Clan Feuds Threaten Peace

Although a peace deal may be signed soon between the Lord’s Resistance Army, LRA, and the government, 28-year-old widow and refugee Carla Akello wonders where she will resettle with her four children.



Akello is worried because her former village in Pajong parish, not far from the Kitgum refugee camp that has been her home for many years, is still too dangerous.



The danger does not stem from rebel fighters, but the Pajong clan, rivals of Akello’s Pubec clan.



A Pubec clan member stands accused of sparking an LRA massacre of more than 50 people in Pajong parish in June 2002, nearly six years ago, explained Akello.



Anger and a desire for revenge remain high among the Pajong clan, which dominates that Pajong parish, Akello lamented, such that members of the Pubec clan fear they will be killed if they return to their homes.



Despite a legal right to the land, the Pubec have been warned by the Pajong not to come back.



"I pray that these people forgive us, [just] as they forgave [LRA leader Joseph] Kony, so that we enjoy lasting peace,” Akello told IWPR. “Many of us are innocent, but we are suffering because of someone else's mistakes.”



So far, Pubec have been not set foot in the parish.



"The restriction is so tight that the women are not even allowed to fetch firewood in Pajong parish,” she said. “This is making life harder for us. I pray that the government intervenes in this issue."



Akello fears that nothing will change without more fighting or government intervention and protection.



Although local officials have tried to use the widely touted mato oput reconciliation ceremony of the Acholi tribe, it and other efforts have failed to bring peace between the clans.



The clan dispute has also raised doubts about the effectiveness of traditional conflict resolution methods. The rebels claim they will only submit to such ceremonies if a peace deal is signed, rejecting the national courts.



Officials across northern Uganda say that such disputes are the inevitable result of more than 20 years of war with the LRA, which has displaced nearly 2 million people and left some 100,000 dead.



Kony and three of his top commanders have been indicted by the International Criminal Court, ICC, in The Hague for war crimes and crimes against humanity, but rebel peace negotiators say they will not agree to a permanent peace unless the indictments are lifted.



There is widespread fear, meanwhile, that such clan disputes and acts of revenge will be increasingly common as people, encouraged by the relative peace in the region, begin to return to their original villages.



A senior official in Chua county, Samson Alara, told IWPR that the cause of the Pajong parish clan feud can be traced to LRA rebels who reportedly abducted a Pubec clansman named Katende Otim, who had settled in the area.



While in rebel captivity, Otim supposedly told the rebels that he was a member of the Pajong clan, and claimed some Pajong as his relatives.



Otim eventually escaped the LRA and took an AK-47 rifle. The LRA sent two men after him, but Otim killed them and fled to Masindi in western Uganda where he still lives.



Incensed by Otim’s killing of the two LRA men, the rebels went to the home of the man who Otim had named as his father, and despite the family's pleas that they were unrelated to Otim, they killed 14 family members. Only two boys who were not at home at the time survived.



Another 42 people, mostly Pajong, were also killed in the massacre that included people from the Akara and Bura clans, as well as the Pubec, said Alara.



The LRA left a note explaining the reason for the killings and that Otim had claimed he belonged to that family.



Alara said that local leaders in Kitgum, under the supervision of paramount chief of the Acholi, Rwot David Onen Acana ll, performed a cleansing ceremony in 2005 to reconcile the two clans in the hope that the Pajong would allow the Pubec to return.



Among other things, the ceremony requires the feuding sides to drink a bitter tea made from a local tree root, step on an egg and then over a stick to symbolise a new beginning for both parties.



But the Pajong have refused to follow the dictates of the ceremony, say officials, despite the fact that the ceremony is to be used for resolving many other killings committed by the LRA.



"We thought the Pajong would forgive the Pubec after a lamb and bull was sacrificed at the massacre scene, but the Pajong still have clearly not forgiven the Pubec," said Alara.



Alara said the Pajong are demanding compensation of two bulls for each affected family. But because the Pubec have no money, the Pajong want the government to provide compensation after the war has formally ended.



"The issue is so complicated that the Pubec can't handle [it]. Much as the Pajong have not hurt anybody, they are using verbal threats, promising revenge, should the Pubec go to Pajong parish,” said Alara.



"The Pajong have totally refused to forgive the Pubec and swear that they won't return to their area even after mato oput."



District official Alex Oyet, who is part of the Pajong clan, told IWPR that many of the Pajong women who were killed by the LRA were forced by the rebels to kill their own babies against trees before they were in turn killed.



“That … was utmost cruelty that they find unforgivable," Oyat said of the Pajong.



"The behaviour of the Pajong community towards the Pubec is an indication that… revenge will occur if the problem isn't handled well and fast."



Caroline Ayugi is an IWPR journalist in Gulu.