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Wave of Mass Child Abductions Hits Northern Uganda

GULU, Uganda

A wave of mass child abductions has hit northern Uganda where rebels are seizing hundreds of boys and girls to swell their ranks against a government offensive, charities said on Wednesday.

The Lord's Resistance Army is kidnapping an average of at least 10 children a day, forcing them to participate in killings before turning them into soldiers or sex slaves for their commanders, the charities said.

"This is the highest peak I can think of in the history of child abductions in northern Uganda," said Richard Oneka, program officer with the Gulu Support the Children Organization (GUSCO), which rehabilitates escapees.

"They are tied up with rope, just like the slave traders used chains," he told Reuters in the northern Ugandan town of Gulu, which lies at the epicenter of the rebellion.

Children who escape the rebels tell how its leader, self-styled clairvoyant Joseph Kony, is possessed by a Holy Spirit that gives him the power to see into their minds.

Any caught trying to flee are clubbed to death in front of the others to discourage attempts to escape the rebels, who have butchered scores of villagers since returning en masse to Uganda in June.

"They tied my hands, then they brought logs for smashing our heads," said Anthony, 16, who was to be executed last week along with another suspected "deserter."

"We were surely about to be killed, they even pulled out a bayonet and they were about to start torturing us," he said, clad in a Star Wars T-Shirt as he matter-of-factly recounted his ordeal in the safety of the GUSCO center.

By a miracle, the army ambushed the rebels seconds later and he escaped by hiding in a hut. Staring straight ahead, Anthony said he had participated in clubbing five people to death in his 11 days in captivity. Many children are held for years, growing up to become rebels themselves.

Sixteen Year Rebellion

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has sent tanks, helicopters and artillery to crush the LRA, hoping new-found cooperation from Uganda's former foe Sudan will allow him to vanquish one of Africa's most bizarre rebel groups.

Kony has in the past said he wants to rule the east African country according to the Biblical Ten Commandments, but human rights groups say the roots of the uprising lie partly in a complex history of northern grievances.

The latest abductions represent a dramatic increase after a lull in northern Uganda, where charities estimate that at least 20,000 children have been taken during the LRA's 16-year rebellion.

Exact figures are hard to come by, but Oneka estimates that about 4,000 children have been abducted since June, when the rebels fled back to Uganda after the army's operation "Iron Fist" destroyed their bases in Sudan.

Large numbers of families troop from the surrounding villages into Gulu at dusk to sleep, fearful that Kony's men will come knocking for their sons and daughters and hoping the bigger town will give them some degree of safety.

Many abductees, who may be as young as nine, are treated as pack animals, carrying heavy loads on forced marches through the bush. Stragglers are given a "rest" -- the rebels' euphemism for being beaten to death.

"As I speak now, I am sure abductions are taking place at this very moment," said Charles Watmon, coordinator of the World Vision rehabilitation center. "Nobody feels safe."

© 2002 The Washington Post

The New York Times/Reuters, by Matthew Green