War In Uganda Research Articles

Teso’s Re-Forgotten Children Born of War in Uganda: At the Margins of Analysis and Interventions

Teso’s Re-Forgotten Children Born of War in Uganda: At the Margins of Analysis and Interventions

Celebrated and Sidelined: How Women’s Roles in the National Resistance Army Shaped Post-Conflict Gender Politics

ABSTRACT How did women’s wartime labour in the National Resistance Army during the Bush War in Uganda influence their post-war political opportunities? Women’s inclusion served a practical purpose of alleviating recruitment and governance challenges. This article argues women’s wartime inclusion had subsequent effects on women’s representation — likely also driven by practicality rather than feminist change. Newly collected data on the political roles of former rebels following the war are examined to understand how women's political representation increased alongside changes in the representation of former rebels.

Christianity, Politics, and the Afterlives of War in Uganda: There is Confusion, written by Alava, Henni

Christianity, Politics, and the Afterlives of War in Uganda: There is Confusion, written by Alava, Henni

The involvement of Non-Governmental Organizations activities in Household Poverty reduction in Oyam District, Uganda

Purpose: This study examined the contribution of NGO activities on poverty reduction in Oyam District-Northern Uganda and recommends strategies for improving wellbeing of people of the region and entirely Uganda as a Country. This was based on account that, Oyam District was estimated with the lowest annual GDP per capita of 223 USD compared to the neighbouring Districts of Apac and Kole with the annual GDP per capita of 228 USD and 230 USD respectively
 Methodology: The study used a correlational design with correlational and regression methods of analysis. It was conducted among beneficiaries of selected NGOs comprising a sample of 290 from a population of 860.
 Findings: This study reveals a significant and positive contribution of NGO activities to poverty reduction in Oyam District and that NGO activities has a moderate relationship with household poverty level in Oyam District. The results further show that the financial support provided by NGOs significantly contributes to poverty reduction while the food security support provided does not.
 Conclusion and recommendations: It is established that NGO activities contribute significantly to poverty reduction in Oyam District. This study recommends that the food security support be backed with the provision of market for the agricultural products of the NGO beneficiaries and in order to create income for them. The study further recommends for the NGO support to agricultural product market search for their beneficiaries as well as forming the beneficiaries in different groups and train them on financial literacy for better management of finances.
 Unique contributions to policy and/or practice: This study contributes positively to the understanding of non-state actors and the role they play in reducing poverty among communities that are recovering from decades of civil war in Uganda.

Haunted Families after the War in Uganda: Doubt as Polyvalent Critique

ABSTRACT With a point of departure in a Ugandan grandmother’s questioning and critique of the state of continuing illness and misfortune in her family after the war in Northern Uganda, this article explores ideas about haunting, trauma and contagious connections in kinship. The article contributes to anthropological debates about hauntology, trauma, phenomenology and kinship. It provides a contribution to the hauntology discussion by pointing out how a phenomenological perspective can offer an indigenous polyvalent critique of kinship connections and larger political issues simultaneously. It argues against functionalist explanations of witchcraft beliefs, by drawing attention to the fact that doubt and uncertainty are central to these forms of knowledge, and therefore provide ‘not too dangerous’ ways of raising social critique. The article contributes to kinship studies, with a phenomenological perspective on the double dynamic of nutritious and poisonous connections in family relationships.

Reading the Trauma of Internally Displaced Identities in Goretti Kyomuhendo’s Waiting

ABSTRACTOne of the effects of violent conflicts in East Africa is that millions of people have either been internally displaced or forced to leave their homes and set up other homes elsewhere. In this article I focus on Goretti Kyomuhendo’s novel, Waiting: A Novel of Uganda at War, with reference to how the author locates the anguish and trauma of her local community’s search for belonging and for a sense of self-worth during the last months of the 1979 civil war in Uganda when the Uganda National Liberation Army and the Tanzanian People’s Defence Force combined to oust Uganda’s dictator-ruler, Idi Amin. I propose that Waiting: A Novel of Uganda at War is a fictional narrative that imagines the author’s and her community’s lived reality, and that Kyomuhendo utilises waiting as a narrational trope in a clear attempt to come to grips with the lingering traumatic memories that engulf the local inhabitants of Hoima as they await the advancing allied forces to ‘liberate’ them from Idi Amin’s rampaging soldiers.

