Human catastrophe and emergency in Northern Uganda (Rt Rev Macleord Baker Ochola II)
Human catastrophe and emergency in Northern Uganda
Presentation by Rt. Rev Macleord Baker Ochola II, retired Anglican Bishop of Kitgum Diocese, Northern Uganda/Bishop in Residence, Church of the Holy Family, Chapel Hill, NC, to the Diocesan Convention, Diocese of Southwest Florida, December 3, 2005.
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My brother Bishop John Lipscomb, Clergy, Laity and Honorable Members of this Diocesan Convention, brothers and sisters in Christ:
I bring you heartfelt greetings from the suffering people of Northern Uganda. I thank God and I am grateful to you honorable members of this Diocesan Convention for this opportunity to address you on issues of great concern to the entire people of Northern Uganda. I am also grateful for your gift of friendship and prayer, brother Lipscomb and your wife, Marcy, since our meeting during Lambeth ’98 followed by our time together at East Mennonite University studying peace and conflict transformation.
Let me share briefly about the war in Northern Uganda before I share my personal story and journey in the search for peace in my troubled homeland.
The war of insurgency between the Lord’s Resistance Army, LRA, and the Government of Uganda has now lasted for 20 years. It has been characterized by wanton killings, ambushes, abduction of innocent children, mutilation of limbs, but above all, massive displacements. According to UN records, a total of over 2.0 million people have been uprooted from daily life in Northern Uganda since 2002. The record also shows that about 1.7 million people are still languishing in Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) Camps under appalling and inhuman conditions in Northern Uganda. Over 95% of the Acholi, Nilotic Luo, population of approximately 900,000 depends on humanitarian aid from the World Food Program (WFP) for survival. People are barely surviving: without hope, no sense of identity. The people of Northern Uganda have been called names such as “killers, swine, backward and primitive and “anyanya”. We have been degraded, humiliated, stigmatized and dehumanized.
The LRA
The LRA rebels have abducted over 30, 000 children, used the children as child soldiers, sex slaves and instruments of death against the civilian population in Northern Uganda. The LRA has forced over 1.7 million people to be herded like cattle in the IDP camps in Northern and Northeaster Uganda. The LRA has committed too many atrocities through wanton killings of civilian population especially of Acholi, Lango and Teso sub regions.
The Government of Uganda
The Uganda Government meanwhile has failed to protect the children of Northern Uganda from abduction by the LRA since 1994, especially in the Acholi districts of Gulu, Kitgum and Pader, even though it created Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) Camps for protection of the Civilian population. The Government of Uganda refused to accept the resolution passed overwhelmingly by Parliament of Uganda to declare Northern Uganda “a disaster area” in 2004. For a long time, the Government of Uganda refused to acknowledge the Northern Uganda Conflict as a national tragedy but instead it as a Northern Uganda problem. Then when the Islamic Government of the Sudan became implicated since 1996, the Government of Uganda changed gears and the Conflict has been blamed on the Sudan. And since September 11, 2001, the Northern Uganda problem became part of fighting global terrorism.
The Government of Uganda has shown unwillingness and lack of political will to end the conflict either by its preferred military option or by peaceful dialogue.
I have been involved in peace efforts since 1993/94 when Betty Bigombe first mediated between the LRA and Government of Uganda. I can speak of Government of Uganda’s deliberate frustration of Mrs. Bigombe’s mediation efforts. For instance, in February 1994 President Museveni gave a 7-day ultimatum to the LRA rebels when peace was nearly achieved. This derailed the whole peace process Mrs. Bigombe had worked for tirelessly. Soon after Operation iron Fist 2002/2003 when the UPDF went into Southern Sudan to flush out the LRA, we, religious leaders and cultural leaders, worked hard to build trust and bridge the gap between the LRA and the Government of Uganda. President Museveni even appointed a Presidential Peace Team. When the first meeting between the LRA and the Presidential Peace team was arranged, we, the religious leaders and cultural leaders, were invited to witness the meeting. But the UPDF launched a pre-emptive attack on the planned venue to hit the LRA. This made us, religious and cultural leaders appear as if we had been used as a trap for the LRA.
Again at the beginning of this year 2005, President Museveni did a similar thing to Mrs. Betty Bigombe’s latest peace efforts. After the LRA and Government of Uganda Peace Team met for the first time due to Betty Bigombe’s efforts, the Government suddenly introduced a unilateral Memorandum of Understanding and asked the LRA Peace Team to sign even before they had studied it. When the LRA Peace Team asked for more time to consult with their leadership, the Government said LRA was not serious about peace. President Museveni ordered the Uganda People’s Defence Force (UPDF) to resume attacks on the positions of the LRA. Instead of attacking the positions of Vincent Otti and Joseph Kony who were not part of the Peace Team, the UPDF attacked the position of Brigadier Kolo, the LRA Peace Team leader and his fighters! The LRA leader ordered Otti to arrest Brigadier Kolo accusing him of luring the LRA into peace talks. Brig Kolo escaped and was rescued by Betty Bigombe and the UPDF. That is how the latest peace mediation failed.
As the world knows, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants to top LRA leaders on October 14, 2005 effectively closing any more chance for peaceful mediation and amnesty for the LRA leaders.
Northern Uganda Worse than Darfur
The situation in Northern Uganda is far worse than Darfur in Western Sudan. The international Community has called what is happening in Darfur “genocide”. But the magnitude of pain and suffering that my people of Acholi and Northern Uganda are going through is unspeakable. For instance, Government of Uganda’s own report estimated that between January and July 2005 this year alone, in excess of 1000 people died every week in the IDP Camps!
When UN Under Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs Mr. Jan Egeland visited Northern Uganda in November 2003, he described the emergency situation in Northern Uganda as a “moral outrage”; that Northern Uganda was the world’s most forgotten humanitarian catastrophe. After his visit, the Uganda Parliament unanimously resolved that the Government of Uganda should declare Northern Uganda a “disaster area” to enable humanitarian assistance to be given to vulnerable people in the IDP Camps. But the Government refused to do so. Whatever reasons Government of Uganda gave, it clearly showed its attitude towards the suffering people of Acholi and Lango: an indifferent attitude to the suffering of its own people.
