© CMS 2004
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Greenbelt The Archbishop of Canterbury was among the audience at the
CMS venue at this year’s Greenbelt Arts Festival, which
took place over the August Bank Holiday weekend. He came to
hear Harriet Okeny and Patrick Lumumba tell of their personal
experiences of the war in northern Uganda.
Despite aides pressing him to move on, the archbishop stayed for the whole session and was presented with a ‘Kitgum Cross’, made in northern Uganda by victims of the ongoing violence. Hundreds of Greenbelters made their own Kitgum crosses at
the CMS venue, and were moved by an exhibition of terracotta
figures made by former child soldiers. Artist Maddy Leslie,
who had spent months in Gulu town doing workshops with the
children in order to make the sculptures, was on hand to help
festival-goers create their own clay figures in response to
the exhibition, which also included powerful black-and-white
photographs by Ugandan photographer James Akena. [2 September 2004] Northern Ugandans arrive to tell of horrors Two northern Ugandans have come to the UK to give
their first-hand accounts of the horrific war with the Lord’s
Resistance Army (LRA).
Harriet Okeny and Patrick Lumumba will be guests of CMS at Christian festivals this summer to help refocus people’s attention on the plight of the northern Ugandan people. The cult-like LRA have abducted 28,000 children in their 18-year war, 12,000 of these in the last two years. The LRA claim to fight against Uganda’s President Museveni but their own people are the real victims. Harriet, a 22-year-old university student, is from the Diocese of Kitgum, whose bishop, the Rt Rev Benjamin Ojwang, launched CMS’ campaign to ‘break the silence’ over northern Uganda last summer. Harriet has counselled many former abductees. She was also in a car that was ambushed by the rebels. “I attended the funeral of one of my friends who was killed in that attack,” she says. “His eye had been removed, after which his head was smashed and emptied. He had been abducted and made to carry sacks of sugar and soap. When he failed to run with the loads, the rebels decided to kill him. It was a painful death.” Patrick, 31, is the Mission Co-ordinator for the Diocese of Northern Uganda, which includes Gulu town. He is a member of the programme committee of the Acholi Religious Leaders’ Peace Initiative, which works towards a peaceful, negotiated settlement to the conflict. Patrick is inspired by another peace activist: “One time a black American, Pastor Martin Luther King Jr, cried out ‘I have a dream that one day America will be united’. Similarly, I say to you that ‘I have a dream’ — a dream that one day peace will come to Northern Uganda.” You can meet Harriet and Patrick at SOULINTHECITY, Keswick, Soul Survivor, New Wine and Greenbelt this summer. [22 july 2004]
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