Violence mounts in troubled northern Uganda
Wednesday, 23 March 2005
Violence mounts in troubled northern Uganda
GULU, Uganda, March 23 (Reuters) - Ugandan rebels have killed, kidnapped and mutilated dozens of civilians in the north, where the rainy season is bringing fears of fresh atrocities, aid workers and residents said.
Nineteen years of fighting between the government and guerrillas from the cult-like Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) have uprooted 1.6 million people in the north. Following the failure of landmark talks in December, one of the world's most neglected conflicts appears to be deepening.
"The LRA have increased their attacks a lot in the last few weeks, it is really very alarming. It seems the peace process has effectively failed," a senior aid worker in Gulu said late on Tuesday. "It looks like the rebels are trying to send a message that 'We are still here, we have not gone away'."
A local security official and a member of parliament said more than 60 civilians were abducted by the LRA last week alone. Local journalists and international aid workers in the north say up to 80 troops and local defence militiamen have been killed in the past fortnight.
Uganda's military, which seldom acknowledges its own casualties, denies the reports of deaths, and says the abduction figures are also wildly exaggerated. It was not possible to confirm the reports due to insecurity in the areas.
Aid workers say most of those kidnapped were teenagers, presumably to serve as LRA fighters. And in a tactic that has made the LRA infamous, more than a dozen women have had their lips, ears or breasts sliced off.
PRAYING FOR RAIN?
Local officials have accused Uganda's army of laxity in allowing the rebels to move large distances on foot before attacking camps for displaced civilians.
Moving in small groups, the LRA have spread fear on both sides of the Sudanese border, targeting civilians and abducting thousands of children.
The seasonal rains began this week in northern Uganda, making travel harder on rough dirt roads, and increasing the ground cover of trees and bushes for the rebels to hide in.
The change to the wet season has accompanied more LRA brutality in the past. Last February, the rebels shot, burned and hacked to death more than 250 people at one refugee camp.
Gulu district chairman Colonel Walter Ochora said he feared the LRA could stage more atrocities in the days ahead, saying the group's deputy commander Vincent Otti had crossed into Uganda from Sudan on Sunday with several hundred fighters.
But the army played down concerns of mounting LRA violence.
"Otti does not even have 10 rebels with him, let alone hundreds," Colonel Charles Otema-Awany, head of military intelligence in the north, told Reuters. "He is fleeing us."
By Daniel Wallis
