HOME

Background
Information


enlarge map

Contact us
CMS website

Restoring the Image
CMS’ new campaign.
Read more

Select the 'Donate' button when you are ready to send your gift. You will be transferred to a secure page where you will be asked to enter your credit card details. 

This information will be encrypted and passed securely to WorldPay.

The Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) is mostly made up of abductees, forced to commit appalling atrocities which leave them too brutalised and guilty to easily think of returning home.

‘Major-General’ Joseph Kony is the strange figure at the head of the LRA, who has created a cult around himself. He tells his followers that he communicates directly with the spirits. The tragedy is that the LRA is perceived as Christian. Kony claims to want to rule Uganda according to the Ten Commandments, but his murderous actions tell a different story.

The LRA grew out of the so-called ‘Holy Spirit Movement’ run by Kony’s cousin, Alice Lakwena Auma, who wasn’t satisfied with the original Ten Commandments and created another ten of her own, backed up spuriously with Bible verses. These included: “Thou shall not disobey any command of the Lakwena”; “Thou shall not have any kinds of charms or remains of small sticks in your pocket, including also the small piece used as a toothbrush”; and “Thou shall not eat food with anybody who has not been sworn in by the Holy Spirit”.

Though many northern Ugandans see a peaceful, negotiated settlement as the only viable solution, Kony’s lack of a serious political agenda makes him very difficult to deal with. The Ugandan Government is seen by people in the north as having no political will to solve the problem peacefully.

The notorious Operation Iron Fist was launched to end rebel activity by military means. This only succeeded in dislodging LRA troops from their camps in southern Sudan to wreak havoc on their own people back in northern Uganda.

Because 80–90% of the LRA is made up of abductees, what the Ugandan Government sees as military action against a rebel army, is seen by the Acholi people as “killing our children”.

^back to top

Further Stories

Child Soldiers
Since 1990, 28,000 children have been abducted by the Lord's Resistance Army…

READ MORE

A people living in fear
Some 1.6 million Acholi people in Gulu and Kitgum districts are now displaced and living in so-called 'protected camps'. But they still fear the random terror of the LRA.

READ MORE

'Night Commuters'
Every night, up to 30,000 children flood into Gulu and Kitgum towns to sleep on the streets, too frightened to sleep in their villages for fear of abduction…

READ MORE