Kony in Person, for the First Time

Joseph Kony has recently given his first interview with a western journalist.
Transcripts and comments given by the notorious LRA leader can be found on BBC's website here.

Most likely his recent willingness to speak with journalists and break his silence has to do with the increasing pressure intitiated by the International Criminal Court's arrest warrants and the Sudanese government's stated policy to end its ties with the LRA and Kony. He is being backed into a corner now and his only way to get out is to speak to reporters, even if it only to deny he has done any wrongdoing.

How, how, how? do people deny their involvement in killings and mass torture?
It is incredible to hear this man speak so vehemently about his own innocence when it is clear to the whole world that he has been the perpetrator of so much violence, abuse and murder for 20 years.

It stumps me.

But maybe this is a window into human nature - a lesson here for each one of us.
How easy it is to deny wrongdoing, to turn a blind eye to our own culpability, big or small, and blame the other.

"Why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye, and not at the log in your own?" as Jesus said.

Well, read on, friends. Kony's words sound compelling, and perhaps there is even a grain of truth in what he says. The Ugandan government is not free of corruption and has perpetrated its own abuses on minority groups in the north; but the LRA has maimed, killed, raped, abducted and tortured thousands of people and they should be held accountable.

Uganda rebel leader breaks silence By Sam Farmar
Joseph Kony's camp, Democratic Republic of Congo

In a world exclusive first interview, the leader of Ugandan rebel group, the Lord's Resistance Army, has dismissed accusations he is responsible for atrocities.
Joseph Kony has been blamed for thousands of deaths and abductions - many of children - and for maiming civilians in his twenty year campaign of terror. The latter he blames on the forces of Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni.

"That is not true. It's just propaganda," he says. "Let me tell you clearly what happened in Uganda. Museveni went into the villages and cut off the ears of the people, telling the people that it was the work of the LRA. I cannot cut the ear of my brother; I cannot kill the eye of my brother."

Along with four of his most senior commanders, Kony is now top of the International Criminal Courts warrant list. Kony alone is wanted for 33 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Speaking in the jungle of the Democratic Republic of Congo, surrounded by some of what he estimates as 3,000 heavily-armed fighters, he insists he is not the monster he is portrayed to be.

Spiritual leader

Grinning and exposing two chipped and blackened front teeth he looks younger than his 46 years - despite spending so long in the bush.


I did not kill the civilian of Uganda. I kill the soldier of Museveni.
Joseph Kony


"I am a human being like you," he declares. "I have eyes, a brain and wear clothes but they are saying we don't talk with people, we eat people. We are killers. That is not true. Why do you meet me if I am a killer?"
The scarcely-educated spiritual leader who launched an uprising in the northern Uganda region of Acholi after Museveni seized power in 1986, claims his forces have only targeted government troops.

"It is Museveni who is oppressing the Acholi people and driving the villagers into camps. Our wealth, our property, was destroyed by Museveni. He want to destroy all Acholi so that the land of Acholi will be his land... I did not kill the civilian of Uganda. I kill the soldier of Museveni."


Youths joined the LRA voluntarily but were never abducted, he claimed, "I don't have acres of maize, of onion, of cabbages. I don't have food. If I abducted children like that, here in the bush, what do they eat?"
Asked about the ICC charges, he insisted: "I am not guilty. I am not guilty. I am not guilty. But we want the people of Uganda to be free. We are fighting for democracy."

First interview

He says he is guided by spirits, "I don't know the number but they speak to me. They load through me. They will tell us what is going to happen. They say 'you, Mr Joseph, tell your people that the enemy is planning to come and attack'."

The interview is the first Kony has given to a journalist, he says, adding that claims that he has given telephone interviews to radio programmes are false and the interviews were not given by him.

The timing of the interview is no accident. Kony has offered the Ugandan government peace talks and has a negotiating team waiting in Juba, the capital of southern Sudan.

But President Museveni seems deeply sceptical of his intentions and is reluctant to engage.

