BY MACHARIA WANGUI
Gulu is a Ugandan city in Northern Uganda, approximately 350km from the capital Kampala.
Located within the northern triangle where Uganda borders Congo and South Sudan, it serves as the administrative and business hub of northern part of the country.
But behind its order, beauty, well-maintained roads and properly planned buildings is a dark part of its history.
Elevated to city status in 2020, Gulu wasn’t what it is today: The locals here have a story to tell. In this beauty lies lifetime, mental, psychological and physical scars, as the area was war-ravaged for years. It was the operation hub for warlord Joseph Kony of the Lord Resistance Army (LRA), a local insurgency group that used guerilla warfare to resist Museveni’s regime.
LRA meted violence among civilians, killing, maiming and abducting children to serve as child soldiers in the insurgency. Hundreds of thousands were displaced. The UN in 2002 estimated that by September of that year, some 552,000 Ugandans were displaced or were at risk of having no harvest, and at least 24,000 Sudanese refugees in Uganda had been forcibly displaced.
Born out of the divide between the ethnic differences between the South and the North, LRA launched its insurgency in the periods between 1987-1994, and between 1994-2002 after a brief ceasefire. There were different attempted interventions by Ugandan forces with the support of the international community, including the US, to the quell the insurgency, all which were not a success.
However, due to increasing military pressure, LRA withdraw from Uganda in between 2005 and 2006 and relocated its operating base to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, CAR, South Sudan and reportedly Sudan, according to the UN.
CHILD SOLDIERS
Among the crimes Kony and his command structured have been accused of committing and one that left eternal scars in Gulu was the capture and kidnapping of children to be trained as soldiers.
Many are believed to have died during the war, while others died on transit after becoming rebellious but some survived to tell their stories.
The war brought a lot of divisions and betrayal among friends.
One such case as narrated by a survivor is how after being kidnapped, his friend became incapacitated to to proceed with the journey and he was forced him to shoot him, or else they would kill him. The victims family got to know the story and this triggered hostilities among their families and clans.
Women were also raped.
MEDIA AND HEALING
Media has in instances during conflicts been accused of beating drums of war. But in Gulu, a community radio station became one of the tools that offered a platform for communication, discussion and reconciliation. MEGA FM (which means mine in the local language) became pivotal channel of communication between LRA and the government.
One day as one of the talk shows was on air, Joseph Kony called in to interject on a point by a government official, who he accused of lying to the public. The call was the genesis of a long process of trying to end the war. When the international community intervened, MEGA FM became central in psychological warfare part that was used to preach amnesty.
Through concerted efforts, awakened child soldiers who listened to the station started leaving, as many of the militia surrendered to the authorities. Kony banned his people from listening to the radio station.
This intervention has since grown mega, with the establishment of the Northern Uganda Media Club (NUMEC), an independent and non-partisan media group of journalists and media professionals working in the conflict-affected area.
It started in 1993 as Gulu Press Club, and became NUMEC in 1997 and formerly registered in 2009.
Bringing together at least 120 professionals, NUMEC has been working towards capacity building for journalists to effectively report on peace, recovery, good governance, human rights and justice issues in northern Uganda.
The organisation is also involved in media and communication training for government officials to promote effective engagement between them and the media, and also offers safe working space for journalists with access to the internet free of charge. In doing this, the organization offers a medium of engagement across board and among communities, highlighting challenges and grievances, help catalyze development, recovery, reconciliation and access to information. Notably, at the time it was at its formative period, access to information in the conflict area was non-existent.
It has also grown into training on new media tools use and convergence and collaborative journalism, and supporting journalists in environmental reporting with grants, mentorship, and training to bridge the knowledge gap of the populace and attract the attention of and advocate to the authorities as the region grows into a sustainable future.
Amid the peace that Gulu now enjoys, it is not lost that Joseph Kony is still in hiding, which raises fears of possible regrouping of LRA or emergence of other similar groups.
And while some commanders have been killed, and Kony’s aide Dominic Ongwen was found guilty and jailed for 40 years for crimes against humanity, justice for majority of the victims is yet to be served.