The Humanitarian organization Medicines San Frontieres (MSF) or “Doctors without Borders” did a number of surveys on the health and mortality rates in the IDP Camps of Northern Uganda at the end of 2004. It warned both the Government of Uganda and International Community to do everything possible to end the war in Uganda then. Otherwise the population of Acholi in the IDP Camps in particular was heading for extinction. In reality, MSF was warning the Government of Uganda and the International Community about the unfolding genocide in Northern Uganda.
During his Easter 2004 message, Catholic Cardinal Emmanuel Wamala warned about the threat of genocide in Northern Uganda. Uganda’s Minister of Defence, Honorable Amama Mbabazi wrote in the Government owned New Vision refuting Cardinal Wamala’s warning: “Although what is happening in the North is, therefore, not genocide, it is critical to acknowledge the gravity of the situation there. The people there are facing tremendous suffering and difficulties to unacceptable levels” If Mr. Mbambazi, Uganda’s Minister of Defence denies that genocide is happening in the North of Uganda but admits the people of Northern Uganda are facing “tremendous suffering and difficulties to unacceptable levels” why not call it genocide against the people of Acholi and Lango by its proper name?
A Ugandan journalist, Mr. Elias Biryabarema, expressed these sentiments in the Independent Daily newspaper, The Monitor of November 14, 2005 after a recent visit to IDP camps in Northern Uganda:
“Not a single explanation on earth can justify the sickening human catastrophe going on in Lango and Acholiland: the degradation, desolation and the horrors killing off generation after generation. Coming from Western Uganda…what I saw in Acholibur IDP Camp and the adjoining areas on a recent visit there, convinces me that perhaps only a callous government such as one of President Museveni is capable of keeping its people in such conditions. Frankly, it’s not entirely imprecise to describe what I saw as a slow extinction facing the Acholi and Langi peoples…In Acholibur as is similar or worse across much of the region that I encountered unique and heart-stopping suffering. It is here, in Acholibur, that I met shocking cruelty and death stalking a people by the minute, by the hour, by the day; for the last two decades. When you meet such sort of a situation you ask yourselves why? These children, these women have committed no crime to deserve this. They deserve an explanation from their President. Museveni must tell these children why he took a Bible in his hand solemnly promising God that he would secure his people’s rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and instead allowed barbarity and unspeakable wretchedness to engulf them. Museveni owes these children, these women an answer: they deserved it yesterday; they do today and will do tomorrow.”
And I want to add here as an Anglican bishop, that President Museveni who lifted the Bible and swore solemnly to protect the constitution of Uganda and all the people of Uganda including those in Acholi and Lango is officially a member of our Church, the Anglican Church of Uganda.
Mr. Biryabarema also quoted another Anglican and President, George Washington, “America’s founding father and the author of the Declaration of Independence adopted by Congress on July 4th 1776’ who noted that “mankind is more disposed to suffer and submit to a government long established. There reaches a time though when a government willfully, to use his word, becomes ‘destructive’ of a people’s rights in which case it becomes their duty to seek abolition of that government”
And then Mr. Biryabarema adds these chilling words: “What is happening in Northern Uganda, I believe, are not mere light and transient causes said by [George] Washington not to be significant enough to justify secession. They are a train of abuses by a government that has all but abdicated its duty to care for a people over whom it rules. And the abuses are appalling enough as to amount to a justification for seeking self-rule”
Therefore according to Elias Biryabarema, what is happening in Northern Uganda that tantamount to genocide against the people of Acholi and Lango is enough justification for Northern Uganda to break away from Uganda. That is how bad it is!
Another Ugandan journalist who called a spade a spade wrote in The Monitor, November 21 2005:
“For 20 years, the Westerners and the Baganda, Basoga and other Southerners did nothing as a group while their fellow Ugandans from the Northern Nilotic tribes were tortured, reduced to slave like living conditions in unspeakable grass-thatched camps in Gulu, Kitgum and Pader and other parts of Acholi. For 20 years, the Bantu speakers from the south were content to describe themselves as progressive because they had littered the hillsides of Kampala with houses, were driving four wheel drive vehicles, had an abundance of video libraries, internet cafes, giant screens on which to watch—of all things ridiculous in times of national suffering—English Premier Soccer! Although it was not put in such stark terms, there was a generally unspoken opinion in Kampala, Mbarara, Fort Portal, Entebbe and Jinja, among other places, that the Southern Bantu-Hamitic peoples had suffered for 24 years under the Badokolo northerners and so if this was their tragedy under the NRM, they were sorry about it, but it really was time for them to feel a taste of their own medicine”
According to Mr. Timothy Kalyegira, the North-South Divide in Uganda has effectively divided the country into two; the South, which is peaceful and prosperous, and the North, which is poor and has been at war for 20 years!
Both of these Ugandan journalists have echoed the cry of “Genocide in Northern Uganda” uttered by Mr. Olara Otunnu, former UN Under Secretary General for Children and Armed Conflict who himself is a native of Northern Uganda. This is what he said this during at the University of Sydney when he received the Sydney Peace 2005 Award on November 9, 2005:
What is going on in Northern Uganda is not a routine humanitarian crisis, for which an appropriate response might be the mobilization of humanitarian relief. The human rights catastrophe unfolding in Northern Uganda is methodical and comprehensive genocide. An entire society is being systematically destroyed—physically, culturally, socially and economically—in full view of the international community. In the sobering words of a missionary priest in the area, “Everything Acholi is dying”. I know of no recent or present situation where all the elements that constitute genocide under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948) have been brought together in such a comprehensively and chilling manner as in Northern Uganda today…
Today, from the podium and on this important occasion of the award of the Sydney Peace Prize, I wish to address a most urgent appeal…to the leaders of the western democracies in particular, concerning the genocide in Northern Uganda. It is with a heavy and anguished heart that I do so. But I must do so for the sake of the children and in the name of the 2 million people being destroyed in the 200 camps of death of humiliation…we must denounce and stop genocide wherever it occurs, regardless of the ethnicity or political affiliation of the population being destroyed.