"Peace talks are good for me," Kony says. "If Museveni can agree to talks with me it is only a very good thing, which I know will bring peace to the people of Uganda."
Kony's LRA subsequently received weapons and other support from the Sudanese government to punish Uganda for supporting southern Sudanese rebels.

The LRA have combined the fanaticism of a cult with ruthless military efficiency, and while its apparent aim is to impose the Ten Commandments on Uganda its means could scarcely have been more evil.

Watch the full interview with Joseph Kony via the 'Watch the latest programme' feature on the Newsnight website until 2300BST/2200GMT Thursday 29 June.

Sam Farmar (sam.farmar@virgin.net) is an independent broadcast journalist.

Wanting to Be Born Again

Friends, here is a searing account of a man who was abducted by the LRA in Northern Uganda. A graphic photo of him is below as is his story, told in his own words. More information about the LRA, its leader, Joseph Kony, and the situation in Uganda can be found both below, on the sidebar links and at the BBC website, where this story can be found, under the heading, "LRA victim: 'I cannot forget and forgive'."


LRA victim: 'I cannot forget and forgive'
Following recent comments from Lord's Resistance Army rebel leader Joseph Kony in which he denied committing atrocities, Ugandan Ochola John, 25, responds by telling his story. He was abducted by rebels from his village, Namkora in northern Uganda, which was attacked in February 2002. During the attack 50 people were axed to death and he was one of 35 abductees.

I wish I could be born again.

It hurts me to see my reflection because of the way I now look. The memories of it all are so painful.

It was in the night when I saw a number of torches flash at me. I was commanded to lie down facing the ground. As I did so, the rebels began raiding other houses around me.

They arrested many - tying, and lying the victims on the ground in three lines.

People were screaming from all corners of our village.

Two men were tied and forced onto the ground where their heads were joined together. The rebels tried to force me to pick up a log and hit their heads but I refused so one came for me with a knife and cut off my left ear. He accused me of being a government soldier and said that I would be finished off if I failed to smash their heads.

But then, they started smashing the people's heads themselves. I was put in the middle as they smashed the people's heads.

Abducted
At about 0700 in the morning, they led 35 of us into the bush. About five kms (approximately three miles) from the scene they began taunting me, saying that I was big-headed, and because I refused to respect them I would be cooked alive.


They kept on beating us and they denied food or water from us. We complained saying we were hungry and thirsty. They stopped raping the women that were in our group and acted as though they were going to let us eat and drink. The ladies were forced to boil water in a big tin.

Shortly after this they announced that we would eat the government soldier - supposedly, me.

For a long time, the rebels took turns at beating us men with hot metal, and raping the girls.

I was already spiritually dead.

They returned to me at some point and re-tied me before chopping off my lips. They then cut off my right ear and my nose.

Some time later their commander Joseph Kony phoned, telling them to leave the place immediately.

We were then relocated about 15km further into the bush.

Bad omen
I was bleeding. I could not cry anymore and for two days I couldn't drink water.

The rebels debated for two days whether or not I was to be killed. They told me I was a bad omen and so must suffer.

My wounds had begun to rot. The smell was so bad. But still they refused me any treatment.

Then on the seventh day, because I never expected to live, I insulted their commander in the hope that in revenge he would kill me.

He just ordered his soldiers to cut off my hands. They did.

That evening I remember seeing my fellow female abductees crying. One of them had been killed and another had had her breast cut off.

I don't know how but by what I think was the eleventh day of being abducted I was still living.

Helpless
The rebels kept telling me that I would soon be dead. They picked out two of the starving, tired girls that could hardly even walk from being repeatedly raped and ordered them to take me home.

The three of us were helpless. The girls were crying, inconsolably, when some government soldiers found us following a further night spent out in the open.

They took us straight to the nearest hospital where we received treatment. On reaching hospital, my wife came to see me with my parents, relatives and friends.

They found it hard to see me as a human being. I was rotting, smelly and deformed.

