Child to Soldier: Stories from Joseph Kony's Lord's Resistance Army

by Opiyo Oloya

  We played a while, but [my friend] insisted that the pain was creeping up her leg to the thigh. I said, ‘Let’s go home.’ My mother looked at it and said, ‘This one, I think you stepped on a bewitched spot. The girl stepped on a bewitched spot and will have to undergo traditional rituals.’ I ran to her house and called her mother. Her mother came and said, ‘Once something like this happens, we need to look at Acholi traditional cure.’ Her mother went to a diviner where she learned that the woman we helped had placed a spell, and my friend had stepped on it. The spell was meant to kill my friend, but she was not going to die. They started treating her with Acholi traditional treatment, but she was paralysed in one leg; to this day she is crippled.

  The woman, meanwhile, was asked to find the antidote to her spell so that my friend would be cured. Unfortunately, her son, her eldest son, got drunk one day, returned home and hit her in the ribs, killing her instantly. Meanwhile, the girl has been crippled to this day. This was not a case of an illness that came accidentally but rather because the woman had a dark heart and people were afraid of her.

  Jola claimed that, before the woman witch was murdered by her son, she cast a spell on her and then ‘my father called on her with aggression in his voice, forcing her to bring the antidote to the spell, otherwise my arm would have been crippled as well.’ These early superstitious beliefs, not atypical among Acholi, led Jola to sum up her philosophy of life this way: ‘I was very young at the time, perhaps about seven or eight years old. I still had a childish attitude. But at the time there were many witches in the village, and if you were regarded as a talented child, you could be hurt. If you wanted to stay talented you needed to appear somewhat dumb. If you are an idiot there is no use for you, you live like a crazy person.’

  Jola Amayo’s seemingly contradictory ideas as a child growing up in an Acholi village mirrored the society’s own contradictions. A child should be sharp, responsible, full of life, and, in the case of Jola, able to care for her family at a young age. At the same time, being seen as responsible could bring the envy of neighbours. Children were expected to respect their elders, meaning anybody older than them, responding to every call and request. But they were cautioned to be wary of yir, the casting of an evil spell by those who wish ill. It would seem that, for every piece of advice to children, there was a counter-saying that seemed to suggest the exact opposite. For instance, as children, we often heard the saying, ka lwok pe doko ka twoo (the place of bathing does not become the place for sunning oneself) – one must not spend too much time in one place lest one is overtaken by misfortune or bad luck. However, we also knew the saying, rucu rucu omiyo kom lalur gwa (being in a hurry left the hyena with a rough spotted coat). Jola was immersed in a culture that exalted and rewarded children for personal thrift, initiative, and the ability to take care of things without adult supervision. The child who was independently able to manage and take care of a family was said to have kwiri, the keenest ability to do things right. The person without kwiri was called obange (dull, lazy, and even confused). For fear of being harmed by jealous village neighbours, Jola Amayo had to adopt two seemingly conflicting personas: one was both sharp and responsible, and the other was mellow, understated, and even stupid.

  The rebel movement was particularly adept at exploiting superstitious beliefs to further control the children in its custody. From the moment of initiation as a recruit into the ranks of the LRM/A, a child was made to believe that breaking one of the many LRM/A edicts, including those against stealing, pre-marital sex, drinking alcohol, and smoking cigarettes, would result in serious personal misfortune, even death. Furthermore, as Jola would later find out, the LRM/A based itself on the spirit world, whereby the supreme commander, Joseph Kony, listened to the voices of four spirits who directed what he should do, and when to do it. The fact that she believed in the spirit world made Jola Amayo, like many Acholi children who grow in villages where such ‘religious beliefs and practices governed their everyday life’ (Ocitti, 1973, 15), an excellent candidate for recruitment into the LRM/A. As one informant recalled:

  What I should tell you is that when I was abducted as a child, I found the LRM/A had many edicts. Do not commit adultery, don’t smoke, don’t drink – that is what I found in the bush. Indeed, there are certain unclean acts committed at home that are forbidden when people are going hunting, such as there should be no sex. When going hunting and there is no disagreement within the hunting party, then the sharp blade of the grass will not cut anyone. Translated to our experience in the bush, it is not the blade of grass but the gun, whereby somebody could get seriously injured, sometimes ending in death. These were the rules that saved my life because I followed them.

