Ex LRA commander Thomas Kwoyelo to face trial in Uganda's War Crimes Court

Former LRA commander sent to war court
Report from The New Vision, Uganda
Monday, 06 September 2010
By Edward Anyoli

A former Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) commander, Thomas Kwoyelo, has been charged and committed to the War Crimes Court to face trial.

Kwoyelo, 39, appeared before Buganda Road Court Chief Magistrate Vincent Mugabo, who did not allow him to plead to the charges.

He becomes the first suspect to be charged with offences relating to war crimes.

“This court does not have the jurisdiction to take your plea, it can only explain the offences to you,” Mugabo said.

He was charged with 12 counts, which included willful killing, taking hostages, extensive destruction of property and causing serious body harm. The trial date is yet to be set by the War Crime Court.

Prosecution led by Principal State Attorney Charles Kaamuli said Kwoyelo in March 1993 commanded an attack on Pagak internally displaced people’s camp in northern Uganda in which several people were killed and others were taken hostage.

Court also heard that Kwoyelo and his men destroyed property and injured scores of people in 2004 in northern Uganda.

He allegedly committed the offences between 1996 and 2009 with others still at large in Gulu, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and Southern Sudan.

URGENT MESSAGE - Shocking video of Ugandan terror group Lord's Resistance Army hunting children in Sudan

ONE of the world's most brutal terrorist groups, Joseph Kony's Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), is on the move from the Congo, terrorising civilians.

The below copied report from TIME.com, Tuesday, 07 September 2010, contains a shocking video entitled "The Lord's Resistance Army Hunts Children in Sudan".

Click here (and wait for end of short advert) to hear Ed Robbins reporting for Time.com from Western Equatoria State, southern Sudan.

Please replay the video and listen carefully to a message for everyone. The message is from a deeply traumatised Sudanese boy. The boy's name is Moses. Moses was abducted, attacked, hurt all over, and stabbed with a bayonet, by LRA terrorists. The terrorists forced Moses to kill a young girl. The girl was aged 7 or 8. If he did not kill the girl, they would kill him. The heart wrenching message from Moses says:

"I'M ASKING EVERYONE PLEASE, PRAY TO MAKE IT END"

Replay the video again and imagine yourself as Moses. The flat deadened tone of his voice is haunting. After viewing the report for the first time yesterday and working on it today at Uganda Watch, Sudan Watch and Congo Watch, I can't get Moses out of my mind. His trauma seeped into my bones as I imagined how he must have felt, what his future holds, and how he will think and be haunted for the rest of his life. I find this report deeply distressing and disturbing. I cannot understand why so many people are powerless when it comes to stopping the LRA. How someone like Joseph Kony manages to stay alive is beyond my comprehension. The stresses and strains he has gone through in his lifetime are unimaginable. A living hell, I guess.

See further devastating reports and photos here below.
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Balancing Counterterrorism and Democracy in Uganda
TIME.com - Tuesday, 07 September 2010
By Ioannis Gatsiounis in Kampala, Uganda

Photo: Mourners bury Alice Kyalimpa, a victim of the July 11, 2010, terrorist attacks that tore through a restaurant and rugby club in Uganda's capital Ronald Kabuubi/Reuters. Source: TIME.com report September 07, 2010 "Balancing Counterterrorism and Democracy in Uganda". To view the report in full, click on the link above. If the report has moved, scroll to the end of this entry to read a full copy.

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LRA KILL 8 IN YAMBIO, W. EQUATORIA, S. SUDAN -
More Ugandan PDF forces to be deployed



WES Yambio: LRA Raid And Kill 8 citizens
Report from South Sudan Analysis (SOSA online) - Monday, 06 September 2010:

(YAMBIO) – Ugandan Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebels have killed 8 people during weekend raids in Southern Sudan’s Western Equatoria state, a local official said.

Around 6 LRA fighters attacked the market village of Rii-Bodo on Saturday, killing 8 civilians, said Lexon Amozai, State Director of Sudan Relief and Rehabilitation Commission in Western Equatoria State.

The horrifying murders come in the wake of an LRA ambush at a near-by small stream of Nahua.

On Friday the rebels launched a similar assault on the village of Gangura.

“They killed 8 people there, among them two women. There were no soldiers deployed there, so they attacked the civilians,” Mr Amozai said.

A Uganda-led coalition including Congo and South Sudan launched a joint offensive against LRA strongholds in Congo’s isolated Garamba National Park on December 14 after LRA leader Joseph Kony again failed to sign a deal to end his rebellion. However, the operation has failed to arrest Joseph Kony.

In the same weekend related attacks were carried on Sunday at James Diko and Naakiri Bomas under Bangasu payam during a final funeral of one of the LRA Victims.

Kony is wanted by the International Criminal Court in The Hague for war crimes.

Bangasi Joseph Bakosoro, state governor of Western Equatoria state with deeply sorrow and regrets expressed his dissatisfaction for the death of 8 WES citizens of Rii-Bodo on Saturday.

In a press statement, Col Bangasi said that, “it is painful to see such barbaric killings by the notorious LRA fighters on the innocent citizens of western Equatoria more especially as referendum gets around the corner.”

He called upon all the youth to stand up in order to provide security to the state from the marauding LRA and the state Government in collaboration with the UPDF and SPLA.

Security sources say soon the state government “will deploy forces around the payams and Bomas.”

Bakosoro assured the citizens that, “more forces of the Ugandan People Defense (UPDF) forces will be deployed around the most attacked areas of the Bomas.”

He cautioned the forestry department to ensure that “all timber cutters are removed from the forest of the state because it makes no sense for the LRA to be killing people leaving them (timber companies) unharmed hence some might be spices of the LRA.”

Meanwhile the Minister of Local Government and Law Enforcement Agencies Colonel Wilson Sidigi said that he will ensure that support is given to the villagers’ security.

Sidigi promised that he will organize with the County Commissioners of Yambio and Nzara to encouraged the youth to stand firm as the security of the State is in the hands of every citizen of the state.

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LRA Kill Eight In Yambio
Report from SRS (Sudan Radio Service) - Tuesday, 07 September 2010:

(YAMBIO) – About eight people were killed in attacks allegedly perpetrated by the Lord’s Resistance Army over the weekend in outskirts of Yambio town.

The Western Equatoria state Minister of Information and Communication, Gibson Bullen Wande, spoke to SRS from Yambio on Tuesday.

[Gibson Bullen Wande]: “The LRA appeared between Gangura and a place called Baite, attacked the village and killed three people, so now we are seeing how we are going to handle it. Then on Saturday in the evening, the LRA appeared about 7 kilometers away from Yambio town in a place called Riibodoo. They came into the house of a chief with his in-laws. All of them were beaten to death and one person was abducted. So the total number of people that we have established to have been killed during the two attacks of last week has now come to eight so far.”

Gibson Bullen Wande was speaking to SRS from Yambio on Tuesday.

