ugnet_: Re: MISNA: REBEL LEADER'S CRAZY ORDER: "ATTACK CATHOLIC MISSIONS AND KILL MIS...

[Matekopoko]

Now if this is total  madness!!!!

UGANDA  14/6/2003 12:28
REBEL LEADER'S CRAZY ORDER: "ATTACK CATHOLIC MISSIONS AND KILL MISSIONARIES"
Church/Religious Affairs, Standard


"Catholic missions must be destroyed, priests and missionaries killed in cold blood and nuns beaten black and blue": this is the order given by Joseph Kony, leader of the so called Lord Resistance Army (Lra) to his men operating in North Uganda. The crazy disposition has been broadcasted,two days ago, on the local radio network utilized by the Catholic institutions. Father Josef Gerner, in charge of the parish in Kitgum (more than 300 miles north of the capital, Kampala), espressed his worrying and sorrow to MISNA because of the ugly threat hanging now, more than ever, on people and structure of the Catholic Curch. " Kony's words are deeply scaring" said father Gerner over the phone. "We, as missionaries -he added - are taking them veri seriously and do not feel at all that could be interpreted as a joke. Daily violence against civilians in Gulu, Kitgum and Pader acholidistricts make us believe that everything may be really possible". Father Gerner ask for the solidarity of !
Uganda as a whole and especially for Kampala government commitment to spare more injust danger and suffering to the local population, already at the end of their strenght. Kitgum Combioni mission is always under a very hign risk of an attack: in the last days more then 700 children have taken refuge in catecumenal areas annexed to the parish hoping to escape Lra kidnappings. During the last 20 years, eleven combonian fathers have been killed, in various circumstances, in Uganda.Father Egidio Biscaro and father Di Bari were rebels' victims: the former was ambushed on the Kitgum-Pajule road on January 29 1990; the latter, ten years aftter. The bloody civil war in North Uganda is quickly becoming a full-fledged genocide: 850.000 acholi and lango citizens, over a total population of one million and 400.000, are now homeless and leaving under the sky in depserate human conditions. No food and medicine are sufficiently available, notwithstanding the full solidarity of the mission!
aries for everybody in need of help and protection. According to reali
able sources, the rebels can be counted now in the range of 3500/4000, 90 per cent abducted in adolescent or pre adolescent age and forced to fight for Lra.
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