Youth: Universal Children’s Day
For more information, contact Nasserie Carew
Northern Uganda's Youth: Will Child Soldiers Caught in the East African
Rebellion Get Another Chance?
By: Alexis Okeowo
A child soldier for the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) in northern Uganda
often walks for miles on end every day, subsisting on little water and
food. To reach two former child soldiers, one can simply take a taxi in
the capital of Kampala to arrive at the home of two boys who were living
in a starkly different place only two years ago.
The teenagers are members of the over 20,000 Ugandan children who
have been abducted from their homes and schools during the ongoing 20
years of rebellion in this tiny East African nation nestled between
Kenya and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Thousands of innocent
civilians have died as a result of the conflict, and 1.5 million live in
desolate camps for displaced persons. The LRA is primarily composed of
northern former soldiers who left the army after a southern president,
Yoweri Museveni, assumed office. Discontented, the rebels began a savage
campaign to regain power, forcing children to join their ranks. Its
infamous leader Joseph Kony - who says that he channels spirits and will
rule the country by the Ten Commandments - has been indicted by the
International Crimes Court for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
August 29, 2006 marked the signing of an alleged truce between the
LRA and the Ugandan government, who have been engaged in negotiations in
neighboring southern Sudan. As part of that truce, the LRA would have to
release all of the child soldiers, porters, and slaves in its possession
within three weeks from the signing of the truce to the United Nations
and other aid groups. But the deadline has passed, and many have
expressed skepticism at the possibility that children in the North will
no longer have to fear for their safety.
Charles Ojok is one of those who are doubtful. Aged 13, Ojok is from
Kitgum district. As he shrinks in a chair on the house's porch, he chews
at a pencil, causing yellow flakes to fall and decorate his mouth and
shirt. His time as an LRA soldier is still recent enough to tinge the
air with a distinct tension as he begins to speak.
"They came into the room and started telling me that we are going
to war," Ojok recounts. He was abducted at 9 years old while sleeping in
a room with a friend, who tried to alert him to the entry of the LRA
militia. Bullied and beaten by the armed commanders, Okok and other
children crossed rivers (those who did not how to swim were left to
drown) and were shot at by Uganda People's Defense Forces soldiers
before they even learned how to carry guns.
"I could not even eat the food, I was just thinking of all that I
left behind," Ojok says. It was after Ojok returned home that he would
learn that the LRA had killed his parents the night they abducted him.
Pitted against other children in training exercises that often resulted
in death, he was eventually forced to kill civilians, usually through
blows to the head with large rocks. He pulls up his shirt and then the
legs of his trousers to show me his multiple bullet and knife wounds.
The scars, even after his escape two years later, still have not healed.
Although he did not want to talk to counselors initially, Ojok says
that he feels "good" when he is in school and that he likes to study.
But as for the other children he knows who are still in LRA brigades,
despite the pending truce, he vehemently states: "They are not OK."
Draped on the chair's arm next to him is Wikam Olee, also 13, who is
from Lira district. Olee's eyes are startlingly both compelling and
haunted, never shying away from the harsh story he has told many times.
"I feel nothing," Olee repeats when he asked what he felt during his
time as a child soldier for the LRA and then what he felt when he
escaped to a rehabilitation center. Olee was nevertheless willing to be
counseled immediately.
"If you come back from the bush, they will remove everything you
come with and they burn them," Olee says, adding that the act made him
feel better. It was at the center that he first became introduced to the
organization that would change his situation.
The house that both Charles and Wikam now call home is owned by
Outside the Dream, a group that pays the school fees for over 40
children affected by the conflict.
"We never force a child to tell his story, but I think that hiding
it would be worse," Stephen Shames, the American founder of Outside the
Dream, says, adding that his organization is effectively rehabilitating
the two former soldiers, citing their success at the house and at
school.
The government will aid to "re-integrate the children into society,
either if they want to attend school or join the national army," Dr.
Ruhakana Rugunda, the Internal Affairs Minister, said at a recent
government press conference, though he did not specify how. Chulho Hyun,
spokesperson for UNICEF in Uganda, admits that with hundreds of families
displaced and several villages destroyed, the transition process for
current child abductees will be difficult.
"UNICEF, in cooperation with other humanitarian organizations in the
North, has been making contingency arrangements for the reception and
re-integration of the children," Hyun says. These contingency plans
include expanding reception centers, such as ones that have already been
in northern districts since 2003, to offer medical services, family
tracing, and long-term counseling.
UNICEF is expecting anywhere from 100 to 2,000 released women and
children and says that it is prepared for either a slow trickle or a
large rush of returnees. Although around 70% of the kidnapped children
been rescued, others have died from or are still in combat.