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LRA rebels kill eight in South Sudan raid, local official says
Report from Sudan Tribune online - Tuesday, 07 September 2010
By Richard Ruati - excerpt:

(YAMBIO - September 06, 2010) - The Ugandan rebels Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) has killed eight people in raids over the weekend in South Sudan’s state of Western Equatoria, a local official has said.

The LRA, which is a sectarian religious and military group from northern Uganda, has a history of committing atrocities in the region.

It began as an Acholi tribe rebel movement seeking to overthrow the Ugandan Government. What it stands for now is a matter of debate but in 2005 the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued its first five arrest warrants for LRA leader, Joseph Kony, his deputy and three of his commanders.

Around six LRA fighters attacked the market village of Rii-Bodo at about 2:00 am (local time) on Saturday, 4 August, and killed civilians, said Lexon Amozai who is the state director of the Sudan Relief and Rehabilitation Commission in Western Equatoria State. The murders took place after an LRA ambush at the nearby Nahua stream.

On Friday, the rebels launched a similar assault on the village of Gangura. "They killed eight people there, among them two women. There were no soldiers deployed there, so they attacked the civilians," Amozai said.

A Uganda-led coalition including Congo and South Sudan launched a joint offensive against the LRA strongholds in Congo’s isolated Garamba National Park on December 14, after LRA leader Kony again failed to sign a peace deal. However, the operation has failed to arrest Kony.

On Sunday, August 5, related attacks were carried out in James Diko, Naakiri Bomas and during the funeral of one of the LRA victims in Bangasu. [...]

Security sources say that the state government’s deployment of "forces around the payams [villages] and Bomas,” is imminent.

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"I'M ASKING EVERYONE PLEASE, PRAY TO MAKE IT END"



Photo: Gulu victim. The LRA use torture to instil fear. Uganda's rebel LRA has become synonymous with torture, abductions and killings. (BBC photo/Sudan Watch archive)



Photo: Two young boy's get treated for severe burn wounds in the Lira hospital in northern Uganda, 23 February 2004, after a massacre believed to be committed by the LRA in the Barlonyo camp 26 kilometers north of the town that killed at least 200 people. (AP Photo/Karel Prinsloo/Sudan Watch archive)



Photo: Ochola John was deformed by rebels from the LRA. (BBC) Click here to read the victim's heartbreaking testimony published at BBC News online on 29 June 2006. If the report has moved, click here to read a copy filed on 30 June 2006 at Uganda Watch, a sister site of this blog Sudan Watch.



Photo: Leader of the LRA peace delegation Martin Ojul, left, is welcomed back home at Koch Goma in Amuru. (AP Photo) Source: Report from TIME.com - Saturday, 10 November 2007, by Alexis Okeowo in Gulu. Excerpt:

Sixteen years ago, Irene Abonyo was held down to the ground and her lips and ears viciously sliced off by rebels in northern Uganda. But 70-year old Abonyo is in a forgiving mood. She attended a steamy, overcrowded town-hall meeting to see, on better terms this time, one of the world's most terrifying rebel groups, the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA). After a dialogue, she went over to shake the hand of a former LRA fighter. He held her hand, but refused to have his picture taken with the disfigured woman. "I will still forgive," Abonyo explains. "They are embarrassed of what they have done." Full story by Alexis Okeowo (Gulu, N. Uganda) published at TIME.com on Saturday, 10 November 2007: "Forgiving the Lord's Resistance Army"

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"I'M ASKING EVERYONE PLEASE, PRAY TO MAKE IT END"

Last month, Human Rights Watch said the LRA had killed more than 250 people in the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of Congo over the previous year and a half. It said nearly 700 others were kidnapped and forced to be either soldiers or sex slaves. Full story at Voice of America News (VOA) online, Tuesday, 07 September 2010: "LRA Kills 8 in Southern Sudan".



Photo: Southern Sudanese wait for food, shelter, security and medicine at the village of Nzara, along Sudan's border with the Democratic Republic of Congo, on 18 August 2010. Thousands have fled their nearby villages since a recent series of attacks by guerrilla fighters believed to be from the Lord's Resistance Army. (Peter Martell/AFP/Getty Images) Full story by Alan Boswell (Nzara, South Sudan) published at TIME.com on Tuesday, 31 August 2010: "The Ruthless Guerrilla Movement That Won't Die".
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Balancing Counterterrorism and Democracy in Uganda
Report from Time.com
By Ioannis Gatsiounis in Kampala, Uganda
Tuesday, 07 September 2010. Full copy:

U.S. President Barack Obama took office promising to make good governance the cornerstone of his African policy, and Uganda came to typify the shift in priorities. Repeated attempts by President Yoweri Museveni to meet with Obama were denied, apparently in response to Uganda's sluggish pace of political reform ahead of presidential elections in February. President Obama also directly challenged Museveni to lift his support for a draconian bill persecuting gays.

But just as the 9/11 attacks drew the U.S. closer to autocratic Arab regimes whose security services were needed to help fight al-Qaeda, so have the July 11 bombings of two Kampala nightspots by the Somalia-based al-Shabab militant group reminded the Obama Administration of Uganda's importance in the battle against extremism in the Horn of Africa. And that strategic interdependency challenges the U.S. democracy agenda. (See a video of the Lord's Resistance Army hunting children in Sudan.)

"Washington is now forced to do a balancing act," says Livingstone Sweanyana, executive director at the Foundation for Human Rights Initiative in Kampala. "If the U.S. is going to work with Museveni on al-Shabab, the U.S. can't afford to see or treat him as an unfriendly force."

U.S. officials insist that democratic reform still figures at the top of Washington's agenda in Uganda. But as Museveni's National Resistance Movement (NRM) has used the July 11 terror attacks as a pretext to shrink the political space, Washington's critique hasn't kept pace. Three days after the bombings, parliament passed a bill enabling phone-tapping. Weeks later, nationwide demonstrations demanding an independent election commission were violently suppressed on grounds that they could be exploited by terrorists. And the media have since been banned from commenting on the twin bombings. (Can Uganda forgive the Lord's Resistance Army?)

Following the crackdown on protests calling for an election commission, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Johnnie Carson did say that security concerns were no justification for squelching dissent. Curiously, however, the previous day he told a reporter on the sidelines of an African Union (A.U.) summit in Kampala that Museveni had been "elected openly and transparently in free and fair elections," contradicting a 2006 State Department assessment that the polls had been "marred by serious irregularities." (See pictures of Uganda.)

The about-face may be driven by growing desperation. At the same A.U. summit, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said that "ending the threat of al-Shabab to the world will take more than just law enforcement" and that Washington was therefore going to work closely "to support the African Union's [military] mission in Somalia [AMISOM]." Washington is looking to boost current troop levels from 8,000 — most of them from Burundi and Uganda — to 20,000. The problem is that few member states other than Uganda have volunteered to step up. Museveni, a former rebel leader, is reportedly prepared to mobilize that many troops on his own and has been leading calls to switch AMISOM's mandate from peacekeeping to peace enforcement.

