The North
I spent the past five days in Northern Uganda. War raged until only a few years ago, but now the main town of Gulu is rapidly recovering and overrun with NGOs. There is even a wine shop advertising “Italian Wine – All Varieties Available,” for the foreign aid workers. People there I spoke to talk about the war as if it were already over. Gulu seems little like the bombed-out villages of Bosnia, given that Uganda’s war was more about “low-tech” atrocities than snipers and mortars. It is at least quiet, clean and a welcome escape from the overcrowded, dusty streets of Kampala. The residents are Acholi – they speak a different, more guttural language, and have much darker skin than their countrymen in the South.
I quizzed a few locals about the ICC. While those who know better maintain that the ICC is almost unanimously reviled for having delayed peace, the handful I spoke to gave a different perspective. In their minds, Kony is not a rational actor who can be negotiated with. He has ordered his rebel troops to cut off the right leg of anyone caught riding a bicycle, prescribed immediate execution for owning a white chicken, and said that anyone owning a dog should be cut up such that their dog eventually attacks and eats them alive. The only way to bring him down is to kill or capture – and at least the ICC makes the latter a bit more likely. To them, any peace negotiations are just a ruse. Indeed, most recently the LRA negotiated for over a year and arrived at the final wording for an agreement with the government, only to have Kony simply not show up at the final signing.
We also visited a school for war-affected children – a euphemism for former abductees of the LRA. According to the artist who took us there, over 90% have been forced to kill. Many of the girls, barely into their teenage years, were raped or “assigned” to LRA commanders and now have small children. Many were forced to murder their own parents, relatives or friends. They were controlled by a steady stream of horror. The excellent book “Aboke Girls” by a Dutch journalist – about 109 girls from a posh boarding school abducted by the LRA – relates one incident of a girl forced to gnaw off the leg of another man. (I ended up giving away the book to some local politicians we met who lived very near the Aboke school, but who had never even heard of it – it’s even available in Canada!)
I stood a bit stunned in the middle of the brightly coloured campus, with inspirational slogans on little signs all along its pathways. Boys and girls, some looking as young as 7 or 8, milled about. I smiled at their seeming normalcy from afar, but when I tried to chat a couple of the boys up – showing them how you can see photos on the back of my camera, which usually elicits giggles and makes instant friends – they remained sullen and unenthused. They seemed suspicious of me, rarely smiling or waving back. I admit it felt a bit spooky, but mostly very sad. At least, unlike many, they have already escaped and have a shot at a “normal” life.
In non-war related observations, we also visited a very cool project called BOSCO (Battery Operated Systems for Community Outreach) which provides solar-powered computers with long-range wireless internet to the internally displaced persons camps. I thought it sounded a bit absurd at first to be providing computers to starving refugees who lack even clean drinking water, but apparently some have already been able to use the internet access to win grant proposals, to contact relatives abroad and have money sent back, to look up information about health and diseases, start up personal blogs, read the news, etc. My skepticism was overcome by the clear enthusiasm of the locals themselves, who saw the computer as their first and only outlet to a wide world of opportunities. If the internet can cause such excitement amongst desperately poor Africans living in crowded mud huts, perhaps it will indeed save us all from ourselves in the end. Except the innumerable stupid cat videos on YouTube, which help no one except my sister (and me, on a rainy day). Thankfully, the internet here is too slow for such abuse.
I quizzed a few locals about the ICC. While those who know better maintain that the ICC is almost unanimously reviled for having delayed peace, the handful I spoke to gave a different perspective. In their minds, Kony is not a rational actor who can be negotiated with. He has ordered his rebel troops to cut off the right leg of anyone caught riding a bicycle, prescribed immediate execution for owning a white chicken, and said that anyone owning a dog should be cut up such that their dog eventually attacks and eats them alive. The only way to bring him down is to kill or capture – and at least the ICC makes the latter a bit more likely. To them, any peace negotiations are just a ruse. Indeed, most recently the LRA negotiated for over a year and arrived at the final wording for an agreement with the government, only to have Kony simply not show up at the final signing.
We also visited a school for war-affected children – a euphemism for former abductees of the LRA. According to the artist who took us there, over 90% have been forced to kill. Many of the girls, barely into their teenage years, were raped or “assigned” to LRA commanders and now have small children. Many were forced to murder their own parents, relatives or friends. They were controlled by a steady stream of horror. The excellent book “Aboke Girls” by a Dutch journalist – about 109 girls from a posh boarding school abducted by the LRA – relates one incident of a girl forced to gnaw off the leg of another man. (I ended up giving away the book to some local politicians we met who lived very near the Aboke school, but who had never even heard of it – it’s even available in Canada!)
I stood a bit stunned in the middle of the brightly coloured campus, with inspirational slogans on little signs all along its pathways. Boys and girls, some looking as young as 7 or 8, milled about. I smiled at their seeming normalcy from afar, but when I tried to chat a couple of the boys up – showing them how you can see photos on the back of my camera, which usually elicits giggles and makes instant friends – they remained sullen and unenthused. They seemed suspicious of me, rarely smiling or waving back. I admit it felt a bit spooky, but mostly very sad. At least, unlike many, they have already escaped and have a shot at a “normal” life.
In non-war related observations, we also visited a very cool project called BOSCO (Battery Operated Systems for Community Outreach) which provides solar-powered computers with long-range wireless internet to the internally displaced persons camps. I thought it sounded a bit absurd at first to be providing computers to starving refugees who lack even clean drinking water, but apparently some have already been able to use the internet access to win grant proposals, to contact relatives abroad and have money sent back, to look up information about health and diseases, start up personal blogs, read the news, etc. My skepticism was overcome by the clear enthusiasm of the locals themselves, who saw the computer as their first and only outlet to a wide world of opportunities. If the internet can cause such excitement amongst desperately poor Africans living in crowded mud huts, perhaps it will indeed save us all from ourselves in the end. Except the innumerable stupid cat videos on YouTube, which help no one except my sister (and me, on a rainy day). Thankfully, the internet here is too slow for such abuse.
posted by Sam at 5:10 PM
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