Ex-rebels recruited as agents of change

The Uganda Amnesty Commission (UAC) said on Friday that it was taking on former Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebels who recently surrendered to government forces as "change agents" to convince other fighters to give themselves up. UAC commissioner Monsignor Thomas Kisembo made the disclosure one day after seven rebel officers who surrendered to the military applied for amnesty. He said the seven had decided to surrender after learning by chance of a law that grants blanket amnesty to rebel who renounce the insurgency. "They told us that many others don't have access to communication like radio receivers that would pass on our amnesty message to them," Kisembo told IRIN by phone. He reported the ex-rebels as saying that radio receivers were "mainly owned by commanders while the lower ranking rebels rely on these commanders for information". Moreover, many of the rebels are in Sudan, out of range of all but the most strongest transmitters. "We have no powerful radios to pass on this message in Sudan where they are, therefore we want to use those who have voluntarily come out to design a new approach to pass on this message," Kisembo told IRIN. "We have asked them to be the change agents and help in designing a new communication medium that we can use to pass on the message," he added. "They applied for the amnesty yesterday and we have started processing their application that will take them through [the] stages." Kisembo outlined the stages of the law as "applying for the amnesty, renouncing rebellion, disarmament and getting an amnesty certificate". The law, he said, gives anybody who renounces rebellion a blanket amnesty against prosecution for crimes committed while still a rebel. The state has been featuring the returnees on local radios, where they call on their colleagues to come out of the bush. The army says this has had a major impact "because it debunks lies that those who surrender to the army are killed," said Major Shaban Bantariza, the army's spokesman. At army headquarters, the military had piles of photographs of reunions between surrendering rebels and their families, or of ex-rebels participating in recreational activities such as football. Such photographs along with a message in the local Dholuo language, are dropped from helicopters in the bushes of northern Uganda so as to pass on the message and lure others out the bush. The LRA has been fighting Museveni's government since 1988. The insurgency has led to a spiral of violence and brutality against northern Uganda's civilian population, 1.6 million of whom have been displaced from their homes and are living in squalid camps dotting the entire region. The rebels abduct young boys for recruitment into their ranks, while girls are forced to become the sex slaves of rebel commanders.