"The U.S. is depending on Uganda to play a role in Somalia to rein in extremist forces," says James Tumusiime, managing editor of the opposition-leaning Observer weekly. "And in light of the attacks, the U.S. is probably beginning to think they're better off with a stable, functioning style of leadership in Uganda — someone who's not necessarily a democrat but a guy in control — rather than support change for democracy's sake."

U.S. diplomats in Kampala say much of their democracy-promotion work is low-key. One example is their success in persuading Uganda to put voter-registration lists online to allow the validation of voter identities. USAID invested around $2 million on democracy and governance programs last year, and that figure is expected to hit $10 million this year. Officials argue that security and democracy are mutually reinforcing.

But support for the key opposition demand of an independent election commission appears to be waning, says Wafula Oguttu, spokesperson for the leading opposition party Forum for Democratic Change (FDC). Recalling Washington's silence after the recent suppression of demonstrations — in which 80 people were arrested and some claimed to have been tortured — Oguttu says, "The U.S. likely would have spoken out against that prior to al-Shabab." Now the opposition is anxiously awaiting U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's quarterly report on Uganda, due late this month, after Congress ordered the State Department to tightly monitor Uganda's election process. "A lot of bad things have happened since May," says Oguttu, and he expects the report to reflect that fact.

The last such report, issued in May, irritated NRM leaders, but prompted no constructive action. Indeed the party's primary polls on Monday were marred by confusion and allegations of ballot-stuffing. Opposition groups hope that Washington will use its leverage as one of Uganda's leading aid donors to press for change. But they fear the U.S. lacks the resolve to press the issue, leaving Uganda's election process heavily skewed toward the ruling party.

Challenges to the legitimacy of the electoral process raise the danger of large-scale political violence, analysts warn. Last September, riots in Kampala left 17 people dead after the king of Buganda kingdom was prevented by Museveni from visiting a nearby district. (Comment on this story.)

"We have shown restraint so far," says the FDC's Oguttu. But if the mechanisms for free and fair elections fail to materialize, he says, "we're going to have a little bit of trouble." He predicts the youth will grow more vocal and could target the destruction of election-commission offices. Meanwhile, the opposition is mulling the option of boycotting February's elections. Whatever the case may be, he says, "expect fireworks." And a new round of political turmoil, of course, is unlikely to help promote either democracy or security.

Find this article at:
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2016175,00.html

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Uganda Watch Editor's Note: A similar version of the above was published earlier today (Wednesday, 08 September 2010) at this blog's parent site, Sudan Watch http://sudanwatch.blogspot.com and will be cross-posted today at its sister site Congo Watch http://congowatch.blogspot.com.

Business booms in northern Uganda as UK offers more funds

Report from The Observer, Uganda
By Moses Mugalu - Monday, 02 August 2010 at 11:13
Business booms in northern Uganda as UK offers more funds

The once war-torn northern Uganda has yet again received funds from the United Kingdom as efforts to develop the region intensify. DFID, the UK’s Department for International Development, has offered 16.6 million pounds to rebuild northern Uganda, and lay a strong foundation for business opportunities.

Jane Rintoul, the Head of DFID office in Uganda, estimated that the money will create 20,000 jobs, although such estimates tend to be conservative.

According to the memorandum of understanding between DFID and Government, 13 million pounds will be given as grants to boost viable investments in the region. Another one million pounds is to be spent on youth training programmes, while the Uganda Investment Authority will use the remaining two million pounds to carry out what they term an “economic recovery analysis.”

In trying to resuscitate the business potential of northern Uganda, government, together with DFID and other donors, is deepening a key market for beverage and palm oil companies, among others, which are part of the largest taxpayers.

Mukwano Group’s top officials were late last month in Lira and Oyam districts, dangling a Shs 20 billion bait to the farmers if they could double the production of sunflowers. Northern Uganda has virgin lands for the growing of sun flowers, which companies like Mukwano use to produce cooking oil.

Other firms making trips to northern Uganda include Nile Breweries Limited, which gets sorghum for the production of beer. British American Tobacco Limited also gets a lot of tobacco from the region.

Rintoul explained that grants will directly support the creation of new businesses and the expansion of existing enterprises in agricultural development and trade. This means foreign investors who plan to start doing business in northern Uganda qualify to apply for the DFID grants.

The Private Sector Foundation Uganda has a plan on how to take advantage of the funds. Gideon Badagawa, PSFU Executive Director, said they will organize farmers into cooperatives to access the grants. Officials say that under the cooperative initiative, thousands of small scale farmers will benefit from better market access, storage facilities for their produce as well as share knowledge on modern production methods.

Through their Business Uganda Development Scheme, a support programme, Badagawa says PSFU will also train farmers and help them add value to their produce before reaching the market. “We’ll use part of the grant to purchase equipment for farmers to add value to their produce, look for markets and impart skills so that farmers can sustain their incomes other than giving handouts,” Badagawa said.

While the funds from DFID are to directly benefit the people in northern Uganda, they have a wider implication beyond the country’s borders. Northern Uganda remains the easiest gateway into Southern Sudan, a place almost the size of Uganda with a mineral potential. Businesses, such as construction and retail services, are booming in Southern Sudan after security returned to the area in 2005 following a two-decade insurgence against its neighbour in the north.

Southern Sudan is also rich in oil, with companies from China already prospecting the black gold. With Ugandans scouting for foreign markets to sell their products, Southern Sudan presents a larger and more profitable market.

Rintoul said DFID has committed another 24 million pounds to construct residential houses for teachers and health workers in the region.

At least two million people who returned from the refugee camps in the region at the end of the war are engaged in agricultural activities. They mainly grow simsim, groundnuts, citrus fruits and cotton, whose products need value addition to attract better revenues.

mugalu@observer.ug

20 arrested over attacks in Uganda

The police said that the latest suspects included people from Uganda, Somalia and Ethiopia. More than 60 agents from the FBI are in Uganda, assisting in the investigations.

20 Arrested Over Attacks in Uganda
From The New York Times
By Josh Kron - July 17, 2010

KAMPALA, Uganda — The police have arrested a second batch of suspects in connection to last Sunday’s terrorist attacks in this capital that killed 76 people, and they said suicide bombers were probably involved in the attacks.

The Shabab, an Islamist insurgency in Somalia, claimed responsibility for the three bombs that struck two popular nightspots where soccer fans had gathered to watch the final match of the World Cup.

The police said that the latest suspects included people from Uganda, Somalia and Ethiopia.

Some of the suspects were been arrested while trying to leave the country and were caught near the borders with Sudan and Rwanda, the police said.

Local news media quoted the police as saying that at least 20 people had been arrested.

“I think the investigations are proceeding well,” said Judith Nabakooba, a police spokeswoman. “We are working in a dedicated way.”

The arrests come as Kampala is preparing to host the 15th African Union summit meeting this month; over 50 African heads of state are expected to attend.

Investigations and new security measures have continued in Kampala, where the mood is tense. More than 60 agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation are in Uganda, assisting in the investigations, according to the United States Embassy.

