Northern Uganda Update: Kony and the Bishops.

Date: Wednesday 2 July 2003
Subj: Northern Uganda Update: Kony and the Bishops.
To: World Evangelical Alliance Religious Liberty E-mail Conference
From: Elizabeth Kendal, Conference Moderator


BACKGROUND

The Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) is a blasphemous, terrorist cult militia that has been waging a campaign of terror amongst the predominantly Christian populations of Northern Uganda and Southern Sudan for the past 17 years. The signature trademark of the LRA is unrivalled cruelty and barbarity. The leader of the LRA, Joseph Kony, is a spirit medium. In late May and early June, peace talks led by the Acholi Religious Leaders' Peace Initiative (ARLPI), resulted in the defection of several senior LRA commanders.

On Saturday 14 June, Joseph Kony ordered his LRA soldiers to target the Church. "Catholic missions must be destroyed," he ordered, "priests and missionaries killed in cold blood and nuns beaten black and blue." The WEA RL Prayer ministry issued an urgent call to prayer on 17 June. For further background and details see the WEA RLC E-mail Conference posting of 19 June, entitled, "Northern Uganda: Kony orders the LRA to target the Church", (contains a link to the WEA RL Prayer posting of 17 June).

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KONY AND THE BISHOPS
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BISHOPS -- KONY'S "MOST WANTED"

Joseph Kony has now placed Anglican Bishop John Charles Odurkami and Tom Okello of the Elim Pentecostal Mission on his "most wanted" list and issued an order for their heads (link 1). Urgent prayer is needed.

BISHOPS -- CHILDREN'S MOST LOVED

In May, the WEA RL Prayer ministry raised awareness of the plight of children in Northern Uganda and issued a call for prayer (link 2), as another signature trademark of the LRA is their use of abducted child soldiers. These children are brutalised and traumatised - and 5,000 children have been abducted by the LRA for use as expendable child soldiers and sex-slaves in the past 12 months.

To reduce the risk of abduction, the children walk from their home villages to the regional centre of Gulu each evening and sleep under the watchful eyes of aid and mission workers. These days, some 20,000 children are sleeping in the streets of Gulu each night

In an act of solidarity, some of Gulu's bishops have taken to sleeping on the streets with them.

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"Bishops Sleep On Streets, Seek UN Support Against Rebels"
By Dennis Ojwee, for New Vision (Kampala) 24 June 2003
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Three bishops, John Baptist Odama of Gulu Archdiocese, Retired Bishop of Kitgum Diocese, Marcleord Baker Ochola II and Rev. Nelson Onono-Onweng, on Sunday night slept out on the streets of Gulu Taxi Park with thousands of children displaced by the LRA.

This is to share the pain that the children are persevering in the cold along verandas in fear of being abducted by the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebels. The children come from villages around Gulu, Pader and Kitgum towns.

The bishops gathered one-by-one at the sleeping centres by 7:00pm. Thousands of children thronged them with surprise and overwhelming respect to them.

The children, who looked humble and courageous, carried torn sacks and rags over their shoulders as beddings. They gathered around the spiritual parents (bishops) to listen to the Lord's words.

"Thousands of children have been abducted, butchered, battered or shot to death by the LRA. The UN should try to put the war in the north top of its agenda on its high level secretary meetings in order to intervene and save the children and the people of northern Uganda from the flame of murder by the rebels led by Joseph Kony," the three bishops, Anglican, Catholic and Muslim leaders under the Acholi Religious Leader's Peace Initiative (ARLPI) based in Gulu town said on Sunday. (22 June)

They appealed to the UN to intervene in the bloody rebellion.

--------------(see also link 3)--------------

Writer David Ouma Balikowa noted in an Opinion piece in The Monitor (Kampala) on 20 June: "Mr Kony, as the commander of the LRA, has outlived an entire line of army commanders President Yoweri Museveni has had during this war. The list includes Lt. Gen. Salim Saleh, Maj. Gen. Mugisha Muntu, Lt. Gen. Jeje Odongo and Maj. Gen. James Kazini. Mr Kony has lived to see all these able generals come and go while he himself has remained intact."

