Rebels Fight Against The Ugandan Government Army example essay topic

One boy tried to escape, but he was caught. They made him eat a mouthful of red pepper, and five people were beating him. His hands were tied, and then they made us, the other new captives, kill him with a stick. I felt sick. I knew this boy from before. We were from the same village.

I refused to kill him and they told me they would shoot me. They pointed a gun at me, so I had to do it. The boy was asking me, 'Why are you doing this?' I said I had no choice. After we killed him, they made us smear his blood on our arms. I felt dizzy.

There was another dead body nearby, and I could smell the body. I felt so sick. They said we had to do this so we would not fear death and so we would not try to escape. I feel so bad about the things that I did... It disturbs me so much -- that I inflicted death on other people...

When I go home I must do some traditional rites because I have killed. I must perform these rites and cleanse myself. I still dream about the boy from my village who I killed. I see him in my dreams, and he is talking to me and saying I killed him for nothing, and I am crying.

- Susan, sixteen Susan is not speaking of a well known atrocity. She is not talking about the holocaust, apartheid, or slavery. She is speaking about a situation going on right now in this day and age. She is telling the story of her time with the Lord's Resistance Army, a terrorist group operating in Northern Uganda and Southern Sudan. Timothy tells of his time as well: I was good at shooting. I went for several battles in Sudan.

The soldiers on the other side would be squatting, but we would stand in a straight line. The commanders were behind us. They would tell us to run straight into gunfire. The commanders would stay behind and would beat those of us who would not run forward. You would just run forward shooting your gun.

I don't know if I actually killed any people, because you really can't tell if you " re shooting people or not. I might have killed people in the course of the fighting... I remember the first time I was in the front line. The other side started firing, and the commander ordered us to run towards the bullets. I panicked.

I saw others falling down dead around me. The commanders were beating us for not running, for trying to crouch down. They said if we fall down, we would be shot and killed by the soldiers. In Sudan we were fighting the Dinkas, and other Sudanese civilians. I don't know why we were fighting them. We were just ordered to fight.

In northern Uganda children are trapped in a brutal fight, they find themselves caught between a rebel group called the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) and the Ugandan government's army. The LRA's main goal is the overthrow of the Ugandan government, but they seem to only attack civilians. They raid villages, loot stores and homes, and rape, mutilate and slaughter civilians unlucky enough to be in their way. The LRA is a terrorist organization that operates with the help of the Sudanese government. The lack of action and resounding silence from the international community is unacceptable. The United States's tance on terrorism remains clear.

Yet, the U.S. has done little to deter this group or the countries that support the LRA. The LRA abducts children and forces them to serve in the Army. The children are made to fight, steal, rape, and kill. The LRA prefers children aged fourteen to sixteen. The boys are used as soldiers; the girls are usually made to be "wives" of higher LRA members. All children are trained to use guns and to march.

Their recruiting techniques are simple, they kidnap whoever they want. They tie the children together, and force them to carry looted goods as they march off. Children who resist are killed. Children who cannot keep up are killed. Children who try to escape are killed. The children are no simply shot, the rebels force the other abducted children to kill, usually with clubs or machetes.

Any child who refuses to kill usually is also killed. According to Rosa Ehrenriech, author of The Scars of Death, "The children are forced to fight both in Uganda and in Sudan. In Sudan, the children are forced to help raid villages for food, and fight against the Sudan's People's Liberation Army. In Uganda, the children are also made to loot villages, fight against the Ugandan government soldiers, and help abduct other children. When the rebels fight against the Ugandan government army, they force the captive children to the front, children who hang back or refuse to fire are beaten or killed by the rebels, while those who run forward may be mown down by government bullets". While the children are the most affected, they are not the only ones to suffer.

The rebel attacks have ruined Northern Uganda, destroying farming, and leaving education and healthcare in shambles. "Hundreds of village schools have been burned, and scores of health clinics have been raided by rebels desperate to get their hands on medicine. As a result, Northern Uganda today faces an acute humanitarian crisis. The two northern districts of Gulu and Kitgum, the homeland of the Acholi people, have been the hardest hit; the violence and instability have displaced more than 200,000 northern Ugandans from their rural homes". [Ehrenreich] As a result of the displacement, the Ugandan government created "protected camps" near Ugandan Army bases. Tens of thousands have set up in these camps, but lack of food and sanitation has made the people vulnerable to disease and starvation.

