scholarly journals Why Acholi Traditional War Rituals Cannot Reintegrate Female Lord’s Resistance Army Combatants: A Case Study of Kwero Merok War Ritual

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-79
Author(s):  
Wotsuna Khamalwa ◽  
Emeline Ndossi
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Gender Role ◽  
Traditional Culture ◽  
Northern Uganda ◽  
Lord's Resistance Army ◽  
The Status ◽  
Lord’S Resistance Army

The Acholi are Nilotic Negroes who are part of the Lwo speaking people who migrated from Bahr-el Ghazal in the Sudan about 1600 AD. A section of the Acholi community under the umbrella of Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) waged a civil war against the sitting government of Uganda in 1986. LRA rebels abducted numerous children from Acholi-land and the neighbouring Lango community in northern Uganda regardless of their gender. The female returnees, whether they were recruited willingly or otherwise, are believed to have committed atrocities towards their own Acholi people during the period of insurgency. During their re-integration, these women were culturally challenged, not only for the atrocities they were believed to have committed while in the bush, but because of their status as women who violated their gender role status. The Acholi traditional culture does not approve of female combatants and some of the society members hold strong reservations regarding the new status of these women! They argue that the status of these former combatants who took lives of their own kin and kith is incongruent with Acholi perception of women as life givers, carer-givers and protectors! The article cautions that the stigma that the female returnees experience even after going through the different rituals is an indication that they are not fully reintegrated! Acholi traditional culture was in this case selected because it has been a pioneer through its traditional rituals to reintegrate these women in the Northern Ugandan community. However, it was noted in this article that cultural rituals such as kwero merok cannot fully reintegrate LRA female combatants.

scholarly journals Being Normal: Stigmatization of Lord’s Resistance Army Returnees as ‘Moral Experience’ in Post-war Northern Uganda

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Macdonald ◽  
Raphael Kerali
Keyword(s):  
Social Control ◽  
Social Exclusion ◽  
Moral Experience ◽  
Northern Uganda ◽  
Ethnographic Methods ◽  
Multiple Functions ◽  
Lord's Resistance Army ◽  
Post War ◽  
Lord’S Resistance Army

Abstract The literature on Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) returnees in Acholiland, northern Uganda tells us that those who returned from the rebel group are likely to experience stigma and social exclusion. While the term is deployed frequently, ‘stigma’ is not a well-developed concept and most of the evidence we have comes from accounts of returnees themselves. Focusing instead on the ‘stigmatizers’, this article theorizes stigmatization as part of the ‘moral experience’ of regulating post-war social repair. Through interview-based and ethnographic methods, it finds that stigmatization of LRA returnees takes many forms and serves multiple functions, calling into question whether this catch-all term actually obscures more than it illuminates. While stigmatization is usually practised as a form of ‘social control’, its function can be ‘reintegrative’ rather than purely exclusionary. Through the northern Uganda case study, this article seeks to advance conceptual and empirical understanding of the manifestations and functions of stigmatization in spaces of return, challenging the logic underpinning those interventions that seek to reduce it.

scholarly journals Insecurity in Northern Uganda: Are People Being Given the Protection They Deserve?

Refuge ◽  
1998 ◽  
pp. 22-26
Author(s):  
Cathy Majtenyi
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Negotiation Process ◽  
Northern Uganda ◽  
Lord's Resistance Army ◽  
The North ◽  
Lack Of Information ◽  
The Government ◽  
Two Sides ◽  
Lord’S Resistance Army

The civil war between the Uganda Peoples' Defence Forces (UPDF) and the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rages on in Northern Uganda, leaving behind a trail of kidnappings, death and destruction despite measures to protect civilians. Ultimate security for the Acholi and others who live in the North will only come about with an end to the12-year-old conflict, which would be accomplished by negotiations between the two sides. Unfortunately, misinformation -- and a noticeable lack of information, especially from the LRA--are major impediments to determining the war's root causes and who is responsible for the instability. This paper argues that, for a successful end to the war, the government must cease its propaganda war, which is mainly being played out in an uncritical and biased media, and the LRA must be clear about its message. Honest discussion and analytical reporting will greatly facilitate the negotiation process.

