The roots of war: How Alice Lakwena gave way to Joseph Kony
- Written by Emma Mutaizibwa
When the National Resistance Army annihilated Alice Lakwena’s mystic Holy Spirit army, it appeared as though the end of the insurgency in northern Uganda was in sight.
The government had just handed out an olive branch to a few members of the Uganda People’s Democratic Army (UPDA) like Charles Alai. He was the chairman of the NRA-UPDA talks and was later appointed a deputy minister for Public Service. But nobody knew that Joseph Kony, the son of a catechist, who claimed to be a medium of supernatural powers, would emerge to wage Uganda’s bloodiest rebellion since independence.
In this second part of our series, The Roots of War, Emma Mutaizibwa briefly explores: Alice Auma Lakwena’s rebellion; the emergence of Kony, who preached a potent mix of Catholicism and Acholi traditional beliefs to indoctrinate his fighters; his first commanders; why he conducted his military campaigns through field commanders and couriers; and why he has remained elusive.
The Holy Spirit Movement
Alice Auma Lakwena was the leader of the Holy Spirit Movement, which emerged from the shadows of the UPDA rebellion. Many former UNLA fighters had continued to resent the new regime, in spite of the significant steps the government was taking to bring the UPDA insurgency to an end. But a poor and un-educated woman became the new symbol of an insurrection against the regime.
Born into a poor family in Opit, a sprawling trading centre east of Gulu, Alice Auma Lakwena made a living selling flour and fish. Others say she was a prostitute. At one point, she became a practising Catholic. In 1985, she claimed that ‘Lakwena’, the spirit of a dead Italian soldier, possessed her and she went insane. Her father, Severino Lukoya, took her to various witches, but her condition worsened.
Another version is that Alice Auma later moved southwards and entered Murchison Falls National Park. She remained there for 40 days and during her isolation, a seeming clarity of mind and purpose – a sense of mission – came to her as she sat near the powerful rapids and waterfalls at Karuma dam. It was there that she claimed to have communicated with the spirits about how she could liberate her kinsmen from the new NRM regime that had purportedly come to wipe out the Acholi.
When she emerged from the national park, she had a new identity: a medium, a spirit healer, and a psychic. The spirit ordered her to stop healing people at a time of war and, instead, lead her Acholi people and wage a rebellion against the government. Alice Lakwena was now leader of the Holy Spirit Movement that would recruit up to 15,000 troops to wage a rebellion against the government.
She gave them a strict spiritual code, including: renouncing witchcraft, remaining chaste, prohibition from smoking, drinking, or quarreling; renouncing all sin in their lives; and dedicating themselves to the work of purifying the Acholi people and the nation of Uganda.
She promised that the bullets of the government soldiers would have no effect upon them if they lived a life of spiritual purity and anointed themselves with water and oil – that the stones they would use against the enemy would turn into grenades, and explode. She promised they would be victorious and cleanse Uganda of its sinful ways, and turn it to God.
Lakwena used a combination of myth, voodoo, and traditional beliefs, but often cited scriptures from the Bible. She often carried out audacious attacks against the NRA. One of the most famous battles took place in January 1987 at corner Kilak, where Lakwena’s fighters and the UPDA attacked the NRA. It is believed that at least 1,600 Lakwena and UPDA fighters were killed, alongside 200 NRA soldiers.
But it was her ambitious match towards Kampala city that became her Waterloo. Most of her fighters were killed under withering artillery fire at Magamaga in Jinja, an industrial town in eastern Uganda.
The diabolical Kony
According to various sources, Kony had a troubled childhood, often vanishing into the wilderness. But his true identity has often been shrouded in a veil of secrecy that even his living relatives might not willingly disclose. In January 1986, Joseph Kony, the son of a catechist and retired KAR soldier, Ocen Lunyi, left his home in Odek under a spell.
I visited Odek, Kony’s birthplace. His paternal uncle, S.J Okello, lives just next to Odek Primary School, in a grass-thatched house surrounded by lush greenery. He is a little reluctant to reveal what exactly happened to his nephew.
“When he was in Primary Seven, he ran mad. He then moved to Awere Hills where he stayed for four weeks,” said Okello, 74, a retired policeman.
Awere Hills is just a mile away from Kony’s home.
“He was then 18 years old and we looked for him in vain. He came back wearing white clothes. We asked where he had been, but he could not answer. [Later] he said he was with God.”
With a meek voice, perhaps regretting the mayhem his nephew sowed in the Acholi sub-region, Okello revealed that his nephew then told his father, “I am going, but I shall come back with 50 guns”.