The Limitations of International Law Expertise War Amongst Peacemakers: The Juba Peace Process as Battleground for International Lawyer's Biases

This paper reflects on the limitations of international law expertise, using examples from the Juba peace process on the civil war in Uganda. In peace negotiations (like in all situations), the international law expert must acknowledge the limitations of international law. International law is one-dimensional, and cannot take all relevant factors into account. Further, in any given situation, there will be some regimes and some rules of international law that are more effective than others, because they have powerful support or efficient mechanisms. This means that some norms, some claims and the interests of some stakeholders will be privileged. Many of the controversies associated with international interventions based on international law – like the ICC prosecutions in Uganda – have in fact been caused by too much emphasis on, for instance, international criminal justice and civil rights, and too little emphasis on reparations, economic and social rights and collective rights. Still, even if international law could be better used, there are limits to what can be accomplished even with creative international law expertise. There is a structural bias in international law, which privileges the state. International law, and its institutions, can do too little to refer matters from the government to other legitimate stakeholders, often leaving us with a choice between the (distant) supranational level and the (corrupt) national level. While international law does determine an international minimum standard for the state, it is still much better at empowering the government than at empowering people.

Challenges Faced by Former Child Soldiers in the Aftermath of War in Uganda

Warfare takes a profound toll of all layers of society, creating multiple and multilevel challenges that impinge on the psychosocial well-being of affected individuals. This study aims to assess the scope and salience of challenges confronting former child soldiers and at identifying additional challenges they face compared to non-recruited young people in war-affected northern Uganda. The study was carried out with a stratified random sample of northern Ugandan adolescents (n = 1,008), of whom a third had formerly been recruited (n = 330). The mixed-method comparison design consisted of a constrained free listing task to determine the challenges; a free sorting task to categorize them into clusters; and statistical analysis of their prevalence among formerly recruited youth and of how they compare with those of nonrecruited youth. Altogether, 237 challenges were identified and clustered into 15 categories, showing that formerly recruited participants mainly identified "emotional" and "training and skills"-related challenges. Compared with nonrecruited counterparts, they reported significantly more "emotional" and fewer "social and relational" challenges, with the exception of stigmatization. Overall, there was similarity between the challenges reported by both groups. The challenges confronting formerly recruited youths reach well beyond the effects of direct war exposure and emerge mainly from multiple influence spheres surrounding them. These challenges are largely shared in common with nonrecruited youths. This multidimensional and collective character of challenges calls for comprehensive psychosocial interventions through which healing the psychological wounds of war is complemented by mending the war-affected surroundings at all levels and in all life areas.