Time
My wife could not find words to speak to me. She just felt very sick.

My thoughts were filled with bitterness. I hated life and wished that I had just been killed. All I wanted was to commit suicide and die.

My wife started taking care of me in the hospital. I had asked her to leave me alone, explaining that because I was deformed, I couldn't be her husband anymore.

She refused. Over and over she rejected my request, saying that the baby she was carrying for us, the child we were expecting, needed a father.

She kept saying that I hadn't asked to be deformed like that and someday God would let me know why I had been put through such an ordeal.

My wife, Grace, with time helped to suppress my terrible feelings and thoughts.

When our baby boy was born, I named him Anywar, which in our Luo language means an insult or an abuse.

I named him so because of what the Lord's Resistance Army leader, Joseph Kony, did to me.

I try, but I cannot forgive, and I cannot forget.

Malaria

Donors, joined by a $31 billion gift from Warren E. Buffett to the Gates Foundation, are reshaping failed approaches to global diseases like malaria. In Gulu, Uganda, 2-year-old Mustafa Abe gets a drip for quinine.

For $1 a year, nets keep malaria from children. Jennifer Akwongo, in Gulu, Uganda, has six children at risk.


Today's NY Times carries an article about malaria and the US government's efforts to address the problem in Africa. The effort, and the recent attention is likely spurred by Warren Buffet's recent announcement that he will be donating a hefty sum to the Bill and Melinda's Gates Foundation.

Interestingly, the article focuses on people suffering from malaria in Gulu, Uganda - a place I plan on visiting when I arrive in Uganda later this month.

Here's the article, cut and pasted for your viewing:


June 28, 2006
Push for New Tactics as War on Malaria Falters By CELIA W. DUGGER
The mosquito nets arrived too late for 18-month-old Phillip Odong.

The roly-poly boy came down with his fourth bout of malaria on March 16, the same day the nets were handed out at the makeshift camp where he lived in northern Uganda. "It was because of poverty that we could not afford one," his mother, Jackeline Ato, recalled recently, seated in rags beneath a mango tree.

The morning after his fever spiked, she took him to a clinic, but it did not have the medicines that might have saved him. He died four days later, crying, "Mommy, Mommy," before losing consciousness.

It is no secret that mosquitoes carry the parasite that causes malaria. More mystifying is why 800,000 young African children still die of malaria per year — more than from any other disease — when there are medicines that cure for 55 cents a dose, mosquito nets that shield a child for $1 a year and indoor insecticide spraying that costs about $10 annually for a household.

An emerging consensus on solutions, combined with fresh scrutiny and a windfall of new financing, are prompting major donors to revamp years of failed efforts to stem malaria's mortal toll.

The growing support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, enriched this week by a $31 billion gift from Warren E. Buffett, will provide still more impetus for change.

Paltry budgets, faulty strategies and government mismanagement have hamstrung past efforts to combat the disease. In Uganda, population 28 million, not one of the 1.8 million nets approved more than two years ago by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria has yet arrived.

The World Bank, after pledging to halve malaria deaths in Africa six years ago, had let its staff working on the disease dwindle to zero.

And the United States Agency for International Development admitted to outraged senators last year that it spent more on high-priced consultants than on life-saving commodities, like mosquito nets that cost $5.75 apiece and last up to five years.

Social conservatives and liberals have been building alliances across ideological lines on malaria, a killer of little children. Senator Sam Brownback, Republican of Kansas, said he had found common ground with the economist Jeffrey Sachs, who has long maintained that practical solutions carried out by Africans can prevent millions of deaths from malaria. "You have the left and right coming together," the senator said.

At Congressional hearings last year, Senator Tom Coburn, a Republican and a doctor from Oklahoma, argued that Washington-based consultants and contractors have consumed too much of the malaria budget.

He called on Amir Attaran, a law professor at the University of Ottawa and fiery advocate on malaria, who testified that the United States Agency for International Development was too cozy with "the foreign aid industrial complex."