scholarly journals The Lord's Resistance Army and Forced Conscription in Northern Uganda

2008 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 404-411 ◽  
Author(s):  
Phuong N. Pham ◽  
Patrick Vinck ◽  
Eric Stover
Keyword(s):  
Northern Uganda ◽  
Lord's Resistance Army ◽  
Lord’S Resistance Army

Against Humanity

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sam Dubal
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Crimes Against Humanity ◽  
Northern Uganda ◽  
The Common Good ◽  
Lord's Resistance Army ◽  
The Common ◽  
Lord’S Resistance Army

This book is not about crimes against humanity. Rather, it is an indictment of “humanity,” the concept that lies at the heart of human rights and humanitarian missions. Based on fieldwork in northern Uganda, this book brings readers inside the Lord’s Resistance Army, an insurgent group accused of rape, forced conscription of children, and inhumane acts of violence. The author talks with and learns from former rebels as they find meaning in wartime violence, politics, spirituality, and love—experiences that observers often place outside the boundaries of humanity. Rather than approaching the LRA as a set of possibilities, humanity looks at the LRA as a set of problems, as inhuman enemies needing reform. Humanity hegemonizes what counts as good in ways that are difficult to question or challenge. It relies on specific notions of the good—shaped in ideals of modern violence, technology, modernity, and reason, among others—in ways that do violence to the common good. What emerges from this ethnography is an unorthodox question—what would it mean to be “against humanity”? Against Humanity provocatively asks us how to honor life existing outside normative moralities. It challenges us to shift toward alternative, more radical approaches to humanitarian, political, medical, and other interventions, rooted in anti-humanism.

Christian Dimensions of Violence: The Séléka/Anti-Balaka Militias And The Lord’s Resistance Army In The Central African Republic

2021 ◽  
Vol 66 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-23
Author(s):  
Ana Raluca Alecu ◽  
Andrei Miroiu
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Central African Republic ◽  
Armed Groups ◽  
Religious Groups ◽  
Lord's Resistance Army ◽  
Muslim Communities ◽  
Lord’S Resistance Army

"Beginning in 2013, the Central African Republic has been engulfed in a civil war pitting successive governments against a substantial number of armed groups who also compete against each other for control over territory, population and resources. Some of these groups are claiming to be defenders of religious groups in the country, with the Séléka militias fighting for the Muslim communities and the anti-Balaka groups claiming Christian roots and inclinations. Other religiously inspired armed groups such as the Lord’s Resistance Army are also present in the country. The following study is an attempt to understand how the “religious” label can be applied to such armed groups and whether it can influence their behavior, thus bringing into light a valuable, albeit lesser known example on how AGs and religion are connected in contemporary Africa. Keywords: armed groups, religion, Central African Republic, violence, civil war "

scholarly journals What Happened to Children Who Returned from the Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda?

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tim Allen ◽  
Jackline Atingo ◽  
Dorothy Atim ◽  
James Ocitti ◽  
Charlotte Brown ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Best Practice ◽  
Northern Uganda ◽  
Negative Consequences ◽  
Vulnerable Children ◽  
Long Period ◽  
Lord's Resistance Army ◽  
Best Practice Guidelines ◽  
Displaced Children ◽  
Lord’S Resistance Army ◽  
Reception Centre

Abstract In northern Uganda, more than 50,000 people were recruited by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) between the late 1980s and 2004, mostly by force. Around half of those taken were children (under 18 years old). A large number were never seen by their families again, but more than 20,000 returned through aid-financed reception centres. Endeavours were made to reunite them with their relatives, who were mostly living in insecure displacement camps. Relatively few were subsequently visited, even after the fighting ended in 2006. Thousands of vulnerable children were largely left to their own devices. This article draws on research carried out in 2004–06 and from 2012 to 2018, and compares findings with other publications on reintegration in the region. It argues that implementing best-practice guidelines for relocating displaced children with their immediate relatives had negative consequences. The majority of children who passed through a reception centre are now settled as young adults on ancestral land, where they are commonly abused because of their LRA past. With few exceptions, it is only those who spent a long period with the LRA and who are not living on ancestral land who have managed to avoid such experiences.

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