By Emmy Allio
On September 16, 2017 I travelled from Kampala to Kitgum to join a richly mixed assembly of friends and relatives of Brig. Fred Tolit whose daughter Priscilla was marrying an African American called Gregory. That traditional marriage spoke volumes about the rich Acholi culture their energetic dancing strokes štheir delicious meals and their hospitality.
Alas, there was also this bravado that Tolit is from Acholi warrior clan! Instead of this warrior talk intimidating him, the bridegroom matched the occasion by dressing like another warrior!
This was my first time in Kitgum in 20 years. The Kitgum I left 20 years ago is now buried in painful and bitter memories. But the scars are all over
Until 1999, I had spent many years in the north as a journalist. Working in the north prepared my destiny because I learnt to see and feel pain.
I had always cherished the idea of preserving my memory of the north of two decades ago in anticipation to write a book. Also my notebooks of the time are preserved for the same reason. It has been my desire to sit and write the story of the Acholi people and how they endured pains of savagery brutal pseudo war between Sudan and Uganda. My hope has been to give the minute details of the killings, the plunder and tribulations of Acholi families destroyed by their own children abducted and forced to kill by a brutal psychopath called Joseph Kony whose Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) was a tool by Khartoum to keep the Ugandan army too busy to help the Sudan People’s Liberation Army.
In later years, I have developed the mind that the narrative should touch on the role of Uganda in liberating the South Sudanese from the york of Arab Rule. And, maybe also explain the current predicament of how the Salva Kiir government has mismanaged the liberated Republic of South Sudan. Today, almost four million South Sudanese population have fled to exile escaping the plunder and savagery of their own army (SPLA). Another one million are displaced within the country where the presence of a government is only in the capital Juba.
The question I want to pose is: did Uganda send its soldiers to die for a vain cause! Indeed, the Juba regime has made the Arab north better devils!
Back to my journey to Kitgum town…..the rusty, dusty small town of Kitgum appears to be waking up from a long sleep. The travel from Karuma to Gulu and Kitgum on the beautiful tarmac road is a dream for a person who left the north 20 years ago. I remembered the late Justine Moro, the New Vision correspondent who braved the volatile situation to inform the world about Kitgum. The road from Karuma snaked through villages, swamps and trading centers once associated with stories of abductions, grass thatched houses being torched, killings and hunger.
I remembered my stories of those days that praised the National Resistance Army (NRA), now the UPDF, which used to fight an elusive enemy whose main target was not military targets but the civilians.
My host in Kitgum, Brig Fred Tolit paid dearly for supporting the National Resistance Army. Tolit’s father Yovan Ociti, his uncle and two nephews died a brutal death. They story being told is that Ociti and the three were tired with ropes to a cows that were beaten as they dragged the four along village paths until their flesh was “eaten” off by stones and soul. Their cries did not save them and they bled to death. Many Acholi had their ears, lips and legs cut off as LRA tried to teach the Acholi to turn away from the NRM/A.
But there is a lesson to learn from that bad experience. Where there is hope and faith, everything negative can change for the better.
The Acholi region has the tools and the capital to grow and become the richest region in the country. The region is blessed with huge tracts of fertile virgin land trans-crossed by many rivers. The region has a rich crop of educated people, many living in foreign capitals. Government has invested heavily in tarmacking of the roads, building schools and health facilities. With abundant peace and security in Acholi land, what remains is a new breed of sound development-minded leadership. A leadership that must drill and grill success stories and turn the expanse idle lands into huge commercial mechanized agriculture that will attract processing industries to the region. This is the best way the Acholi can redeem themselves out of the current poverty. The educated should lead by example and desist from the old ways of feeding the population on politics of rejection or opposing the government for the sake of opposing. Time and tide wait for no man!
In my view, with the right political leadership, hopefully Operation Wealth Creation (OWC) can be a partner in developing the Acholi region.
Ā Emmy Allio, a longtime New Vision war correspondent but now Director Investments, Operation Wealth Creation, Office of the President.
