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IT’S BEEN YEARS since Joseph Kony has been in the headlines for his campaigns of terror in Northern Uganda – but the legacy of his brutality lives on in his former child soldiers.
TheJournal.ie visited Uganda recently and spoke to Denis Ojara, a former child soldier in Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) who was abducted in 1996 at just 14 years-of-age.
After seeing the violence that was taking place in the region, his mother took him to the larger town of Gulu for safety. But they were stopped by rebel soldiers looking for recruits.
Ojura’s mother began to cry and plead with the soldiers not to take her child – and seeing this, the boy began to cry too. The soldiers told him: “Whether you cry or not it will not change. You will go along.”
Since 1987 the LRA has waged a war in the Northern regions of Uganda that still continues today, with the majority of the fighting now taking place in the neighbouring countries of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Central African Republic and South Sudan.
Joseph Kony – who is still believed to be active in the Central African Republic – had the LRA abduct young children and forced them to become soldiers.
While their influence and military power in the region has dimmed in recent years, the impact of what they did to tens of thousands of children who were forced to commit unimaginable atrocities continues.
One of the things about that time that sticks out in Ojara’s mind is the hunger.
Hiding out in the Northern Ugandan bush left many of the abducted children hungry. Days would go by before food or water would come, forcing them to eat leaves.
The only definite way to obtain food and supplies was to raid, and the LRA made sure it was your own village that was in the targeting line.
Ojara remembers attacking his own community. Speaking through a translator, he told TheJournal.ie that they waited until people went to do their farming.
They hid in wait and then ambushed them, using logs to hit villagers over the head until they died. The LRA commanders were so impressed by Ojara’s ‘courage and strong heart’ in this attack that Joseph Kony had Ojara travel with him.
The better you killed and obeyed, the higher your chances of survival.
“I would do what it takes to survive,” he says through the translator, though he didn’t agree with what was being done.
If you objected or tried to escape you would be shot and killed. Sometimes they would haul back young escapees and put them on a fire, burning them alive while forcing the others to watch.
A clear warning to the rest of them: the only escape is death.
When asked if he ever experienced any good times in the bush, Ojara recalls stealing radios from villages and listening to music so they could dance.
He recalls times when they could celebrate Christmas and Ugandan Independence Day. He said they were good times.
But he also remembers capturing a local village leader who was always giving the Ugandan army their positions.
He remembers them cutting the village leader up and putting him into a pot to cook. If the Ugandan army forces hadn’t intervened at that moment, forcing them to flee, their plan was to eat him.
He says he regrets these things and is remorseful, but again – when given an order, you obeyed. If you obeyed, you survived.
By 2004 Ojara found his opportunity to escape.
On the radio they would hear reports that appealed for children who had been abducted to come back.
Testimonies of former child soldiers integrated back into society filtered in throughout their camps in the bush. They said life was now good and comfortable.
Being a LRA veteran now, nobody questioned Ojara as he left the camp. They were all too tired from a previous raid and if you had been there a long time you had a certain amount of freedom.
He told TheJournal.ie, who travelled to Uganda with Trocaire to see the development of the organisation’s work on the ground in the Northern regions, that you told no one your plans in case they reported you.
Taking a radio and his gun he walked away from the only life he had known for the majority of his adolescence. No school, no education – just violence and killing.
He made it out of the bush and surrendered himself to the Uganda authorities. For 2 years he stayed with World Vision as the stigma around child soldiers was great in the region.
When he finally made it back to his village, he found his mother had passed away. This devastated him and after another stint with World Vision he managed to reconnect with family.
Things are still tough though – one of his nephews who was also abducted by the LRA hasn’t been seen since.
Now 36 years of age, Ojara is a father. He has a little boy (aged 10) who he says is his hope and his future though he doesn’t get to see him often.
The mother of his children left him and he now lives a distance apart from his son (he was one of twins, but the other boy passed away).
“She was not happy with what I was offering. So she got someone else, who was maybe better than me,” Ojara says through his translator.
He works in farming now, but it is not consistent work and he is supported by his brother and family.
Ojara says he sometimes dreams about the the things he has done. Prayer helps (he is a Catholic) but he is deeply remorseful about the things he has done.
The conflict in South Sudan, which sees similar tactics used to what the LRA did, rages near the border of Northern Uganda. Ojara says he is not happy about what is happening there.
Like the many conflicts in the region, does he see an end to the violence?
“Everything has an end,” he says. “One day it will end.”
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So Minister Naughten if some one is attempting to take their own life every 9 minutes what exactly are you and your government doing about it?
@Kerry Blake: Nothing. Pieta House are doing all the work. And admirably so. TFF Pieta House
Being poor in the countryside is far worse pressure than being in towns and cities where you usually live along with poor peers & so have less stress trying to pretend your coping & in the countryside u have to pay school “voluntry” contributions etc as to not embarrass your kids and yourself among your better off neighbours & thus doing without proper food & clothes for a while. Plus the poor urban school would also have “disavantaged” gov status & more gov funding. Snobby society needs to stop putting so much pressure on everyone to be perfect in every aspect of life. Exams, relationships, housing, careers & car types etc. If people are allowed live their life in their way u will see a huge suicide reduction.