I wonder if we have learned any lessons from history. When millions of Jews were exterminated during the holocaust in Europe, we said “never again”--but after the fact. When genocide was perpetrated in Rwanda we said, “never again” but again after the fact. When children and women were massacred in Srebrenica, we said “never again”—but after it was all over. The genocide unfolding in Northern Uganda is happening on our watch, and with our full knowledge. Why is there no action? And so what shall I tell the children of Northern Uganda—when they ask about the dark deeds that is stalking their land and devouring its people? What will it take, and how long will it take, for leaders of the western democracies in particular to acknowledge, denounce and take action to end the genocide unfolding in Northern Uganda? And tomorrow, shall we once again be heard to say that we did not know what was going on? That for all these years we were unaware of the dark deeds being conducted in Northern Uganda?”
Let down by our own Church, the Anglican Church of Uganda
And today I, too, like Mr. Olara Otunnu, speak with a painful and heavy heart as a pastor who, by God’s Grace, has also been made bishop in His Church, the Anglican Church of Uganda, which is part of our Anglican Communion. I speak with a heavy heart because I look back and see our consistent failure in prophetic witness as a church community and national Anglican Church of Uganda. I am especially pained because this failure has mostly been among us the leaders, the shepherds, that is, the House of Bishops. If we as a Church had stood up much earlier and spoken up with a united and clear voice about the catastrophe in Northern Uganda sooner than later, who knows how many lives we might have saved?
When my brother, retired Bishop of Northern Uganda Diocese, Rt. Rev Benoni Ogwal-Abwang took the crisis in his diocese of Northern Uganda to the House of Bishops at the beginning of the conflict in 1986/7; his fellow bishops told him it was a “sensitive political matter”. And so the Church of Uganda didn’t get involved in the “sensitive political matter” of Northern Uganda. Bishop Ogwal later came into exile here in the USA
However when he went to Lambeth ’88, Bishop Ben Ogwal took the plight of his Diocese of Northern Uganda as part of the concerns of the Church of Uganda, to seek a resolution of the Lambeth Conference ’88. This was the opportunity for the Anglican Communion to speak out concerning the suffering in Northern Uganda still at its infancy. Maybe if the whole Anglican Communion spoke through Lambeth ‘88, many lives of children, women and men might have been saved. But it was fellow Church of Uganda bishops who blocked Bishop Ogwal’s resolution to be part of the concerns from the Church of Uganda. Although it was later passed under human rights, the fact that it did not come from concerns from Church of Uganda weakened it. Fellow Church of Uganda bishops accused Bishop Ogwal of being a troublemaker. Troublemaker for wanting Lambeth ‘88 to know about the suffering of God’ people in his diocese of Northern Uganda?
To add insult to injury, the Church of Uganda Bishops did not even allow Bishop Ogwal to process with them into Canterbury Cathedral for the concluding Lambeth conference service. Instead Bishop Ogwal found himself accepted to process among American bishops.
My daughter died in Gulu, Northern Uganda, in mysterious circumstances in May 1987 at the beginning of the war in Northern Uganda. My wife and I were in Canada but on our way back to Uganda when this happened. On getting back, we were told our daughter had been raped allegedly by rebels. She was so traumatized that she committed suicide four days before her 19th birthday. My wife and I were devastated. We wished we had been there to die with our daughter. I now understood the grief of many bereaved people I had ministered to as a pastor. Now it was my turn to receive ministry. I struggled with forgiving the people who violated my daughter and drove her to her death. But I have learnt to forgive. I have come this far by God’s grace. So from its very beginning, the conflict in Northern Uganda has been up close and personal. I am not the only who has suffered loss. Many more people have suffered worse than me.
I represented the Church in the Peace Mediation led by Mrs. Betty Bigombe in 1993/4 where I met face to face with some of the top LRA leaders including Joseph Kony. It was a real test of my faith not to be bitter when I thought some of them could have been responsible for violating my daughter. But I have forgiven them all.
I was made Bishop of Kitgum Diocese in 1994. We were blessed with a visit of Former Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, The Most Rev Edmond Browning, to Uganda and to Northern Uganda in 1995. He told us that “people” in the Provincial Office in Kampala had warned him about going to Northern Uganda. When he asked, why? He was told it was too dangerous. But he said he was ready to die in Northern Uganda if it was his time to die.
When I look back, I recall that the Church of Uganda has consistently tried to hide the suffering of Northern Uganda from our international Christian family of the Anglican Communion. Why? What if the Church of Uganda had given a strong appeal to former Presiding Bishop Edmond Browning about the plight of Northern Uganda for him to bring back to America in 1995? How many lives of children, women and men might have been saved then?
In May 1997, ten years after losing our daughter, my dear wife and best friend, Mrs. Winifred Ochola was blown up to pieces when the diocesan pick up in which she was traveling hit a land mine allegedly planted by LRA rebels. This took place barely six miles away from the Diocesan headquarters. She died instantly. I was devastated when I received the news of my wife’s death. I felt like a tree split by lightning from top to bottom. I did not know how I would make it from day to day. I struggled with anger, bitterness and powerlessness. But by God’s grace, I have forgiven the LRA rebels, the government and all who conspired to cause my family harm. It is only by God’s grace that I have come this far. Since then, I decided to dedicate my life to work for peace and justice if only I can help others not suffer the same violence that I have been through.
Having heard a bit of my personal story, you can appreciate my sense of pain at the indifference in our own House of Bishops of the Church of Uganda. For instance, when I attended the consecration of a fellow Bishop in Western Uganda not long after my wife’s tragic death, that was fairly common knowledge since it was in the national media; a fellow Bishop who was the Master of Ceremonies announced, “I introduce Bishop Mac Baker Ochola and his wife…” There was murmuring from the crowd. My brother bishop apologized but you can tell how “close” we bishops of the Church of Uganda rally are, if one of us forgets his brother bishops’ wife had died a tragic death! But of course it was a tragic death of a bishop’s wife in Northern Uganda—“so far away”! It is strange but true that there were no more than 35 of us diocesan bishops at the time! If that is how, we, the shepherds relate: how about the flock?