  Jola Amayo was an attractive target for the LRM/A for another reason. She took on responsibilities that showed intelligence and presence of mind, qualities that the LRM/A valued in abducted children. When her father died, leaving her mother to care for the seven of them, Jola recalled her mother saying, ‘Let us work the field.’ She took on bigger adult roles in the family, occasionally leading to bitter disputes with her older sister:

  My sister was a difficult person. She would send me to dig cassava in the field, bring it back, peel it, and prepare the ingredients for beer making. At the time I was too young to do much. But I had to go dig the cassava, bring it home, peel it, cook it, crush it, and then prepare the beer. On the appointed day for making the beer, she would order me to make the beer, yet I had little knowledge about what needed to be done. She picked a stick and beat me between the fingers, tearing the skin, sending me running to Grandmother’s house.

  The need not to feel orphaned carried into Jola’s school life where she formed strong bonds with her teachers, all of whom she remembered by name at the time of telling her story almost eighteen years later. The teachers, in turn, took on the role of extended kin, encouraging as well as disciplining Jola. She recalled: ‘One teacher I remember so well who used to like me was called Adong – Lapwony Adong has passed away, her home was in Min-Jaa. As well, we had another teacher called Ojul, he is still alive to this moment, and teaching in Adak. Another teacher was called Lukwiya, who also taught in Adak. Both Lukwiya and Lapwony Adong are dead, they are no more.’

  For Jola, there was always an explanation for why people act the way they do. The stern teacher was harsh because he had heart disease. The witch who bewitched her was simply jealous of her. She was taught to respect everyone, especially her elders, but she had to be careful not to become a victim of vengeful neighbours. She learned to be a good sister and daughter, but she felt taken advantage of by an older sister who bossed her around, and a manipulative aunt who revelled in taunting the family for its hard luck. She was taught to believe that being good guaranteed a happy life, but her school building collapsed on her, her father died, and her best friend was bewitched. If she believed that bad things can happen to good people, she kept that thought mostly to herself. Yes, evil existed out there, but one was okay so long as one kept his or her part of the bargain. Her preoccupation was to play the good sister, good daughter, good student, and good neighbour, and not to ask why the world was the way it was.

  Although she did not know it at the time, Jola was being moulded for the uncertainty of life, getting prepared for the unexpected even while coping with the expected. After all, in her village, life could throw a curve ball at you, and you had better be ready to stare it down. It was not fatalism, but just a simple explanation for why certain events occur.

  Prelude to Abduction: Learning to Look the LRM/A in the Face

  In 1990, when Joseph Kony’s brand of the HSM insurgency transformed itself into LRM/A, Jola Amayo was eleven years old. It was a dangerous time in Jola’s village because of the possibility of becoming caught in the crossfire between the rebel forces and the NRM/A. The rebels were wary of villagers, whom they suspected of collaborating with government forces. At the same time, the NRM/A seemed to believe that anyone in the villages was likely a rebel sympathizer or e
ven a full-fledged rebel member. As Jola remembers it, there was general confusion as to which of the two forces could be trusted: ‘Sometimes you would hear that, “Ah, these people [rebels] are in a nearby village,” you sit tight. When they appeared, you needed fleet feet to escape. What’s more, if you ran carelessly into the forest, sometimes you could run into the rebel army. And if you ran carelessly without knowing you might get killed by government forces. People had to dodge between the armies, this way and that.’

