Annemarie:
North East Uganda is known internationally for the atrocities meted out by the Lord’s Resistance Army on the local Acholi people including the abduction of huge numbers of children - often for recruitment to their forces as child soldiers. The main violence ended in 2006 when the LRA was largely driven out of Uganda so as we were travelling through the area, north from Gulu, up to Kitgum, we knew the background but didn’t really expect to come face to face with anything that related to the past violence, As we drove though it was hard not to notice how different things seemed. In other areas of rural Uganda people are always walking or cycling along the roadside. Bikes are overladen completely with everything from bananas and sugar cane to bricks and rolled, corrugated metal roofing panels. Women carry terrific loads on their heads: firewood; charcoal; water; sacks of grain. As evening approaches you’ll see them with huge farming tools carefully balanced as they walk home from a long day in the fields. But as we neared Kitgum, groups of similarly aged people were walking by the roadside but not carrying anything. There were hardly any agricultural tools to be seen and the fields didn’t seem intensely cultivated. It felt odd, we couldn’t pin down why, but it was unusual.
As we parked up for the night in Kitgum we were approached by a Hektor admirer. After giving John Paul a quick drive, we find that he is Exec Director of a local charity, the Irene Gleeson Foundation and after a longer conversation he asks us to meet with David, the manager of the local radio station - Mighty Fire. We oblige of course and over supper are persuaded to appear on the radio the next morning. It’s all very surreal. We walk up a dusty road to the hilltop station and into the studio and immediately we’re sat, headphones on and waiting for our cue. What on earth will be relevant about anything we might have to say? But David, who’s interviewing us, is the ultimate professional and Martin, whose first job was as a radio reporter, is not at all phased. The conversation is steered towards how to succeed at something new, how to start up a business, what we have learned from our travels, what we admire in people we have met. I am asked about my role in sustainability, about businesses supporting local communities and I explain all I can. What we hadn't expected was the phone-in but the Q&A brought out some fascinating questions and made us realise people were actually listening to us.
Afterwards David takes us to a viewpoint above the station to show us where the fighting took place, how the town still bears the scars of the battles but more importantly how people are moving on. He describes the local reconciliation ceremony - Mato Oput, which means 'Bitter Root'. He talks about returning child soldiers and how members of the LRA are still out in the bush. The forgiveness he describes is remarkable. The communities are gradually recovering. There is still a lot of NGO intervention; the population of Kitgum grew massively and unnaturally as people were herded into Internally Displaced People camps during the LRA years. They relied heavily on aid afterwards and, due to the displacement, families were torn apart and skills lost, land boundaries and ownership wiped out. It’s a long recovery process and no wonder the area feels different. We came away humbled again by what we’d learned.
I’ve found that films and photographs of survivors of the conflict have been collated by Christian Aid in collaboration with the National Peace and Memory Documentation Centre in northern Uganda, which is helping survivors of the conflict to record their stories. Norman Okello’s account is especially moving.