Many are praying that he will not remain in tact for much longer.

- Elizabeth Kendal

Links

1) Bishops On Kony Rebels' List
New Vision (Kampala) 30 June 2003
http://allafrica.com/stories/200306300569.html

2) RLP 219, 14 May, Uganda: The Children, the Church and the LRA.
http://www.assistnews.net/Stories/s03050055.htm

3) CNN Thousands of children seek refuge in N. Ugandan town
23 June 2003 Kampala
http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/africa/06/23/uganda.frightened.ap/

Kenya: Muslim tensions rise and churches burn.

Date: Tuesday 1 July 2003
Subj: Kenya: Muslim tensions rise and churches burn.
To: World Evangelical Alliance Religious Liberty E-mail Conference
From: Elizabeth Kendal, Conference Moderator

On 13 June, Muslims rioting over the arrest of one of their clerics torched five churches in Bura, Tana River district, not far from Mombasa in Kenya. The churches razed were the Anglican Church of Kenya (ACK) in Bura, the Bethel Church, and churches belonging to the Pentecostal Evangelism Fellowship of Africa (PEFA), the East African Pentecostal Church (EAPC), and the Full Gospel Church of Kenya (FGCK). (Link 1)

Of great concern to Christians in Kenya is the fact that no one has been charged over the burning of the churches. Christian leaders are still waiting to see if the arsonists will receive justice or impunity. As impunity equals permission, this is a serious issue of national significance at a time when Muslim tensions are rising to boiling point.

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CHURCH BURNINGS IN BURA

The Reverend Simon K. Mungumba, the Assistant Chairman of the Bura Pastors' Fellowship, has written a report of the incident. Rev. Mungumba writes (14 June) that on the evening of Thursday 12 June 2003, the Divisional Officer (DO) was passing through Manyatta withsome security officers in his vehicle. When they stopped in Manyatta and alighted from their vehicle, some Orma and Somali youths started stoning them, forcing them to retreat into their vehicle and flee.

According to Rev. Mungumba's account, the DO returned the following morning to inquire of the local Imam as to why they had been attacked. The Imam told the DO that the local Muslim youths had a visiting preacher in town and feared he may be arrested.

This 'visiting preacher', Sheikh Khalifa Mutiso, is a former Christian pastor who converted to Islam and now preaches aggressively against Christianity and Christians, with offensive messages that, according to Rev. Mungumba, "border on incitement".

Rev. Mungumba reports that at that point the DO decided to take Sheikh Khalifa Mutiso in for questioning. Once again the DO and his accompanying security officers were pelted with stones and abused by Muslim youths and women. The attack became so violent that the police fired their weapons into the air in the hope of dispersing the rioters. When that did not help, the DO arrested Sheikh Khalifa Mutiso and took him away for police questioning.

At that point the Muslim rioters stoned the police station and commenced burning and looting the churches, while others chanted, "release our sheikh, we want him to continue preaching".

The rioting lasted from the arrest at 9:00am until Sheikh Khalifa Mutiso was released at the intervention of a local MP.

There is little shade in Bura, so in an act of great solidarity and generosity, the Catholic Church provided tents for all of the churches that were burned down.

At a subsequent meeting of Christian leaders, Ibrahim Ormondi of the Evangelical Fellowship of Kenya spoke with Bishop Kinnogah, who told him that he had met with the Provincial Commissioner, who promised to order the arrest of Sheikh Mutiso for inciting Muslim hostility in Bura. So far, however, he has not been arrested.

The local Imams say they do not know Sheikh Mutiso, however Christian leaders know him as a preacher from Mwingi who has been preaching the same way in Mombasa and the administration are aware of his threats and inflammatory statements, which are usually directed towards youths, most of them of school age children and teenagers.

The Bura Pastor' Fellowship is calling on the Kenyan government to investigate the incident and compensate the churches that have lost their buildings.

"Also," says Rev. Mungumba, "as Bura leaders we feel the security in Bura needs boosting. The Muslim youths need to know the worth and authority of the government. This occurrence should be addressed with the decisiveness it deserves."

