In Uganda, a time of anger, fear
Protest decryingrebel killings also turns violent
LIRA, Uganda -- On the green grass of a primary-school yard, people took turns yesterday thumping a dead body with a wooden pole -- a full hour after a mob had beaten the man to death. Crowds ran in panic in the streets as shots from soldiers rang around their heads.
The violence erupted as public rage over a rebel massacre of more than 200 refugees over the weekend boiled over during a demonstration by more than 10,000 people in this northern Ugandan town. Townspeople and refugees joined together to protest the lack of protection from the Ugandan government and army against the rebel militia, which allowed the mass killing to occur in a nearby camp for displaced people.
For several hours yesterday, Lira, about 150 miles north of Kampala, was a town under siege. At least four people were killed, according to the Lira Hospital mortician -- the beating victim and three others who died of gunshot wounds, he said. Eight more were injured. Other reports said as many as nine were killed.
The massacre and the subsequent deadly protest signaled an ominous turn in the 17-year revolt by a bizarre and brutal insurgency, which calls itself the Lord's Resistance Army, against the central Ugandan government.
Inside the hospital, fear reigned. Jane Asceng Ocero, the medical director, urgently phoned a senior Ministry of Health official: "I need soldiers deployed to guard my hospital now! Permanently! People are moving house to house, looking for Acholis," she said, referring to the Acholi ethnic group to which most members of the Lord's Resistance Army belong. Most residents of the Lira district are of the Langi tribe.
Ocero didn't yet know the number of dead -- and she was too afraid to find out. "I fear just leaving my office," she said.
Residents said it was Lira's first demonstration in more than 17 years of war, triggered by the massacre over the weekend, but fueled by the thousands of displaced people who have moved into the town of 80,000 people because the rebels' attacks forced them to flee in search of safety.
At 10 a.m., with all shops in Lira shuttered, more than 10,000 protesters, including local residents and displaced people, gathered on a soccer field near the middle of town. They had already marched to the district government headquarters for a demonstration there.
The protesters, many of them whipped into a fury, were particularly incensed that a few thousand soldiers had accompanied President Yoweri Museveni on Monday to the site where more than 200 were killed. But over the weekend, a camp that housed 4,800 civilians displaced by the war had been protected only by two dozen lightly armed civilian defense forces -- and quickly overrun by the rebels, who set alight huts and burned alive many of their victims.
Museveni, a southerner who has little popular support here, apologized to residents and fired the local army commander. But his words meant little to most residents. Many said that not only had they lost trust in the government, but they believed some army officers were collaborating with the rebels. Several noted that some of the rebel attackers had worn army uniforms.
At the rally yesterday, several held handwritten placards over their heads: "UN Rescue Us," "Refugees in our own Homeland," "A Child in Northern Uganda Should Have the Right to Live as Others All Over the World."
"The rebels must be defeated, but it's beyond our government's abilities," said Otin Bonny, 27, a father of six children. "We have nowhere to go, we have nothing to eat, we are sleeping in fields."
Bishop John Charles Odurkami, the head of the Anglican Church in the region, surveyed the crowd and said he was worried about the possibility of violence. "We must have a peaceful march," he said in an interview. "But we need outside help. Some human powers in Uganda have failed us."
He then took a microphone and appealed to the crowd, "We shall not seek revenge," he said. "We want peace."
But many in the crowd shouted at him, "What if it were your family that was attacked?"
Within five minutes, the demonstrators left to march, and trouble started immediately. Several dozen people immediately turned on a man who was taunting them in front of a Catholic church. Some said he called them cowards.
Several young men chased him into the yard of the St. Kizito Primary and Nursery School, which is run by the church, and beat him to death with heavy sticks. An hour later, people still were taking turns striking the body. His identity was not known.
Standing around the body, several people said the man had brought on his fate. "He was abusing people, telling us displaced people that we should leave here, that we were no good, that we were a waste," said one irate woman, who wouldn't give her name.
"He was an Acholi," said another man, a Langi. "We suspect he was a rebel."
But another man, walking away, shook his head, saying softly, "This is mob justice."
Outside the gates came the sound of hundreds of young people, chanting as they ran. They carried small tree branches, the symbol of mourning. A minute later, they were approaching army barracks, still running. Soldiers began shooting over their heads, dispersing the crowds. The shooting persisted for two more hours around town, loud bursts of gunfire that were followed by screams.
By early afternoon, small groups of people began arriving at the Roman Catholic church in town, for a midday Mass on Ash Wednesday, the traditional beginning of Lent. Next door, Bishop Odurkami and the leaders of the Anglican Church and the town's Muslims had gathered at a local radio station to broadcast an appeal for calm.
But the feelings outside were still hot. "The soldiers firing on people is an offense to us," said the Rev. Alfred Acur, the Anglican preacher at St. Augustine Church in Lira. "They would never fire on rebels like that. You have to ask yourself, what is the national defense force for?"
At the hospital, which was swollen with patients from three prior rebel attacks, Ocero feared more riots and more casualties.
"The mob came into the hospital during this protest," she said. "They were uncontrollable, violent. They only left because soldiers fired into the air. We need prayer. Just pray for us."
John Donnelly can be reached at donnelly@globe.com.