The Ugandan government does not have the resources to deal with the growing threat of illness. In recent times the camps have become targets for LRA raids as well. The begging of this conflict starts with the religious traditions of the Acholi people who inhabit northern Uganda. During the period of British Colonization, the British employed mostly southerners in civil service, people form the north, mainly Acholi, were mostly recruited into the Armed forces. This created a separation that remained through the 1962 independence. The south was rich and industrial; the north was poor and rural.

"The socio-economic division between north and south has been exacerbated by frequent bouts of ethnic violence. According to most historians of post-independence Uganda, Acholi soldiers have been both victims and perpetrators of this violence. Under Milton Obote's first presidency, Acholi soldiers were implicated in many of the government's questionable activities. In the 1970's, during the administration of the notorious Idi Amin, many Acholi soldiers were slaughtered by Amin's henchmen.

After Amin's 1979 overthrow, Milton Obote returned to power, and the Acholi soldiers in his army were implicated in the deaths of thousands of civilians during the civil war against Yoweri Museveni's guerrilla National Resistance Army, which drew its support mostly from people in Uganda's southern and western regions. (1) Museveni's eventual military victory was preceded by a brief period of Acholi control of the government, when Acholi army officer Tito Okello ousted Milton Obote. After Okello's coup, Okello entered into peace talks with Museveni's still-hostile National Resistance Army, and after several months, the Nairobi Peace Accord was signed by the two parties. But the peace accord was never implemented, because fighting broke out a mere two weeks after it was signed, with each side accusing the other of having breached the agreement. On January 26, 1986, Museveni's National Resistance Army took Kampala. (2) Okello's Acholi soldiers retreated north.

Some crossed the border and took refuge with the Acholi people of southern Sudan, but many retreated only as far as Gulu and Kitgum, where they could rely on the support of the civilian population. Nonetheless, the National Resistance Army soon succeeded in taking the major northern towns, and it appeared that Museveni was firmly in control of all of Uganda. Acholi ex-soldiers were asked to turn in their weapons, and many did so. Some, however, never relinquished their weapons.

According to Paulin us Ny eko, chairman of Gulu Human Rights Focus, since Uganda's history for twenty-five years had been one of ethnic purges and reprisals, many Acholi feared that it was only a matter of time before Museveni's soldiers sought revenge on them for atrocities committed during past regimes. (3) And the behavior of many of the National Resistance Army soldiers did little to quell these fears. Harassment, looting, rape and cattle-theft by National Resistance Army soldiers were not infrequent, and did little to increase Acholi faith in the new Museveni government. (4) By August 1987, many of the Acholi ex-soldiers in Sudan had joined up with other opponents of the Museveni administration, and formed a rebel alliance.

The rebels made frequent incursions into Uganda to fight the government's National Resistance Army. (The NRA was later rechristened the Uganda People's Defense Force, or UPDF.) One of the rebel units, the Holy Spirit Mobile Force, was led by self-styled Acholi prophetess Alice Lakwena. She claimed to be possessed by the Holy Spirit, and garnered enormous Acholi support with her promises to defeat Museveni's government and purge the Acholi people of witches and sinners. (The fourth section of this report discusses the emergence of Alice Lakwena's Holy Spirit movement in greater detail). In late 1987, Alice Lakwena led thousands of Acholi soldiers against government troops; her soldiers were anointed with shea butter oil, which Lakwena assured them would cause bullets to bounce harmlessly off their chests.

Aided by the civilian population, Lakwena's Holy Spirit Mobile Force soldiers got to within sixty miles of Kampala, where they encountered a large government force. Lakwena's soldiers, armed largely with rifles and stones, proved to be no match for modern heavy artillery, and thousands of her followers were killed. Lakwena herself fled to Kenya. In the wake of Lakwena's defeat, the Acholi rebel movement disintegrated and many Acholi rebels surrendered. But a few remained in the bush, under the leadership of Joseph Kony, a young relative of Lakwena's. Kony claimed to be the inheritor of Lakwena's spiritual tradition, and his small group of rebels, based in Sudan, eventually came to call itself the Lord's Resistance Army.

