Sudan: LRA Terrorises Sudan
| | |||||||||
New Vision (Kampala)
March 19, 2006
Posted to the web March 20, 2006
Posted to the web March 20, 2006
Emmy Allio
Kampala
Kampala
The people of southern Sudan nickname them "tong tong", referring to their notorious tactic of chopping off ears, lips and arms. top UN officials in Sudan call them an international terrorist group whose actions are "brutal and absolutely
unforgivable".
And commanders of the SPLA, the former rebels of southern Sudan, call them the deadliest and most dangerous of all militias supported by the Sudan government. The Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) has effectively extended its reign of terror from Uganda into the deepest jungles of Southern Sudan, causing death and destruction, disrupting relief operations, cutting off trade routes and preventing the return of refugees.
It was the afternoon of March 7, 2006. Turn-boy Denis Daniel Lopay was driving on the Yei-Maridi road in Southern Sudan, bringing supplies to a school in Kotabi, when a group of armed men and women jumped out of the surrounding bushes, forcing their truck to stop. The next moment, gunfire was everywhere. "One of the first bullets hit me in the leg," Lopay recalls, while recovering in Yei Hospital. "The driver, a Ugandan, was also wounded. The owner of the truck, called John Kaunda, died on the
front
seat next to me."
Pretending to be dead, the 23-year-old turn-boy noticed how the rebels dragged them out of the vehicle, robbed them of their money and shoes, looted the truck and set it ablaze. "They were many and spoke a mixture of Swahili and Acholi," Lopay says. "Before they left, one of the armed men ordered that we be shot again. But the woman replied, 'Leave it. They are already dead.'" Like most southern Sudanese, Denis does not know who the LRA are or what they are fighting for. "I was aware of them but I had never come across them," he says. "I don't know why they are doing this to us."
Stories of LRA attacks are rife in Southern Sudan. Since the LRA crossed to the western bank of River Nile last September, it attacked and looted the villages of Loka, Balagu, Lasu, Ibangi, Embe, Meke and Dimo in Western Equatoria, as well as the town of Maridi, routinely killing civilians and abducting children. On March 5,
the LRA
attacked the village of Dimo, 20 miles from Yei, looting food and abducting nine children: four boys and five girls.
Foreigners are not spared either. On September 13, 2005 the LRA ambushed a Swedish National of a de-mining company, robbing him of his money and a satellite phone. Three weeks later, on November 5, the LRA ambushed a vehicle of the NGO AIS on the Kaya-Yei road, killing a British water engineer.
On February 11, it launched a daring raid on the Unicef compound in Yambio, forcing all international staff to be evacuated. And a week ago, the Dutch NGO, ZOA Refugees Care, had to be evacuated from Limbe, off the Yei-Juba road, because of reports of LRA in the area.
"Since the LRA moved into Western Equatoria and Congo, our movements have really been curtailed," says Ahmed Warsame, the head of the UNHCR office in Yei. "We cannot travel without escorts on all roads leading out of Yei
.
Because of the LRA threat, we had to evacuate our staff from the Congolese border town of Aba and relocate our office to Aru. As a result, the operation of resettling refugees from that area had to be put on hold. If the security situation deteriorates, we shall have to revise our programme. Security is the primary concern of the refugees. 'Is it safe?' is the first question they ask us when we visit the camps."
The minister of Information in the new government of Southern Sudan, Dr. Samson Kwaje, believes the LRA is part of the destabilisation plan of Khartoum. "The ruling party is using the LRA to discredit its partner-in-peace so that it does not deliver," he told us in his residence in Juba. "It has learned a lesson from the Ugandan elections, where Museveni was voted out in the north for failing to maintain security."
According to the minister, the LRA is only one out of three militias used by Khartoum to frustra
te the
government of Southern Sudan. "In Upper Nile, it is using the SSDF (Southern Sudan Defence Forces) of Gordon Kong. In Bahr El Ghazal, it is using the Bahr El Ghazal Peace Force of Tom El Nur. But in Equatoria, it failed to raise a local militia since the Equatoria Defence Forces (EDF) had joined the SPLA. The LRA was therefore brought back in. There is evidence of fresh supplies to the LRA. On March 3, after attacking the village of Wonduruba in Lanya, Yei district, villagers witnessed the LRA breaking open new boxes of ammunition with Arabic inscriptions."
The commander of the Sudanese Armed Forces in Juba, however, brushed away these allegations. "In the past, when we fought the SPLA, we were assisting the LRA," he said in the army barracks in Juba. "We stopped assisting them in 1998, after we reached an agreement with Uganda. The LRA hid some of the ammunition we had given to them, which they are digging up now." The general, who refused to be
named,
fiercely denies accusations of continued support to the LRA. "There is no reason for us to help the LRA," he maintains. "They attacked our troops. They killed our people. They are our enemy."
Whatever the case, the LRA has effectively disrupted reconstruction and resettlement operations in Southern Sudan. "The LRA is posing restrictions on our movements," confirms James Ellery, the regional coordinator of the UN peace keeping mission in Sudan (UNMIS). "It is affecting the delivery of humanitarian goods. World Food Programme has been de-mining and building roads, which have made it possible for relief goods to come in and for trade to pick up. Prices have halved as a result. We don't want the LRA to frustrate that process."
"Anybody still supporting the LRA, has to watch out. We will soon hear about it. It would be taken very seriously. The LRA is a malign force. Their actions of attacking unarmed villagers are brutal
and
absolutely unforgivable. The people of Southern Sudan hate them. Fortunately, insurgencies without an agenda or local support don't last very long. Their days are numbered," he warns.
|
Asked if the UN would help the government of Southern Sudan to fight the LRA, Ellery says their mandate did not allow that. "We operate under Chapter 6, which does not allow peace enforcement. But we are willing to provide the SPLA with all other assistance, apart from combat, to chase out the LRA. It is intolerable that a foreign terrorist group is operating in Southern Sudan to the detriment of the peace process."
Interview with SPLA Deputy Chief of Staff Maj. Gen. Bio Ajang will run in the New Vision tomorrow
Yahoo! Travel
Find great deals to the top 10 hottest destinations!
_______________________________________________ Ugandanet mailing list [email protected] http://kym.net/mailman/listinfo/ugandanet % UGANDANET is generously hosted by INFOCOM http://www.infocom.co.ug/
The above comments and data are owned by whoever posted them (including attachments if any). The List's Host is not responsible for them in any way. ---------------------------------------
