Rebel abductions on the decline

The pattern of abductions perpetrated by the rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) in northern Uganda has changed as a result of social and political developments in the region, according to a report released on Friday, 9 November, by the US-based Women's Commission for Refugee Women and Children (WCRWC).

Although LRA abductions were continuing, most young people who had recently returned from LRA captivity reported shorter abduction periods, focused mostly on forced labour and banditry, rather than forced movement across the border to Sudan for military training, WCRWC said.

"The significance of the change on the immediate security of adolescents is minimal, however, as young people remain in constant danger of attack and abduction, particularly those who are being re-abducted, as they face murder if they are identified as former escapees," the report warned.

As part of traditional, longer-term LRA abductions, many children were forced to commit acts of violence against other children, and were warned that refusal to obey would result in their own deaths, WCRCW said. Some young people were forced to kill members of their own families and communities, and feel unable to return home because of the atrocities they had committed, the report said.

Led by the self-proclaimed mystic, Joseph Kony, the LRA has been fighting a guerilla-style war against Ugandan government forces since the late 1980s, ostensibly in a desire to have Uganda ruled according to the Ten Commandments of the Bible.

The LRA has become increasingly isolated in recent months, as Ugandan-Sudanese relations have taken important steps forward - including the exchange of envoys by Kampala and Khartoum, according to humanitarian sources. Reported splits between LRA commanders, with the LRA command in southern Sudan largely cut off from several units operating in northern Uganda, had further weakened the rebel movement, and meant that LRA soldiers on the Uganda side were having to loot villages and abduct adolescents for forced labour as their supply lines dried up.

Tighter control of the Sudan-Uganda border by the Uganda People's Defence Forces (UPDF) and the withdrawal in August by the Sudanese government of support for Kony had also contributed to the change of abduction patterns, the report said.

The WCRWC report, "Against All Odds: Surviving the War on Adolescents", was based on information provided by Ugandan and Sudanese adolescents, and involved interviewing over 2,000 people on the situation of adolescents in Gulu, Kitgum and Pader districts of northern Uganda.

According to the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), 9,818 children (and 18,399 adults) were abducted from northern Uganda between 1990 and September 2001. A total of 323 LRA abductees who escaped in southern Sudan during 2000-01 have become part of a programme of repatriation to Uganda via Khartoum, under the auspices of UNICEF, the International Organisation for Migration and the governments of Uganda and Sudan, UNICEF said.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) last week said that since June 2001 there had been a lull in rebel movement and activity. After a nine-month period of peace in 1999, however, many aid agencies had pulled out or reoriented their programmes from relief to recovery, only to see thousands of Ugandans fleeing back to protected villages when rebel groups resumed their attacks, OCHA warned.

"As with other moments of change in the fighting and abductions in the past, this development may be short-lived and may even lead to further violence in the region," WCRCW said.