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MUCH IS COOKING IN KENYA

Kenya is 78.6 percent Christian and 6-8 percent Muslim. This incident over Sheikh Khalifa Mutiso and the burned churches is only one of several issues in the pot - under which the heat is rising. This is why it is imperative that the Kenyan government deal decisively with religious violence.

MYSTERIOUS KILLINGS IN EMBU

The Catholic Diocese of Embu wrote to the Officer Commanding Police Division (OCPD) in Embu, Eastern Province, recently, requesting an investigation into a series of killings. Since March this year, at least 12 church watchmen and one church cook have been killed. The victims all had their throats cut or were decapitated and only churches and church related institutions were being targeted. There are no clues however as to the culprits or their motives (other than
theft). It is quite mysterious and unsettling. (Link 2)

KADHIS COURTS

Kenyan Muslims are pushing to increase the power and influence of Kenya's Kadhi (Islamic / Sharia) Courts. Muslims want the Kadhi courts to be fully entrenched in the new Constitution with national rather than just local jurisdiction. Christians maintain that the entrenchment of Kadhi Courts in the constitution, elevating them to national level and giving them authority equal to the state's secular courts, will compromise Article 10 which states that, "The State shall treat all religions equally". Muslims maintain that they will accept nothing less than the entrenchment of the courts in the constitution and some Muslims unfortunately, have made inflammatory threats to establish a separate Islamic state if the Kadhi Courts are not accepted -- this has not helped the debate. (Link 3)

TERROR ARRESTS

On Monday 23 June, four Kenyan residents were brought before Chief Magistrate Aggrey Mchelule in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, to face murder charges. They have been in detention since March 2003 on suspicion of harbouring the terrorists who carried out the car-bomb attack on the Israeli-owned beachfront Paradise Hotel near Mombasa in November 2002 that killed 18 people. They were remanded in custody and will appear before court again on 8 August.

The charges against the four - Kenyan father and son Mohamed Kubwa and Mohamed Kubwa Seif, and Said Saggar Ahmed and Aboud Rogo Mohamed, whose nationalities were not known - were the latest in a string of anti-terror measures.

Some 80 Muslims are currently detained on suspicion of terror links. Muslims are outraged by the arrests, saying that they are being used as scapegoats and that the cases are unduly influenced by foreign (USA, CIA) interference, pressure and funding.

Kenyan Muslim politicians and clerics believe that Kenya's proposed Anti-terrorism Bill abuses the rights of Kenyan Muslims. (Three MPs from the ruling NARC party have crossed the floor to support the opposition in this, and several lawyers are saying that it violates the constitution.)

Muslim leaders, led by the Council of Imams and Preachers of Kenya (CIPK) secretary-general Sheikh Mohammed Dor, and the chairman of unregistered Islamic Party of Kenya (IPK) Sheikh Mohammed Khalifa, have threatened to form their own political party. At a public rally in Mombasa on Sunday 29 June, Islamic speakers "blasted the Government for what they termed arassment of Muslims after branding them terror suspects on the whims of America and Israel." Sheikh Dor comments, "The way things are going on today, civil strife is looming." Dor also branded "America, Israel and the (ruling Kenyan) NARC Government as enemy number one of Muslims." (Link 4)

- Elizabeth Kendal


1) Five Churches Torched in Tana River District
The East African Standard (Nairobi) 20 June 2003
By Philip Mwakio And Jesse Masai
http://allafrica.com/stories/200306200072.html

2) Church Condemns Killings. 24 June 2003
Catholic Information Service for Africa (Nairobi)
http://allafrica.com/stories/200306240631.html

3) Christians Fear Shariah Will Undermine Tolerance
Joyce Mulama NAIROBI, 18 June 2003 (IPS)
http://www.ipsnews.net/interna.asp?idnews=18853

4) Kanu, Muslims attack Govt.
The East African Standard
By Daniel Nyassy 30 June 2003
http://www.eastandard.net/headlines/news30062003011.htm

Northern Uganda: Kony orders the LRA to target the Church.

