Stories of Terror: Returning To Peace

Background

Uganda’s most potent violent extremist threats over the last three decades have come from the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), Al-Shabaab, and the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF).

The Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA)

Born from the Holy Spirit Movement of Alice Lakwena, Joseph Kony established the LRA in 1988 with the claim of restoring the honor of his ethnic Acholi people and to install a government based on his personal version of the Ten Commandments. The war lord also alleged connection to spirits that directed him to oust Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni. In 2001, the US State Department included LRA on the Terrorist Exclusion list, and in 2008 under Executive Order 13324 declared Joseph Kony as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist.

At the height of the LRA violence, According the United Nations, the LRA was responsible for more than 100,000 deaths, the abduction of between 60,000 to 100,000 children, and the displacement of as many as 2.5 million civilians between 1987 and 2012. The group frequently forced children to kill or maim their own families, while abducting women and girls to often become the wives of LRA leaders, suffering repeated rapes and sexual assaults.

The Al-Shabaab

As the Northern part of Uganda was still stitching wounds from Kony’s atrocities, the country was shocked again in July 2010 when two bombings in Uganda’s capital city Kampala resulted in over 74 deaths and several injuries. Somalia based Al-Shabaab claimed responsibility for these attacks, and the motive was said to be a retaliation for Uganda’s military deployment in Somalia as part of the African Union Mission (AMISOM). Al-Shabab’s other significant attack happened on 26 May 2023, when the group’s fighters attacked and overrun a Uganda People’s Defense Forces (UPDF) base at Buulo-Mareer along River Shabelle in the Lower Shabelle region, about 120km from Somalia’s capital Mogadishu. They killed 54 UPDF soldiers. While this attack wasn’t conducted within Uganda, the communication propaganda Al-Shabaab employed around it was a stark reminder that the group still had the country on its radar. The attack could also easily have emboldened local groups such as the ADF/ISCAP whose ultimate goals and aims have a striking resemblance to those of Al-Shabaab. As these events unfolded, the Allied Democratic Forces was also busy reinforcing its ranks.

The Allied Democratic Forces

The Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), born from a coalition of rebel forces including the Uganda Muslim Liberation Army and the National Army for the Liberation of Uganda (NALU), has perpetrated numerous deadly assaults within Uganda and the neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo. The government of Uganda classifies the ADF as a terrorist organisation and accuses it of most recently sending militias that stormed Lhubiriha Secondary School in Mpondwe, Kasese near the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) border, killing at least 37 students, a guard and three civilians. Twenty girls were executed with machetes, and 17 boys were burnt to death when petrol bombs were thrown into their dormitory. Six more students were kidnapped and used to carry food back to the assailants’ base. They were also slaughtered afterwards.

The government also holds the ADF responsible for other attacks which include; the spate of Murders of over13 Muslim Clerics and high-profile government leaders between 2012-2019, the foiled suicide bomb attack in Pader in August 2021, the swift bus explosion in Lungala on Masaka road and the Komamboga attack on Digida pork joint in October 2021. The group’s faction allied to Islamic State is also held responsible for the Kampala twin bombings in November 2021. ISIS claimed responsibility for the twin bombings that claimed 7 lives and injured 37.

The actions of these groups have together left deep scars that continue to haunt the country to date. Numerous factors and dynamics merged in unpredictable ways to drive people to support these groups, ultimately enabling them to perpetuate the level of violence and atrocities they committed.

Stories of Terror: Back to Peace

This online Community Stories Exhibition exposes some of the baits and narratives used to lure people into the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF). Through these real stories of former ADF combatants and members, we aim to heighten community awareness of the risks of engaging in violent extremist activities. For safety reasons, the names of the returnees have been changed.

These members were drawn from among returnees of the earliest days of the ADF in the 1990s as well as those from the most recent years after a breakaway faction of the group had allied to ISIS giving birth to the Islamic State Central Africa Province (ISCAP). The most recent returnee engaged in this exhibition returned in 2021.

This initiative is implemented as part of the – Bridges to Peace Project – by the Uganda Muslim Youth Development Forum in partnership with the Kofi Annan Foundation. The Bridges to Peace project is a multi-faceted Preventing/Countering Violent Extremism (P/CVE) action working with victims of terrorism, civil society actors, media, influencers, and violent extremism at-risk communities to strengthen local capacities for peace and address the root causes of violent extremism. Both the Bridges to Peace Project and the Stories of Terror Community Stories exhibition are funded by the European Union.