Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda
In northern Uganda, rebels of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) have been battling the Museveni regime for over 20 years.
However, in recent years, the LRA has splintered and rebels have dispersed throughout Democratic Republic of Congo, Southern Sudan and the Central African Republic.
Uganda's first war crimes trial against Thomas Kwoyelo, leader of the LRA rebels responsible for ravaging the country up until 2006, was opened in July at the International Crimes Division court in the town of Gulu.
Although thirteen members of the LRA have been pardoned under the state's Amnesty Act, the Ugandan State Atorney has pledged to end impunity in the country and continue the trial against Kwoyelo.
Rape is often used to terrorise and destabilise communities during times of war. The testimonies of women and children are widely documented but those of male victims rarely come to light. One Ugandan man tells RNW of his ordeal at the hands of male rapists, for the first time.
By Priscilla Nadunga
Fred Owinyi, resident of Payam village in Gulu district, northern Uganda, is slumped over a mat on the floor of his isolated hut. He has an air of hopelessness about him as he slowly begins describing a tragic encounter with LRA rebels eight years ago that changed his life forever.
Gunshots
“It was a sunny morning when I heard gunshots, but I paid little attention because it was not an unusual occurrence in my village,” Owinyi recounts and continues. “Every time LRA rebels tried to attack my village, government soldiers would keep them at bay. So I asked my wife and children to go back inside the house as I waited for the situation to calm down. But then two shots were fired at our hut and my five year old son was injured.”
A tearful Owinyi then describes how the door to the hut was kicked open. “The group that attacked us was led by a ruthless man called Brigadier Tabule. He ordered his troops to tie up the men separately from women and children. Then they kidnapped my sons and my wife. To this day I have not seen them”.
Owinyi and other villagers were subsequently abducted and taken to a rebel camp deep in the forest on the Sudanese side of the border. They then had to carry out various domestic tasks for the commanders, including collecting water.
Rape on the river bank
Whilst telling his story, tears start to stream down Owinyi’s face. He describes how he was escorted by a commander and his two bodyguards to ‘collect water’ - a tactic used to separate Owinyi from the other captives.
“As we approached the river, one of the bodyguards hit me with a gun, when I fell down, the second bodyguard also hit me on my neck and I lost my consciousness. By the time I regained my consciousness I was tied on a big tree with all my cloths including pants striped off me.”
Owinyi then pauses for a minute before continuing in a timid voice. “They told me to bend over. A man came and started raping me. Even when I screamed, he didn’t stop until was done. Then his escorts started raping me as I bled profusely but none of were bothered about my bleeding”.
Taboo
Homosexual acts are a taboo in most African cultures. Owinyi feels emasculated: “I was thoroughly humiliated by people I called brothers, who turned into beasts and raped me,” bemoans Owinyi. “After they raped me, one of them shot me in the leg so that he could claim I had tried to escape. They kept me in the commander’s hut, to serve as his concubine until the day I managed to escape in 2009,” Owinyi explained tearfully.
It has taken Owinyi three years to break his silence, unlike so many men who have suffered similar fates. But although he has found the courage to talk about it, the traumatising experience continues to haunt him.
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Maintain your dignity and integrity, my brothers and sisters. They are seeking to impose this on your society to promote division and to break down the family and the community. Because of the prevalence of lesbianism in the US, whenever another woman smiles at me or engages me in conversation, I cannot accept it as simply a friendly gesture and have a pleasant conversation with her. Too many times, those women have been making sexual advances or if they pretend to just want to be friends, they insinuate themselves into your life to plant fear and mistrust and disharmony with your man and your children. The men who are raping other men are being taught this mentality by Western homosexuals coming in as trainers and "advisers" as another means of expressing rage and aggression and hatred. Look at what was done to the Arabs in Abu Ghraib. The homosexual lifestyle is anti-family, overly materialistic, violent, soulless and DIVISIVE. These people thrive on conflict and drama and self-pity. If the West tries to make this a condition for receiving "aid", count that as a blessing from God and turn them back with their dirty money. It does not benefit you and all it is is a way to control your population and your resources. Look at the condition of Haiti after 25 years of Western aid...they give the people old shoes and clothes and take their gold, minerals and are now looking for oil.
Quite a sad story.
What an innovative and intriguing way to try and socially desensitize male homosexual activity in Uganda... Interesting how the Kony war has been extensively covered since its inception well over a decade ago, but it is only now with the modified anti-gay bill in parliament that these strange stories begin to pop up. The same way almost every sit-com TV show imported from America now has a gay character, who also happens to be the nicest person of all. Expansion of social acceptance has been a goal of the main stream media for quite some time. My friends who are doctors and counsellors working with traumatized victims of the Kony war in northern Uganda all wonder where this stuff comes from. Anyway, acceptance of this behaviour can never be forced on the masses of people, even in the US -- all 41 states that brought gay marriage to referendum in the 2008 US elections saw their citizens vote it down by huge majorities -- including places like California where society is very liberal. The 5 states and the District of Columbia who have legalized gay marriage have done it through the legislature or the judiciary, but not by asking voters what they want.
How much more Uganda and Africa? Yes, there are gay people in Africa, we are not claiming like Saudis that they don't exist. We are saying it is a harmful lifestyle that is contrary to our cultural norms and beliefs. There are many things we as Africans do wrongly or shouldn't be doing at all, but this one thing that we are very clear about -- Muslims, Christians, Catholics, etc.
Even if there are some actively fund-raising and recruiting for this in Uganda: see this website where they seek your donations for LGBT activities in Uganda. I am not advertizing for them... I'm exposing their existence. And people thought this was made up!
http://www.uua.org/giving/funds/174185.shtml
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