Civil War Rips Uganda Apart

[norml]

Civil War Rips Uganda Apart
Guerilla Warfare Receives Little Attention in the Media

By Laura Holt
Published Friday March 10, 2006


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According to http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_petraitis/spirit_war.shtml, Kony’s rebels attempted to curb atrocities committed against the Northerners by Uganda’s military, but soon the rebels began committing their own war crimes. His Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) continues to fight a brutal guerrilla war today, ostensibly in a desire to overthrow President Museveni, and to cleanse the nation through the establishment of a government that will rule in accordance with the Ten Commandments.

Kony uses religion to exonerate himself from the daily acts of rape, kidnapping, torture and murder that he orchestrates. His army is responsible for unspeakable brutalities, many of which are paradoxically committed against those he purports to be fighting in the name of the Acholis.

The children of Uganda are also the victims of this horrendous situation. Every day thousands of children are recruited into the LRA against their will after being stolen from their homes and families during the night. They are then forced to commit brutal and violent crimes often against other children, which leaves them with a sense of guilt so profound that many are reluctant to return home to their communities even when the chance of escape or reintegration is a possibility. It is estimated that 80 percent of the LRA’s combatants are children who have been forcibly embroiled within the conflict against their wills.

The fighting has also seen the emergence of refugee camps across the country. These camps, which today are estimated to hold nearly 2 million displaced people, cause disease to spread, thereby perpetuating Uganda’s problems. Reduced access to amenities have contributed to a situation which has yielded mortality rates at nearly double to that of Darfur, the conflict which is generally considered the worst humanitarian crisis in Africa.


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http://www.ucsbdailynexus.com/opinion/2006/11234.html

[sam sarrha]

1. i didnt think there were many adults left in Unganda..

[pitohui]

2. are you sure you're thinking of uganda?

sure there are adults in uganda

i'm not sure this information is v. up-to-date, yes, there are issues and some guerillas causing some problems in uganda as there are in too many countries, but uganda is really trying to re-position itself as a more attractive place to live and visit

uganda, kenya, and tanzania just recently (i'm thinking within days) opened the east african community modeled on the european common market to allow free trade and travel between these countries, and the current plan (which i'll admit may be optimistic) is to unify the three gov'ts by 2009

my feeling is that the real war will one day be w. egypt which under old treaties signed by the british give egypt (a rich nation) rights to the water in lake victoria, shared by these three very poor nations who have also suffered from drought in recent years, perhaps a successful union will give them a better chance of regaining the rights to their own water

[sam sarrha]

3. the place has been devastated by HIV,it is a land of children and old people

nearly 68% of the copper miners had HIV years ago.. i didnt think it was going to get better..

[pitohui]

4. big hiv/aids issue in kenya as well

a lot of good people trying to work on the problem tho, i don't know what choice they have but to try, what's scary is to read the literature about the east africa community, where they say the biggest barrier to the union in days gone by was that kenya was the "economic powerhouse" and the other 2 thought they'd get rolled over, christ, some economic powerhouse, i saw people too poor to possess a clothesline so had to dry out their laundry on the ground

the magnitude of the problem is certainly huge, i hope for them there is nowhere but up

kenyan researchers still hope to find a vaccine for hiv/aids, reason, much easier to get a vaccine one time to people in rural areas than to supply medicines that must be re-stocked

old people, i hardly saw any in kenya, the average life expectancy is in the 40s i think

[pitohui]

5. just googled some more information

christ, itis indeed northern uganda where all this crap is going on with impressing child soldiers

quite clearly i know less than zero about northern uganda but it sounds like the same type of awful crap taking place in congo etc.

[HamdenRice]

6. Please don't buy racist 'Africans are AIDS ridden disasters' stereotypes

Obviously, some African countries are in dire shape, but Uganda is not one of them.

Just because the people in all sub-Saharan African countries are "black" does not mean the countries are all "the same".

As far as AIDS is concerned, it is bizarre to hear posters in this thread suggest that Uganda is an AIDS disaster, when everyone in the AIDS field, development or African studies is aware that Uganda is a model for reducing HIV infection rates. The government of Uganda is credited with bringing the infection rate down from around 15% in the 90s, to 5% in 2001 (before the availability of AIDS drugs in poor countries) to about 4% today, largely through honestly confronting the disease (when most countries were in denial) and focusing on prevention and monogamy.

BTW, I don't believe Uganda has copper mining of any significance. You must be thinking of Zambia which has huge copper mines and a more severe AIDS crisis. Again, different African countries actually are different.

The civil war is a fairly low intensity war from the national perspective that mainly afflicts the northern areas, and the rebels are extremely unpopular religious nutjubs whose only means of recruiting is kidnapping children. But the Lords Resistance Army is not considered a threat to the overall stability of Uganda, where Museveni's government is considered to be popular, legitimate and progressive.

As for the refugees, I believe the majority are refugees from neighboring countries, which are experiencing much more serious instability, especially Congo, Sudan and Rwanda, not internally displaced Ugandan refugees.

It is a shame that a country that has made perhaps the greatest strides of any country in Africa in so many fields -- from security, to democratic governance, to AIDS prevention, to economic growth -- can simply be dismissed as a disaster through confusion with other countries -- and this on a progressive site.

Please try to learn a little something about the various African countries before you regurgitate the senseless racist bile of stereotypes that are propogated in both the mainstream and alternative media.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

7. Well said. Thanks for fighting the usual stereotypes.

I certainly don't consider myself an expert on Africa, but I have done a lot of reading of history, and do pay attention to current events.

Sadly, the average American's knowledge of Africa, it's history, it's various cultures, or what's actually going on there, is, to put it mildly, abysmal. But, that can be said of most American's (including politicians) knowledge of most of the world.

[norml]

8. I didn't write the article. I just posted it.

Since I've heard Africa doesn't get much attention, I thought I'd help by reposting more articles relating to it.

Excuse me.

[pitohui]

13. no excuses needed, it sparked a good discussion EOM

.

[sam sarrha]

9. thank you.. what religion are the nut jobs..?? found it ..LINK>

http://www.hrw.org/reports97/uganda

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lords_Resistance_Army

[HamdenRice]

11. They made up their own religion, kind of

Christianity can be a positive force because of its focus on peace and equality, but it can be strangely combined with other cultural practices and religions. (And of course, Christianity has been used to slaughter countless millions, under the Conquistadors, during the Crusades, etc.) Some of the Chinese rebellions of the late 19th century that killed tens of millions were carried out by cults that were a combination of indigenous practices and Christianity.

As I understand the Lords Resistance Army is a form of Christianity mixed with indigenous ideas.

[sam sarrha]

10. not buying into raceism, just old info..

[pitohui]

12. ok this is great information

i did have the impression that uganda is really doing a lot to try to move forward

[HamdenRice]

14. Thank you all for being so open minded! nt