'At your service, Osama' - the African Bin Laden behind the Uganda bombings

From The Daily Telegraph
By Colin Freeman and Mike Pflanz in Nairobi
Published: 2:45PM BST Saturday, 17 July 2010
'At your service, Osama' - the African Bin Laden behind the Uganda bombings

As Somalia's al Shebab militants claim responsibility for bombings in Kampala, the Telegraph profiles their spiritual leader, accountant-turned-jihadi Ahmed Abdi Godane.

The leader of Somalia's al-Shebab militant movement, he prefers to be heard rather than seen, ranting away in radio broadcasts from his group's strongholds in northern Mogadishu. Thanks to his fatwahs against pop music, foreign films and even televised football, he already has a captive audience - as of last week, though, he made the rest of the world take notice too.

"What happened in Kampala was just the beginning," he warned in his latest broadcast, gloating over Sunday's twin suicide bombings in the Ugandan capital, in which Shebab-backed "martyrs" slaughtered 76 people as they watched the World Cup final. "If Uganda and Burundi do not withdraw their troops from Somalia, there will be more bombings like these."

Delivered with the same fiery rhetoric with which he recently declared himself "at Osama bin Laden's service", Godane's warning confirmed what many outside Somalia have long dreaded: that the Shebab, which has imposed a Taliban-style regime across much of the anarchic, war-torn land, would one day begin exporting its brand of Islamist violence to the wider world.

Last Sunday's attacks, designed to punish both Uganda and Burundi for providing troops to support Mogadishu's shaky Western-backed provisional government, marked the first time the group had struck outside its own borders. Now, having proved the Shebab's credentials as the world's newest international terrorist group, security officials fear it is only a matter of time before Godane, also known as Abu Zubayr, orders similar attacks against the West.

"This is a move into a different league altogether, and will put Godane and al Shebab on the world map," one Nairobi-based security official told The Sunday Telegraph. "He is very much of the international jihads mindset, and wants Islamic rule across the world, from Somalia to Alaska."

Just like the piracy crisis off Somalia's coastline, the Shebab's declaration of wider war is a sign of how Somalia's problems are becoming those of the wider region. The Ugandan president, Yoweri Museveni, whose security forces yesterday arrested 20 people in connection with the bombings, has called for more troops to be sent Somalia, this time not as bodyguards to the government, but to hunt down the Shebab.

"We are going on the offensive and will get these people," he vowed, calling on other African nations to help beef up the force from its current 5,000 to at least 20,000.

But many fear that would play directly into Godane's hands, allowing him to raise the spectre of a foreign "invasion" against which more Somalis would flock to the Shebab. Such a scenario could ignite a region-wide conflict, pitting the mainly Christian nations of the rest of East Africa against the predominantly Muslim population of Somalia.

Until now, the Shebab - which means "youth" - has thrived through the very fact that the rest of the world has left Somalia to its own devices. Just like the Taliban in Afghanistan, its leaders first won credibility by imposing a degree of law and order in a land plagued by warlords and criminals, and devoid of proper government for 20 years.

Today it controls much of southern Somalia, as well as parts of the capital, Mogadishu. But the relative security it provides has proved a Faustian pact for those who live under its rule. As well as harsh Sharia punishments, such as stonings and amputations, the Shebab imposes religious edicts as extreme as anything the Taliban dreamed up.

The list of "banned" activities, for example, goes well beyond just the obvious targets like music, drink and fraternisation between the sexes. It also includes banning women from wearing bras - on the basis that they showcase the chest - and banning men watching the World Cup: in the stern words of a Shebab spokesman, "they will not benefit anything or get any experience by watching mad men jumping up and down."

Instead, the Shebab encourages more wholesome forms of recreation, such as last year's notorious Koranic recital contest, in which a teenaged winner was awarded prizes of an AK-47, two hand grenades and an anti-tank mine.

Until recently, Western diplomats took comfort that such an odious vision at least had no ambitions beyond Somalia's borders. The focus of the Shebab's military efforts was mainly against the Western-backed transitional government, which it sees as Western stooges, and which currently controls little more than a few blocks of Mogadishu. But in the past year, the Shebab has taken on a more internationalist outlook, recruiting hundreds of foreign fighters into its ranks and advertising Somalia as a safe base from which to wage global jihad.

Much of that dramatic change in direction is put down to Godane, who last year issued a blood-curdling jihadist video called entitled "At your service, Osama". In it, he urged all Somalis to follow the al Qaeda leader, and vowed that "the wars will not end until Islamic Sharia is implemented in all continents in the world."

He is, nonetheless, an unlikely contender to become Africa's answer to bin Laden: born in the breakaway republic of Somaliland, he is described as small, slightly-built figure in his late 30s, whose early career included a spell as an accountant for an airline. In the late 1990s, he joined al Itihad al Islamiya, a now-defunct militant group, and went to Afghanistan to fight.

He and his followers quarrelled with Itihad's leadership when it mooted the idea of peaceful politics after September 11, producing the nucleus of what would go on to become the Shebab today.

However, last week's bombings were not their first taste of foreign blood. In 2003 and 2004, the same splinter group were responsible for a string of murders of Western aid workers, including Richard and Enid Eyeington, a British couple who ran a popular school in Somaliland. While eight men were subsequently sentenced to death for the murders, Godan, according to the US State Department, was "implicated" in the planning.

Today, his main role is as the Shebab's spiritual leader, although like Mullah Omar, the one-eyed ruler of the Taliban, he is extremely reclusive. He rarely appears in public, and is careful never to have his photograph taken - mindful, it seems, of the fate of his comrade Adan Hashi Ayro, who was killed by a US missile strike in 2008.

"Apparently he turns up on the battlefield quite often, but comes dressed just in jeans and a baseball cap to blend in," said Abdi Aynte, the author of a recent research paper on the Shebab, who has interviewed some of Godane's former comrades.

What makes him effective, though, is not his battlefield experience but his background in finance and airlines. "He knows how to move money and people, both of which have been useful in building up links with foreign jihadists", said Mr Aynte. Western intelligence officials estimate Godane may now have recruited up to 500 foreign jihadists in Somalia, some drawn from warzones like Iraq and Afghanistan, others from diaspora communities in Britain and America. The former bring a wealth of guerrilla expertise, but it the latter that cause Washington and London the real worries - they give the Shebab the potential to spread their mayhem to the streets of London and elsewhere.

"Despite all the West's talk about the war on terror, al Shebab has been allowed to become much more powerful and extreme than it used to be," said Rashid Abdi, a Naroibi-based Somali expert with the International Crisis Group thinktank. "Countries with big diaspora communities, like the US and Britain, should now be especially concerned."

Such fears are shared by British police, who claim to have detected evidence of Shebab funding networks within the 100,000-strong Somali community. The British government points out that the vast majority support only moderate Islam, but to quote Godane, it only needs a few people "at Osama's service" to cause the damage – and judging by a recent trip that Mr Abdi made to London, already some are showing signs of radicalisation.

