V. Conclusion

The first thing to do is find a way to protect our children.

Otherwise, you may shout on top of the mountain,

but it will do no good if they can still take our children.

Dr. Matthew Lukwiya, Lacor Hospital, Gulu

The children of northern Uganda are being denied their most fundamental rights by the rebels of the Lord's Resistance Army. Taken violently from their homes and families, the children are used as pack animals by the rebels, forced to carry heavy loads until some collapse from exhaustion. Those who collapse are killed. Children who try to escape are stabbed or clubbed to death, and the rebels force other captive children to mete out these grisly punishments. The children are forced to participate in other atrocities, as well, including the murder of civilians and the looting and destruction of homes and stores.

Once at the rebel camp in Sudan, the children must work for the rebels as virtual slaves. All children receive military training, and girls are given to rebel commanders as "wives." During fighting in Uganda and Sudan, rebel commanders force young chidren--some not even armed--to run to the front lines. The children are often not permitted to take cover, and many die in battle. The rebels keep the children obedient through frequent beatings, threats of death, and threats of retaliation against the children's family members.

The impact of the Lord's Resistance Army's brutal methods is not only felt by abducted children. The conflict in the north has led directly or indirectly to the deaths of many thousands of civilians, and to the complete devastation of Uganda's northern districts. Many roads are unsafe because of land mines and the danger of rebel ambushes, and many of the region's schools have been burnt down.

Hundreds of thousands of civilians have lost their homes and crops, and have obeyed the government's injunction to crowd into "protected camps" near government military installations. Conditions in the camps are atrocious. Lack of food, water, sanitary facilities and medical care has led to thousands of deaths from malnutrition and epidemic diseases, and continued rebel attacks on the protected camps themselves have led to still more deaths.

Children lucky enough to escape from the rebels may be held by government forces for excessively long periods of time before being reunited with family members or sent to a trauma counseling center. Some children do not receive adequate medical care while in the hands of the government soldiers, and conditions in the trauma counseling centers are also inadequate, with many children crowded into a small and poorly secured area. Despite poor conditions at the trauma counseling centers, which are funded entirely by international NGO's, many children fear returning home and being re-abducted by the rebels. Many more have been orphaned by the war; others may have living relatives, but do not know where to find them.

Although children are far from the only ones who are suffering as a result of the Lord's Resistance Army, it is unquestionably the very young who are suffering the most. As this report went to press, the abductions were still going on unabated. Even if the crisis ended tomorrow, the effects of the Lord's Resistance Army's atrocities will haunt Uganda for generations to come.

The Lord's Resistance Army should comply with its obligations under international humanitarian law, and the government of Uganda should take all possible steps to protect the rights of Ugandan children, as required by the Convention on the Rights of the Child. But the international community, too, has a tremendous responsibility to end the violation of children's rights in Uganda.

Graca Machel, the head of the 1996 United Nations Study on the Impact of Armed Conflict on Children, has noted:

The crisis in the Great Lakes region of Africa is developing into a catastrophic human tragedy. Despite repeated warnings, despite increasing numbers of deaths, despite clear violations of children's rights, the international community has failed to act. . . . The protection and care of children in armed conflicts requires greater political will, continued vigilance, and increased cooperation.

The children of Uganda see their own tragedy clearly, but without help, they are powerless to protect themselves.

Below are excerpts from some of the letters written to Human Rights Watch by Ugandan children:

Abigail, fifteen:

What kind of world are we living in? Please, as you have a willing heart to help, please do! . . . Is this not so miserable? I ask for more help from you to bring peace and children's rights to our country. We want to have a voice in our country, to develop it, not destroy it.

Helen, sixteen:

Would you encourage the government of Uganda to provide good security to all places in the North [and] make both the Ugandan government and the Sudanese government have a good relationship, through peace talks? I pray that you work more to find a way of restoring peace in our district, country and the entire world.

Grace, fourteen:

Please! Please! Please! If you can bring back our brothers and sisters who are suffering in the bush I think it will be much better. . . I am here in school now but doing badly because I am thinking about my sister and brother who have been taken away from school [by the rebels]. If I go home from school and I see my parents, and how sad they are, I myself start to cry.

I have much more to tell you, but the more words I write, that is the more sad I become.

Janet, fifteen:

There are thousands of young children the rebels have taken from their parents, suffering. . . There are many people without a place to sleep or even anything to eat, but there is nothing being done for them.

So to anyone who reads this, my question is:

what can we say and do for the thousands and thousands of young people. . . who are still suffering in the bush with Kony Joseph, and for the hundreds of people who die there day and night?

My question remains to the one who reads this and meditates over it.

The children of Uganda are calling on the world to help. Let us not turn our backs upon their appeals.