Only 1 percent of the agency's 2004 malaria budget went for medicines, 1 percent for insecticides and 6 percent for mosquito nets. The rest was spent on research, education, evaluation, administration and other costs.

The Bush administration is changing that approach.

First, the A.I.D. is shifting its focus from mainly backing the sale of subsidized mosquito nets in Africa to giving more of them away to poor people.

It is also committed to buying combination drugs like Coartem because the disease is proving increasingly resistant to older, cheaper medicines. A dose of Coartem, produced by the Swiss company Novartis, now costs 55 cents for a child up to age 3.

Finally, the United States is also getting behind the use of DDT and other insecticides and will pay for large-scale programs to spray small amounts of them inside homes.

"We pretty well do know what the silver set of bullets are," Senator Brownback said at his 2004 hearing.

The decisive push for change in malaria programs has come from the White House. Michael Gerson, one of the president's closest advisers, described malaria in an interview as "maybe the main source of unnecessary suffering in the world."

Under the Bush administration's new policy, this year more than 40 percent of America's growing aid for malaria control is to be spent on nets, insecticides, medicines and other commodities.

The Bush administration hopes to persuade Congress to at least triple spending on malaria control to $300 million by 2008.

Global aid for malaria control has been rising, though the resources do not match the scale of the dying, critics say. Contributions from rich nations and international organizations have more than doubled since 2003 to $841 million last year, according to the World Health Organization.

With its new gift from Mr. Buffett, the Gates Foundation says its malaria financing will rise, though it is too soon to say by how much. It has already given $177 million for malaria controls.

As the United States moves forward, other crucial donors are also taking steps to fix flawed programs.

The World Bank has approved $130 million for projects in Africa in the past year and says that by 2010, new lending will grow to up to $1 billion.

The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, a widely praised organization set up in 2002 to pool the resources of donors, generally relies on African governments to do their own procurement.

Still, the Ugandan government has not yet bought the nets the fund approved more than two years ago. "Oh, my dear, there are a lot of complications in procurement here," said John Rwakimari, who runs the country's malaria program.

The fund is now considering a change that would enable it to provide countries like Uganda with the nets and other commodities directly, rather than the money to buy them after Uganda's management of past grants was marred by incompetence and corruption.

Millions of doses of Global Fund-financed Coartem, the antimalaria drug, arrived this year in Uganda — but that was because the country agreed, at the Global Fund's urging, to buy them through the World Health Organization.

The scope of malaria's toll was evident on a recent visit to the pediatric ward of the regional public hospital in Gulu, Uganda. Babies and toddlers burning with malarial fevers arrived regularly. Mothers lay next to them, their soothing maternal voices a low murmuring in the cavernous room.

As many as 100,000 people, mostly children, die of malaria each year in Uganda alone. "It's like a jumbo jet crashing every day," said Dr. Andrew Collins, deputy director of the Malaria Consortium, an international nonprofit group.

The United States is testing indoor insecticide spraying there. It is also treating more than 700,000 nets that Ugandans already own with insecticides and buying another 400,000 nets laced with insecticides that last up to five years.

Volunteers handed out the nets to families with children under age 5 in more than 100 camps, like the one where Phillip Odong lived his short life, for people who have fled the Lord's Resistance Army, a ruthless rebel group that has terrorized the countryside. The volunteers, many of them peasants, were trained by United States-financed groups led by the JSI Research and Training Institute.

The nets were so sought after in some camps that families whose children were too old to qualify for them besieged health officials. "They packed the health center like firewood," said Suzanne Nyedo, a nurse at the Bobi camp.

Even as policies begin to change, many uncertainties remain.

For example, the United States aid agency has asked for bids on a five-year $150 million contract for indoor spraying of insecticides.

Michael Miller, a senior official at the agency, said contractors would hire Africans to do the spraying. He said the goal was to ensure that Africans also gained the know-how to run insecticide spraying programs.

Mr. Attaran, a harsh critic of the agency, has his doubts.