“He went to Awach in Pader and returned with so many fighters, including Baganda, with more than 50 fighters,” Okello says.
When I asked why he thought his nephew chose to fight, Okello said: “He started this because he was led by God and was scared of the NRA troops.” But the interview was interspersed with the word Sitaani [Satan in Luo], perhaps alluding to the belief that Kony was possessed by an evil spirit. Okello said before Kony went to Awere Hills, there were alarm bells that the NRA had raided Gulu with the intention of killing the Acholi.
Although the rebel leader is often portrayed as the devil incarnate, his uncle has only good memories of him as a child.
“He was a very polite boy. He joked a lot and was the leader of the Lakaraka group (Acholi traditional dance). He could not even fight and was mentally sound, and liked praying at church.”
“We still ask why. We don’t have anything evil and there is no witchcraft amongst the Palaro clan,” said Okello.
There are two other accounts that suggest why Kony began the rebellion. One of the theories suggests that in January 1986, he began experiencing seizures and started wandering. He went to the Kilak hills where Lakwena’s father, Lukoya, was based. In March 1986, Kony started preaching and believed he had settled in Lakwena’s camp.
But his uncle, Okello, says Lakwena, who was his cousin, refused to work with Kony for reasons he does not reveal. Another account claims that Lakwena mocked Kony. She advised him to use his limited spiritual powers to become a traditional healer, but not to lead a rebellion. Kony reportedly left in silence, feeling deeply insulted.
According to this account, after Lakwena’s military misadventure in 1987, her father, Lukoya, attempted to resurrect the rebellion, but was also arrested. Kony found a vacuum.
“His first followers were people who came from far-flung areas to seek treatment for all sorts of ailments. Some of them had heard of Lakwena and her healing powers and the others were Lakwena’s remnants,” said a source.
First commanders
It was here that Kony met Otti Lagony, a former soldier in the Uganda National Liberation Army (UNLA), who was suffering from an ailment on his leg. By then many people believed in Kony’s spiritual powers. Lagony later became the second in command, but was later executed in Pader at the orders of Kony.
“Accounts show that after his [Lagony’s] service in the Obote II regime, he had been discharged from the UNLA suffering from an ailment,” a source revealed.
A splinter group of the UPDA fighters under Brig Odong Latek that did not approve of the peace talks also joined Kony. It is believed that Latek was the first commander of Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) soldiers, then called the United Holy Salvation Army, until he was killed in 1989 in an ambush mounted by the NRA.
Some of the other first commanders were Caesar Achellam, Nixma Opuk Oryang, Obura, Okello Matata, George Omona, Otti Lagony, Tolbert Nyeko and Charles Tabuley. At the beginning of 1988, a prominent former UNLA soldier, Otunnu Lukonyomoi, joined the LRA. He was popular for his high moral standards and poured pillory against civilian abuses. This resulted in rivalry between him and Kony.
By this time, Kony’s fighters were known as the Uganda Peoples’ Democratic Christian Army (UDCA). In October 1988, the revered Lukonyomoi was killed in an NRA ambush, following which a number of rebels left to join the NRA. Some sources suggest he was a victim of a set up and was killed by Kony. Later, Maj Kenneth Kilama, who was a linchpin of the UPDA-NRA peace talks, was also killed under mysterious circumstances, although he had defected to the NRA.
In 1991 Kony announced that he had inherited the Lakwena spirit from Alice Auma. Kony continued to claim to have biblical revelations, visions that became increasingly apocalyptic and destructive over time. During the late 1980s, the LRA concentrated its attacks mainly on government troops, but from 1992 they began focusing on civilian targets.
Brutal tactics
The change in strategy is explained by Kony’s desire to take revenge on a civilian population that, in 1991-1992, fought against the LRA in the government-sponsored ‘Bow and Arrow’ civil defence units. Angered by their betrayal, Kony reportedly told one abductee, “If the Acholi don’t support us, they must be finished.”
He told LRA fighters in the bush: “God said in the Bible, ‘I will unleash my wrath upon you and you will suffer pain. And in the end, you will be killed by the sword. Your children will be taken into captivity and will be burnt to death’.”
“If you picked up an arrow against us and we ended up cutting off the hand you used, who is to blame? You report us with your mouth, and we cut off your lips. Who is to blame? It is you. The Bible says that if your hand, eye or mouth is at fault, it should be cut off.”
Kony tried to portray himself as a stern disciplinarian.
“Kony at one time insisted that any kind of brutality would tarnish the image of the LRA. But often, the extreme conditions of the young boys who were taking drugs [cannabis] could lead them into acts of cutting off people’s lips,” said a source.