Like Alice Lakwena, Kony promised both to overthrow the northern-dominated government and to purify the Acholi people from within -- and both these goals were to be accomplished through violence. Despite years of government attempts to stamp it out, the Lord's Resistance Army (often called the 'Kony rebels' by Ugandans) persists, never strong enough to seriously destabilize the government, but never weak enough to die out completely. Sudanese government spokesmen have repeatedly accused the Ugandan government of providing military support to the rebel Sudanese People's Liberation Army (SPLA), and several years ago, in apparent retaliation, the Sudanese government began to aid the Lord's Resistance Army. (5) According to the many children interviewed by Human Rights Watch, the Sudanese government also relies on the Lord's Resistance Army to help fight the SPLA. Sudanese government aid has turned the Lord's Resistance Army into more of a threat than ever, since the rebels are now armed with land mines and machine guns in place of rifles and machetes". [Ehrenreich] The rebels divide into smaller groups to conduct raids in northern Uganda.

The maintain radio contact and then they loot and pillage. They steal from villages and burn the buildings and huts they leave behind. They abduct children, tie them together, and make them carry their loot back to camps in northern Uganda / southern Sudan. The long march caused the children to develop swollen and infected feet.

The children are beaten frequently and are given little to eat. Those who can't keep up are killed. Those who attempt to escape are killed by new captives who are force to participate. The following are excerpts from interviews with children who managed to escape: Charles, fifteen: There had already been rumors that rebels were around, and we were very fearful. My grandmother was hiding in the bush. It was morning, and I was practicing my music when I heard a shot.

I started running into the bush, but there was a rebel hiding behind a tree. I thought he would shoot me. He said, 'Stop, my friend, don't try to run away!' Then he beat me with the handle of the gun on my back. He ordered me to direct him, and told me that afterwards I would be released. But afterwards it was quite different. That afternoon we met with a very huge group of rebels, together with so many new captives.

We marched and marched. In the bush we came across three young boys who had escaped from the rebels earlier, and they removed the boys's hits and tied ropes around their throats, so that when they killed them they would make no noise. Then they forced them down and started clubbing their heads, and other rebels came with bayonets and stabbed them. It was not a good sight. Thomas, fourteen: In our village, we realized the rebels were coming, and my whole family hid in the bush at night. At dawn, we thought they were gone, and I went back to the compound to fetch food.

But they were still there, and they took me. It was very fast. The rest of my family was still in hiding. The rebels had already abducted about a hundred children, and they had looted a lot of foodstuff.

But they would just give you only very little food to keep you going. I had to carry a bag of groundnuts, maybe twenty kilos. It was heavy but there was no alternative to carrying it. Some young children were given very heavy loads, but with any load you must struggle to carry it, or otherwise the rebels say, 'You are becoming stubborn and rebellious!' And they kill you. If your feet swell they also kill you. I saw quite a number of children killed.

Most of them were killed with clubs. They would take five or six of the newly abducted children and make them kill those who had fallen or tried to escape. It was so painful to watch. Twice I had to help.

And to do it, it was so bad, it was very bad to have to do. Stephen, seventeen: I was abducted twice. The first time I escaped. It was not safe in my village so I came to the town, but after a while I decided to go back to the village and collect my property. But while I was there I was again abducted. Luckily it was a different group and they did not recognize me, or they would have killed me.

They cut me with a panga (machete) and tied me and they said that if I had money, I must give it to them. I said, 'Where can I get money? I am just a schoolboy. ' So they beat me and beat me.

They took all the food in our house, and they took the bicycle my uncle gave me to ride to school and cut it up with an ax. (10) They beat all my young cousins who were just small boys, four or five years old. One of them they killed. Then they burned the house. William, ten: It was at seven p. m.

We were in the house, and two of us were abducted. It was me and my older brother. My mother was crying and they beat her. She was weakly and I do not know if she is all right at all. They beat us, then they made me carry some radios and carry the commander's gun. It was heavy and at first I was afraid it would shoot off in my arms, but it was not filled with ammunition.

We joined a big group and we walked very far, and my feet were very swollen. If you said that you were hurting they would say, 'Shall we give this young boy a rest?' But by a 'rest' they meant they would kill you, so if you did not wish to die you had to say you did not need a rest. Many children tried to escape and were killed. They made us help. I was afraid and I missed my mother. But my brother was very strong-hearted and he told me we must have courage, we will not die, so I kept going.

Charles, fifteen: After my abduction, we marched and marched. Once we passed close to my homestead, but I was carefully guarded and I could do nothing. We came across a car which we ambushed, and later we came to a homestead and found a family with a father who was drunk. The rebels said, 'This one is drunk, we cannot spare him!' So they clubbed him to death, then dragged him to a hut and burned it. As we went we burned many houses. I also recall that after we attacked a Kitgum trading center, we came across two hunters, and they were killed with clubs and bayonets.