"Will there be a Halliburton of mosquito control?" he asked. "If there is, the effort will fail. To be cost-effective, it will need to use local labor and managers."

Others warn that the changes are not a panacea.

Andrew Natsios, who helped devise the new policy before resigning as administrator of the United States aid agency earlier this year, cautioned that malaria projects will need to provide much more than just nets and sprays.

"It's not only simplistic, it won't work over the longer term because the countries can't sustain it on their own" for lack of expertise and resources, he said. The aid agency has a crucial role, he argued, in providing technical advice and training.

And there are other questions. Will donors follow through on financing? Will families use the mosquito nets? Will there be enough health workers to deliver medicines?

"There's potential for incredible impact," said Dr. Regina Rabinovich of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, "or incredible failure."

Humility

I've run into a few people recently asking me what I hope to 'do' in Uganda when I'm there. That's a question I am used to thinking about and answering. For the first time yesterday, I was asked what I will teach those I meet in Uganda.

I had to think about that one.

Well. I realized, I had little to 'teach' anyone in Uganda about anything...I am hoping my research does something to promote awareness and good policy for refugees living in Uganda and elsewhere. I want to look at why and how refugee camps become sites of conflict and violence, particularly as rebel groups use refugee resources to wage war. Maybe this will help governments, NGOs and agencies like the UNHCR devise better ways of assisting and protecting refugees....but what will I teach?

I told this acquaintance, James, (thanks, James, btw!) that I hoped to learn more than I hoped to teach. My instincts tell me, as they have all along, that I have far more to learn from the people of Uganda than I have to teach anything; despite my many years in school and all the formal training I have received...I think it is all coming down to a realization that real learning comes from being in relationship with people other than yourself or those within your comfort zone. And real teaching somehow, ironically, comes from willing to learn.

This sounds all vague, I know, but it feels like God is doing a lot of internal work in me right now, teaching me valuable lessons about living, loving and growing in faith. A major lesson among those I've already mentioned, is the importance of humility - another very intangible quality that keeps rearing its head in my heart and in my conscience.

Humility.

I realize that no matter what one sets out to do and accomplish, God sets out to do much more. And there is a fine line between accomplishing one's own mission or goals and wanting to be used in the service of His mission and purposes.

"Seek first His kingdom and all these things shall be added unto you."

"The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life." John 12:22

"I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven." Matthew 18:2-4

Something about being like a child seems effortless and irresponsible, but in all the searching, doing and preparing, I'm realizing how dependent I am on the help of others and how little I can do or be without God's protection, grace, mercy and love.
How do we forget to be like children? What does it take to remember?

A miracle.

Well all would be hopeless except for one thing Jesus said: "What is impossible for man, is possible with God."

World Refugee Day Today

Today is World Refugee Day.

Headlines in all the major newspapers are focusing on the plight of refugees around the world.

Please pray for the refugees in Africa, in Uganda, but everywhere - you'd be surprised to learn that UNHCR is operating in countries all over the world and on almost every continent. Sometimes it's really hard to understand the level of poverty, hunger and danger people experience today, but I think this article helps shed light on some of the details of what living the life of a refugee is like...


Here is a top story from CNN today, cut and pasted here for your viewing.


No end in sight for Africa's suffering massesBy Jeff Koinange
CNN Senior Africa Correspondent


Tuesday, June 20, 2006; Posted: 12:08 p.m. EDT (16:08 GMT)

Editor's note: CNN's Jeff Koinange has spent years covering events from Africa, including visiting war and disaster zones and following the lives of refugees forced from their homes. Here are his reflections on the U.N.'s World Refugee Day.

ENTEBBE, Uganda (CNN) -- Just imagine for a moment that everything you own -- from your hard-earned money to your home to your car to little mementos like pictures on the wall -- has just been taken from you by a group of people who don't like the way you look or the shade of your skin or the shape of your nose. Everything gone except, perhaps, the clothes on your back.

You've been forced to flee, probably separated from your family and end up on the run with a bunch of people you've never met, but with whom you now share a common goal -- staying alive.