In May 1998, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey, visited Uganda. He was scheduled to perform the consecration of current Bishop Nelson Onono of Northern Uganda Diocese. On hearing of his coming, the Christians of Northern Uganda were excited, they thought he would spend some nights in Gulu, probably visit some of the real terrible IDP Camps—not the ones “sanitized” to show visitors. The people hoped the Archbishop of Canterbury would see their plight with his own eyes.
But we were shocked when the Provincial Office in Kampala informed us the Archbishop of Canterbury would visit Gulu only for the day. He would leave after the consecration, fly by helicopter to Mbale in Eastern Uganda and spend the night there.
I wrote a strongly worded letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury’s office in Lambeth Palace copied to all Primates of the Anglican Communion. I charged that the Church of Uganda had a very poor doctrine of the Church: it paid more attention to the part of the Church that was healthy instead of Northern Uganda that was sick. Later the Archbishop of Canterbury telexed that he would spend a night in Gulu. What if the Church of Uganda had been willing to let the Archbishop of Canterbury visit some of the real terrible IDP camps so as to bring it to the attention of the Anglican Communion to intervene? How many lives of children, women and men might have been saved in Northern Uganda?
Later that same year of 1998 and like Bishop Ogwal, I experienced similar opposition from fellow Church of Uganda Bishops during Lambeth ’98 when I proposed a resolution on the plight of Northern Uganda. Only bishops from Northern Uganda, namely, Bishop Nelson Onono Onweng of Northern Uganda and Melchizedek Otim of Lango supported me. The others did not want us to bring a local issue to Lambeth as if we in Northern Uganda were not part of the Anglican Communion. Later seeing that the resolution would pass after all, one of my fellow Ugandan bishops offered an amendment to include Western Uganda also. We did not object because we knew that we were one body; if one suffers the others suffer too. But why did my fellow bishops oppose us? What if the Church of Uganda Bishops had spoken with one voice at Lambeth ‘88 and ‘98? How many lives of children, women and men might have been saved then?
In June 2003 when Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold visited Uganda, he had been scheduled to visit Northern Uganda but on arrival, he was advised against going. So we from Kitgum Diocese and Northern Uganda Diocese traveled to meet Griswold in Kampala. What if Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold had traveled up to Kitgum and visited some of the most desperate IDP camps and come back, alerted ECUSA, the Anglican Communion and the International Community? Might we not have averted the unfolding genocide?
Who will hear our cry? Who will wipe our tears?
I speak with a heavy heart today because my Church, the Anglican Church of Uganda has failed us at the critical point of prophetic ministry for the oppressed, the weak, the vulnerable and the voiceless of Northern Uganda.
I recall it was none other than Archbishop Janani Luwum of Uganda, the Martyr, whose grave in his boyhood home of Mucwini is in Kitgum Diocese who once said:
“The Church is the conscience of the people through her members and leaders who speak for the poor and the ‘underdog’ of our society”
And so in the same spirit of Archbishop Janani Luwum the martyr, I speak to you, today, my brother Bishop Lipscomb, clergy, laity, brothers and sisters in Christ. You have heard the anguish and agony of the people of God in Northern Uganda. I don’t stand here as a proud bishop of the Church of Uganda today. For you have heard how my own church family, the Anglican Church of Uganda, has quickly passed on to the other side of our “Jericho Road” like the “priest and the Levite” We in Northern Uganda have lain fallen on our Jericho Road for the last 20 years. You have also heard about the attitude of our Government of Uganda about the suffering of its own people in Northern Uganda. You have heard how the international community watches as genocide unfolds in Northern Uganda.
Will you, too, pass on the other side? And if you also pass on, who will be our Good Samaritan?
I thank you.
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Resolutions in response
to the bishop's address:
Resolution 2005-9BA: Support for Taking a Stand Against Genocide in Northern Uganda
Offered by the Resolutions Committee in response to the Bishop's Address to the 37th Annual Convention:
RESOLVED, the 37th Annual Convention of the Diocese of Southwest Florida meeting at Fort Myers on the 3rd day of December, 2005:
That the Secretary of the Convention shall write on behalf of the Convention to the Secretary General of the United Nations, the President of the United States, and each of the members of the U.S. Congress representing the districts of Southwest Florida to inform them that the Diocese of Southwest Florida, meeting in Convention, calls for them to support the following actions, which should be carried out immediately:
implementation of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide of 1948, with respect to the crimes being committed against the Acholi people in Northern Uganda, and
assessment of the humanitarian disaster created by the armed conflict in Acholiland, and
mobilization of the necessary resources to address the dire human needs of the Acholi people, and
advocate that the Security Council use the resources of the United Nations to stop the genocide against the Acholis, and
That the Secretary of the Convention shall write on behalf of the Convention to the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church and the Archbishop of Canterbury and request that these primates take the following action:
urge the Church of the Province of Uganda to demand justice and peace for the people of Northern Uganda and to stand up in solidarity with the voiceless and vulnerable Acholi people, and
use their good offices in the world to stop the genocide in Northern Uganda, and
rally resources to rehabilitate the Acholi people, physically and spiritually; and
That the Diocese sponsor and fund a delegation to travel to Northern Uganda for the purpose of expressing our concern and gathering information to be used to educate the people of the Diocese and suggest specific actions for consideration by the Convention. The delegation shall consist of the bishop diocesan and two persons selected by Diocesan Council from among the elected lay members of either the Diocesan Council or Standing Committee; and
That each Congregation in the Diocese organize at least one educational effort to help make people aware of the situation in Northern Uganda.
Explanation: This Resolution is based on one considered (but referred to committee without action) by the 229th Convention of the Diocese of New York, which heard the Rt. Rev. Macleord Baker Ochola II, retired Anglican Bishop of the Kitgum Diocese in Northern Uganda, give a horrific description of the genocide that has been taking place in his country for almost twenty years. Bishop Ochola then made an impassioned plea that the Anglicans of this country learn about the sufferings in Uganda, weep with them, but then to use the considerable influence of American Anglicans to bring the attention of world leaders, both religious and secular, to find some resolution to this desperate situation.
Will you find time to read and sign a petition to stop the Northern Uganda carnage at: http://www.petitiononline.com/savacoli/petition.html please!
