A group of LRA rebels followed their gun to a village of Pubec. The rebels slaughtered 60 people in one day
(56 from Pajong, and 4 from Pubec) as punishment for the civilian returning with their gun.
Mucwini Massacre, 24 July 2002
Author: Okot Komakech Deo
Research and Documentation Officer, #RLP
In the early morning hours of 24 July 2002, villages awoke to the bloodied corpses of 56 innocent men, women and children. The massacre was a deliberate and ruthless act of retaliation by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) after they claimed that one of our own members who had been abducted escaped with their gun. In cold blood, the rebels rounded the community and randomly selected some of civilians to be murdered by axes, hand hoes, machetes and logs. Some women were painfully forced to participate in clubbing to death their own children. After they were finished with their ‘work,’ the LRA wrote a letter to the populace, blaming them for the massacre and threatening more killings if the stolen gun was not recovered.
Mucwini Pubec elders FGD Interview : Discovering the magnitude and existing legacies of the massacre could best be established in a FGD with member of the alleged perpetrator clan of Pubec. In Acholi acts that amount to death was and is never only considered an act of individual fault fact shift to be come community/clan responsibility. So any attempt for a redress could only be preceded over by elders from the acused side. This arrangement only commences when facts around aht lwed to the murder or death are established and perpetrators attest to.
I am called Ojara Stephen, I am from pubic clan, I thanks you very much for coming, am one of the people who lost their dear ones, I lost my brother and father. Our problem has since not yet stopped, it was a surprise incident in 2002.7.26. LRA came to follow their weapon. At first they abducted some one who is an Army deserter (UPDF) and they went with him. One day as the rebels where preparing their meal, he uses that opportunity to escape. He grabs a gun from the LRA and ran with it back home. He went straight to Nam Okora barracks and handed over the gun to the army. He was then carried away to Kitgum town to an office together with the gun. Later own the LRA started following for their gun and they started from Nam Okora from where people who knows the guy well told LRA that he lives in Mucwini but not Nam Okora. They (LRA) then headed to Mucwini and started abducting people from Lagot in area called Alokiwinyo, which is full of Bura clan, and they were among those killed. People where abducted from Pajong A&B and others from Pajong Central where they killed both my dad and brother. , They continue with their movement and when they reached Akara A&B they again killed so many people and later headed to Kirombe where again they killed many people. Because the army barrack was near here, they then made a U-turn and on their way back passing through Yepa totaling up to 56 peoples got killed.
this conflict has open up a healing wounds which was already there among the community over land cases . this killing included many other tribes even Sudanese but now only two clans are acknowledge . I have a clear history of that land conflicts. , the person who ran away with the LRA gun is from the clan who won the land case in court. And now the other clan (Pajong) is taking advantages of the LRA atrocities to claim that the clan (Pubec) that won the land case shouldn’t return there (to the conflicting land) because their son causes the entire killing by escaping with the LRA guns…and that’s why up to now Pubec clan is still here in the camp. While many development agencies are coming up here to arrange for dialogue, its not yet yielding good fruits but I hope it will. , if u see now we Pubec clan are suffering here in the camp with lots of promises from government. The RDC came and registered all of us here but nothing was done to us.
So the main logic behind this conflict is the land matter, which we argue government to come and help us. Also wee do not welcome agencies coming here to give fake promises to us and never come back to fulfill. Which to me brings fresh memory of suffering and further hatred towards the perpetrators. Now we also appeal to RLP to help us because we have real problems that will never go soon unless other agencies come in to help. For example this family we are seated in here. There is no education completely here, there is no one to come and counsel us even on conflict trauma. Now we have a higher rates of trauma in the area of which to me it’s 80% because of that killings which is brought about by Otim Katende the returnee. That gun surrendered to the government I believes is still helping the government. So the government should also not let us suffer because we surrender guns to them. Thanks.
Interview two (2)
I am called Obonyo Livingstone; it was in 2002, July 26 when I found problems in the early morning. I came to realize that three of my children were killed and the killer was Kony. Then I said to my self that Kony is an Acholi but if he is killing fellow Acholi then what is the meaning of the conflicts, Kony should go and fight government if he want to take over power but not my unarmed children. first of all my children were innocent and didn’t have any issue with Kony. Later. we heard that this killing was because Otim Katende from pubic clan who was abducted by LRA escape with the LRA guns and they were following it up. so they came and started abducting people from a village called Alokiwinyo, Moya, Pajong, Lubot Olwonga. He killed them in that river called Lwok Ngeya then he proceeded to Kirombe here where he killed 19 people including my three children. So that’s the problem we went through.
Later we sent call for Rwot Acana (paramount chief of Acholi) to come and handle the matter. so when Acana came, we declared to him all our issues. Acana response was that this is a very painful killing and that he would contact any NGO to rescue the family of the victims with some supports. Surprisingly, we never got any further messages from him. other agencies also came in, others are from America but none has solve our problems yet. Now look at my situations those three children killed were already paying other siblings at school but now nothing I can do because at my age (Old) as well I cant reproduce because am a Mzee already. These days I don’t sleep at night I some times sleep like for two hours only but most time am seated and thinking a lot, and wishing they were there to help us. I sent my children to school but they are always chased away because of school fees. my children are not studying. In the other hand you find that the Government is not helping us yet the gun was given to them.
Compensating those killed.
Several dialogues where held under leadership of ARLPI and KDLG times around IDP camp closure and the realization of the fact that a clan could not return due to the disputes and the massacres of 2003. Under the leadership of mark Baker Ochola as the chief mediator, several of Acholi cultural requirements for death compensation as per Acholi culture was placed before them.
See now the 56 people killed only Otim Katende’s clan cannot compensate as required by our culture. we call upon government to help in this compensations, that’s all I have, thanks. my wife is also here, I think she can gives a clear accountability of how our children were taken because she was with them, Am called Akongo Jane it was around 2am in the night they (LRA) came and knocked my door, while others went also to my children’s room, they stood by the door sites and told me not to go any where with the young children, they abducted my three elders sons and one wife who left behind a one month old baby, they went and kill all of my three children….I can’t talk now… (Crying)
The current memorial at the Mucwini village site.
Links to available literature: