By Richard Kavuma
March 28, 2004
Priest of peace
aims to turn confrontation into cooperation
Retired Bishop McLeod Baker Ochola II is a
perfect face of the anguish that the war has wrought on northern Uganda.
But he prefers to be a face of hope for the suffering, and desperate
people.In 1987, Ochola a former Anglican bishop of Kitgum, and his wife Winifred were in Canada. The bishop was completing his theological studies.
Their daughter, Joyce Adong Ochola, who was just turning 19, was in Kitgum. Towards the end of April, the UPDA rebels tried to abduct a teenage girl from Kitgum High School.
The girl took refugee in the bishops house. But the rebels threatened to bomb the house if the girl did not come out.
So they marched her away. On the way, the girl escaped. The rebels returned to the bishops house and took Joyce as a replacement.
They raped her. After that terrible ordeal, when she came back home she found that she could not live that kind of life of shame,says Bishop Ochola, pressing his palms together for strength; his eyes cast on the bare floor of his hotel room in Gulu.
Bishop Baker Ochola poses with an LRA commander after ARLPI peace talks in July 2002
She took an overdose Chloroquine and died.Ocholas voice was now getting heavier, his talking pace ever slower. She died on the first of May, four days before she would have turned 19.
Ten years later, on the morning of May 23, 1997, Ocholas wife, Winifred was returning home from her village in Agoro, 45 miles north of Kitgum town.
About 6 km from Kitgum town, their pickup vehicle hit a landmine.
She died instantly, along with two other people,says the Bishop quietly.
I felt like a tree split from top to bottom by lightning,Ochola told a conference in South Africa last year I was suddenly robbed of a friend, a partner in ministry, a mother and above all, a comforter to me and those who were suffering all around us.
But Ochola has not allowed the tragedy to overwhelm him. He has committed his life to peace work. I have tried to change the game from confrontation to cooperation,he said. I have attempted to encourage both sides to aim for mutual satisfaction not victory because it is more rewarding to turn our enemies into friends knowing that the prize is not so much to achieve our position but satisfy our strategic interests.
Kony
Bishop Ochola is not alone. He is the
vice-chairman of the Acholi Religious Leaders Peace Initiative (ARLPI). A
group of religious leaders in northern Uganda united by the tragedy and a
quest for peace. The ARLPI was born after the LRA rebels ravaged Lamwo
County in Kitgum in January 1997. More than 410 people were killed in the
sub-counties of Lokung, Palabek-kal, Palabek-gem and Padibe. Recalls Ochola: That was the beginning of mass displacement of people. Residents of Lamwo County moved to Kitgum town and congested it. So many people died due to cholera and meningitis.
In August 1997, religious leaders from Gulu and Kitgum held a joint prayer. ARLPI concentrates on advocating peace, peace education and sensitisation.
Ochola, who is a deputy to Gulu Archbishop John Baptist Odama, says that an ARLPI now has a peace committee in every sub-county. The committees teach villagers about how to treat children who return from Kony captivity. They explain to the people that the children are victims of the war who may have killed people only because they were forced.
In July 2002, a group of LRA rebels returned to Uganda as Operation Iron Fist raged on in southern Sudan.
They requested ARLPI to act as a link between them and government.
We took the letter from them to the president and the president gave us the permission to go and look for them,says Ochola.
Within two weeks ARLPI had managed to meet in the bush with the second in command of the LRA officer, Vincent Otti. Then the president became interested. He wrote a letter to them. They wrote a letter to the president although the language was a bit strong - You see when people are quarrelling the language is not always very soft - but it was something to see that at least they were able to talk.
When Museveni announced his Presidential Peace Team (PPT) led by the then Internal Affairs minister Eriya Kategaya, ARLPI knew that both sides were becoming even more positive towards the dialogue.
But again, something unsettling happened. In August rebels requested a meeting with the religious leaders in Kitgum. Fr Carlos Rodriguez and two priests, Giulio Albanese and Tarcisio Pazzaglia, travelled from Gulu to Kitgum to meet the rebels.
They got all the formalities from the RDC, LCV, the military - everybody was well informed,says Ochola. On August 28, when they had met for just 15 minutes the UPDF attacked the venue and the rebels fled.
Ochola: That became a very big problem. Fr Carlos was almost killed. Rebels began to suspect that government was trying to use the religious leaders as a bait to kill them.
The government officials said the priests did not have permission to meet the rebels and accused them of being rebel collaborators.
The UPDF said it had captured the priestsin battle and held them for two days in what Fr Carlos described as appalling conditions.
However, ARLPI chairman Odama issued a statement saying that Kitgum RDC Okot Lapolo had even asked the priests to carry a letter to one of the rebel commanders, Toopaco.
The little trust that we had built on both sides was completely smashed because of that incident. By October, 2002 both sides went on the offensive and there was a lot of killing and abduction,said Ochola.
Asked if the rebels ever talked about ending the war peacefully Sunday, a 16 year-old boy who spent a year in LRA captivity, said: Vincent [Otti] told us that there was a time they went for peace talk and they just shot at them. He said that now they dont want anything to do with peace talk.
In December the rebels again contacted ARLPI, asking them to mediate.
At the beginning of March 2003, the rebels declared a unilateral ceasefire and requested to meet ARLPI and the PPT on the 4th.
Government agreed to meet the rebels but suggested the 6th of March as the suitable date.
Arrangements were made for a peace meeting at Koyo Lalogi, Lapul sub county in Pader district.
ARLPI believes that the LRA sent 17 second command officers to attend that meeting.
The departure was, however, delayed in Gulu because the PPT and ARLPI delegation had to meet the president.
In the meantime, government units attacked the venue. And that sent a very bad signal to the rebels. Somehow, they managed to run away.
In the afternoon Salim Saleh and some of the religious leaders tried to go to the venue of the meeting. But they were flown by helicopter to Acol Pii, where a UPDF 5Division Commander Col. John Mugume stopped them.
Says Ochola: Salim Saleh demanded to know why but the commander there insisted that he was working on orders.President Museveni later declared a limited ceasefire in the area and arrangements were made to meet the rebels on March 14.
Members of the PPT, together with a UN observer and three religious leaders went to the venue; only this time it was the LRA who refused to meet them.
The ARLPI, it was feared would abandon the pursuit of peace when, in June this year Kony issued an order to his forces to kill the religious leaders.
Odamas response was short: We will not give up. Fr Carlos Rodriguez says that when they started to talk to the rebels in July 2002, they knew that they were in for a long, difficult and risky process.
So for us we are not surprised that after one year, we are still at the beginning.The religious leaders had been working for three years to build confidence.
You can never really plan for a peace process. Things can turn out totally differently and you have to be prepared for anything,Rodriguez said in an interview in Kampala last year. Recently the army and government officials asked Museveni to deport him.
Rodriguez says the ARLPI team faces more risk from both the rebels, who accuse them of being government functionaries, and from a government that accuses them of being rebel collaborators.
Being a mediator means that you are trying to bring the two sides together but when they get tired, they turn their anger on you.
Part of Konys anger with the religious leaders, Rodriguez said, is the religious leaders have persuaded some rebels to give up fighting.
Kony suspects that the government is using the ARLPI to fish outthe LRA.
Kony is intolerant to anyone who tries to influence the LRA fighters. He wants to be the only one to influence the LRA fighters,said the Spanish priest who has worked in northern Uganda since 1985.
� 2004 The
Monitor Publications
Ochan OtimNB: I hope you will find time to read and sign a petition to stop the Northern Uganda carnage at: http://www.petitiononline.com/savacoli/petition.html