Presentation by Rt. Rev Macleord Baker Ochola II, retired Anglican Bishop of Kitgum Diocese, Northern Uganda/Bishop in Residence, Church of the Holy Family, Chapel Hill, NC, to the Diocesan Convention, Diocese of Southwest Florida, December 3, 2005.
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My brother Bishop John Lipscomb, Clergy, Laity and Honorable Members of this Diocesan Convention, brothers and sisters in Christ:
I bring you heartfelt greetings from the suffering people of Northern Uganda. I thank God and I am grateful to you honorable members of this Diocesan Convention for this opportunity to address you on issues of great concern to the entire people of Northern Uganda. I am also grateful for your gift of friendship and prayer, brother Lipscomb and your wife, Marcy, since our meeting during Lambeth ’98 followed by our time together at East Mennonite University studying peace and conflict transformation.
Let me share briefly about the war in Northern Uganda before I share my personal story and journey in the search for peace in my troubled homeland.
The war of insurgency between the Lord’s Resistance Army, LRA, and the Government of Uganda has now lasted for 20 years. It has been characterized by wanton killings, ambushes, abduction of innocent children, mutilation of limbs, but above all, massive displacements. According to UN records, a total of over 2.0 million people have been uprooted from daily life in Northern Uganda since 2002. The record also shows that about 1.7 million people are still languishing in Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) Camps under appalling and inhuman conditions in Northern Uganda. Over 95% of the Acholi, Nilotic Luo, population of approximately 900,000 depends on humanitarian aid from the World Food Program (WFP) for survival. People are barely surviving: without hope, no sense of identity. The people of Northern Uganda have been called names such as “killers, swine, backward and primitive and “anyanya”. We have been degraded, humiliated, stigmatized and dehumanized.
The LRA
The LRA rebels have abducted over 30, 000 children, used the children as child soldiers, sex slaves and instruments of death against the civilian population in Northern Uganda. The LRA has forced over 1.7 million people to be herded like cattle in the IDP camps in Northern and Northeaster Uganda. The LRA has committed too many atrocities through wanton killings of civilian population especially of Acholi, Lango and Teso sub regions.
The Government of Uganda
The Uganda Government meanwhile has failed to protect the children of Northern Uganda from abduction by the LRA since 1994, especially in the Acholi districts of Gulu, Kitgum and Pader, even though it created Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) Camps for protection of the Civilian population. The Government of Uganda refused to accept the resolution passed overwhelmingly by Parliament of Uganda to declare Northern Uganda “a disaster area” in 2004. For a long time, the Government of Uganda refused to acknowledge the Northern Uganda Conflict as a national tragedy but instead it as a Northern Uganda problem. Then when the Islamic Government of the Sudan became implicated since 1996, the Government of Uganda changed gears and the Conflict has been blamed on the Sudan. And since September 11, 2001, the Northern Uganda problem became part of fighting global terrorism.
The Government of Uganda has shown unwillingness and lack of political will to end the conflict either by its preferred military option or by peaceful dialogue.
I have been involved in peace efforts since 1993/94 when Betty Bigombe first mediated between the LRA and Government of Uganda. I can speak of Government of Uganda’s deliberate frustration of Mrs. Bigombe’s mediation efforts. For instance, in February 1994 President Museveni gave a 7-day ultimatum to the LRA rebels when peace was nearly achieved. This derailed the whole peace process Mrs. Bigombe had worked for tirelessly. Soon after Operation iron Fist 2002/2003 when the UPDF went into Southern Sudan to flush out the LRA, we, religious leaders and cultural leaders, worked hard to build trust and bridge the gap between the LRA and the Government of Uganda. President Museveni even appointed a Presidential Peace Team. When the first meeting between the LRA and the Presidential Peace team was arranged, we, the religious leaders and cultural leaders, were invited to witness the meeting. But the UPDF launched a pre-emptive attack on the planned venue to hit the LRA. This made us, religious and cultural leaders appear as if we had been used as a trap for the LRA.
Again at the beginning of this year 2005, President Museveni did a similar thing to Mrs. Betty Bigombe’s latest peace efforts. After the LRA and Government of Uganda Peace Team met for the first time due to Betty Bigombe’s efforts, the Government suddenly introduced a unilateral Memorandum of Understanding and asked the LRA Peace Team to sign even before they had studied it. When the LRA Peace Team asked for more time to consult with their leadership, the Government said LRA was not serious about peace. President Museveni ordered the Uganda People’s Defence Force (UPDF) to resume attacks on the positions of the LRA. Instead of attacking the positions of Vincent Otti and Joseph Kony who were not part of the Peace Team, the UPDF attacked the position of Brigadier Kolo, the LRA Peace Team leader and his fighters! The LRA leader ordered Otti to arrest Brigadier Kolo accusing him of luring the LRA into peace talks. Brig Kolo escaped and was rescued by Betty Bigombe and the UPDF. That is how the latest peace mediation failed.
As the world knows, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants to top LRA leaders on October 14, 2005 effectively closing any more chance for peaceful mediation and amnesty for the LRA leaders.
Northern Uganda Worse than Darfur
The situation in Northern Uganda is far worse than Darfur in Western Sudan. The international Community has called what is happening in Darfur “genocide”. But the magnitude of pain and suffering that my people of Acholi and Northern Uganda are going through is unspeakable. For instance, Government of Uganda’s own report estimated that between January and July 2005 this year alone, in excess of 1000 people died every week in the IDP Camps!
When UN Under Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs Mr. Jan Egeland visited Northern Uganda in November 2003, he described the emergency situation in Northern Uganda as a “moral outrage”; that Northern Uganda was the world’s most forgotten humanitarian catastrophe. After his visit, the Uganda Parliament unanimously resolved that the Government of Uganda should declare Northern Uganda a “disaster area” to enable humanitarian assistance to be given to vulnerable people in the IDP Camps. But the Government refused to do so. Whatever reasons Government of Uganda gave, it clearly showed its attitude towards the suffering people of Acholi and Lango: an indifferent attitude to the suffering of its own people.