  Jola Amayo demonstrated early on that she could depend on herself in the absence of her family. On one occasion, she spent the night alone in the bush after she became separated from her family while fleeing from the rebels. This event allowed Jola to gain confidence in her own abilities: ‘The next day, as daylight flooded the morning, I climbed a tall tree and spied the direction of home. I climbed down, began walking all the way home. My mother cooked food, we ate. Shortly, another report came that the rebels were nearby, we fled again. When we ran, we stayed there a while. That same day, we received news of the death of a relative. My mother left for the funeral; we remained home alone.’

  The tumultuous period just before Jola Amayo was abducted by the LRM/A is instructive of her budding personal agency, that inner wherewithal that enabled her to make choices when confronted with life’s crises, what R. Frie (2003) refers to as ‘increased self understanding to engage the world in new ways’ (18). It was a period of self-discovery that continued through abduction and life in the bush as a child combatant. When she ran to hide from the LRM/A, got lost, and spent the night in the bush, Jola Amayo coolly climbed a tree the next morning to reorient herself to find the way home. Through the ordeal, she discovered the capacity to stay calm in the face of a harrowing experience. In her own mind, she demonstrated the ability not to panic when in a tight jam.

  One night, when the rebels were rumoured to be in the neighbourhood of her village, Jola’s uncle led her and members of her family to a hideout in the forest. Heavy rainfall, however, drove them back home. As they walked in a single file through the bush, Jola was bitten by a snake. Her leg soon swollen, Jola needed immediate medical attention, which her mother provided: ‘My mother ran back, and began cutting herbal antidote for snake poison; as well there was a rubber medication which is placed directly over the snakebite spot. I was given the herbal medication, I drank it, and immediately began vomiting, and meanwhile, the rubbery patch was placed on the snakebite spot. In the morning, I was carried back home. We had just arrived, and barely sat down when the rebels appeared.’

  After the snake incident, the rebels finally showed up. Jola controlled her fear to face them, answered them back, and discovered that the rebels were only human. Until then, descriptions of the rebels had come to her mostly through what is known in Acholi villages as radio kabir,2 rumours and news tidbits that are not always reliable. Jola’s mother’s exchange with the rebels was polite:

  They came and found me lying outside beside the house. ‘What is wrong with this child,’ they asked.

  ‘The child, yesterday, was bitten by a snake.’

  One of them said, ‘Mother, God will help this child, she will recover.’

  They had with them shea-butter oil mixed with red substance obtained from the stream. Once they place the mixture on you, you would be abducted as a matter of course. One of them said, ‘The child’s leg will heal within three days.’

  The LRM/A rebels returned numerous times to check on Jola’s condition. Gradually, Jola lost her fear of them. Later on, when she was well enough to walk to the well to fetch water, she ignored news of two rebels’ approach, choosing instead to go to the well one more time, saying to herself, ‘Well, if they are in Aum village there is enough time to quickly go fetch more water.’ While she contemplated hiding like all the other children, she was not in a panic to do so, and consequently the rebels found her at home. She knew to sit down immediately, a submissive gesture intended to show she was not a threat. In the exchange that followed, Jola Amayo showed she could think fast:

  They said, ‘Little girl, how are things?’

  I said, ‘All is well.’

  ‘What about your mother?’ they asked.

  I said, ‘My mother is in the garden.’

  He said, ‘Show us the way.’

  ‘Aa, I don’t know this area.’

  ‘You don’t know this area, where do you live?’ he asked.

  I said, ‘My home is in Lukwii, I have just come to visit grandmother.’

  ‘Well, since you have come to see your grandmother, get up and show us the way.’

  One of the rebels said, ‘Let the girl stay. The other day we came and found the girl here, her leg is not well. Her leg is not capable of walking yet, leave her.’ They left me.

