Humanitarian Crisis in N. Uganda Neglected
WASHINGTON -- The young Ugandan was roused from his sleep by rebel forces one night and taken away. In time, he was thrust into battle, enduring several close brushes with death. He was a war veteran at age 11.
A Ugandan girl, 15, also saw combat after being kidnapped by rebels, one of whom raped her. Life for her after she bore his daughter was a continuing torment. "I used to fight with my baby strapped on my back," she said.
However grim their stories, the two youngsters have been among the more fortunate of Uganda's war victims. Both managed to escape and now look forward to a brighter future, according to their recorded testimonies, made available by the U.S. Agency for International Development.ADVERTISEMENT![]()
The depredations of the cultlike Lord's Resistance Army has led to suffering on a mass scale for the Acholi population in northern part of Uganda -- with little notice from the outside world.
The U.N. undersecretary for humanitarian affairs, Jan Egeland, says northern Uganda's 20-year war, a lethal mix of religion and brutality, is the world's most neglected humanitarian crisis.
It certainly is no match for the western Sudanese region of Darfur in terms of garnering world attention and sympathy, even though the two conflicts have much in common: the number of displaced in both is well in excess of 1 million, most of them housed in dreary camps. The strife in the two regions has claimed tens of thousands of lives.
But assistance from the United States and other countries is much higher for Darfur. It is an issue, says State Department deputy spokesman Adam Ereli, "that the senior leadership of this administration works on every single day." Visits to Darfur by top U.S. officials are frequent.
The African Union has 7,000 troops in Darfur and may be joined soon by several hundred NATO advisers. Thousands of U.N. peacekeepers are being recruited for Darfur duty.
The international outreach in northern Uganda is much less ambitious. It was not until 18 years after the conflict started that the U.N. Security Council officially took note of it in a resolution.
"Northern Uganda does not have a constituency," says John Prendergast of the International Crisis Group, which follows global hotspots.
Egeland said in early April that the war has forced northern Ugandans "to live in massive displaced persons camps that are not found anywhere in the world."
Last month, President Bush blamed the region's violence on a "barbaric rebel cult." Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., says Washington should demand "a rapid and organized international response to the humanitarian disaster" in northern Uganda.
U.S. relief aid totals $95 million annually. Another $13 million is used for rehabilitating children who manage to escape their LRA captors. In Darfur, the United States provided $507 million in humanitarian relief last year and $765 million the year before.
The LRA is led by a shadowy figure, Joseph Kony, who says he wants to create a government guided by the Ten Commandments.
Like the LRA, the Ugandan government also has been accused of atrocities and of herding civilians into camps to ensure the rebels find no supporters in the countryside.
Efforts by Uganda's Kampala-based government to negotiate peace have failed repeatedly. Kony uses his captives as human shields to deter possible Ugandan Army offensives to capture or kill him.
Children have been a particular casualty of the war. According to U.N. estimates, the rebels have abducted at least 25,000 children, mostly for use as fighters or sex slaves. As the children grow older, they are often sent on kidnap missions to ensure a steady supply of new blood.
To avoid capture, up to 8,000 Ugandan "night walkers," mostly children, trek for miles each evening from their homes to secure camps lest they fall victim to LRA kidnappers.
Kony and his rebels operated for years from a haven in Sudan, launching cross border operations into northern Uganda. He is believed to have transferred his operation to the violence-plagued eastern Congo, where he is assured continued easy access to northern Uganda.
If Kony is captured, he could be hauled before the International Criminal Court, which last summer issued warrants for the arrest of Kony and four of his top lieutenants. One was later killed in battle.
The five were charged with crimes against humanity and war crimes. The warrants were the first issued by the court since it was formed four years ago.
* __
On the Net:
CIA World Factbook on Uganda: http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/ug.html
How low will we go? Check out Yahoo! Messengers low PC-to-Phone call rates.
_______________________________________________ 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. ---------------------------------------