The Humanitarian organization Medicines San Frontieres (MSF) or “Doctors without Borders” did a number of surveys on the health and mortality rates in the IDP Camps of Northern Uganda at the end of 2004. It warned both the Government of Uganda and International Community to do everything possible to end the war in Uganda then. Otherwise the population of Acholi in the IDP Camps in particular was heading for extinction. In reality, MSF was warning the Government of Uganda and the International Community about the unfolding genocide in Northern Uganda.
During his Easter 2004 message, Catholic Cardinal Emmanuel Wamala warned about the threat of genocide in Northern Uganda. Uganda’s Minister of Defence, Honorable Amama Mbabazi wrote in the Government owned New Vision refuting Cardinal Wamala’s warning: “Although what is happening in the North is, therefore, not genocide, it is critical to acknowledge the gravity of the situation there. The people there are facing tremendous suffering and difficulties to unacceptable levels” If Mr. Mbambazi, Uganda’s Minister of Defence denies that genocide is happening in the North of Uganda but admits the people of Northern Uganda are facing “tremendous suffering and difficulties to unacceptable levels” why not call it genocide against the people of Acholi and Lango by its proper name?
A Ugandan journalist, Mr. Elias Biryabarema, expressed these sentiments in the Independent Daily newspaper, The Monitor of November 14, 2005 after a recent visit to IDP camps in Northern Uganda:
“Not a single explanation on earth can justify the sickening human catastrophe going on in Lango and Acholiland: the degradation, desolation and the horrors killing off generation after generation. Coming from Western Uganda…what I saw in Acholibur IDP Camp and the adjoining areas on a recent visit there, convinces me that perhaps only a callous government such as one of President Museveni is capable of keeping its people in such conditions. Frankly, it’s not entirely imprecise to describe what I saw as a slow extinction facing the Acholi and Langi peoples…In Acholibur as is similar or worse across much of the region that I encountered unique and heart-stopping suffering. It is here, in Acholibur, that I met shocking cruelty and death stalking a people by the minute, by the hour, by the day; for the last two decades. When you meet such sort of a situation you ask yourselves why? These children, these women have committed no crime to deserve this. They deserve an explanation from their President. Museveni must tell these children why he took a Bible in his hand solemnly promising God that he would secure his people’s rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and instead allowed barbarity and unspeakable wretchedness to engulf them. Museveni owes these children, these women an answer: they deserved it yesterday; they do today and will do tomorrow.”
And I want to add here as an Anglican bishop, that President Museveni who lifted the Bible and swore solemnly to protect the constitution of Uganda and all the people of Uganda including those in Acholi and Lango is officially a member of our Church, the Anglican Church of Uganda.
Mr. Biryabarema also quoted another Anglican and President, George Washington, “America’s founding father and the author of the Declaration of Independence adopted by Congress on July 4th 1776’ who noted that “mankind is more disposed to suffer and submit to a government long established. There reaches a time though when a government willfully, to use his word, becomes ‘destructive’ of a people’s rights in which case it becomes their duty to seek abolition of that government”
And then Mr. Biryabarema adds these chilling words: “What is happening in Northern Uganda, I believe, are not mere light and transient causes said by [George] Washington not to be significant enough to justify secession. They are a train of abuses by a government that has all but abdicated its duty to care for a people over whom it rules. And the abuses are appalling enough as to amount to a justification for seeking self-rule”
Therefore according to Elias Biryabarema, what is happening in Northern Uganda that tantamount to genocide against the people of Acholi and Lango is enough justification for Northern Uganda to break away from Uganda. That is how bad it is!
Another Ugandan journalist who called a spade a spade wrote in The Monitor, November 21 2005:
“For 20 years, the Westerners and the Baganda, Basoga and other Southerners did nothing as a group while their fellow Ugandans from the Northern Nilotic tribes were tortured, reduced to slave like living conditions in unspeakable grass-thatched camps in Gulu, Kitgum and Pader and other parts of Acholi. For 20 years, the Bantu speakers from the south were content to describe themselves as progressive because they had littered the hillsides of Kampala with houses, were driving four wheel drive vehicles, had an abundance of video libraries, internet cafes, giant screens on which to watch—of all things ridiculous in times of national suffering—English Premier Soccer! Although it was not put in such stark terms, there was a generally unspoken opinion in Kampala, Mbarara, Fort Portal, Entebbe and Jinja, among other places, that the Southern Bantu-Hamitic peoples had suffered for 24 years under the Badokolo northerners and so if this was their tragedy under the NRM, they were sorry about it, but it really was time for them to feel a taste of their own medicine”
According to Mr. Timothy Kalyegira, the North-South Divide in Uganda has effectively divided the country into two; the South, which is peaceful and prosperous, and the North, which is poor and has been at war for 20 years!
Both of these Ugandan journalists have echoed the cry of “Genocide in Northern Uganda” uttered by Mr. Olara Otunnu, former UN Under Secretary General for Children and Armed Conflict who himself is a native of Northern Uganda. This is what he said this during at the University of Sydney when he received the Sydney Peace 2005 Award on November 9, 2005:
What is going on in Northern Uganda is not a routine humanitarian crisis, for which an appropriate response might be the mobilization of humanitarian relief. The human rights catastrophe unfolding in Northern Uganda is methodical and comprehensive genocide. An entire society is being systematically destroyed—physically, culturally, socially and economically—in full view of the international community. In the sobering words of a missionary priest in the area, “Everything Acholi is dying”. I know of no recent or present situation where all the elements that constitute genocide under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948) have been brought together in such a comprehensively and chilling manner as in Northern Uganda today…
Today, from the podium and on this important occasion of the award of the Sydney Peace Prize, I wish to address a most urgent appeal…to the leaders of the western democracies in particular, concerning the genocide in Northern Uganda. It is with a heavy and anguished heart that I do so. But I must do so for the sake of the children and in the name of the 2 million people being destroyed in the 200 camps of death of humiliation…we must denounce and stop genocide wherever it occurs, regardless of the ethnicity or political affiliation of the population being destroyed.