@abcyz: sadly much of this pressure is self inflicted
@George Beckett: No it is snobby peer pressure pure and simple. Snobby people judging and blaming their poorer less well off neighbours
@Kerry Blake: Nothing Kerry they are too busy holding meetings about the dress code and prayers in the Dail …anything other than what they are paid to do.
@abcyz: you are right with that too. I guess we have to control the controllables and ignore them. Easier said than done however.
@Kerry Blake: They’re closing down beds for child mental health. That’s the government’s response to this epidemic. If Leo becomes taoiseach, we can only expect it to get much worse
@Kerry Blake: raise more taxes make life more unbearable make more unreachable deadlines out the blue for people to despair over take their homes sell to vulture funds leave the unemployed with no way out make the working poor skint so they can either eat or pay some bills not all because is unattainable. Cause more despair isn’t that what ALL plastic Tory governments do.
Ah yeah and help the rich who have no real worries three meals a day and credit and a brand new car to look good in their business exploiting the poor so that the so call recovery seem to be real .
@George Beckett: no it is not self inflicted to fear the bills on the post that you cannot make it and the deadlines you cannot afford is not self inflicted
Massive issue with suicide in Ireland? Solution- close off 50% of the beds and don’t recruit psychiatric nursing positions for adolescent mental health services. Very fcuking Irish that is
Maybe the minister would look at funding the systems that help his faux cause. This is a serious matter, one that all of us folk have been living ( we’ve nearly all seen a suicide). We don’t need a minister to reiterate what we have been through. We need a minister that will be able to offer hope, a future, a reason.
Everyone listen rte radio 1 now for Leo and Simon debates
And FG’s policies are behind many of those suicides. They couldn’t care less about ordinary people who have been thrown under a bus to protect wealthy & influential people who are their friends / associates & backers.
@Setrakian: absolutely. I’ve seen many friends loosing everything I seen people all ages worry about everyday I live in fear myself is all Bills and worry . Any simple thing become a massive problem like fix the car to nct if it doesn’t pass you stress extremely as neither you could afford this extra bill and now you didn’t pay your mortgage and there is other three bills coming and if you get stopped they take your car and you can’t afford another and without it you can’t work and you will lose your home for not paying by then you can’t afford food put the money into parts in between getting it fixed you worry about getting it taken away by police . Rich people hasn’t a clue what that is like . That’s just an example I seen happen 3 people this year
Self harm and completed suicide are two completely different things. The minister is demonstrating the irresponsibility he espouses to avoid.
@Ian Moloney: Self harm is a cry for help. Suicide is someone who is beyond all reasoning with…..
@Kerry Blake: only in a few cases. If help is available people can change their mind.
The important message here is if you are reading this message and feeling suicidal please seek help.
There is always light at the end of the tunnel. Google how did it feel to commit suicide on Internet forums and you will see how thankful those people are that they failed.
There is no shame in seeking help.
It rips families apart, with knock on effects on the following generation. I know from experience sadly.
That is an incredibly high number. Quite shocking. How are these statistic gathered? If accurate this is actually the greatest crisis the country is facing.
That’s right minister, our suicide rates (especially among young people) are among the highest in Europe. Never mind reporting, what is YOUR government going to do about it? Not enough Jigsaw type projects. No funding to implement whole school approaches to youth mental health and suicide prevention in schools. Disgraceful lack of Children & Adolescent Mental Health services and beds. That is YOUR responsibility. Saying you can’t recruit staff without paying them more is not good enough.
Do your job and ensure that our children and young people have the services they need to support their mental health and help them when they are suffering from mental health difficulties. It is a national tragedy and shameful that are statistics are so appalling. You must do whatever it takes to change it.
Can we please stop using the term ‘committed suicide’…it is no longer a crime in this country, thankfully…we seem to be so caught up on being PC about everything except this…when in fact it is quite important to families…
Mr Naughten seems more concerned with the perception of information around the issues, than the addressing of the issues themselves. Just another talking head political prop, suggesting the blame for uploaded material is with the chosen platform, not the uploader & the particular incident he referred to can hardly be said to be that. Dail privilege will still be applicable though so the only concerns there are with “fake news” is from the media sources that propagate it
Cant comment on seanie. Comment on next one up. How can i also get a slice of the taxpayer cake.
Who owns this wknr ok a news site
Defence Forces have a known suicide problem since an “independent third party” study in 2005 showed a higher than expected suicide rate. So the military authorities are aware of the problem as is the Department of Defence.
So imagine the surprise when, in a response to a Parliamentary Question by Aengus O Snodaigh, the Minister for Defence Paul Kehoe admitted the Defence Forces DON’T BOTHER keeping suicide statistics.
So much more needs to be done honestly it goes so much deeper than organisations as someone who suffered from suicidal ideation a lot we need to provide people with the tools of self awareness
Talk therapy , meditation reiki get successful survivors involved who have made their way out of it. I don’t see a lot to praise with current system I’m sorry to say.
have your say