Children of War and Opportunities for Peace

ABUSED AND TORTURED, WHILE REQUIRED TO WOUND and kill—such is the daily world of nearly a quarter of a million child soldiers. More than 2 million children have been killed in war in the last decade and 6 million have been permanently disabled or injured. One and a half million individuals are displaced due to war and conflict in Uganda alone. It is estimated that more than 30 armed conflicts are occurring around the globe at present involving more than 25 countries and in 30 situations the rights of children are being gravely violated. Conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan are the most familiar to people in the United States. Other conflicts are equally as deadly and are building legacies that will require decades or centuries from which to recover, a timeline that goes beyond individual goals and only exists in the collective human desires to change the world for the better. Medical care and medical professionals are often the leaders of the caring and humanitarian effort. The studies in this issue of JAMA by Bayer et al, Vinck et al, and Bolton et al on war-affected populations in Uganda reflect this effort to bring medical knowledge to the disaster of war, importantly both to care for its survivors and to identify opportunities for peace building. The war in Uganda has raged between the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) and the government since the 1980s. The LRA initially represented the oppressed Acholi minority but over the years has become an army of kidnapped children led by a messianic rebel leader without clear political goals and has been responsible for terrorizing the country with brutal acts of violence, mutilations, and the abduction of children. The military use of children has a long history: David’s service to King Saul, French drummer boys in Napoleon’s army, young boys who served as “powder monkeys” on the ships of the Royal Navy and flag bearers in the American Revolution, Hitlerjugend (Hitler Youth) in Nazi Germany who were formed into combat units for the defense of Berlin, and, more recently, suicide bombers. Children are especially vulnerable to recruitment because of their emotional and physical immaturity. Many are refugees displaced from home, separated from families, orphaned, and with little means of support or access to education or employment. Some join armed militias to have security and access to food and shelter. The militias become a source of security, a surrogate family, and guarantor of meals, clothing, and shelter, or a chance to express rage and sense of oppression. Once recruited—or abducted—these children often serve as porters, cooks, couriers, spotters, and spies as well as human shields, sexual entertainment, and war fighters. Bayer et al conducted a survey of 169 former child soldiers from Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo living in rehabilitation centers; most had been forcibly recruited by the LRA. These former child soldiers were a mean age of 12 years at the time of this survey and had served for an average of 3 years. Bayer et al documented high rates of exposure to war-related trauma, such as threats of being killed or injured (70.4%), killing others (54.4%), and forced sexual contact (34.9%). Not surprisingly, the prevalence of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms was high (34.9%) among these former child soldiers. The absence of an association with trauma exposure, a well-documented aspect of the disorder, could well be the result of a ceiling effect of the high rate of trauma exposure in this group. In a well-designed population-based study of 2585 displaced adults in northern Uganda, Vinck et al found that patterns of trauma exposure, which generally also related to the amount of trauma exposure, were associated with increasing risk for both PTSD and depression symptoms. Bolton et al conducted a study of 667 adolescents in waraffected northern Uganda using a rigorous randomized controlled trial design to test culturally sensitive group interpersonal psychotherapy compared with a creative play intervention and wait list control for locally defined syndromes with depressive symptoms. The study found that group interpersonal psychotherapy was an effective intervention for these depression-related syndromes, particularly for female adolescents.

Conflict and changing patterns of migration from Africa: the impact on HIV services in London, UK

