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A Paradigm for Acholi Women's Positive Participation to Achieve Peace in Acholi-Land
A Paper presented to Kacoke Madit held in London-England 17-19-July, 1998 Akidi Pogo Abe
There are many different ways to look at women; we are daughters, mothers, wives, grandmothers, professionals, friends and students. We are each special and unique, yet we share a common connection, interest, dignity, and desire for self-identity from Acholi. What binds all of us (Acholi Women) are our mutual experiences of loving and learning: feeling the tenderness of love; forging lifelong friendships; pursuing chosen careers; giving birth to new lives all greatly challenge our spirituality as we juggle the responsibilities of professionalism, family, and world affairs. I wish to start by thanking the committees that spent their time and made (KM98) conference possible. In my presentation, I will address issues related to women's positive participation in search of Peace, in war torn Acholiland. In the midst of violence, terror and horror, we all know every Acholi woman regardless of where we are, and what we do, or how we do it, we are all victims of torture, humiliation, discrimination and worst of all isolation and exclusion. Our own government has completely for whatever reasons, turned its back, shut its eyes and blocked its ears from seriously addressing the atrocities that haunts Acholi women day and night. The international elites on human rights have totally denied and refused to address the painful plight of Acholi women, young and old alike. Acholi women have been threatened, raped, murdered, maimed, blown by landmines, brutalised by both parties namely the UPDF (NRA) and the LRA. Unfortunately, the international NGOs based in Acholiland have stubbornly and conveniently chosen not to identify the parties responsible for this horror and terror, that rocks and scourges our land day and night. They have given the world unbalanced information about events in Acholi, which sometimes works against the victims. They have in their own interest become deaf to the many demands for a peaceful negotiation between Uganda government and the LRA. They should stretch their hands and lobby the Uganda government to talk and negotiate peace with the LRA, then and only then, can they peacefully distribute their humanitarian aid. The spectacle of young Acholi women falling as victims of this conflict is a clear sign of tribal extinction. However, abuses on women have figured only very briefly in most reports compiled about the conflict in Acholi. However, we should ask that why it is that cases of Acholi women are handled in kangaroo courts, while for women of Rwanda, Bosnia, and Guatemala are handled in International Courts with proper media coverage? Do we not deserve world attention just as much as other women in Bosnia, and Rwanda are getting? What did you feel when one of us was hit with landmines of an unknown warmonger and the UN, which talks highly of women’s’ rights never, said a word? At the same time we received Mrs Hilary Clinton and her daughter in Uganda and Hilary told the world that Uganda is very peaceful and women are very happy. How did you feel when Madeleine Albright went to Gulu stood on Acholi women’s graves and announced they must continue fighting the so-called Islamic war? And she did not make any slight move to remember our sisters who have been victims of war for the last twelve years? Do we sense anything? We have thousands of questions to ask. Yet there is only one answer: that we as Acholi women should do something to end our suffering. Instead I'll try to address the paradigm, that may help deal positively and non-violently with the horrors hovering in our motherland of Acholi. I call upon my sisters and mother (Acholi women) anywhere in the world to begin to reject the evil power of dehumanisation of our own people in our own land. We must be prepared to stand face to face, with the challenges in concentration camps or protected villages. A conned name; 'protected villages' in which there is horror of death, and extinction, and the betrayal of hopes and dreams of the Acholi people. We should put fear aside and let the world begin to hear our voices of lament and horror about those death camps in Acholiland. As mothers, we should also get up and denounce the system of destruction that rules over us both in local and international fora. A system that is not ready to address our ‘human an women rights’. You may think I am crazy, to them I need a psychiatrist, to some I can't talk because I am not knowledgeable enough yet to me the best peace negotiator is one who has learnt of peace through pain, not the person who learnt about peace in the classroom. Unless we Acholi women stand up now for our basic human rights, Acholi as a tribe is headed for untold destruction. God has no hand in this, but some selfish, wicked human being. This is why we strongly need to stand in solidarity and fight against such evils of man. We must reject anyone wielding guns, anyone donating weapons of mass destruction, and encouraging war in our land. As Acholi women, we should never falter, we should defiantly, and unyieldingly let our ideological and cultural legacy of enlightenment and empowerment play a considerable role in our self-assertion against the Uganda government and Kony (LRA) policy of dehumanisation of our people. Suggested Strategies:
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