I wonder if we have learned any lessons from history. When millions of Jews were exterminated during the holocaust in Europe, we said “never again”--but after the fact. When genocide was perpetrated in Rwanda we said, “never again” but again after the fact. When children and women were massacred in Srebrenica, we said “never again”—but after it was all over. The genocide unfolding in Northern Uganda is happening on our watch, and with our full knowledge. Why is there no action? And so what shall I tell the children of Northern Uganda—when they ask about the dark deeds that is stalking their land and devouring its people? What will it take, and how long will it take, for leaders of the western democracies in particular to acknowledge, denounce and take action to end the genocide unfolding in Northern Uganda? And tomorrow, shall we once again be heard to say that we did not know what was going on? That for all these years we were unaware of the dark deeds being conducted in Northern Uganda?”
Let down by our own Church, the Anglican Church of Uganda
And today I, too, like Mr. Olara Otunnu, speak with a painful and heavy heart as a pastor who, by God’s Grace, has also been made bishop in His Church, the Anglican Church of Uganda, which is part of our Anglican Communion. I speak with a heavy heart because I look back and see our consistent failure in prophetic witness as a church community and national Anglican Church of Uganda. I am especially pained because this failure has mostly been among us the leaders, the shepherds, that is, the House of Bishops. If we as a Church had stood up much earlier and spoken up with a united and clear voice about the catastrophe in Northern Uganda sooner than later, who knows how many lives we might have saved?
When my brother, retired Bishop of Northern Uganda Diocese, Rt. Rev Benoni Ogwal-Abwang took the crisis in his diocese of Northern Uganda to the House of Bishops at the beginning of the conflict in 1986/7; his fellow bishops told him it was a “sensitive political matter”. And so the Church of Uganda didn’t get involved in the “sensitive political matter” of Northern Uganda. Bishop Ogwal later came into exile here in the USA
However when he went to Lambeth ’88, Bishop Ben Ogwal took the plight of his Diocese of Northern Uganda as part of the concerns of the Church of Uganda, to seek a resolution of the Lambeth Conference ’88. This was the opportunity for the Anglican Communion to speak out concerning the suffering in Northern Uganda still at its infancy. Maybe if the whole Anglican Communion spoke through Lambeth ‘88, many lives of children, women and men might have been saved. But it was fellow Church of Uganda bishops who blocked Bishop Ogwal’s resolution to be part of the concerns from the Church of Uganda. Although it was later passed under human rights, the fact that it did not come from concerns from Church of Uganda weakened it. Fellow Church of Uganda bishops accused Bishop Ogwal of being a troublemaker. Troublemaker for wanting Lambeth ‘88 to know about the suffering of God’ people in his diocese of Northern Uganda?
To add insult to injury, the Church of Uganda Bishops did not even allow Bishop Ogwal to process with them into Canterbury Cathedral for the concluding Lambeth conference service. Instead Bishop Ogwal found himself accepted to process among American bishops.
My daughter died in Gulu, Northern Uganda, in mysterious circumstances in May 1987 at the beginning of the war in Northern Uganda. My wife and I were in Canada but on our way back to Uganda when this happened. On getting back, we were told our daughter had been raped allegedly by rebels. She was so traumatized that she committed suicide four days before her 19th birthday. My wife and I were devastated. We wished we had been there to die with our daughter. I now understood the grief of many bereaved people I had ministered to as a pastor. Now it was my turn to receive ministry. I struggled with forgiving the people who violated my daughter and drove her to her death. But I have learnt to forgive. I have come this far by God’s grace. So from its very beginning, the conflict in Northern Uganda has been up close and personal. I am not the only who has suffered loss. Many more people have suffered worse than me.
I represented the Church in the Peace Mediation led by Mrs. Betty Bigombe in 1993/4 where I met face to face with some of the top LRA leaders including Joseph Kony. It was a real test of my faith not to be bitter when I thought some of them could have been responsible for violating my daughter. But I have forgiven them all.
I was made Bishop of Kitgum Diocese in 1994. We were blessed with a visit of Former Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, The Most Rev Edmond Browning, to Uganda and to Northern Uganda in 1995. He told us that “people” in the Provincial Office in Kampala had warned him about going to Northern Uganda. When he asked, why? He was told it was too dangerous. But he said he was ready to die in Northern Uganda if it was his time to die.
When I look back, I recall that the Church of Uganda has consistently tried to hide the suffering of Northern Uganda from our international Christian family of the Anglican Communion. Why? What if the Church of Uganda had given a strong appeal to former Presiding Bishop Edmond Browning about the plight of Northern Uganda for him to bring back to America in 1995? How many lives of children, women and men might have been saved then?
In May 1997, ten years after losing our daughter, my dear wife and best friend, Mrs. Winifred Ochola was blown up to pieces when the diocesan pick up in which she was traveling hit a land mine allegedly planted by LRA rebels. This took place barely six miles away from the Diocesan headquarters. She died instantly. I was devastated when I received the news of my wife’s death. I felt like a tree split by lightning from top to bottom. I did not know how I would make it from day to day. I struggled with anger, bitterness and powerlessness. But by God’s grace, I have forgiven the LRA rebels, the government and all who conspired to cause my family harm. It is only by God’s grace that I have come this far. Since then, I decided to dedicate my life to work for peace and justice if only I can help others not suffer the same violence that I have been through.
Having heard a bit of my personal story, you can appreciate my sense of pain at the indifference in our own House of Bishops of the Church of Uganda. For instance, when I attended the consecration of a fellow Bishop in Western Uganda not long after my wife’s tragic death, that was fairly common knowledge since it was in the national media; a fellow Bishop who was the Master of Ceremonies announced, “I introduce Bishop Mac Baker Ochola and his wife…” There was murmuring from the crowd. My brother bishop apologized but you can tell how “close” we bishops of the Church of Uganda rally are, if one of us forgets his brother bishops’ wife had died a tragic death! But of course it was a tragic death of a bishop’s wife in Northern Uganda—“so far away”! It is strange but true that there were no more than 35 of us diocesan bishops at the time! If that is how, we, the shepherds relate: how about the flock?
