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| East/Subsaharan Africa |
| UGANDA: LRA attacks aimed at dismantling camps |
| 2003-07-07 |
| The rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) has intensified its attacks in northern Uganda in recent weeks with the main objective of forcing internally displaced persons (IDPs) out of camps protected by the Ugandan army, the Uganda Red Cross Society (URCS) has said. It its June situation report on northern Ugandan relief operations, the URCS said the LRA's military strategy now seemed to be focused on dismantling the camps, established by the Ugandan government, which house an estimated 800,000 civilians. The LRA has not only intensified its attacks on the three Acholi districts of Kitgum, Gulu and Pader, but has also extended its activities into surrounding Apac, Lira, Adjumani, Katakwi and Soroti, where hundreds of people have been abducted. "Abductions and food raids, within and without camps, have not only become rampant but over the last two weeks have spread to new areas," the URCS report said. "According to some rumours circulating, the LRA has intention to dismantle IDP camps by force." |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |
| #1 Idi Amin died today in Saudi Arabia. It is a dark testimony to this nation that he was allowed exiled sanctuary for 25 years and even darker for a world that couldn't care less. Sampson is jailed for over 2 years in a Saudi prison for allegedly killing 2 or 3 people with a car bomb. Idi Amin is KNOWN to be directly responsible for the deaths of thousands and lives is luxury in the same country. If Allah really has the clout that Muslims profess, he should have hammered the opulent savagery of this nation years ago. But, then, maybe it's just this kind of world. I lived in Masindi, Uganda from 1968 to 1972, during which Idi pulled off his coup. I was teaching in Kabalega Sec. School. I have many stories and accounts of that time too numberous to mentiion. But now I cry for those poor ignorant, vulnerable and deserted people in the north. I visited Gulu, Kitgum, Lira, Soroti and Mbale many times. I fished the Nile at Chobe Lodge and saw blood on the "bridge of death" over Karuma Falls where the army had machine gunned people and threw them in the river. Human remains - hands - were found in Nile perch and for months, no one would buy fish at the market. Give an ignorant man a gun and he becomes a big man. Give a boy a gun, make him kill with it, and he is brutalized and intoxicated with the power of the gun forever. How is the LRA funded? Where do they get their weapons and ammunition? Sudan? The sick, savage, inhuman killing and brutalization of innocent achildren and civilians, as in Sierra Leon, has reached new levels of debasement - an ugly blemish on the pretense at civilization that the rest of us engender. It is frightening to know that I would be just the the poor savage butchers in Northern Uganda had I been born and rasied there. If the so-called civilized nations of the world ignor, tolerate, and dismiss this outrage then they are no better than an ignorant killer-boy in the LRA. |
| Posted by: Anonymous 2003-8-16 6:15:57 PM |