spin doctors and turncoats decry the call for the ICC to be impartial in investigating and prosecuting both LRA and UPDF for crimes committed in northern Uganda (See: “Ignore Human Rights Watch report on UPDF,” New Vision July 29, 2008), where do they get the moral authority?

It’s important that investigations into crimes against humanity in northern Uganda are carried out independent of the parties to the conflict, so that the perpetrators are brought to account for their actions regardless of which side they are on.

There is no evidence anywhere in the history of the violent conflict in northern Uganda that the NRA/UPDF, have “constitutionally and faithfully shielded the people of northern Uganda and their property against LRA.” To the contrary, they participated in some of the barbaric and senseless killings.

No side holds moral high ground, whatever the level of abuses by the LRA. Under international law the government has the legal responsibility to protect all Ugandans.

Mr Olara is a human rights advocate in the United Kingdom
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