by Opiyo Oloya
But Ringo knew time was running out and soon he and his young combatants would find themselves in dire straits. He needed to act fast, and he did, initiating a conversation with a civilian about events around them. He recalled that day:
One day, I asked a civilian, saying, ‘We would like to get a clear picture. Those rebels who escape and return home into the hand of government, what happens to them?’ The civilian replied, ‘The escapees are cared for in two places. There is GUSCO and World Vision, and another possibility is CARITAS. It is not clear what else happens there. But it is certain that they are not hassled at all.’
I said, ‘What about trouble with the army? Is there trouble?’
He said, ‘No, trouble at all.’
I said to him, ‘Some of our colleagues escaped, one of my brothers was among them, and we wanted to ascertain that they were not harassed, and arrived safely. But if they ran into trouble then we wouldn’t know how they arrived.’
They said, ‘No, there is no trouble at all.’
I said, ‘If so, that’s good.’
At that moment, the civilians gave us flour, beans and peas. We gave them salt, eight packets. They returned back to the camp at Omel Kuru. As they departed, we told them, ‘Go well; however, if the army asks you do not reveal that you saw us.’
Although his team was not aware of his plan, Ringo had laid the seed for defecting from the LRM/A. He was increasingly convinced that survival was most likely by getting out of the bush and returning to civilian life. However, he was not doing it because he thought that the LRM/A was evil or that its ideology was incompatible with his beliefs. He, after all, had become one of the LRM/A, a young combatant fighting for its cause. No, he was about to leave the bush because his survival and that of the young soldiers under his command was at stake. There was now no communication with the LRM/A base in Sudan. Further search for food only risked more firefights with the UPDF, which was closing in on the team every day. One day, with no more salt to barter for food from the villages, and the last of the beans cooked, Ringo’s team roasted some measly fish they had caught from the river. Ringo spoke to his young charges, saying:
‘Friends, we must travel to Gulu to go look for the big sickbay. At the time, we had been told that there were a lot of people [LRM/A rebels] in Gulu. If we go to the sickbay, we will look for people in Koich where we are told there is a big sickbay. Let’s go and look for the others so that our life is improved. With the army now shooting at us while we look for food, life here is about to get tougher.’
When I made the comments, they said, ‘Doctor, don’t you think we will get killed?’ I said, ‘There will be no killing, we will walk, dodge the army, until we get there. There will be no trouble.’
They said as long as we know the way, there was no problem. I said, ‘Let’s go, we won’t stay any longer. Life here has become difficult, and our presence is widely known, we cannot stay.’
That evening, however, Ringo changed his mind abruptly. Rather than wander through the bushes in search of another LRM/A sickbay, the team would simply walk out. He knew, however, that there was great risk in revealing his ultimate plan of escape to the boys. He had no way of knowing how they might react or what they might do when confronted with the choice of walking out free. To guard against an ugly dispute and a potential shootout among his team, Ringo waited until the boys were gone to the river to fish for supper and collected all their guns. He heaped the guns under his bedding, sat on them, and waited with his own machine-gun in hand. When the boys returned, Ringo called them and sat them down for a serious conversation. He recalled the tense and dramatic discussion that followed:
I took my gun and held it in my hands. I called out to them. When all six of them came, I told them to sit down. I began talking to them, saying, ‘Friends, I want to tell you that we have endured enough working in the bush, we have done our part. We will leave this work for others. We are returning to Gulu. Our journey to Gulu is to return home and no where else. There is nothing you can say about this. But I want you to clean both your civilian clothes and soldiers’ uniforms, they must be clean. Tomorrow, we are not sleeping here. We will begin our journey right away.
One of the boys said, ‘Doctor, the words you have spoken are good, but there is a small problem. When we return home, we will all be killed. Presently, the army is killing many people. Even civilians, we understand when they leave the camps, are caught and killed with the claim that they are returning rebels. We are going to get hurt.’
I said, ‘Look, death has been with us forever and when we were born, death was present on earth. How many have died in the bush such that family members had to make funeral arrangements without knowing where and how they died? At least if we are killed at home, people will know that the child of so and so was killed in this area. That is better than having wild pigs push your skull in the bush, which is tragic. Now that we have a chance to escape, let’s leave.’
One of the boys was a Lango, and he said, ‘Then give us back our guns.’ I said, ‘I won’t return your guns. I don’t have the power to return your guns at this time. What I have said I have said, and anybody not in agreement will remain here in the bush, unarmed. I will not kill anyone, but you will walk empty-handed. If you choose to report this to other Lakwena soldiers, then go ahead because I am now feeling the pain of this life in my skin, and won’t tolerate it any longer. If we are caught along the way escaping, I will speak on your behalf, you will not respond. I will be the one to say why I am walking with you all, that’s for me to say.’
They finally accepted. Once they accepted, a boy named Oraako from Palabek said there was no point in him going all the way to Gulu; he would instead take a direct route to return to his home; he was certain he would arrive safely. I said, ‘It would be preferable to stick together, and then go our separate ways from the hand of the government.’
He said, ‘No, I will reach home safely, I cannot return to Gulu.’
