The Foreign Service Journal, November 2003

N O V E M B E R 2 0 0 3 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 43 n April of this year I and three colleagues completed a two-day visit to the Gulu region of northern Uganda as part of a short-term assignment to assess HIV/AIDS programs and the impact of the country’s long-running civil war. Some of the children I saw in Gulu town, a city of approximately 120,000 inhabitants, wore tattered clothing speckled with what appeared to be blood. Others wore clothes stained and fouled by memo- ries of unspeakable violence, torture, war and trauma. Many of them displayed countenances of profound loss, the grisly end of what was once innocence. Yet some man- aged to smile, their faces illuminated by hope, relief and sheer joy at finding sanctuary from one of Africa’s most fanatical movements: the Lord’s Resistance Army, headed by Ugandan “spiritual leader” Joseph Kony. Kony and his followers have been waging a war to overthrow the Ugandan government since 1986. But although the LRA says it only wants the country to be governed according to the tenets of the Ten Command- ments, its tactics are anything but spiritual. Over 60 percent of the “soldiers” of Kony’s forces are under the age of 16 and, as one would expect, few if any of them enlisted voluntarily. Even conservative estimates indicate that over the past 17 years, Kony’s troops have abducted over 20,000 children between the ages of 8 and 18. While over 75 percent of Kony’s child-soldiers are boys, girls are also abducted for use either as domestic ser- vants for commanders or as sexual slaves. Many become pregnant and give birth in the bush where antiseptic, hygienic deliveries are not practiced, while some acquire sexually transmitted diseases during their enslavement, including HIV/AIDS (as do some boys). According to the March 2003 Human Rights Report for Uganda, over half the children rescued from the LRA and sent to one of two rehabilitation centers for former child soldiers located in the Gulu district of northern Uganda suffer from one or more STDs. More disquieting, reports of HIV infection rates in the two centers, although not systematically researched or documented, suggest that approximately 16 to 18 percent of those screened, including some as young as 13, tested positive for the virus. At least one of those children has since died of AIDS. As part of their “training,” the recruits are brutalized by soldiers little older than they, who force them to witness or carry out acts of barbarism. These include the rape, torture and murder of other children, villagers, parents and family members and the pillaging and burning of whole villages. Even the youngest children are required to march long distances carrying heavy loads on their small backs and heads. If they attempt to escape or do not perform their duties satisfactorily, they are subject to bloody beatings, torture and execution. Not surprisingly, almost all children in the northern region of Uganda, where the LRA mainly operates, fear for their safety. Many of them seek refuge from abduction in the bus terminal or the Catholic mission hospital in the town of Gulu. As a matter of fact, the night before our Dr. Jeffrey Ashley is director of regional HIV/AIDS programs in East and Central Africa for USAID’s Regional Economic Development Services Office in Nairobi. A public health scientist specializing in interna- tional health and epidemiology, he has been a USAID Foreign Service officer since 1995, serving in Tanzania, Cambodia and Angola. He has spent the majority of his professional career in wartorn areas of the world and seen too many children around the world like the ones he describes here. The views expressed herein are not neces- sarily those of USAID. B Y J EFFREY A SHLEY T HE L OST C HILDREN OF G ULU T HE U.S. AND OTHER INTERNATIONAL DONORS ARE ASSISTING THE YOUNG U GANDAN VICTIMS OF THE L ORD ’ S R ESISTANCE A RMY . B UT MUCH MORE NEEDS TO BE DONE . I