"I was in Shepherd's Bush, where five years ago, all the young Somali men were wearing jeans and trainers," he said. "Now many are growing beards and wearing robes. Sure, a change of wardrobe proves nothing. But I have seen how communities get sucked into the al-Qaeda web, and I was worried by what I saw."

Somali-based terror group al Shabaab behind triple bombing that killed 76 in Kampala, Uganda is funded by al Qaeda

• Al Shabaab, the Somalia-based terror group that has claimed responsibility for July 11's triple suicide blasts that killed 76 people in Uganda's capital, Kampala, has in recent months built up Pakistan-style terror training camps.

• Intelligence officials say they believe al Qaeda is using al Shabaab as a symbiotic host body, allowing its operatives access to other African countries. "As much as we're looking at al Shabaab, they are riding on the back of a more experienced player," said Col. Herbert Mbonye, the director of counterterrorism for Uganda's military intelligence body.

• A U.S. intelligence official said information gleaned from militant communications shows links between al Shabaab and al Qaeda leaders in Pakistan and Yemen.

From The Wall Street Journal
By WILL CONNORS in Kampala, Uganda, SIOBHAN GORMAN in Washington, D.C., and SARAH CHILDRESS
Somali Militant Group Built Training Camps, al Qaeda Links

The terror group behind last weekend's deadly Uganda blasts recruited a local man to coordinate the attacks and received funds from al Qaeda, say investigators, as it extends its reach beyond lawless Somalia.

Al Shabaab, the Somalia-based group that has claimed responsibility for July 11's triple suicide blasts that killed 76 people in Uganda's capital, Kampala, has in recent months built up Pakistan-style terror training camps. One top leader, Sheikh Muktar Robow, has helped to transform the group from a local insurgency into a global jihadist organization modeled on, and swearing allegiance to, al Qaeda.

That picture of the group, and its development under Mr. Robow, emerged from interviews with Ugandan, Kenyan and U.S. investigators; current and former U.S. intelligence officials; and Somalis, including a member of the militant group.

A U.S. intelligence official said information gleaned from militant communications shows links between al Shabaab and al Qaeda leaders in Pakistan and Yemen. U.S. officials also see evidence of overlap in training and membership and say their working assumption is that al Shabaab has several hundred core members, similar to the numbers in al Qaeda in Pakistan and in al Qaeda's Yemeni outpost.

Intelligence officials say they believe al Qaeda is using the Somali group as a symbiotic host body, allowing its operatives access to other African countries. "As much as we're looking at al Shabaab, they are riding on the back of a more experienced player," said Col. Herbert Mbonye, the director of counterterrorism for Uganda's military intelligence body.

That relationship has raised red flags at U.S. intelligence agencies. In the past 18 months, militant training camps have emerged in Somalia similar to those that developed in Pakistan's tribal areas, a U.S. intelligence official said. Intelligence officials are now following about two dozen individuals from the U.S. and other Western countries who may have been affiliated with al Shabaab, or gone through these camps.

"It's quite an alarming story," the U.S. intelligence official said.

Al Shabaab's relationship with al Qaeda appears to have been cultivated in part by Mr. Robow, a top commander. Also known as Abu Mansur, he is among the U.S. government's most wanted terrorists.

Mr. Robow offered a warning of sorts ahead of Sunday's blasts, which hit a restaurant and a sports club where people had gathered to watch the final match of the World Cup. Speaking during a public address at Friday prayers earlier this month, Mr. Robow called for attacks against countries that had sent some 6,000 troops under African Union auspices to support the Somali government's offensive against al Shabaab. "We tell the Muslim youths and Mujahedeen, wherever they are in the Muslim world, to attack, explode and burn the embassies of Burundi and Uganda," Mr. Robow said, according to local media reports.

Mr. Robow grew up in southern Mogadishu as a devoted student of the Quran, according to public speeches he has made. He studied law at the University of Khartoum in Sudan, and then returned to Mogadishu to teach Arabic for several years. He is about 40, U.S. officials believe, based on a birth date on an Eritrean passport he used.

In 2000, Mr. Robow traveled to Afghanistan to train with the Taliban and al Qaeda, which used the strife-torn South Asian country to plot the Sept. 11 attacks in the U.S. In Afghanistan, Mr. Robow learned to fight, fire a sniper rifle and conceal roadside bombs, an al Shabaab official in Somalia said. He stayed less than a year, leaving before U.S.-led forces swept into Afghanistan.

Back in Somalia, Mr. Robow became a member of the Union of Islamic Courts, which aimed to establish strict Shariah law in the country, which had been largely lawless for a decade. The group came to power in 2006. Mr. Robow helped to establish an Islamist government and founded al Shabaab, a youth brigade that would serve as the union's armed wing.

The Islamist government soon collapsed. Al Shabaab endured. Mr. Robow, a skilled orator, became an al Shabaab spokesman and eventually deputy commander.

Al Shabaab, which controls vast territory in Somalia, has been engaged in a running battle with Somalia's transitional federal government. The group has pinned the government to a strip of the capital, Mogadishu, and largely prevented officials and parliament from meeting.

Beyond his ambition to overthrow Somalia's government, Mr. Robow has advocated linking the group's ambitions to global jihad. Through media interviews and in videos posted online, he sought to attract fighters in Afghanistan, Chechnya and Iraq, largely because foreign recruits could replenish al Shabaab's ranks and aid its finances. In a 2008 interview, he lamented that there "are not enough non-Somali brothers."

The same year, the U.S. Treasury Department declared al Shabaab a terrorist group and named Mr. Robow its "spiritual leader." Mr. Robow later released a statement saying the group was "honored" to be included on the list but expressed disappointment al Shabaab wasn't ranked higher.

Senior U.S. administration officials said some foreign fighters who answered Mr. Robow's calls—some of whom have "close links" with al Qaeda—came with experience, funding and the agenda of establishing Somalia as a base from which to attack Western targets.

The foreigners also brought new tactics. Roadside bombs and suicide blasts, once unheard-of in Somalia, are now part of al Shabaab's armory. The group's commanders have banned dancing, mustaches and, most recently, watching World Cup games on television. Fighters punish offenders with floggings or public amputations.

On Wednesday, armed al Shabaab fighters drove through towns in southern Somalia, blaring a warning to residents through megaphones mounted on their vehicles, according to witnesses contacted by telephone. "You must collaborate with [us] and allow your sons to fight the enemy of Allah," Abu Maryama, a senior al Shabaab official told crowds in the southwestern town of Baidoa. "If you pay no heed to this … you will be considered as another enemy and face punishment."

Harsh retribution and indiscriminate deaths have sapped public support for the group, and created rifts within it. Mr. Robow has been caught between those who want to focus the insurgency in Somali—and retain a measure of popular support— and the global jihadists who don't care about local backing, according the al Shabaab colleague. Mr. Robow, a Somali who has long opposed foreign intervention in his country, may not be considered radical enough for the new agenda, according to a recent report by the International Crisis Group, a Brussels based think tank.In the Uganda attack, the group's two factions apparently found middle ground.