In May 1998, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey, visited Uganda. He was scheduled to perform the consecration of current Bishop Nelson Onono of Northern Uganda Diocese. On hearing of his coming, the Christians of Northern Uganda were excited, they thought he would spend some nights in Gulu, probably visit some of the real terrible IDP Camps—not the ones “sanitized” to show visitors. The people hoped the Archbishop of Canterbury would see their plight with his own eyes.
But we were shocked when the Provincial Office in Kampala informed us the Archbishop of Canterbury would visit Gulu only for the day. He would leave after the consecration, fly by helicopter to Mbale in Eastern Uganda and spend the night there.
I wrote a strongly worded letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury’s office in Lambeth Palace copied to all Primates of the Anglican Communion. I charged that the Church of Uganda had a very poor doctrine of the Church: it paid more attention to the part of the Church that was healthy instead of Northern Uganda that was sick. Later the Archbishop of Canterbury telexed that he would spend a night in Gulu. What if the Church of Uganda had been willing to let the Archbishop of Canterbury visit some of the real terrible IDP camps so as to bring it to the attention of the Anglican Communion to intervene? How many lives of children, women and men might have been saved in Northern Uganda?
Later that same year of 1998 and like Bishop Ogwal, I experienced similar opposition from fellow Church of Uganda Bishops during Lambeth ’98 when I proposed a resolution on the plight of Northern Uganda. Only bishops from Northern Uganda, namely, Bishop Nelson Onono Onweng of Northern Uganda and Melchizedek Otim of Lango supported me. The others did not want us to bring a local issue to Lambeth as if we in Northern Uganda were not part of the Anglican Communion. Later seeing that the resolution would pass after all, one of my fellow Ugandan bishops offered an amendment to include Western Uganda also. We did not object because we knew that we were one body; if one suffers the others suffer too. But why did my fellow bishops oppose us? What if the Church of Uganda Bishops had spoken with one voice at Lambeth ‘88 and ‘98? How many lives of children, women and men might have been saved then?
In June 2003 when Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold visited Uganda, he had been scheduled to visit Northern Uganda but on arrival, he was advised against going. So we from Kitgum Diocese and Northern Uganda Diocese traveled to meet Griswold in Kampala. What if Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold had traveled up to Kitgum and visited some of the most desperate IDP camps and come back, alerted ECUSA, the Anglican Communion and the International Community? Might we not have averted the unfolding genocide?
Who will hear our cry? Who will wipe our tears?
I speak with a heavy heart today because my Church, the Anglican Church of Uganda has failed us at the critical point of prophetic ministry for the oppressed, the weak, the vulnerable and the voiceless of Northern Uganda.
I recall it was none other than Archbishop Janani Luwum of Uganda, the Martyr, whose grave in his boyhood home of Mucwini is in Kitgum Diocese who once said:
“The Church is the conscience of the people through her members and leaders who speak for the poor and the ‘underdog’ of our society”
And so in the same spirit of Archbishop Janani Luwum the martyr, I speak to you, today, my brother Bishop Lipscomb, clergy, laity, brothers and sisters in Christ. You have heard the anguish and agony of the people of God in Northern Uganda. I don’t stand here as a proud bishop of the Church of Uganda today. For you have heard how my own church family, the Anglican Church of Uganda, has quickly passed on to the other side of our “Jericho Road” like the “priest and the Levite” We in Northern Uganda have lain fallen on our Jericho Road for the last 20 years. You have also heard about the attitude of our Government of Uganda about the suffering of its own people in Northern Uganda. You have heard how the international community watches as genocide unfolds in Northern Uganda.
Will you, too, pass on the other side? And if you also pass on, who will be our Good Samaritan?
I thank you.
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Resolutions in response
to the bishop's address:
Resolution 2005-9BA: Support for Taking a Stand Against Genocide in Northern Uganda
Offered by the Resolutions Committee in response to the Bishop's Address to the 37th Annual Convention:
RESOLVED, the 37th Annual Convention of the Diocese of Southwest Florida meeting at Fort Myers on the 3rd day of December, 2005:
That the Secretary of the Convention shall write on behalf of the Convention to the Secretary General of the United Nations, the President of the United States, and each of the members of the U.S. Congress representing the districts of Southwest Florida to inform them that the Diocese of Southwest Florida, meeting in Convention, calls for them to support the following actions, which should be carried out immediately:
implementation of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide of 1948, with respect to the crimes being committed against the Acholi people in Northern Uganda, and
assessment of the humanitarian disaster created by the armed conflict in Acholiland, and
mobilization of the necessary resources to address the dire human needs of the Acholi people, and
advocate that the Security Council use the resources of the United Nations to stop the genocide against the Acholis, and
That the Secretary of the Convention shall write on behalf of the Convention to the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church and the Archbishop of Canterbury and request that these primates take the following action:
urge the Church of the Province of Uganda to demand justice and peace for the people of Northern Uganda and to stand up in solidarity with the voiceless and vulnerable Acholi people, and
use their good offices in the world to stop the genocide in Northern Uganda, and
rally resources to rehabilitate the Acholi people, physically and spiritually; and
That the Diocese sponsor and fund a delegation to travel to Northern Uganda for the purpose of expressing our concern and gathering information to be used to educate the people of the Diocese and suggest specific actions for consideration by the Convention. The delegation shall consist of the bishop diocesan and two persons selected by Diocesan Council from among the elected lay members of either the Diocesan Council or Standing Committee; and
That each Congregation in the Diocese organize at least one educational effort to help make people aware of the situation in Northern Uganda.
Explanation: This Resolution is based on one considered (but referred to committee without action) by the 229th Convention of the Diocese of New York, which heard the Rt. Rev. Macleord Baker Ochola II, retired Anglican Bishop of the Kitgum Diocese in Northern Uganda, give a horrific description of the genocide that has been taking place in his country for almost twenty years. Bishop Ochola then made an impassioned plea that the Anglicans of this country learn about the sufferings in Uganda, weep with them, but then to use the considerable influence of American Anglicans to bring the attention of world leaders, both religious and secular, to find some resolution to this desperate situation.
Will you find time to read and sign a petition to stop the Northern Uganda carnage at: http://www.petitiononline.com/savacoli/petition.html please!
posted by Stop The Genocide In Northern Uganda at 10:17 PM
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