IRIN Feature - Part 2 Ugandan rebels tell their story

Former rebels of the Ugandan Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), hanging out in Nairobi's Uhuru Park, have explained how they were recruited to fight in places as far away as Angola and Ethiopia. The ex-rebels - who are waiting to take advantage of Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni's amnesty offer - say most of them were unwilling recruits to the LRA rebellion. "Persuasion and enticement were the bait used to lure many into the movement, besides forceful abductions," they state. "It happens to majority of the victims at the prime time of their lives," said Vicky Agnes Akelo, a former LRA women's service corps director. Many have been participating in the rebellion for over 10 years. Some of them originally belonged to a variety of small rebel groups such as the 9th October Movement, the Equatorial Nile People's Liberation Army, former soldiers in ousted president Idi Amin's army. As their groups became weaker, they joined the LRA. Some nine Ugandan tribes are represented in the group of 2,000 former rebels at Uhuru Park currently awaiting repatriation. Nimrod Chandi Jagweri, one of the rebel leaders in Uhuru Park, who decided to break away from the mainstream LRA in Sudan, was formerly a second lieutenant in Museveni's National Resistance Army (NRA). In 1988 he fled to Kenya and lived as a refugee until 1990 when he was lured into the movement under the guise of being offered a scholarship. He was taken to LRA bases in south Sudan. "It was a point of no return," he mused. At the time, former Ethiopian president Mengistu Haile Mariam was confronted by the Ethiopian rebel Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) movement, Nimrod said."Mengistu approached our leader and offered to sponsor our activities, but in return we were to help him fight the Oromos. We did that," he explained. He added that at the same time, the LRA was working very closely with the Sudanese government to fight the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA). The period after Mengistu's overthrow in 1991 did not augur well for the LRA. "The SPLA [which aided Mengistu] started undermining us and attacking our bases with the support of the Ugandan government," he said. The LRA's finances were dwindling fast. "Luckily, our commander Dr Nyoti was approached by the Angolan government asking the LRA to help it dislodge UNITA rebels who were occupying the diamond-rich areas of Huambo and Katocha. In exchange we could use the proceeds from the diamonds," Nimrod said. The deal was attractive and the LRA readily accepted it, taking 250 of its members - including Nimrod - to Angola. "The battle was stiff," he said. "Apart from the areas being infested with land mines, our boys lacked military training except me, and we lost so many," Nimrod said. "By the end of the eighth month, only 40 of us were left," he said. "It was at this point that we met a German aid worker who preached Christianity to us and also taught us alternative ways of seeking peace, forgiveness and reconciliation," Nimrod explained. He confesses that the LRA rebels have committed "untold atrocities" against their own people. "We have killed in our own areas, thrown petrol bombs... we fear that some of us will undergo mob justice in our villages [upon return]," Nimrod said. "We are pleading with our people to take us back... this will encourage many others to surrender so that peace can be restored in our land." "You see, the problems in the region, in countries like Rwanda, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan and Ethiopia have all had their roots in mercenaries hired from Uganda's rebels," he added. "We know this and we want to seek alternatives to violence."