The blasts have presented U.S. officials with a quandary. They see a need to step up support and involvement in the region, but they haven't determined the best course. "Violence always breeds urgency," the U.S. intelligence official said. "The question is: What [to do]?"The U.S. has been tracking al Shabaab and al Qaeda in Somalia for years, officials say. The Central Intelligence Agency works with military special forces units to collect intelligence and pinpoint targets, a former senior intelligence official said. The U.S. also works closely with the Ethiopian and Kenyan governments on counterterrorism operations.

Those efforts have grown in recent years as U.S. officials discovered as many as 20 Americans from Minnesota making their way to Somalia, including one who was determined to have been among five suicide bombers in an October 2008 attack in northern Somalia.

The intelligence-gathering paid off last year when U.S. Special Forces killed Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, a top operative linked to both al Qaeda and al Shabaab who was believed to be linked to 1998 U.S. Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania.

But U.S. Special Forces units and intelligence officials have been grappling with a broader response to the growing terror threat from Somalia. Calling in airstrikes could fuel retaliatory measures against a weak Somali government. It could also stir up anti-U.S. sentiment that would advance the group's agenda, said the U.S. intelligence official.

"If you strike a camp, it makes you feel good, but what do you do the next day?" the official said. "You don't effectively eliminate the threat."

On Thursday, an al Shabaab leader underscored that point, delivering a message on the radio in Mogadishu congratulating what he called the Martyr Saleh Nabhan Brigade for the Kampala attacks.

Intelligence agencies have warned about al Shabaab's growing ambition to attack other countries—particularly Ethiopia, Djibouti and Kenya—as well as the West, the U.S. intelligence official said.U.S. intelligence hadn't picked up many direct threats against Uganda, but there has been a general concern about attacks targeting countries that supply troops to A.U. forces.

Investigators in Uganda say they are questioning a Ugandan man, Ali Isa Ssenkumba, who they say has confessed to helping plan the attacks.

Mr. Ssenkumba, who is in his late thirties and hails from a farming community outside Kampala, told investigators he was recruited by Somali men who persuaded him that he could have success in business in Somalia, according to a Ugandan military official close to the investigation.

Posing as a businessman, Mr. Ssenkumba made frequent trips to Somalia, where he attended an al Shabaab training camp, the Ugandan official said. Mr. Ssenkumba told investigators many other Ugandans are at al Shabaab's Somalia training facilities.

This person says Mr. Ssenkumba become familiar with guards at the borders between Uganda and Sudan and Uganda and Kenya, and received money and coordinated logistics for roughly two dozen al Shabaab members in Uganda who are suspected of plotting the triple suicide blast. Mr. Ssenkumba said, and investigators say they separately determined, that the attack was partially funded by informal money transfers from al Qaeda in Afghanistan.

Police in Kenya said they arrested Mr. Ssenkumba last week, before the attack, and handed him over to Ugandan investigators Tuesday, after the bombings.

According to Nicholas Kamwende, the commanding officer of Kenya's anti-terrorism police unit, Mr. Ssenkumba walked up to an immigration officer on the Kenya-Somalia border some time before the Kampala attacks and turned himself in.

"He said he didn't want to stay any longer with al Shabaab, that he wanted to go home," Mr. Kamwende said. "We didn't have anything to hold him on and we thought the Ugandans would be in a better position to exploit what he knew."

Mr. Ssenkumba wasn't made available to comment and it wasn't immediately apparent whether he was represented by a lawyer. Neither Mr. Kamwende nor Ugandan officials would say whether Mr. Ssenkumba provided information before the impending attack.Ugandan officials say Mr. Ssenkumba didn't turn himself in voluntarily.

—Nicholas Baryio in Kampala and Keith Johnson
in Washington contributed to this article.
Write to Siobhan Gorman at siobhan.gorman@wsj.com

Over 50 dead as three bomb blasts rock Ugandan capital Kampala, terrorist attack possible: official

Photo from Daily Monitor: Some of those injured in the bomb blast at Kyaddondo Rugby grounds in Kampala – Photo by Wandera Ouma

50 die in Kampala bomb blasts
From Daily Monitor by Alex B. Atuhaire & Andrew Bagala
Monday, July 12 2010 at 02:06:

(Kampala) - More than 50 people have been killed in three separate bomb blasts in the Ugandan capital – Kampala as the residents watched the 2010 World Cup final on giant screens.

Police confirmed that 13 people, more than half of them foreigners were killed at Ethiopian Village Restaurant in Kabalagala, a Kampala suburb, while Daily Monitor reporters counted about 40 bodies at Kyaddondo rugby grounds where a huge crowd was watching the Spain Vs Netherlands Word Cup final.

Another blast was reported to have gone off in Ntinda, another Kampala surburb, as more than 100 were reported admitted in hospitals and clinics in the capital including the national referral hospital - Mulago.

Over 40 dead as two bomb blasts rock Ugandan capital, terrorist attack possible: official
From xinhuanet.com:

KAMPALA, 12 July 2010 (Xinhua) -- More than 40 people are feared dead after two bomb explosions rocked Kampala, Uganda's capital, on Sunday night, according to a local official.

"Over 40 people could have been killed in the blasts," said Moses Sakira, deputy director of Criminal Investigation Department. He said almost all of the victims were adults.

Uganda's New Vision website put the death toll at at least 33.

"We cannot rule out the terrorist attack possibility now," said Sakira. "It might be possible."

The Somali militia warned to launch attacks targeting civilians in Uganda, which had sent peacekeeping troops to the war-battered Somalia.

But the country's army spokesman Felix Kulayigye said it is still too early to know whether Somali militia were behind the bomb attacks as security forces just started the investigation at the scene.

According to the New Vision website, one explosion targeted the Kyadondo Rugby Club. The blasts occurred minutes after 11 p.m..

Blood, broken chairs, clothes and shoes were seen on the ground at the scene. Security soldiers and rescuers were evacuating and saving the wounded.

The scene has been cordoned off.

A witness who gave his name as Klaus told Xinhua that hundreds of local people were watching the World Cup final in front of a big projector at the club as the blast occurred.

The other blast was reported at the Ethiopian village, in the Kabalagala. The New Vision said a third blast was reported in Ntinda, which the local police did not confirm.

Uganda blasts 'deplorable, cowardly,' says Obama
(AFP) – 35 minutes ago

WASHINGTON — US President Barack Obama called the deadly explosions that ripped through two restaurants in the Ugandan capital Kampala on Sunday "deplorable and cowardly," a spokesman said.

"The president is deeply saddened by the loss of life resulting from these deplorable and cowardly attacks, and sends his condolences to the people of Uganda and the loved ones of those who have been killed or injured," National Security Council spokesman Mike Hammer said in a statement.

"The United States is ready to provide any assistance requested by the Ugandan government."

A senior administration official said the United States was in contact with its embassy in Kampala and was in touch with the Federal Bureau of Investigation regarding requests for assistance from Uganda's government.

At least 23 people were killed in the explosions as crowds watched the World Cup football final, police said.