This looting and killing continued as we marched. So many people were killed. You had to adapt yourself quickly to that kind of life. James, fourteen: Every day, each rebel had to get abductees.

Our team's major work was to abduct other children. They would have contests to see who could get the most captives. We worked a lot. The abductees were made to dig, making granaries.

They told us we were fighting to overthrow the government, but we didn't do fighting. When we saw government soldiers, we just ran. Timothy, fourteen: We walked very long distances. All I could think about was home and being with my family. Sometimes there were helicopter attacks [by government forces]. I was injured: my skin and my chest and arms were burned during an attack.

Many children were killed, and others lost legs from bombs. Catherine, seventeen: We would walk through villages where the civilians had fled... we would sleep in deserted villages, and eat and stay in the houses. Sometimes there were villagers who had stayed behind... the rebels would accuse them [of supporting the government]. One day, they found a man riding a bike. They just cut off his foot with an ax. When his wife came out of the house, they told her to eat the foot.

I turned away not to see what happened. If the children survive long enough, they are eventually taken to Southern Sudan. The LRA has at least one major camp there. Joseph Kony, the group's leader lives in the camp along with his top commanders. In the camp, children are trained to use weapons and fight. The weapons are supplied by the Sudanese government; as children have accounted on many occasions.

Charles, fifteen: After a time we received a radio message to go to Sudan to meet Joseph Kony's group. We started marching and it became very dry. We could not find water or food, and we ate the leaves of trees. Many became sick and died, and you would see children everywhere, lying down like they were sleeping.

But they were dead. Susan, sixteen: I spent three months in Uganda and three months in Sudan with the rebels. In Uganda, we were made to do a lot of hard work -- getting rice, pounding rice, hulling rice, stealing food, and gathering wild leaves and preparing food. We were always hungry.

There was never enough food. Most people in the villages we passed through had run away. On the way to Sudan we passed so many dead bodies of people who had died along the way -- people who died of hunger, or sickness, or were killed. Samuel, seventeen: It was so hot. It was the dry season and I had blisters on my feet from walking so much. They never told us where we were going or why we had been taken.

We were given raw food, sims im and boiled sorghum to eat, but no water. The water ran out after two days, and many people died of thirst. We walked for three days straight, without sleeping, until we reached Sudan. In Sudan, the main problems were diseases: dysentery and malaria -- and food shortages and not enough water.

Thomas, fourteen: In Sudan, they brought us to a large camp. There were maybe 5,000 people there. My duties were mostly to farm. I would dig fields and plant maize beans. I spent most of my time digging.

They also trained us in how to be soldiers. I was trained to use mortars, RPG, and SMG weapons. The guns came from the Arabs and the Sudanese government. Kony had lorries that were given him by the Sudan government. They would leave the camp and come back, loaded with guns. Sharon, thirteen: When we got to Sudan, I saw some children there that I knew from my village.

They had also been abducted earlier. Our group was divided into four smaller groups of about a hundred people. I was the youngest in my group. I was twelve. Others were about thirteen or fourteen years old. They trained us in how to use guns, and the names of all the gun parts.

The camp in Sudan was large. There were about a thousand people there. I stayed there for three months. Most of the time I was just made to work -- like digging for potatoes. Timothy, fourteen: After we crossed into Sudan, we went to a place called Kit where they trained us. Kony told us we would go back to Uganda and overthrow the government -- we were trained how to attack vehicles, and how to shoot.

Kony would tell us that we would overthrow the government. People should be happy and wait for that day to come. He also warned us that if we were caught becoming friendly with any girl, we would be killed together -- the boy and the girl. He also warned us that if we tried to escape we would be killed. After my training, I was given a gun: an AK 47. I had to carry it on my right shoulder at all times.

It was so heavy. The loaded magazine made it so heavy. For a while, my right arm was paralyzed from the weight, and the skin on my shoulder burned from carrying it. I had chest pains. I was also given things to carry like cans of water. Mary, fifteen: In Kony's camp we saw things like weapons and guns, all types of guns and ammunition.

I think they came from Khartoum. We all underwent training, every day, training in how to operate the guns, and how to name them. Sometimes we would have to jog with our guns and sing soldier songs, and also prayer songs. Then we would go home and cook the vine leaves.

Children tried always to escape, but some of them were recaptured and killed. Sarah, sixteen: In Sudan they gave us training for three weeks. Kony sent a message to send the young ones to him in Palatka. Kony wanted those who had been in schools to be trained as nurses, to give first aid to the rebels. I was one of those. But I was also trained to shoot, and how to put together guns and handle the weapons -- antipersonnel mines, antitank mines, SMG, LMF, PKM, mortars.