Date: Thursday 19 June 2003
Subj: Northern Uganda: Kony orders the LRA to target the Church.
To: World Evangelical Alliance Religious Liberty E-mail Conference
From: Elizabeth Kendal, Conference Moderator


The Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) is a blasphemous, cult-militia that has been terrorising the predominantly Christian population of northern Uganda for the past seventeen years, in order to try and force concessions from the Ugandan government.

The LRA have claimed to want to establish a theocratic government based on the Biblical Ten Commandments. As such it is not uncommon to hear the secular media referring to the LRA as a "fundamentalist Christian group". Yet the signature trademarks of the LRA are torture and maiming - such as the chopping off of hands, lips, noses and ears, as well as rape, kidnap, murder and the cruellest, most degrading torments - horrors so shocking they are unspeakable.

ESCALATION OF TERROR

An escalation of LRA hostility led the Ugandan government to launch a military offensive in March 2002. In spite of the fact that the LRA presently consists of only around 300 soldiers and 400 abducted child soldiers, the Ugandan military's "Operation Iron Fist" has failed to curb LRA terror - rather, the terror has escalated. In fact Father Joseph Gerner of Saint Joseph's Mission in Kitgum says, "The rebels are all over. I would say practically the whole countryside is in their hands".

While more than 20,000 children have been abducted by the LRA for use as child soldiers and sex-slaves in the past 17 years - more than 5,000 of those have been taken since June 2002.

The church carries most of the burden of this suffering. Christian missions and aid organisations provide care and counselling for escaped and rescued child soldiers and assist with their reintegration back into society. The missions also run orphanages, schools and clinics, and provide safe havens for children afraid of being abducted. This is no small task. For example, over 5,000 people are presently seeking refuge at St Joseph's Mission in Kitgum, and Noah's Ark Children's Ministry Uganda (NACMU) in Gulu takes in around 1,200 children each night.

As the LRA has waged war on the government of Uganda, the church has been the primary sustainer of society and protector of civilians, as well as the primary peace-broker. Now however, the LRA has declared war on the church. (Link 1)

LRA ORDERED TO TARGET THE CHURCH

Kony has been using radio equipment stolen from Catholic missions to communicate with his soldiers. As this equipment is set to a specific mission frequency, other Catholic missions have been picking up Kony's transmissions. On 14 June at 6pm, Joseph Kony was heard giving this order to his troops: "Catholic missions must be destroyed, priests and missionaries killed in cold blood and nuns beaten black and blue."

The Ugandan Army also picked up the transmission and has confirmed it as authentic. An escaped LRA prisoner/child-soldier also corroborated the order.

This is a radical shift in the LRA's attitude to the church. Previously the LRA had been willing to place its trust in Acholi religious leaders to broker peace negotiations. Most Acholi Religious Leaders' Peace Initiative (ARLPI) representatives are representatives of the Catholic Church. Father Joseph Gerner of the Catholic parish in Kitgum said that Kony's recent statements had
revealed a very worrying shift in the LRA's rhetoric. "This is very strange, this change, given that before it was only the Catholic Church they said they would trust". (Link 2)

The Roman Catholic archbishop of the northern Ugandan town of Gulu, John-Baptist Odama said, "I'm only wondering why, suddenly, it has switched and changed into a religious war targeting specifically the Catholic Church and particularly the leaders of the Catholic Church, like the priests, the religious nuns," he said. "This to me has been a puzzle. Up to now, I have failed to understand." (Link 3)

Father Carlos Rodriguez, a Catholic priest in Gulu who is involved in the Acholi Religious Leaders' Peace Initiative (ARLPI), explained that the LRA is furious that the peace efforts being made by the ARLPI have led to the defection of senior LRA commanders. (Link 2)

The WEA RLC Prayer ministry released a prayer posting on Tuesday 17 June 03 detailing the most recent LRA abuses as well as Kony's order, and requesting urgent prayer.