One blast hit an Ethiopian restaurant in the south of the capital and the other was at a rugby sports club in the east of Kampala, police chief Kale Kayihura told reporters.

"These bombs were definitely targeting World Cup crowds," Kayihura said.

FURTHER REPORTS

Bombs explode at sites in Uganda, 20 deaths feared

Atlanta Journal Constitution - Godfrey Olukya - ‎1 hour ago‎

At Least 23 Killed in Uganda Blasts

Voice of America - ‎1 hour ago‎

AF APNewsAlert

The Associated Press - ‎1 hour ago‎

Deadly blasts hit Ugandan capital

Aljazeera.net - ‎1 hour ago‎

Uganda capital blasts 'kill 23'

BBC News - ‎2 hours ago‎

Explosions rock Ugandan capital, 23 dead: police

Reuters Canada - Richard Lough, Angus MacSwan - ‎2 hours ago‎

African ingenuity: Who would have thought to use a jerrican as a boombox! That’s just beyond mad genius

Here is the most enjoyable video ever publicised at Uganda Watch. I found it online at AfriGadget's blogpost [ http://bit.ly/cRp8VK ] 20 May 2010 entitled "Genius strikes again: kids in village build radio from scrap parts".

Note the video's caption:

"Kids builds a working radio from scraps in a day
My brother Caleb, and my nephews Ronald and Jesse built a radio from spare parts in one day for their boys quarters club house. All without instructions or guidance. Just through the pure process of trial and error. What else could these kids build with a soldering iron and a few lines of code. Wish I had the money to buy them some starter kits"

Hat tip: Erik Hersman's tweet at 6:06 AM May 20th via Twitter for iPhone
[ http://twitter.com/whiteafrican/statuses/14359833374 ]

African ingenuity: Who would have thought to use a jerrican as a boombox! That’s just beyond mad genius

Click here for full story, republished due to technical problems.

UN chief Ban Ki-Moon & Ugandan President Museveni to play football on Uganda’s war victims day, 30 May 2010

What a great fun idea. Let's hope this report is true.

Secretary General, Uganda President to play football
From Afrik.com by Geof Maggaun - Friday, 21 May 2010:

Ugandans are eagerly waiting for a football match in which UN secretary general, Ban Ki-Moon is expected to play on the same pitch with Uganda’s president Yoweri Museveni.

According to the organizers of the match, which is meant to honour war victims in Uganda, Ki-moon and Museveni will play in different teams made up of war victims from northern Uganda.

The match is being organized by a non government organization called Uganda victims foundation. The chairman of the foundation, Santos, John Labeja said ’’UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon will be playing in a football game at Nelson Mandela stadium on the eve of a review conference for the ICC scheduled to take place in Uganda starting on May 31st. Uganda’s president Yoweri Museveni will also be playing in a game that will last 60 minutes.’’

According to him the football game will be a highlight that will mark Uganda’s war victims day, which falls on Sunday, 30th May 2010. The day is meant to remember those harassed by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebels in northern Uganda. He said most of them still remain traumatized.

LRA rebles fought Uganda government troops from 1987 up to 2006 when they were flushed from Uganda and they escaped to southern Sudan. They killed many people and harassed others by beating and cutting off parts of their bodies’’

They accepted to talk peace and participated in peace talks until 2008 when the talks were concluded but their leader Joseph Kony refused to sign the final peace agreement.

His refusal prompted an attack from Ugandan, southern Sudan and Democratic republic of Congo’s troops at the rebels base in Garamba forest in Congo.Since then the rebels have been attacking people in Central African republic and western Congo villages.

A Ugandan football team adminstrator, Dan Mukasa said,’’ We are eagerly waiting for the match. It is interesting to see people of high profile playing football with war victims. I am sure the stadium will fill to capacity.’’

Asharq Al-Awsat talks to SPLM Sec Gen Pagan Amum

Sources from the South Sudan army revealed that elements from the guerrilla Lord’s Resistance Army of Uganda received joint training and armament with other militias affiliated to Arab tribes in order to re-launch attacks against South Sudan, which might secede from Sudan early next year via the referendum. South Sudan army sources added that the training process was sponsored by elements in Khartoum.

Asharq Al-Awsat talks to SPLM Sec Gen Pagan Amum
From Asharq Al-Awsat - Saturday, 08 May 2010
By Mustafa Sirri

London, Asharq Al-Awsat - The Sudan People’s Liberation Movement, which rules in the south of Sudan, has warned against tampering with the Referendum on Self Determination that is scheduled to take place early next year. It also rejected that the south is accountable for Sudan’s foreign debts estimated at 34 billion dollars and expressed its belief that that money was mainly used to kill southerners.

Sources from the South Sudan army revealed that elements from the guerrilla Lord’s Resistance Army of Uganda received joint training and armament with other militias affiliated to Arab tribes in order to re-launch attacks against South Sudan, which might secede from Sudan early next year via the referendum. South Sudan army sources added that the training process was sponsored by elements in Khartoum.

Amum indicated that the Sudanese currency presently in circulation had been funded by the National Congress Party and the SPLM and argued that over the past two years, the Governor of the Central Bank has acted as if the north and the government of Khartoum are the sole owners of the Sudanese pound. He added that the Central Bank Governor had stated that the currency would remain in circulation after the referendum, even if the south secedes, and that is unacceptable. “If the south secedes, South Sudan might be compelled to abandon the Sudanese pound and use hard currency instead,” Amum said. Amum stated that dealing in foreign currencies in the south might offer more advantages than the conditions set by the Central Bank Governor. Amum said, “The set conditions are unjust. Mechanisms and agreements would have to be created to tackle such problems.”

Amum said that the priority of the new government of Southern Sudan is to prepare for the referendum and added that the President of the Government of South Sudan [Silva Kiir] had stated that well-known parties had been working on delaying the referendum and that these parties call for Sudanese unity whilst being the first to harm that unity. “They are still around and are still trying to create problems and will ultimately harm Sudan. It is pointless that they call for Sudan's unity because they insist on adopting policies that treat southerners as second-class citizens.” Amum referred to the fact that Silva Kiir had reiterated that the SPLM called for a new Sudan that upholds justice, equality, freedom and mutual respect. Amum then launched a fierce attack on the National Congress Party, saying that it had proposed a project that does not encourage coexistence in one country. He added, “For that reason, the movement's leader called upon southerners to vote for their complete freedom away from opportunists and tyrants who are harming the south.”

Amum maintained that the unity of Sudan could only be realized through adopting a pan-nationalist project for building a multi-opinionated, multi-ethnic, multi-cultured and multi-religious Sudanese nation based on mutual respect. Amum said, “If the National Congress Party insists on implementing a program for building the Islamic republic then southerners will have no choice but to vote for secession. If the National Congress Party insists on imposing its policies of oppression and racial discrimination then southerners must secede, and if the National Congress Party continues to plunder the wealth of the south and unjustly divide oil revenues in the absence of transparency, then southerners will have to break free from those tyrants.”