The weapons were brought by Arabs in uniforms. Samuel, seventeen: In Sudan, we were informed that we were now soldiers. They said we would be given one week to rest, and then we would be beginning military training. I went through three weeks of military training. We were given guns and were selected to fight in Sudan. There were confrontations between the Lord's Resistance Army and the UPDF in Sudan.

The weapons we used [included] mortars and antipersonnel land mines. The BKs were the preferred weapon among us -- it was the most reliable. It takes two people to operate it: one person to hold and feed the chain of bullets, and the other to shoot. Jessica, fourteen: There was no water in the camp. Every day we would have to go search for water. The Arabs brought food and guns from Juba, and the food was mostly beans, but it was not enough.

We ate bitter leaves. People were dying, especially young boys. There were many boys of about seven years of age who had been abducted from Gulu, and they were many of them dying. There were more than a thousand people in the camp at the time I was there.

Most rebels were young children who had been captured like me, but there were many who were very old, forty or older. Kony himself is about thirty or thirty-five years old. He had eighteen women for himself, and six children had been born to him. Patricia, fifteen: In Sudan, so many children died of diarrhea and hunger... We were given food, but very little -- maybe a little bread and beans.

They would give us food maybe once a month -- the food was brought by the Arabs. During the days, I would go out looking for food. Sometimes we would be beaten if we came back without finding any food. There was no water.

You had to walk miles to collect water. At night, I slept in an ad aki [trench]. Phillip, fourteen: There was very little food in Sudan. Ten people would be fed from one small bowl. I was always hungry. I was made to beat two boys who took too long to get water.

They were little boys. I was given a sub-machine gun and had to carry it with me at all times: when you " re going to get water, or to collect firewood, you still have to carry it. It was very heavy for me. Stephen, seventeen: When we were in the Sudan there, we were not feeling well at all.

There was lack of food and no medicines, and we were feeling very, very, very bad, and not okay at all. In the Sudan, some people were dying of hunger, and diarrhea was also very serious. But should you make a mistake of stealing things, you will be tied to a tree and shot by a firing squad. These very young children especially, they very much miss the food they used to have at home. But if you take food they just shoot you, even the very young ones.

Death only is the punishment for this. Theresa, eighteen: I was made to be wife to three men. Three rebels were fighting over me and each one wanted me to be his wife. One of them wanted to kill me. He took me as his wife, and I did not want to be his wife. He said if I refused he would kill me, and if I ran away he would kill me.

He was sent away to fight, and then I was made to be wife to a second man. Then he also was sent away to fight, and I was given to a third man. The third man was a big leader, and when he went away to fight he wanted me to go with him. Susan, sixteen: One week after I was abducted I was given to a man called Abo nga.

He was thirty years old. Two girls were given to him. He was trying to be nice to me, to make me feel happy and not want to run away, but all I wanted to do was go home. I was taken away from him when I got to Sudan because I had syphilis.

They said they wanted to give me treatment, but I refused -- I did not trust them and thought that they might try to hurt me, and I felt fine anyway. Because I had syphilis, I was not given to another man in Sudan. Instead I was kept separately and guarded because they thought I would give the sickness to others. No one was allowed to have free relationships there.

If they caught a boy and a girl together they would shoot you in public. The only relationships they allowed were the ones that they forced on you. Catherine, seventeen: They gave us all as wives. I think four of the girls abducted from the St. Mary School at Above were given to Kony as wives; they stayed with Kony's other girls. They gave me as a wife, but I refused the man. The soldier I was given to already had a girl who was five months pregnant.

He ordered other boys to beat me on my back with a panga. He hated me. I got eight strokes with the panga on my back. It hurt so much, I thought I would die. After that we never spoke. I just stayed with the other girls.

Sarah, seventeen: After the military training, I was given to a man called Oti m. There were five women given to one man. The man I was given to was very rude to me: he thought I wanted to leave him and escape. He beat me many times with sticks.

He thought I wanted to escape. Now I'm going to be a mother soon. I don't want to be a mother at this age. But it happened and I must accept this. The media portrays Kony's Army as a group of Christian Fundamentalists that want to build a government based on the Ten Commandments. This is an oversimplification.