  Abducted: A Night of Burglary, Bullets, and a Baby

  Jola Amayo was abducted by the LRM/A on 10 October 1990. She was one of the first waves of children abducted in the early days when the rebel movement was making the transition from a force reliant on adult volunteers to one increasingly dependent on kidnapped children. The abduction happened one night when Jola was sleeping in her house. Jola’s mother had gone away to attend yet another funeral, and had returned in the middle of the night without waking her children. When the two rebels came, the usually alert family dog, named Pe Neko Gini Bituc, did not bark, and the family became aware of the danger lurking in the darkness of the night only when the rebels shouted orders to open the door. Jola’s older sister tried to shield her younger sibling, while trying to engage the rebels. She answered most of the questions, until the rebels demanded that the family hand over the family radio. In the exchange that ensued, Jola showed that she was not afraid of the rebels, despite their threats:

  They spotted a machete that was stored in the ceiling and pulled it down. They demanded that we give them the radio. We said, ‘There is no radio.’ By this time one had stepped on my foot and woken me up.

  He asked me, ‘Girl, where is the radio?’ I said, ‘There is no radio.’

  ‘There is a radio in this home; it is in a suitcase.’

  We did have a big radio which we had hidden under the bed. He said, ‘There is a radio in this house; it should be produced immediately.’

  I said, ‘There is no radio in this home.’ He said, ‘We were directed to this home, this home belongs to – ‘

  ‘Yes, that is the right name but the owner of the home is not here.’

  One of the rebels said, ‘You are very lippy, get up.’ I stayed in bed, and one of them came and stepped on my foot, saying, ‘Get up.’ I straightened and sat up.

  The rebels, nonetheless, accepted the story that there was no radio in the house, but chose to walk away with Jola in tow. Up to this point, Jola’s abduction was both typical and atypical of other abductions. It was typical in that Jola was abducted at night, a time favoured by the LRM/A for taking children away from their homes because darkness afforded cover from possible reprisal by government troops on patrol. It was atypical in that Jola’s previous contact with the rebels allowed her to ‘understand’ how to speak and relate to them. This insider’s vantage point was both an advantage and a disadvantage. It was an advantage because she did not fear the rebels, unlike other children who were coming into contact with them for the first time. This maximized her ability to contend with whatever might happen. But, at the same time, Jola’s confidence in her ability to handle the rebels was risky, even dangerous, as events later showed. Certainly, the most striking part of her story on the night of her abduction was Jola’s inner strength, as reflected in her budding new voice. One of the abductors chides her for being ‘lippy,’ but that does not stop her from responding to her tormentors. When the rebels threaten Jola with instant death for refusing to show them the path to other homes with radios, she dares them to kill her. What is most interesting is the calm and collected manner of her response in the face of imminent death:

  One said, ‘You are kidding, this very moment we are going t
o give you a thorough beating if you won’t show us the way. Tell us where we can find a radio.’ There was a man named Nyeko who had a radio; he had just bought it after selling some rice. I said, ‘I don’t know any of those people.’

  He said, ‘Well, if you won’t tell us anything, we will kill you.’

  I said, ‘If you are going to kill me, go ahead, and kill me because I don’t know anything about this area.’ We began walking together; suddenly they heard a radio nearby. One said, ‘What about that radio making the noise?’

  I said, ‘Yes, that’s a radio making noise.’ We walked, moving further down.

  When Jola chooses to answer, Yes, that’s a radio making noise, she knows that her statement may be construed by the rebels as a sign that she knew all along which homes had radios and had lied to them. But she takes the risk, making it look as if she, too, was finding out for the first time that some homes in the area indeed had radios. In the face of certain danger, Jola’s burgeoning intuitiveness serves her well. It reassures her, just as it calms down the rebels, who might otherwise have taken rash action against the little girl. Her self-assured, extemporaneous performance is the product of her years growing up in an Acholi village where one learns how to speak respectfully to one’s elders, to answer back without sounding cocky, arrogant, or deceitful. She is, one could argue, fashioning her survival strategies literally on the spot, creating a persona that is sweet and innocent yet not dumb enough to be disposed of by the rebels, who will only keep her as long as they think she is useful to them. A not-so-smart child cannot possibly be useful to the LRM/A.