UGANDA 1/6/2004 10:33
ANTICIPATION AND SATISFACTION FOR VISIT OF CARDINAL MARTINO
Church/Religious Affairs, Brief
There is wide satisfaction and anticipation in North Uganda over the arrival today in
Gulu (administrative centre of the homonymous North Ugandan district) of the Chairman
of the Pontifical Council of Justice and Peace, Cardinal Renato Raffaele Martino.
Father Carlos Rodriguez Soto, representative of the justice and peace office of the
diocese of Gulu, expressed his joy to MISNA for the attention of the Holy See for the
Ugandan civil population afflicted due to continuous attacks by the rebels of the LRA
(lordâs Resistance Army) by a dramatic humanitarian crisis. Satisfaction was
expressed also by Fr. Joseph Gerner, parish priest of Kitgum (main city of the
district of Kitgum), another symbol zone of the violence of the LRA and where the
Chairman of Justice and Peace will arrive tomorrow. The Cardinal will meet with the
ARLPI (Acholi Religious Leaders Peace Initiative), the inter-religious cartel engaged
in efforts to find a negotiated solution to the North Ugandan conflict, and later will
visit a refugee camp in the zone of Gulu. In the evening Cardinal Martino will then go
to Saint Maryâs Hospital of Lachor, where each night thousands of children take
shelter, preferring to sleep out in the open to avoid being abducted by the LRA.
Tomorrow, June 2, the Cardinal, accompanied by the Apostolic Nuncio Pierre Cristophe
and Guluâs Archbishop John Baptist Odama, will fly to Kalongo to visit the
missionary hospital founded by the late Fr. Giuseppe Ambrosoli, then before returning
in the evening to Kampala, will stop in Kitgum. Since 1986 the 'olum' ('grass', as the
people call the rebels in the local language) commanded by their leader Joseph Kony
have been devastating the northern Ugandan districts: according to local sources in 17
years of terror they have tortured and killed tens of thousands of people (at least
100,000), abducted over 25,000 children (reduced to slavery or forcedly enrolled in
rebel lines) and displaced over a million.
[BO]