I said, ‘No problem, I am releasing you this moment. If you can get to your home, arrive well. Take off your uniform, put on civilian clothes, and get started right away. If you meet Lakwena rebels, and you know some in the group, tell them that there was a shootout, everyone scattered from the sickbay, and you got separated from the others, and are now running around looking for other rebel units. If they ask, “What about your uniform?” Say only one thing, that “we had washed our uniforms, and we fled, leaving them behind, everyone is scattered in the bush, and I have no idea where everyone is. We were surprised while at the river, that’s where the army found us.”’
Ringo was just as concerned about being discovered escaping by the UPDF as by the LRM/A soldiers, whom he referred to as ‘Lakwena,’ the name that had stuck to the LRM/A insurgents since the early days of Alice Lakwena Auma and the Holy Spirit Movement in 1987. But he also had become a decisive leader who was in full control of the situation, instructing the ‘boys’ on what to do in order to navigate the dangerous transition from insurgent to former insurgent.
What is immediately evident from an Acholi cultural point of view is the manner with which he went about revealing his plan for deserting the LRM/A. Though he was roughly the same age as the others, he was also, by virtue of being the highest-ranking LRM/A soldier at that moment, the face of authority not only in military terms but also in the traditional Acholi sense, which explains why he was referred to as the ladit (elder). Tactfully, like the elder that he was in the eyes of the six young men, he asked them to come and sit down. When there is something important to say, Acholi elders don’t say it ‘on the run,’ but always issue an invitation to the listeners to sit down first. It is a formal recognition that the persons being invited to sit down are worthy of consideration and respect. Quick repartee ‘on the fly’ is usually indicative of how those of the same age speak to each other, but when there is a serious issue to be discussed, with someone of authority present, the traditional approach is to sit down.
And as in many Acholi
cultural settings, where there is a serious discussion, one takes issue with ideas by first acknowledging that whatever the last speaker said made some good sense, and then stating the nature of the objection. One of the young men noted that the idea of returning home was ‘good’; however, he carefully phrased his objection by citing the possibility of being killed by the UPDF. For his part, Ringo responded to the objection by being philosophical about death and dying, a fate shared by all. However, his trump card was the image of death in the wilderness, where ‘wild pigs push your skull in the bush.’ To the Acholi, who believe that relatives cannot leave a person to die and rot in the bush without proper burial, this was a statement with many levels of meaning. Ringo was simultaneously reminding the young men, first, that they still had relatives at home who loved and cared for them, and, second, that they had the responsibility of ensuring that those at home knew what happened to them, even if that meant being killed close to home so ‘people will know that the child of so and so was killed in this area.’
More important, Ringo skilfully exploited the young men’s clear understanding of Luo kinship ties to rally them to his side of the argument, which was that it was better to escape and risk dying closer to home than to do nothing and die in the wilderness. Dying, according to his logic, was not the big thing to think about at that moment; rather, they should ponder the possibility of dying in such a manner that one’s kin were not forever engulfed in the grief of not knowing what happened to their loved one who was taken to the bush by the LRM/A.
Ringo further injected wisdom into his response when asked by one of his young friends to return the confiscated guns. ‘I don’t have the power to return your guns at this time,’ Ringo said. In fact, Ringo did have the power to return the guns to the boys, but because he had already made the decision to return home, he forestalled the potential for angry accusations from the team with a disarmingly ambiguous response. What he was telling them was that they should not blame or be angry with him for confiscating the guns because he was not the final authority in the matter. Technically, having committed himself to returning home, this was true because he no longer saw himself as an active LRM/A soldier. As a defector from the rebel movement, Ringo could not afford to return the guns to those who might still be committed to the LRM/A. He had effectively crossed to the other side of the divide from his LRM/A compatriots. Also, though he held a gun in his hands, Ringo realized that he was outnumbered. His refusal to return the guns to his friends was made in a manner that allowed him to come across as an ally rather than a foe, and he thereby persuaded the young men around him to continue looking up to him as a reasonable leader who knew what he was doing.
On the day of their defection, Ringo and the remaining LRM/A combatants slipped back into their combat uniforms and, using guile, wits, and skills acquired in their bush days, walked out into the open daylight. Ringo recalled this moment because he prayed to his ancestors for guidance (see, e.g., p’Bitek, 1971), knowing that he could be killed: ‘I called the name of our grandfather who was in charge of the family shrine, saying, “Mzee Odonga, my day for leaving the bush has come. If you are ready, and my family shrine is strong, then I will arrive safely. If not, then that’s the way it is; the death of a male child is such that one can die anywhere.” I was imbued with boldness of inner strength, and prepared to leave.’
The impetus to leave was, in this case, not simply a physical preparation that demanded some military assessment of the outcome, but a spiritual one that required Ringo to feel firm in his resolve to leave and arrive safely. His resolution to walk out of the bush was underwritten by his prayers to his ancestors, and the knowledge that his ancestral spirits had never left him during the six years that he had been with the LRM/A. Interestingly enough, Ringo’s prayer was similar to the kind made when someone was embarking on a long journey into the unknown. In this case, Ringo’s homecoming was fraught with serious risks. The possibility that he might not survive the return home underlined the necessity of seeking spiritual connection with his ancestors.