Secretary General of the SPLM, Pagan Amum, told Asharq Al-Awsat that the movement protested against the statement made by Saber Mohammed al-Hassan, the Governor of the Bank of Sudan, in which he stated that the rescheduling of [the payment of] Sudan’s foreign debts, estimated at 34 billion dollars, should be settled before the Referendum of Self Determination is held. Amum added, “The National Congress Party should be held accountable for that amount of money that it used to kill southerners mercilessly during the civil war.” He also maintained that there was no logical link between the debts and the self-determination referendum. “Who incurred those debts? Where did the money go? What investments were they used for? These debts are stained with blood and have nothing to do with the practice of the right to self determination in the upcoming referendum.”

SPECIAL REPORT: Child soldiers & Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA)

Children who become soldiers
From the SID Forum
By Saskia Baas*
April 27, 2010:

Over the past few years, the use of children as soldiers in armed conflict has become a source of immense moral outrage among rights activists as well as the general public. In 2005, the UN Security Council officially condemned the use of child-soldiers by parties to armed conflict and organisations such as Unicef and Save the Children have launched big campaigns to raise awareness on the tragic fate of children who become soldiers during civil wars in Africa, Asia and South America. Horrendous stories have surfaced of children who were abducted, drugged and turned into killing machines during the bloody civil wars in Sierra Leone and the Ivory Coast. These stories form a legitimate ground for wide condemnation, indeed.

However, although the “child-soldier” is often depicted as a helpless victim of the evildoings of other (adult) actors, this is a simplification that does not do justice to the complex reality of a civil war. During the civil war in South Sudan (1983-2005) the recruitment of children under the age of eighteen was common practice in the largest rebel movement: the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA). The stories of these children – many of whom are by now adults and youngsters – challenge the image of childsoldiers as helpless victims, with no choice or opinion of their own.

Meet Tricia, who joined the SPLA when she was ten years old. When the government army had killed her father, she decided she wanted to fight back: “I became angry. I walked to a town where the SPLA was stationed and I said to them that I want to be a soldier. I took training for two years. I was still small and I was struggling even to carry the gun.” After she completed her training, the army leadership decided she was too young to fight and sent her to a refugee camp in Kenya to go to school. But after a year, she walked back to Sudan to join the army again: “My heart didn’t want to stay in the school. I wanted to fight. Every day in the school, my mind was thinking about going back to the army. This was because of what happened to my father. I was still angry.”

Another soldier, Moses, joined the rebels’ side when he was twelve years old. His home area became very insecure as a result of the war. He explains that he joined the rebels after an attack on his village by the enemy: “When the enemy came, they were killing people and taking the women and cows. They put fire in the house. My father was killed and three men in my sister’s house. I was afraid, I ran away. In the forest, I found soldiers and I joined them.” Although the life of a soldier exposes children to extremely threatening circumstances, it is often overlooked that they were facing the same, or even worse threats in their home communities. Civil war creates extreme insecurities, and becoming a soldier can be a form of seeking relative protection.

Yet, life for children in the army was also harsh and dangerous. There was seldom enough food, and many soldiers died of hunger, malaria or diarrhoea. On the frontlines, soldiers saw their friends die in front of them and many got injured. Simon tells us how he got injured: “When I was sixteen, I got shot in my leg. It had to be amputated and I now use an artificial leg. After that, I could not go back to battle. I stayed in the liberated areas, but still in uniform.” Philip also got injured when he was sixteen “When we started to fight, I felt bad about it. The war made everything worse. People died, got hurt and fled. I got injured in my leg. I had to go to the hospital far from the battles. I had to stay behind in the barracks since then.”

In the SPLA, it was not common for young children to be sent to the frontlines to fight, although there were exceptions to that rule. Many children who wanted to become soldiers were turned down altogether and sent to refugee camps, like what happened to Tricia. Generally, children who were taken into the army were given lighter tasks in the barracks. Yet, some young soldiers recalled how eager they were to go to the frontlines, like Jacob: “I was twelve when I joined the SPLA. I had to join the army, because I needed to protect myself. After the training, I was feeling strong. But the commanders thought I was still too young to fight, so I had to stay in the barracks with them. When I was thirteen, I didn’t want to wait anymore, and they let me go to battle. They saw I was ready for it.”

When possible, the SPLA organised classes for its soldiers in the barracks, mainly during ceasefires. Children were also sent to refugee camps or to safe areas for periods of time to attend school. Daniel explains how he was selected for education: “I joined the SPLA when I was fourteen years old. Then, our commander came to the barracks and they said to me “you are still young, you go to school”. Twenty were selected like that. I went to Kenya and finished my primary and secondary school there.” While life in the ranks of the army was extremely challenging for children, the life they had left behind was often not much better. Those who remained civilians throughout the war were subjected to attacks by the army, disease and famine. In 2005, the SPLA signed a peace agreement with the Sudanese government, putting an end to twenty years of a devastating civil war.

Directly after the peace, rights groups pressured the SPLA to release all soldiers who were then under the age of eighteen. Unicef committed itself to help them reintegrate into civilian life, and received funds to do so, but never managed to get projects going. None of the young soldiers ever received any form of support from Unicef. They had to depend on their families, like Daniel, who was sixteen when the peace was signed: “After the peace, I travelled to where my uncle lives. I was released from the army to go to school and I like it. I am in class 7 now. When I finish my education, I want to teach my people how to plant crops and how to take care of them. I don’t want a job in the army.”

Since the peace, the SPLA is an official army, and its remaining soldiers started receiving salaries. Tricia is now twenty-two years old and earning about $200 a month, which makes her more than well-off for Sudanese standards. She talks about her future: “I am now in the military intelligence. I also want to continue my education. I am going to ask for permission to go to school. But after I finish, I will come back to my job. I want to stay in the army. The army is my life.”

Jacob is now thirty years old, and stationed in South Sudan’s capital Juba where he is performing a civilian task. He hopes to find a way to continue his education, but this is difficult: “The problem is that I am too old for the regular schools here. I’ve been in the army for 16 years now. I am a soldier, and I feel that I have to be in the army. It is a job, somehow. All my experience is in the army. I won’t match in any other place. I belong in the army.” He is also now receiving a salary and is saving up for the dowry, as he is planning to get married and start a family.

The image of a child-soldier as a helpless victim who is abducted and forced, is based on only one part of reality and requires nuance. Although the image works well for those organisations seeking to raise funds for their projects, it does not provide room for children who became soldiers in an attempt to shape their destinies. Civil wars expose people to horrendous experiences and make children specifically vulnerable. Under these threatening circumstances, becoming a fighter may be a perfectly rational way to seek protection, even for children. However, that should not diminish our moral outrage. If anything, it should redirect our indignation towards states and leaders who instigate these wars, and those who look away and fail to act.

*Saskia Baas is a PhD candidate at the University of Amsterdam, completing a dissertation on armed opposition movements in Sudan and has done extensive field work in Sudan in 2008 – 2009, interviewing around 80 rebels. Names in the article are not the respondents’ real names.

Related article on the SID forum: Forgotten… by Jan Pronk