Further details emerged this week of the terrifying plight
of stranded Christians in the Diocese of Kitgum and Pade, Northern Uganda. The
Bishop, Benjamin Ojwang, has sent a letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury
pleading for outside help following the murder of his wife’s parents by Ugandan
army soldiers.
Bishop Benjamin’s father-in-law Elia Okello and his wife Marianna took the risk
of returning for food to their village in Pade because the camp where they’ve
been forced to live by the government is facing starvation.
Details have only just emerged of the horror on January 4, as the region is cut
off by rebel soldiers from the so-called Lord's Resistance Army. A memorial
service had to be held at All Saints Cathedral, Kitgum, instead of a funeral at
the village where the couple are believed to have been buried by villagers.
In his letter to Archbishop Rowan Williams, Bishop Benjamin wrote:
"Britain was able to end the civil war in Sierra Leone, another former
colony. I am convinced that similar initiatives are the only way now to save my
people."
The LRA, led by Major-General Joseph Kony for 17 years, has been fighting a
bizarre civil war in what used to be called Acholiland Gulu, Kitgum and Pade.
More than 26,000 children have been abducted by Kony’s forces in a war that
began as a rebel movement alongside Yoweri Museveni’s Uganda People’s Defence
Force. They are forced to commit appalling crimes by their commanders who use
the Bible to sanction militarism.
A fifth of the northern region’s population -- 800,000 people -- have now been
herded by the government into ‘protected villages’ but food is ambushed as it
is trucked in, and starvation looms.
Bishop Benjamin, speaking by mobile phone from Kampala on Monday, said:
"If there is no help from outside for us, then we are stranded."
He told how his wife’s parents had gone back to the village for their survival.
"There was an ambush by the LRA of a UPDA mamba (armoured vehicle) and the
soldiers were annoyed. They felt they should have been warned by local people
about the ambush so they shot them. But the villagers did not know LRA men were
hiding there. Five other people carrying water were killed with them."
The story adds weight to the Bishop’s plea for outside help a controversial
move in a situation locals believe the world wants to ignore. The massacre by
their own government forces underscores the popular view that the Ugandan army
is as much the enemy as the LRA.
The former bishop of Kitgum, Bishop Ochola Macleord Baker, who was in London
last week and whose own wife and daughter were victims of the LRA, told the
Church Mission Society: "We have a humanitarian disaster here. Yet there
has been a conspiracy of silence by the international community, because of the
glorious image of Uganda. Uganda has emerged from the dark days of Amin, and
nobody dares criticise it. We must declare Northern Uganda a disaster area and
call on the international community to help; but that’s a challenge for the
nation’s image."
Herman Browne, Officer for Anglican Affairs at Lambeth Palace, who has
responsibility for Africa, said there was nothing Britain could do unless the
Ugandan government itself were threatened. Yet church leaders in northern
Uganda are aware of the fact that Sierra Leone, also a former colony, received
military aid from Britain to rid itself of civil war.
Church leaders last week received reassurances from the Foreign Office in
London that they would increase pressure on Uganda to seek negotiations with
Kony, following the failure of the Acholi Religious Leaders Peace Accord, which
sought amnesty for LRA members who surrendered. Meanwhile, Uganda’s Archbishop
Livingstone Mpalanyi-Nkoyoyo is himself harbouring Bishop Benjamin’s six
children at his home in Namirembe, Kampala, following their abduction last year
from the diocesan compound, which is isolated and unfortified, two kilometres
from the town. Although all were returned, the friend they were with was never
seen again. All 230 schools in the region are closed.