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Past and present: NRA soldiers caught posing as LRA rebels
LRA fighters inside Garamba National Park in the north-eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. PHOTO/ FILE
What you need to know:
- Prior to their capture, the group had left a trail of atrocities.
- At the home of Mr Michael Anywar, the group is said to have use an axe to hack off the legs of an undisclosed number of people
Six soldiers of the National Resistance Army (NRA) who had been masquerading as rebels of Joseph Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebel group and terrorising sections of the population in Kitgum District were on August 5, 1994, netted by a unit of the Local Defence Forces (LDUs). The rogue soldiers were accused of engaging in atrocities such as killing, robbing and chopping off people’s limbs, which had always been associated with LRA rebels.
A report in the August 31, 1994, edition of Rupiny, a Luo newspaper that used to be published by the government-owned, Vision Group, reported that the rogue NRA soldiers were arrested in Pabwor Parish, Atanga Division in Kitgum District.
The rogue soldiers who were at the time of their arrest clad in goat skins and rags, were under the command of Corporal Alex Ojera whose number was RA123722. Cpl Ojera was at the time armed with a rifle number 88792. The make of the gun was, however, not specified.
Captured along with Ojera was one Private Charles Olanya and another soldier with origins in Latanya in Acholibur Division.
Other rogue soldiers believed to have origins in the south of the country are said to have successfully fled from the LDUs.
Interception
Rupiny reported that the rogue soldiers were part of a unit of NRA soldiers headquartered at Pajule Sub-county, which was at the time a part of Kitgum District.
The sub-county, however, currently falls under Pader District. The development followed the decision by the government to carve Aruu and Agago counties out of Kitgum to form Pader District, which became operational on December 14, 2001. Agago was later carved off Pader to form Agago District.
The paper reported that on being spotted by the LDU team led by Augustino Okwera, the soldiers tried to flee, but were quickly rounded up.
However, the arrival of the LDU unit along with their captives in the centre of Pabwor precipitated a stampede in Pabwor as villagers fled in all directions having initially mistaken the LDUs and their captives for a group of LRA rebels.
The stampede was understandable given that the arrest came in a week in which the LRA rebels, spurred by the supply of fresh arms and munitions from Sudan, had stepped up acts of violence against civilians in Gulu and Kitgum. Eight people were killed when a vehicle that they were travelling in was hit by a landmine.
Atrocities
The newspaper reported that prior to their capture, the group had left a trail of atrocities.
Before its arrest, the group is said to have robbed one Ceaser Omona, a teacher at Laguti Primary School, of a bicycle and some money. The group was said to have intercepted him at Kona Jobi Ward.
Local Council leaders reported that the group had on the same day stolen bars of soap, dresses, groundnuts, matches and an array of medicines, including tetracycline capsules and cash, from the home of one Tony Opwa.
The same group was also accused of having killed people who keep white chickens, pigs and domestic animals. White chickens were at the time associated with evil powers that the LRA was believed to have been fighting.
At the home of Mr Michael Anywar, the group are said to have used an axe to hack off the legs of an undisclosed number of people.
They also robbed the home of Shs70,000 and several household items. They were further said to have demanded for young girls to sleep with them, threatening those around with torture in case they failed to produce the girls.
The same group is also said to have waited in vain to shoot at vehicles travelling the Gulu-Kitgum road.
LRA rebel leader, Joseph Kony
Mission
Rupiny reported that on interrogation, the rogue soldiers told their captors that they had been ordered to go on “a mission” disguised as rebels by one NRA commander whose identity they did not disclose. The motive of the mission was never established.
The captives were moved to Kitgum Prison pending prosecution of the soldiers in either the military or civil courts.
Accusations
The capture of the rogue soldiers came at a time when sections of the population in northern Uganda and travellers on the Gulu-Kampala highway had been pointing an accusing finger at NRA soldiers who they accused of being involved in some of the robberies that were taking place on the highway.
Passengers on a Kampala-bound bus which was ambushed near Karuma Bridge on Saturday, August 24, 1994, accused the NRA of complicity in the attack.
The Monitor newspaper of August 30, 1994, reported that the bus, registration number UPL 059, which was from Arua, was stopped early afternoon by gun-toting and uniformed men less than 500 metres from the NRA roadblock north of Karuma Bridge at the Kampala-Arua, and Kampala-Gulu Road junction.
According to the newspaper, the armed men reportedly stormed the bus, which the frightened driver brought to a screeching halt amid gunfire and ordered all passengers out of the bus. Those who were slow to disembark, especially women and children, the newspaper reported, were whipped on their way out.
Everybody, the newspaper reported, was ordered to lie face down by the roadside as the armed gang combed through the bus. Several passengers who tried to look up were beaten.
The ordeal which lasted more than an hour, saw the armed men ransack the pockets and baggage of the passengers, taking whatever money and valuables that they could lay their hands on. After getting whatever they wanted, the gunmen ordered the victims to run into the surrounding bushes. The armed men then melted away.
Questions
After about 30 minutes the passengers and crew reassembled and drove to the roadblock, but most of the passengers who talked to The Monitor back then were quick to accuse the NRA soldier of complicity in the robbery.
“We found only the commander of the soldiers at the roadblock, and he downplayed our problems,” one of the passengers said at the time.
Another passenger who sustained serious kicks on his chest, said he had got a close view of the men who ambushed them, adding that he concluded that their assailants were not rebels.
“Though there were dark ones among them, a good number were definitely southerners,” he told this publication.
The armed men were allegedly speaking Kiswahili and a smattering of Luo, which was too broken to have been spoken by natives.
The newspaper further reported that passengers had narrated that when they came to the roadblock, they found that the food vendors who usually hang around the roadblock had been chased away by the soldiers, which further raised their suspicions.
Even more suspicious was the fact that the passengers found a batch of sweating NRA soldiers a short distance after the junction roadblock. They suspected that the soldiers who could have been their assailants were making a detour to throw people off their trail.
An official in the NRA public relations office at the time told Sunday Monitor that they had got unofficial reports of the ambush but could not confirm or deny that NRA soldiers were involved.
“I cannot commit myself because we have not got any reports from the division of the area,” he said.
Police sources said they were not aware of any ambush that had occurred near Karuma.