Among those living with diagnosed HIV infection in the United Kingdom in 2003, 36% were described as black African, making them the second largest group [1]. There have been substantial changes, however, in the epidemiology of this group over the past 15 years. Africans have been coming to the UK for many years. Traditionally, emigration from these countries was largely motivated by education and employment opportunities; more recently increasing numbers have sought asylum from social and political upheaval [2]. According to Foreign and Commonwealth Office figures, there have been noticeable influxes of populations to the UK associated with conflicts in countries such as Eritrea and Somalia. This study sought to examine the impact of armed conflicts on the populations of Africans attending an HIV unit in London, UK, in an attempt to improve the response of services to this group. Data were collected retrospectively on all HIV-positive Africans (defined as individuals born in Africa) attending an HIV unit in central London between 1985 and 2003. Information on sex, self-assigned ethnicity, country of birth and year of HIV diagnosis was collected from the clinic database. Details of armed conflicts in Africa over the past 20 years were obtained from websites for the US Committee for Refugees and the UK Home Office. Dates of conflicts were correlated with trends in country of origin and year of HIV diagnosis of our clinic population. A total of 656 African individuals from 34 countries presented during the study period; 40% were men and 60% were women. Figure 1 shows the annual presentation patterns of African patients by country of origin, in conjunction with periods of social and political unrest. Ugandans accounted for 41% of Africans presenting before 1994, but only 23% subsequently; civil war in Uganda occurred early in the study period (1985–1989). Since 1999, Zimbabweans have accounted for the majority of new African HIV presentations (19%); possibly reflecting the high levels of internal violence experienced there since 1997. Similar correlations are evident in Congolese and Rwandan (highest rates in early 2000s) and Somalian and Ethiopian (highest rates in late 1990s) populations. Conversely, countries with a high prevalence of HIV but low levels of conflict, such as Botswana, do not demonstrate the variability in presentation over time seen in countries that underwent social upheaval, and are underrepresented in our cohort. Interestingly, the numbers from South Africa have increased since 1998, but the majority have been of white ethnic origin. A possible explanation for this trend may be that the end of apartheid has been a time of social upheaval for the white population, and has allowed greater freedom to travel for black South Africans.Fig. 1: Presentation to HIV services in the UK. Uganda,Rwanda,Ethiopia,Congo,Somalia,Zimbabwe,Botswana,South Africa.The epidemiology of newly diagnosed HIV-positive African patients at our centre is changing, with migration patterns being closely related to conflicts. Data from the Health Protection Agency support this view. Between 1988 and 1997, 20–40% of all new HIV infections diagnosed in the UK but acquired in Africa were probably acquired in Uganda. In 2001, however, 36% were from Zimbabwe. Health Protection Agency figures also show that the numbers of new diagnoses in the UK from central Africa have been rising gradually [1]. To some extent this may reflect changes in HIV prevalence in Africa over time, with the epidemic intensifying in the southeast of Africa in the past 10 years (UNAIDS data). Despite recent advances in HIV treatments, Africans with HIV continue to present late to services [1,3]. Late presentation to services and the underrepresentation of countries with a high HIV prevalence but lower levels of social disruption suggest that gaining access to HIV services is not a significant reason for migration. Limitations to this study include the possibility that the identified trends may be a reflection of changes in HIV prevalence in Africa, because data on international migration in Africa are incomplete [4]. The identified trends are purely descriptive and no statistical correlation can be made. The results may also be biased by the fact that delays between arrival in the UK and the diagnosis of HIV are likely to have occurred. Nevertheless, this study highlights the likely association between conflict and migration, and the consequent impact this has on health services worldwide. HIV service providers need to be aware of the changes in the social and political context of the people attending their clinic so that they are better able to respond to their needs. This is especially important in groups such as Africans, who find it difficult to access HIV services and present with more advanced disease as a consequence. Acknowledgements The authors would like to thank Johanna Baruah and Andrew Rider for data extraction. Sponsorship: Dr Burns is supported by a Wellcome Training fellowship (grant 066866/Z/02).

Killing For Christ? The Lord's Resistance Army of Uganda

The LRA's war in Uganda, like many conflicts in Africa, may appear illogical to the outsider (and especially to the Western media), but it contains an internal logic that makes it rational to the participants.

African states, citizenship and war: a case-study*

This article, first given as a talk to a seminar of the Uganda Parliament in 2000, is a reflection on that aspect of the colonial political legacy that passes for common sense in the region of the African Great Lakes. The author takes a fresh look at recent events leading to civil war in Uganda (1981–6), Rwanda (1990–94) and eastern Congo (1997–.) The article contextualizes three issues: citizenship, civil society and political majorities and minorities as outcomes of the democratic process. To explore how notions of these issues have been changing over the past decade, the author examines the dilemma of a particular cultural group in the Great Lakes region—the Banyarwanda.

Health implications of war in Uganda and Sudan

Civil war disrupted agriculture and trade in Uganda and Sudan. This reduced tax revenues and drained scarce resources away from health budgets to finance increased military expenditures. Hundreds and thousands of people were driven from their homes either as internally displaced people or as refugees. Normal health service delivery systems were broken down forcing doctors, nurses and other health professionals into towns, cities or neighbouring countries in search of peace and employment. Scores of hospitals, health centres and dispensaries were abandoned, destroyed or looted, rendering even the limited physical facilities useless. Preventive public health services such as immunization and provision of potable drinking water were discontinued leaving huge populations susceptible to controllable infectious diseases and epidemics.