Antiwar.com is pleased to announce the winners of its first-ever Student Essay Contest, held summer 2006. Today we present Masumba David of Uganda, honorable mention in the senior division.
Alexia Gilmore
Executive director, Antiwar.com
This is an essay on conflict in the north of Uganda, which has been going on for 20 years now. I am a Ugandan. I have watched the men, women, and children of Gulu, Kitgum, Apac, Karamoja, and other parts of Uganda suffer from brutal deaths, maiming, and severe poverty. I personally hope that wars will end, and we shall never have to go through another one ever again.
The north of Uganda has been ignored by its neighbors, nation, and the rest of the world until recently. Thousands, probably millions from northern Uganda have a story to tell about what has been happening there. Although it has no written records of the conflict that has destroyed it for the past 20 years, the stories of what has happened in that period of time still float around among the public.
The LRA rebels of northern Uganda are responsible for the people living in huts. Almost three-quarters of Ugandans live below the poverty line, and almost half of the northern inhabitants live in tents. Almost a quarter are homeless, and the others hide in unsanity huts and shelters. It may seem hard to believe, but it is true. The Internet has facts passed on from the civilians who have suffered the wrath of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) in northern Uganda. Although some choose to speak of their past, others choose not to for the losses they have incurred from the painful journey through the years. This has been a war of the government of Uganda against the LRA rebels in the north of Uganda, with the citizens caught in the middle.
Did the world take a glance at what happened in the north of Uganda, like they are concerned about the Israeli-Lebanese war that rages on today? Children in the north of Uganda have lived without clothing, shelter, food, education, and freedom for 20 years. Many are traumatized by the war, which claimed many lives and left thousands orphans. The media has been publishing stories on Uganda and the conflict in the north, but the world has turned a deaf ear.
Within Uganda the people lived in fear as the government loaned and embezzled millions of shillings from the tax and donations. The government claimed to have been trying to apprehend the leader of the LRA, Joseph Kony, who first appeared on the scene in January 1987. He mutilated civilians after they declined his offer to fight against the government. The government has done very little for Uganda and its people. The war between the LRA and the Ugandan government ended in 2006, yet many Ugandans still live homeless, naked, and traumatized by the war. Many beggars on the streets of Kampala are from northern Uganda with little hope of survival on the harsh, polluted streets, where no one pays any attention to them. Children run up to you in the street and say “Uncle, mpako ku sente” ("Uncle, give me some money"). The money they get is taken by the stronger ones, and the younger ones are turned into stone-hearted children with no love or human feelings. When a fight breaks out among these homeless, displaced people, it is savage. Many have survived from rubbish or by fellow friends in the streets of Kampala. The street children are not the only people who have been displaced by the war in the north of Uganda. Hawkers and old women who sleep and sit on the streets selling sweets to passersby are from the north of Uganda with nowhere to go and no one to turn to.
Many Ugandans have thought the conflict in the north to be a minor issue because they slept and worked in the peaceful south. These people did not stop to think about the economy and their social structure. A lot of the money Uganda has been borrowing form donors and aid campaigns has been stolen and embezzled. Now, many Ugandans blame the government for the poor economy, yet they are the ones responsible for the mass poverty in Uganda. This war has interfered with the education of many children, as teachers and pupils have had to run as the rebels attacked schools and kidnapped them. Thousands were taken as wives and soldiers.
Joseph Kony believes he is a divine being who was sent by God into the bushes to fight the government. The rebels converge in endless hours of prayer. These men and boys are driven by the belief that God is on their side. The nation of Uganda asks the question, "If he was a divine person, why did he kill all those people?" but Kony refuses to accept the accusation of killing people. He might be right, he might be wrong, but one fact for sure is that some of the people he captured came to love him. A woman by the name of Evelyn claimed to be one of his 27 wives. She stated that she actually loved Kony despite the harsh situations she went through. She was beaten from 25 to 100 strokes of the cane for defiance against Kony’s orders.
The wars have only brought misery upon people, and our ignorance only causes future innocents to suffer more. Our children are the future, and they look up to the elders and hope to imitate them someday. When they see their parents go to war, it only destroys them more.