Many hours or even days later, you arrive at a shelter run by an international nongovernmental organization.

You're tired, exhausted, sick to your stomach and scared to death. You end up sharing a tent with 40 to 60 other strangers where your bathroom, bedroom and kitchen combined have all been reduced to little more than the size of a normal bed. (Watch Angelina Jolie reveal what she finds most shocking -- 2:10)

And this will be your home for the next few months, perhaps years, and in some cases, decades. This is what it's like for a person fleeing persecution, war, civil strife, genocide.

Imagine living like this for years if not decades, raising your family in a refugee camp because you can't go home. Even if you do manage to go home, you learn someone else has taken over your land, your home, your life.

I've seen that person many times, that face that says, "I too once had it all but one day lost it all." Faces of refugees across the Africa I've been traversing for the past decade and a half, from Liberia and Sierra Leone in West Africa, from Congo to Tanzania in the center of the continent and from Somalia to Sudan in the East.

Their stories are as heartbreaking as they are gut wrenching, lives turned upside down in the blink of an eye.

Living in a stadium sharing a pit latrine
Like the time I ran into Marcus Sawyer, once a wealthy attorney in Liberia's capital, Monrovia. Sawyer owned holiday homes in South Africa, an apartment in the south of France, real estate in Dubai. You name it, he had it. He had some big clients in the country, including influential government officials.

One day rebels invaded the capital and Sawyer, his family and thousands of Liberians were forced to flee and seek refuge in the city's soccer stadium, the former home of the national team, The Lone Stars.

Suddenly it was home to more than 50,000 internally displaced people, or "IDPs," and would become Sawyer's new residence for the next six months.

"I never imagined in my wildest dreams I'd end up like this," he once told me, "sharing an outdoor pit latrine with a thousand people, sleeping in the same room with dozens of strangers. It takes some getting used to." (Watch Dr. Gupta's heartbreak as disease rips through squalid camps -- 2:50)

The last time I saw Sawyer he had become a shell of his old self -- dejected, depressed and despondent.

And then there was the time I was in Gulu, in northern Uganda, where I came face to face with a new kind of terror -- and a new kind of refugee. A town where for 20 years one man has caused untold suffering.

The man's name is Joseph Kony, a one-time altar boy who claimed to have a vision from God to wage war against the Ugandan government.

Human rights groups say his rebels kidnapped children, brainwashed them and turned them into killing machines responsible for thousands of deaths, their victims often raped and tortured.

Propping up firewood with human heads
I met 19-year-old Alice Abalo at a rehabilitation center run by the nongovernmental organization, World Vision, for those who escaped.

She was one of the lucky ones who had managed the impossible, fleeing with her 4-year old daughter, a product of rape. At first she didn't say much, but when she warmed up, she recounted tales of terror that could make anyone's skin crawl. (Watch Alice describe how she was forced to desecrate bodies -- 5:42)

"One day the group we were in had just killed about six people and proceeded to decapitate them," she said. "Then, I was asked to light a wood fire using the victims' heads as support, the same way one would use three stones. I still have nightmares of their burning hair and brains oozing out of the burning heads. It was horrible."

Alice bore some visible physical wounds of torture, bullet scars on her leg and shrapnel wounds on her chest. Aid workers said her physical wounds would eventually heal but her mental scars would no doubt last a lifetime.

She was to stay at this center for 45 days and then make her way back to her home in a village 20 miles away -- that was if her home had survived the rebel onslaught.

Trying to annihilate a generation of newborns
And just when it seemed things couldn't get more depressing on a continent where misery and hardship are an every day occurrence, I landed in a refugee camp in the town of Bukavu in eastern Congo. I walked into a hospital filled with victims of rape and mutilation and broke down.

The women here had been forced to flee their villages by marauding soldiers who weren't satisfied with just raping them -- they wanted to annihilate a generation of newborns -- mutilating their mothers by inserting knives, machetes and even pistols and rifles into their private parts after gang-raping them for days.

