Who is responsible for the war in northern Uganda?

By Timothy Kalyegira

Since the early 1990s, the world has come to learn about a man named Joseph Kony, the leader of a rebel, mainly Acholi group, called the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), operating out of Acholi and extending to its rear bases in southern Sudan and north-eastern Congo.

The evils of the LRA rebels have frequently exceeded the gruesome evils the world better knew under the regime of Idi Amin, with them reportedly cutting off the limbs, noses, ears, breasts of their victims for no apparent reason and with nothing military, political, or psychological to gain from that.

It is one more riddle of evil. In a lead article in the Democratic Party newspaper The Citizen of November 30, 1988 titled, "Acholis, why are you killing Acholis?", reporter Vito Ocan wrote a summary of the war in Acholi but was unable to understand the significance of his own observation: "It is almost 30 months now since the beginning of the 'guerrilla war' of the Acholi against the NRA...Whereas at the beginning and for about a couple of years they have mounted ambushes against different Barracks or Army Detachments, of late they [rebels] have resorted to pure banditry and brutality.

Now they are fighting at home, against their own people; they have destroyed hundreds of villages everywhere in Gulu and Kitgum Districts...This is destruction of one's home, a demented suicide...One thing that is disturbing however, is the indifference of the NRA troops in the face of all the incidents. They seem not to care that so many institutions are attacked and half destroyed."

There we are in that report: rebels opposed to the NRM government and previously attacking only military installations of their enemy with great support among the population, suddenly, two years later change strategy, stop attacking the enemy the NRA and start attacking the very tribesmen from whom they enjoy support.

And as the rebels unleash this carnage on the Acholi, mysteriously the NRA government army either failed, or just stood unbothered. Could there have been a connection between the "rebels" attacking civilians in Acholi and the National Resistance Army looking on, unbothered?

For several years in the late 1990s, there were quiet but persistent rumours and reports by women in Acholi of being raped by men in army uniform and speaking Kiswahili with a "Runyankore accent". Amazingly, some of these reports were unwittingly published by the government-owned paper, The New Vision.

But most of us overlooked them or were unable to grasp the meaning of these intriguing revelations, so blinded were we by a fixed image we had of Kony and his fighters.

The late former president Milton Obote, in a memo on April 17, 1991 to the then British Overseas Development minister, Baroness Lynda Chalker, made the following comment: "The fact that Museveni's army has been the constant and common factor in every area where atrocious deeds occurred is always conveniently ignored...."

Then came the strangest part of all: President Museveni personally, against the embittered cries of thousands of traumatised Ugandans, offers to exempt this murderous rebel leader against the justice of the International Criminal Court if he will only sign the peace treaty in Juba, Southern Sudan.

Why this curious position by Museveni? UPDF soldiers over the murder of a single civilian have been summarily shot dead by firing squad, yet Museveni appears flexible over Kony the murderer of thousands of civilians. Does this make sense?

Forum for Democratic Change President Dr Kizza Besigye, over mere allegations of rape or supporting a rebel group is strenuously prosecuted by the state, but Museveni will try and shield rebel leader Kony from international trial. Might President Museveni know what Kony could reveal, were Kony to stand trial at The Hague?

It would appear there are two Joseph Konys --- the Kony we see smiling in newspapers and a shadowy Kony that all along has masterminded the grizzly massacres in northern Uganda and beyond to then be blamed on the real Kony. But who is this shadowy, evil Kony?

While human beings are easily deceived, an invisible Spirit Hand has preserved the shocking evidence as He allows it to start coming out.

You might have noticed in recent months that previously hidden top secrets are starting to come out and the implicated seem to be unable to stop or prevent the leakage to the public. This is the Invisible Spirit Being at work.