The rituals in the group seem to be a smorgasbord of religious rites. Most stem from Christianity, but there is influence of Acholi tribal rituals, Islam, as well as Catholicism. The confusing eclectic whimsical nature of the religion is made evident by these quotes from children: Molly, seventeen: They prayed a lot, but they didn't pray like normal Christians. Sometimes they would use rosaries, but sometimes they would bow down like Muslims. They said they had a mala ika [spirit, angel]. They said the mala ika said there would be a terrible fight, and that the government would be overthrown.

After that, they said, we would be released. Sometimes they would gather us together and try to convince us to believe them. They believed in their local gods, and they didn't want us to learn about their mala ika. They discouraged us from asking questions about them or their beliefs. If you asked too many questions they would become cruel. Christine, seventeen: The rebels call Joseph Kony their father, and say that the Holy Spirit speaks to him, and tells him what to do.

But I don't see anything to their religion. At times they pray like they " re Christians, and at times like they " re Muslims. They made us kneel and face in one direction to pray, like Muslims. Their customs are strange.

If they " ve just abducted you, they smear you with oil in the sign of the cross, on your forehead and on your chest. They did that to us on the third day after we were abducted. They said it was their custom. Another one of their customs is they don't eat with strangers. After we had been with them for three weeks, they drew a picture of a large heart in the ground, and divided it into thirty squares. They told us to bathe and to remove our blouses and remain bare-chested.

They told each of us to stand in one of the squares. They dipped an egg in a mixture of white powder and water, and drew a heart on our chests and our backs. They also made a sign of the cross on our foreheads and on our across our lips. Then they poured water on us.

The commander, La gira, told us to stay without our blouses for three days. He said what they were doing was written in the bible. Another man told us they were doing this for our protection. They said they were preparing to overthrow the government, and that the day for the fight would take place if a child between ten and fifteen years old would have a certain dream about them, or if someone would rise at dawn and see a hand in the clouds -- that would mean that there were five days before the fight. But this would happen, and then time would pass, and nothing happened.

They didn't overthrow the government. Stella, fifteen: Sometimes they behaved like Muslims, sometimes like Catholics, sometimes like Protestants. They said they would overthrow the government within three years. They said they wanted Uganda to become a paradise. I said, 'If you want a paradise, why are you killing people in Northern Uganda?

The government is down south in Kampala, so how can you expect to overthrow the government if you kill people here?' They said, 'Be patient. ' One day, I asked our commander, 'Why are you killing mostly your own people, people from the North?' He said, 'We do not kill them because they are from the North, but because they are misbehaving. ' I said, 'Why do you kill those who try to escape?' And he said, 'Jesus did not ask his disciples to come with him, he just told them, 'follow me. ' But today Ugandans do not follow the Holy Spirit, so they must be forced. ' I said, 'People of northern Uganda would not refuse to follow you if what you did was truly right.

' He said, 'Stella, you are joking with the Holy Spirit. You don't know what we are doing. We are pretending we are bad, but we will be the first to enter God's Kingdom. One day you will believe in us and you will see we are God's people. ' The motivations for these terrorist actions remain unclear. The conflict breaks down fairly easily to this gross oversimplification: The LRA doesn't like the Ugandan government.

The Ugandan government doesn't like the LRA. Uganda isn't too fond of Sudan, so it supports a rebel group called the Sudan's People's Liberation Army. Sudan isn't too happy with Uganda for supporting this group, so it supports and supplies the LRA. Civilians are caught in the crossfire. Benjamin Netanyahu, in his book Fighting Terrorism, defines terrorism as, "the deliberate and systematic assault on civilians to inspire fear for political ends". It is evident that this is going on in Uganda, and yet nothing is being done about the situation.

Even America with its new "we kill all terrorists" policy on terrorism has done little to stop this situation. Why? The answer is simple: Uganda has nothing to offer the United States if it intervenes. Plain and simple, that's the reason why the U.S. chooses to ignore the thousands that are dying as a result of this terrorism. This situation will continue to rage on if nothing is done.

Bibliography

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Uganda" The Economist. July 24, 2004: 46 Smith, Larry.
Child Soldiers and the Lord's Resistance Army". America. March 29, 2004: 13"President of Uganda Refers Situation Concerning Lord's Resistance Army to International Criminal Court".
M 2 Press wire. Jan 30, 2004 Chu, Jeff.
In Search of Uganda's Lost Youth: Abducted and Forced into a Rebel Army, Former Child Soldiers and Sex Slaves Are Fighting for Their Rights". Time International. July 28, 2003: 42"Small Voices in a Forgotten War".
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Childhood Lost". Maclean's. Dec 14, 1998: 38.