I have never seen such inhumanity in all my years as a reporter. And to add insult to injury, when some of these women returned to their villages, they were either shunned by their families for "allowing" themselves to be violated, or they were gang-raped again by some of the same men in uniform.

If I've ever felt helpless as a reporter, it was in Bukavu -- for these women had nowhere to run, nowhere to call home, and a bleak future that will deprive them of the ability to feel like women again.

In all of my journalistic travels, I can't help but see the images of Africa's helpless and hopeless, and I can't help but think about what is it that drives man's inhumanity.

What makes us revert to our basic, animalistic instinct? What makes one ethnic group want to destroy another? After all, this is the 21st century. Are we not yet civilized?

Questions I'll be asking myself for a long time. There seems no end in sight for the agony of Africa's suffering masses.

The Power of One

Betty Bigombe with Rebel Leader Sam Kolo on right and LRA leader in Palabek.


I'm astounded at the influence one person can have on peace.
Or conflict.
Uganda is filled with individual personalities moving its history to and fro:
Yoweri Museveni, Joseph Kony...and Betty Bigombe.

I had seen her name mentioned a few times, but after Chris H. at the UN mentioned her as someone I should contact, I decided to read an article about her work and efforts to promote peace in Uganda.

Read it for yourself. Quite amazing.

We'll see if I can actually get to meet her...

Meeting a Man from UN OCHA

Today I spent about an hour meeting with Chris H. the desk officer for Uganda within the UN, Office of the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. It was nice to get his insights, but his main point (or what I took away from the conversation) seemed to be that I would need to really go myself to see and understand the security situation.

A few 'take-aways': contact the UN Office of Safety and Security if I want access and safe passage to the areas of the north where internally displaced (IDP) camps are located. He also indicated that I should contact a few individuals: Betty Bigombe, who has worked and negotiated with the LRA and government officials for peace deals in the past; CSOPNU - an NGO based in Uganda; and Greg Puley at Oxfam.
He argued that it would be difficult to cull any findings if my research in Uganda focused only on refugee camps since much of the systematic violence has occurred within and around IDP settlements in three Acholi districts in the North: Kitgum, Gulu and Pader.

Second, he advised that I stick with official channels and main roads and cities. It sounds like I would not gain access to that much more information if I were to try to travel 'off the beaten path' and the risks and dangers would be very high.

I received a few internal documents written by UNOCHA on background and security regarding Uganda - one with a very helpful map which shows the demographic makeup of the northern region, with the main ethnic groups: Acholi, Karamoja, Lango and Teso in the North and Central regions.

It was an interesting and useful discussion. I did learn a bit; but then also realized the limits of talking to people who are not directly 'of' Uganda as well.
I think I will just need to go and see to experience it for myself. Professor Fred Ssewamala reiterated this a few times during our brief conversation a few weeks prior, but it is echoing in my head now - because I think I finally understand what he meant. It is the difference between talking about riding a bike and riding a bike (for lack of a better metaphor).

Ah, now it is coming to mind a few other questions I meant to ask during out conversation: where to get records of LRA activities and attacks, either from government or other sources and whether it would be possible to speak with former LRA fighters. Will have to follow-up with this question later.

Resistance Movements

Part of Uganda's sordid and unhappy history includes a number of resistance and rebel movements. The most recent and notorious has been led by Joseph Kony. Called the "Lord's Resistance Army," (see sidebar) he and his group of officers mix witchcraft and religion to establish a polity based on the biblical ten commandments.

No doubt there are problems with the government and issues which need to be addressed, but are the rebel movements helping to bring about the right solutions?

What makes a rebel group legitimate or illegitimate?

The LRA has been accused of killing and maiming the very civilians they claim to be fighting for. Children have been the main targets of abduction and abuse and there are a number of reports of sexual assault, rape, polygamy and forced labor imposed upon these young children.

