Another African Genocide

Just as Darfur has finally become 'news', Olara Otunnu, formerly UN under secretary-general, writes of a second genocide in this month's issue of Foreign Policy. Otunni writes of the treatment of the Acholi people in Uganda. He reports of their forced move by the government into concentration camps; there are now about 200 of these camps housing almost 2,000,000 people. Between 1000 and 1500 die each week in these camps, which, according to some NGOs, is triple those of Darfur.

Otunno attributes this treatment of the Acholi to a feeling by the powers-that-be that the Acholi are really not people. The government radio broadcasts programs designed to demonize the Acholi and incite others to kill them; some have been lynched on the streets of Kampala and then set afire.

Apparently, this demonization can be traced back to the wars between Obote, the old despot, and Museveni, the new despot. Some of the battles in this war took place in Acholi territory and, although the Acholi never had an army or militia of its own, Museveni is using them as a scapegoat to solidy his power.

The Acholi are caught between the Lord's Resistance Army, the current rebels, and the government. The fact that the leader of the Resistance, Joseph Kony, is an Acholi does not make life easier for the other Acholi. In reality, the Acholi are caught in the middle of this war and are punished by both sides. The Resistance kidnaps kids and uses them as soldiers; Museveni sees nothing wrong with this and says, "In our culture, children are trained to fight. It is normal." Both groups see nothing wrong with terrorizing and targeting civilians.

But the government has gone further. They claim that they want people to move into the camps for their own protection. True, the Resistance attacks the Acholi, but so does the government. There are reports of government troops bombing villages, strafing from helicopters, destroying homes and crops, poisoning wells - all with the aim of getting people out of their village and into the camps.

And, it is in the camps that the government is at its most diabolical. Soldiers infected with HIV are sent to guard over the camps. The climate among these soldiers is that they demonstrate their manhood by sodomizing as many Acholi as they can, preferably everybody in a family. As a result, the rate of HIV infection in the camps is close to 50%, where nationally it is 6%. Any food grown by the Acholi in the camps is destroyed; starvation is rampant. The UN, WHO, Oxfam, NGOs have all visited the camps and offered to help; none has been accepted.

At the 2005 World Summit the UN agreed that it has "a common duty to protect people when their own government will not". When will it start walking the talk?