May 8, 2005

Everyone, it is Sunday (we are 10 hours ahead of California time) and nobody works today.  So I have time to send another email.
 
I have been getting questions about more detail on how the refugee situation developed. If you search on "Uganda LRA" I'm sure they'll do a better job on the Web than I can.
 
But here's a try: The LRA is a gang of Northerners who are against the present government.  They say that the government favors the tribes in the South.  However, they do not represent everyone's opinion.  The LRA want to institute the 10 Commandments as the rule of Uganda and get rid of the current government.  Therefore, they are murdering villagers for supplies and making the children kill their own parents  grandparents if still alive as they raid.  Then they take the girls as wives/laborers (women do all the cooking, cleaning, fetch water & wood) for the commanders and the boys for soldiers.  If a kid does something wrong they are severely beaten.  If they try to escape, the LRA make the other kids participate in killing that child.  They have been terrorizing for 19 years and still have yet to respond to amnesty offers with any concrete desires except to overthrow the current govt for the 10 Commandments.  Seems they need to read "Thou shalt not kill."  The military has finally negotiated with the Sudan to stop allowing them to camp there and cross the border for their raids.  So now the LRA has to hide in Uganda's northern hinterlands and raid villages for resources.  In 2003 they pushed as far south as Lira.  If you ask me, they are the enemy and if there is any corruption in the government, that is a separate issue.  As Mathew Langol, the Camp Program Leader for All Nations Christian Care (ANCC), that we work with says, this is what happens when 2 elephants fight.  The poor common folk in the way pay the price.  So 1.6 million have left their villages and 600,000 are around Lira, where we are.  The military has pushed the LRA north and the net is getting tighter.  So we are safe, but just 100km north is dangerous around Gulu and really bad in Kitkum near the Sudan border.  Many of the relief organizations have moved north to the camps where the situation is worse and the camps around Lira now have little outside support.
 
The ANCC is Ugandans helping Ugandans.  They are really working hard to help the refugees and hired Mathew as the full-time coordinator.  He is a super guy, a native of Lira and trained as an Engineer in Kampala (with a 2 year absence during the war).  His father was killed during the conflicts.  He is becoming a friend and has lived a long life though he is just 29.  He is helping the camps with hygiene, food & clothes distribution, water drilling, etc., but he is feeling overwhelmed.  We have wonderful discussions about how to possibly bring peace to this situation.  Wish I had the answer.
 
That's my try.  Hope it helps to explain.
We are having sporadic power outages, so I will sign off,

Chuck
 
P.S.  I regularly take my malaria pills to avoid infection.  You can't get malaria from people, just mosquitoes.