There are a number of other rebel groups operating in other areas of Uganda operating with varying levels of violence: the West Nile Bank Front, Uganda National Rescue Front II, and the Allied Democratic Forces. In Eastern Uganda, there are the Anti-Referendum Army, the Uganda Salvation Army, and the Citizen's Army for Multiparty Politics.

What strikes me, first, is the number and variety of rebel groups. This says seems to reflect something about the government in power...

At the same time, I am struck by the grandiose claims being made about the groups. All seem to tout freedom, political rights, 'salvation' or solution - yet often their means and methods are quite to the contrary.

Is it necessary to use violence to obtain legitimate political objectives? It is often said that the ends do not justify the means. But I wonder if it is misleading to separate the two components of any endeavor in this regard. Too often the means are actually a reflection of the ends. It may be that the two go hand in hand.

It matters little what these groups claim to be fighting for, look at how they go about it. In the same way, human rights groups, well-meaning NGOs and international organizations or even individual advocates attempting to fight poverty, promote justice, freedom and peace should also be scrutinized. Do their means correspond to their message? If not, it may be wise to question whether these aren't a reflection of the goals themselves...and the foundation on which they rest.

Just some food for thought.

I remember a comment made by a friend who graduated from Columbia's School of Social Work: she was struck by how many of her colleagues - idealists and advocates for social justice - were embittered, angry, negative people...I have thought about that comment a lot. We often assume, when we see the goals being promoted by individuals or organizations, that we can trust the means and the motives are in direct correlation. Not so. Look first at the means, look first at the person and then you may well see if the two go hand in hand. What claim does one have to promoting justice when one cares little about one's own family members or friends? What claim to promoting women's rights when one treats women with little respect or dignity at home?

I can think of only one person whose message and means matched his personal commitment and integrity...Jesus.

Hmmm. Funny, I keep coming back to the same place, and the same person.

Learning from Logistics

I finally bit the bullet and bought the $1800-something plane tickets a few days ago.
Frankly, I think this was what has been keeping me from moving forward and planning the other logistics of the trip. My heart was there, the desire, the inspiration to go to Uganda - but the money, now that is a different story. I think I understand a bit better the expression, "Put your money where your mouth is." It's easy to have grand ideas and plans, but unless the funds and logistics are there to carry them out, and the willingness to put them out there, they remain - simply ideas and plans.

More and more, I am learning the sobering lesson of what it means to carry out a vision or plan - even as it pertains to traveling and going to a new place like Uganda. There are shots to be had, things to be bought, contacts to be made and plane tickets to be purchased. These are the nitty-gritty details which come with executing any idea or plan, and it's a good thing to keep oneself grounded in the daily realities and costs of what one is undertaking to do...I suppose that is the lesson of life in general - anything worth undertaking or doing is going to cost something - money, time, energy, commitment, planning, yielding, patience, etc.

Interestingly, once the leap is made - the payment, the cost, the commitment - the resistance slowly gives way to something deeper - the commitment yields a greater and deeper desire and things start to move forward. It's funny how there is a kind of bump or initial barrier in the road that one must overcome before moving ahead. For me, it was buying the plane tickets. I still have residual fears, anxieties - should I have looked into other dates? Should I leave later, stay for a shorter amount of time? Should I have done more research before making the purchase? But I realize just the act of buying has pushed me forward a little bit. I feel a little freer and now more able to focus on the bigger picture.

My sister and her husband gave birth to a beautiful baby boy a number of weeks ago - and I learned then, as I am learning now, that anything creative, anything that brings forth life, ironically also requires us to lay down a bit of our own life - sacrifice - to make it work. I think understand better what Jesus meant when he said, "You must lose your life in order to find it." There is a loss that comes with gaining anything that is real, true and worthwhile - a loss that we may resist when the rubber hits the road, but a loss that over time yields far more 'fruit' and blessings than we can know otherwise.

Maybe God is trying to teach me something more about cost, loss and giving up these days. Interestingly, it's requiring something intangible but necessary in my own heart - trust, faith and hope.