Since then, the LRA have raided two camps for Internally Displaced People and murdered a Catholic priest (17 June). Then on Wednesday 18 June at around 3am they raided the Redeem Children's Home, an orphanage for girls run by the Sacred Heart Sisters, and kidnapped 15 Sudanese and Ugandan girls aged between 7 - 15 yrs. A military battalion rescued 6 girls, 9 are still missing. Later that day the LRA attacked a group of nuns in Gulu.

SUDAN ACCUSED OF SUPPLYING ARMS TO THE LRA.

From 1991 until recently, the LRA had an agreement with the National Islamic Front/Government of Sudan (NIF/GoS) - that they would support the NIF/GoS in their jihad against the Southern Sudanese, if the NIF/GoS would support the LRA. For many years the LRA received arms, training and funding from Khartoum.

Following a peace accord in Nairobi in 1999 Sudan and Uganda agreed to stop supporting each other's rebel movements: the GoS agreed to stop supporting the LRA in exchange for Uganda withdrawing support for the Sudan Peoples Liberation Army (SPLA).

However, on 1 September 2002, after the SPLA re-captured Torit, a strategic southern garrison town, from GoS hands, Khartoum alleged that Uganda had aided the SPLA. Some observers allege that this led to the GoS restoring its former pact with the LRA. (The GoS re-took Torit in Oct 2002.)

The relationship between the GoS and the LRA certainly appears to be restored and active, although Khartoum denies this. Recently escaped LRA soldiers report that the Sudanese Armed Forces are supplying guns, bullets, bombs, anti-personnel mines, anti-aircraft guns, rocket launchers and various other munitions to the LRA. (Link 4)

Uganda's Acholi Religious Leaders' Peace Initiative (ALRPI) says Sudan's army has been supplying the LRA officers with arms and ammunition since late last year. They believe that this accounts for the fact that in recent months violence against the civilian population of northern Uganda has escalated to unprecedented levels.

MORE TO KONY THAN MEETS THE EYE

There is even more to the LRA than this - literally more than meets the eye. Joseph Kony is a spirit medium. The WEA RLC Prayer posting of 14 May 2003 quoted a social worker who was helping former LRA child soldiers. She told the BBC that the children tell her that Joseph Kony gets possessed, and whatever Kony says when he is possessed comes exactly true. The children report that when Kony is possessed they are supposed to sing and worship. The social worker said, "I believe there is a deadly evil spirit misleading him" (link 5). There is little doubt the appalling blasphemy and extreme, inhumane cruelty and evil of the LRA is demonic.

The involvement of Khartoum and the demonic power associated with Kony and the LRA give a whole new dimension to the words of Ugandan MP, Ben Wacha, who on Tuesday 17 June questioned why the Ugandan Army's "Operation Iron Fist" had failed. "How can a few hundred people be more effective than 50,000 soldiers with their tanks and helicopter gunships equipped with night vision?" he asked. "Is it the LRA or somebody else?"

The Christian religious leaders in northern Uganda are courageously forging ahead with their peace initiatives despite the LRA's threats. (Link 6)

- Elizabeth Kendal

Links

1) Reports Say Uganda Rebels Kill 18, Threaten Clergy
By Paul Busharizi, Kampala, 16 June 2003
http://reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=2935650

2) UGANDA: Lord's Resistance Army ordered to attack Catholic
missions. Kampala, 17 June 2003,
Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN),
part of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
(OCHA).
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=34784

3) Priest in Uganda Killed in Apparent Rebel Attacks
By Cathy Majtenyi in Nairobi, 18 Jun 2003.
http://www.voanews.com/article.cfm?objectID=DA74A68E-2E34-45A0-96220
1DD7FF5E782#

4) President Accuses Sudan of Rearming Rebel Fighters
By Alfred Wasike And Dennis Ojwee, 16 June 2003
New Vision (Kampala)
http://allafrica.com/stories/200306160194.html

5) Uganda's rebel war. By Caroline Pare, 2 November 2000
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/crossing_continents/1003463.st
m

6) Uganda bishops undaunted by rising rebel violence
KAMPALA, 19 June 2003 (Reuters)
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L19148861.htm

See also:
Uganda's atrocious war, By Will Ross
BBC, Kitgum, Uganda, 12 June 2003
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/africa/2982818.stm