Recovering from the Lord's Resistance Army

This blog was written for class--as you may be able to tell from the lack of explatives. 

In the late 1980s, Joseph Kony formed the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) in northern Uganda. Operating as a cult-like rebel group, the LRA rapes, tortures, and murders both soldiers and civilians. Kony built his army by kidnapping children and forcing them to kill their family and friends, in order to eliminate their incentive to run away. To date, the LRA has murdered over 2,400 civilians, abducted 3,000 adults and children, and displaced more than 400,000 Africans from their homes.

After Kony fled Uganda in the mid-2000s, most media attention concerning the LRA shifted to other parts of Africa. The country has been largely forgotten in recent years--although it continues to suffer the aftermath of the rebel group’s atrocities. 

This raises questions regarding how a country can possibly expect to recover from such terrible violence. What happens after the UN peacekeepers stop providing food and shelter? How should we care for child soldiers and victims of rape after they are recovered from the rebels? And how can this recovery possibly take place amidst such extreme levels of poverty?

One response is the creation of rehabilitation centers and schools to serve the LRA’s victims. Our class had the unique opportunity to visit and tour one such school, located in the small town of Lira.

The students here look like regular teenagers--they smile, laugh, and flirt with each other. They live on campus, attend classes from 5:30 a.m. to 10 p.m., and receive therapy sessions. An outsider would have no idea that many of these children once committed unspeakable acts of violence. The school offers many children the most stability they have ever had--and likely will ever have--in their lives.

 

The small village of Barlonyo, about an hour north of Lira, is home to a large Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camp. These camps are filled with Ugandans who fled their homes during the height of Kony's reign of terror. LRA soldiers infiltrated the camp in 2004, killing over 200 refugees and creating hundreds of orphans.

Our class set up a makeshift health clinic in order to provide basic medical care and clothes to residents. Saying that these people have nothing is an understatement. Many were wearing little more than rags, and the toothbrushes we handed out during the clinic were treated as precious gems. They seemed to be pleased by our presence--the opportunities for work and entertainment in the camp are minimal.

Recovery in northern Uganda is slowly taking place. Residents no longer live in fear that Kony will return to abduct their children and kill their loved ones. Five years ago, this threat was a very real possibility. The towns affected by the LRA are slowly rebuilding and returning to life. Although these communities have a long road to recovery ahead of them, the process has begun.