With his prayer concluded, Ringo led his young combatants out, masquerading as UPDF soldiers on patrol along the main road to Gulu. The ruse worked so effectively that Ringo stopped occasionally along the road to chat with real UPDF soldiers who never suspected that the group belonged to the LRM/A. After a long walk, at last the group reached the outskirts of Gulu town. Ringo resorted to deception one last time by sending a bicycle courier to inform GUSCO staff that the UPDF had captured some LRM/A rebels who wanted to surrender, and asked that GUSCO send a vehicle to pick them up. Within the hour, Ringo and his soldiers were free:
They came for us. The driver came with two [GUSCO] staff, one of them my former teacher I told you about earlier, Odong. As soon as he arrived and saw me, my heart skipped a beat. He said, ‘Man is this you?’ ‘This is me in person!’ I replied. He said, ‘I thought you would never be seen again, and that your life had left this earth. No problem if you are still alive. Relax now, nothing will happen to you.’
At that moment we got into the vehicle, all of us. That was when people became aware that these were rebel escapees. People began gathering to see us. We were driven away and brought to GUSCO.
After being processed at GUSCO, Ringo and his colleagues were transferred to the UPDF barracks, where they were left to languish for a few days before his family was told that he had returned from the bush. Ringo’s reunion with his mother at the barracks was very emotional as she fell on him, wailing at the top of her voice, and had to be calmed down. In the Acholi tradition, wailing at the return of someone who was away, and considered dead, is normal. It was a joyous occasion for everyone, but it was also a sad occasion because the physical and mental condition of the returnees was as yet unclear. Was this still a person who could be referred to as dano adana, or, after so many years in the bush, had he turned into a bedo lee lee (wild thing)?
When his mother was finally consoled and was able to speak to Ringo, she decided that he was still dano adana, and invited him to visit home. Permission was given for a military vehicle to take him to his village. Three army soldiers sat in the back of the vehicle. Ringo sat in front close to the passenger door, while his mother squeezed in between him and the driver. They drove in silence to the village, where many relatives had gathered in the compound. There was a mix of kijira (women’s ululation) as well as more wailing by older women who performed poto ikome (falling upon him), a mixture of welcome, sympathy, and thanksgiving. Many could be heard saying, ‘Latina maa doo, abila pa kwaru tek, oweko tin waneni’ (My mother’s child, your grandfather’s ancestral spirit is strong; that’s why we are seeing you today). Afterwards, a goat was slaughtered, and once the traditional rituals (fully explained in next chapter) that accompanied this act were completed, Ringo left, returning to the barracks. His family remained at home.
In days following the homecoming rituals, Ringo’s mother visited him twice in the barracks. Ringo also felt something changing in him. He was reconnecting with a part of himself that had been suppressed during his years in the bush with the LRM/A, following the thread that led back to his childhood as a civilian:
I felt some change in my life. I had returned and seen home with my eyes, talked to my family, ate home cooking. I began to feel like a homebody person, and began using home things, and when I imagined home, the picture came to mind.
This after I had journeyed three times home, but some of the homes in the village had burned down, and some people were no longer alive. I had to think hard to remember that there used to be many homes in the village. When I returned these homes were gone, and the owners also gone. I had to imagine that this was where the home of this person was located, such a tree was standing here, and a papaya tree was at this location. All these I had to imagine before the pictures would come to my mind, and with time I became used to the new life at home, and began living again.
Returning home without being ‘scratched even by a blade of grass’ in battle after six
years in the bush with the LRM/A, Ringo believed that his good fortune was partly attributable to military training and partly to the strength of his ancestral spirits, who looked after him, cared for him, and made sure that he returned home safely. Furthermore, the identity that Ringo crafted for himself in the bush was not created in isolation from the rebels, but rather was reproduced in spite of them and allowed him to continually find ways to survive and live. That is to say, his identity creation was accompanied by twin processes, namely, the LRM/A exploitation of Acholi culture as a mechanism for creating cohesion and control over its fighters, and Ringo’s perpetual tapping into the cultural reservoir of his upbringing in an Acholi village as a means to understand, dissect, and make meaning of his bush environment. One could argue that his upbringing in the village was ultimately the most useful tool for his successful reproduction of an identity that could withstand the mental and physical rigour of being a child combatant. Yet it is this very same identity that was challenged by his family and community when he returned home. The angst of returnees, as it turned out, was occasioned not only by escaping the LRM/A camps but also by finding themselves again in communities which they left as little children but to which they were returning, in some cases, as adults with children of their own.
Conclusion
Dwoogo Paco (Returning Home)
Now, resilience could be something you are born with because learning something that you don’t have is quite difficult. However, I should also say that it can be taught. My father taught me in those days, and I kept in mind what my father taught me. I took those teachings with me to the bush, and endured the very kind of thing that my father was teaching me about. Whenever I became bitter while I was there, I returned, reversed, came back to what my father had taught me – that be tough, endure and you will get there. So, I endured, hanging in there until this very moment, I retain the same resilience.