them in Gulu, Uganda. Peter Eichstaedt photo.
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Sunday, November 6, 2005
Ex-child soldiers singing for a life
Long war scars a generation of youth in Uganda
By Peter Eichstaedt
Gulu, Uganda -- It is not the song sung under the thatched roof of the pavilion that is remarkable, or
the music of the handmade instruments, or stomp and dance. It is the singers, some 30 former child
soldiers struggling to find a foothold in a new reality.
Their new reality is a "welcome center" in the northern Ugandan city of Gulu. It is one of many in this
region, a place where thousands of former child soldiers and child brides begin the long road to
reclaiming their lost lives.
The centers are the result of a seemingly endless war that pits fighters of the Lord's Resistance Army
and its mysterious leader, Joseph Kony, against an ill-equipped, unmotivated and often equally brutal
Ugandan army.
For the past 20 years, Kony and his army have savaged innocent villagers and residents in dozens of
the refugee camps they have caused in a no-man's land that encompasses the regions between
Sudan and Uganda, and in now eastern Congo.
The reason for the continued fighting long ago faded from most people's minds. But the results are
tangible and horrifying. Thousands of young girls have been abducted and forced into sexual slavery,
mutilated or killed.
Even more young boys have been captured and forced to kill or maim family, friends or fellow
villagers, even hack off lips or limbs, then become foot soldiers in Kony's forces.
This long-standing war finally garnered international attention this month, when the International
Criminal Court charged Kony and four of his commanders with 86 counts of war crimes and crimes
against humanity.
The court said Kony's crimes include murder, abduction, sexual enslavement, mutilation, as well as
burning and looting of villages and refugee camps, which have become semi-permanent dwellings for
more than 1 million displaced Ugandans.
Kony's army was formed in 1986 after current President Yoweri Museveni seized power and brought
stability to a country that had writhed under the butchery of the late dictator Idi Amin. The
anti-Museveni forces regrouped in northern Uganda, led by Kony and his aunt, both of whom claim
mystical religious powers and vaguely Christian values.
"He told us we were fighting for the 10 commandments," says John Otto, a former child soldier under
Kony. Abducted in 1995 from his village at the age of 10, Otto spent the next decade raiding villages
in southern Sudan and northern Uganda in search of food, clothes, young girls for "brides," and boys
to bolster their depleting ranks.
He was given a card with the 10 commandments printed on it and told that it would protect him. It didn't
work. Otto walks with the help of prosthetic foot after he lost his lower leg to a land mine nearly three
years ago.
Despite the 10 years of aimless marauding, Otto considers himself lucky. He saw many of his young
comrades killed or maimed. He finally made his escape in the chaos of an intense gun battle.
"What hurts the most was missing out on school," Otto says of his lost childhood. "There was nothing I
could do about it." Now his eye is on the future. "I would love to do carpentry."
Carpentry, along with tailoring and bicycle repair, are the skills that these former children can learn at
the welcome centers, which also provide them with medical care, new clothes, a mattress and
blankets, food, counseling and most of all, a fresh start.
Returning to their villages often is not easy.
Lilly Atong is a former wife of Resistance Army leader Kony and bore him three children. After 15
years in the bush, where she and other young women lived in brutal conditions, she wants to return to
her village and learn a skill. But she is worried.
"Going back to school would be difficult," she says. She completed only the first grade before she was
abducted at the age of 10. More worrisome is rejection because of her years with the rebels. "I'm
afraid of what will be said about me."
Most just need to be given a chance for a normal life, says Michael Oruni, director of the World Vision
center in Gulu. "Most were abducted when they were young. They fear revenge and no acceptance,"
he says. "Some people think the kids are killers. No. They are very good."
The children of the child brides are also a problem. In one case, a woman's family required a returning
rebel to marry the mother, despite the fact that she had died, and pay the family the equivalent of
$500. A macabre ceremony allowed the family to forgive the man for abducting their daughter and to
legitimize the child in their eyes.
Many former child soldiers have been able to reintegrate. Ochan Orach, now 25, was kidnapped from
his village on the Sudan border when he was 15. "They abducted boys and girls," he says, "any
strong people who could move with them." Those who could not keep up were killed, he says. "They
would say, 'Go under that tree and rest,' " he explains. "It meant they were going to kill you."
Because of his size and education, Orach quickly became a captain. "I had the talent of running and
(understood) the tactics of fighting." He shakes his head in disgust at the two years he spent
becoming skilled at killing with a rifle and machete.
Orach commanded a unit of eight young men whose job was to loot the villages, he says.
Now a trained security guard and dog handler, he looks at his hands and says, "I've seen a lot of
blood."
After his years in the bush with the Lord's Resistance Army, he says, "I have no fear in my heart." It's a
trait he finds useful in his job. "I know I am going to die someday. It does not worry me."
Orach hopes to leave Uganda's capital of Kampala, where he now works, and return to his village and
take up farming. He speaks enthusiastically of growing sunflowers.
But how soon that can happen may depend on how quickly Kony and his forces are captured. Orach
is not optimistic, because the Ugandan government has been unable to stop Kony for 20 years. Orach
claims Kony is secretly supported by Ugandan forces hostile to the Museveni regime.
If true, this means that the flow of Uganda's child soldiers and child brides may not stop soon either.
This is disheartening to people like Oruni who run welcome centers.
"We have to forgive the war, and we have to embrace the peace," he says. "I can't wait till the day
when we put a padlock on the gate (of his center) because there are not more children coming, and I
can go into the villages and see the children at work."
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Peter Eichstaedt, a writer based in the United States, is training journalists in Uganda and working with
the Institute for War and Peace Reporting -- Africa. Contact us at insight@sfchronicle.com.
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