Inside Kony’s base – Part II

As we lounged in Ri-Kwangba, a team of elders arrived from Acholi, which was the epicentre of the rebellion. They included; paramount chief of Acholi, Rwot David Onen Achana II; the Archbishop of Gulu Archdiocese, the venerable John Baptist Odama, and reserved Sheikh Musa Khelil. The latter were members of the Acholi Religious Leaders Peace Initiative (ARLPI) that was key in advocating for peace talks as means of ending the LRA rebellion other than the force of arms.
I was accustomed to seeing religious leaders at the altar, garbed in their overflowing vestments and gesticulating as they preached: Using all the superlatives and intonation to make congregations understand that hell or heaven was imminent, depending on one’s actions on earth. Then at the end of the sermon all would bow to great them!
This preference did not follow them to the bushes of South Sudan. They emerged all covered in mud. Apparently their cars got stuck at the spot where I was bathed in dirty water. They had to participate in a “let’s work together” of sorts to push their vehicle out of the mud.

Confidence building plan
They were scheduled to meet Kony the following day. It was part of the confidence building plan. We set off for the rendezvous, somewhere into the depth of Garamba Forest. The rebels had erected a makeshift hall some kilometres and thatched it beautifully with palm leaves. It was like your kidaala (shade) for the village weddings, never mind the advent of tents. A few metres to this meeting place was a rebels’ security check. All our bags and pockets were searched. I remember my friend Frank Nyakairu grumble why these illiterate LRA fighters could “do this to us”. He was particularly unhappy with the orders of Capt Sunday Ocaya who led the search.
The SPLA escorts used this chance to account for numbers in our delegation.
“Who is not here?” They asked.
All replied in chorus, “Ochora.”
The late Rtd Lt Col Walter Ochora, who was by then the Gulu District RDC, was with us. His weight had made him lag behind. “Ochora will come. We go,” suggested one. But no sooner had this impatient member finished speaking than Ochora arrived, breathing like a buffalo. We proceeded.
My bladder was heavy but out of fear to step aside and shyness, I held on, even when I felt hard pressed.
We encountered a road block, sorry, a path-block. Bamboo stems had been planted on the path side and fighters were scattered on guard in a triangular formulation. Maj Dennis Okirot was in charge here. He had been to Juba along LRA’s peace team and we had talked, but here he behaved like he had not seen any of us. More orders were yelled out. The lingua is Luo. The checking was so detailed and bored Maj Majok shouted at the LRA officers at the check point:
“We are not fighting you. We are mediating. We have brought these journalists so that the world can see you. We are doing this for ourselves and for your future.”
The order was flatly ignored. A haggard and grubby, dreadlocked fighter dressed in old brown trousers and a dark blue long sleeved shirt moved over to me and ordered, “Toa viato (remove your shoes).”
I pretended I have never heard this Swahili word and looked on. Partly because I last did this at Heathrow Airport and now I am being told in the deep dead of the bush. I complied. “This job of a journalist, I felt.” My toes were clean yet the ground was wet. The whole thing sucked life out of me. But I hung on.

As we entered, I glanced and saw that they had inscribed on a huge tree trunk words, “LRA, Came one, Came all.”
LRA’s second in command Lt Gen Vincent Otti was emcee and Archbishop Odama led the prayers. “I give thanks to God our creator. We have come here having called our elders. We shall speak in Acholi,” Otti declared. He introduced Gen Kony and Maj Gen Okot Odhiambo. He posed and then asked the leaders to greet him. They scrambled for a handshake as journalists dived for the finest of photos.
“Who can take my photo,” former Pader MP Santa Okot shouted when she got in Kony’s arms, for a hug. I drew closer and said to myself, “So this is Kony?”
The LRA leader was dressed in full military fatigues this time. All leaders from Acholiland were overly excited to meet him. You would think it was some long-lost child friend they had suddenly met in this thick virgin forest. “Apwoyo neniba (I am glad to see),” the elders chorused on securing a handshake with Kony. “Apwoyo neni bene (I am glad to see you too),” he would reply with a firm handshake and straight look in the eye. There were countless photo opportunities!
The meeting got underway shortly. As he spoke in his native Luo, in the dead of silence, his peace delegation spokesman Obonyo Olweny, translated.
“In a cockfight, one might be bigger but they chase each other around the compound, stop when they are tired and start all over again,” Kony stated, before rhetorically asking, “Do you want this war to be like this?”
He added: “You sent me to wage this war but you have left me holding the tiger’s tail alone.” This was in apparent reference to the ICC indictment that hovered over him and his commanders.
It was getting dark. The meeting ended. Anxiety gripped me again. Olweny had promised to secure a briefing from Kony or interview session. He even asked us to draft questions for vetting. We did. However, when the meeting ended, Kony disappeared through the back-door and into the wilderness. Olweny delivered his regrets and that was it.
All along I thought this meeting place in the middle of the forest was the LRA base kumbe (however) the rebels were smart. Either guided by vigilance or premonition, the organised this particular meeting several kilometres from their actual encampment.
That’s perhaps why my friend Frank Nyakairu and a UBC journalist would regret later when they decided to dare, as journalists do, to pursue Kony for an exclusive interview. It was a proverbial wild goose chase or better still, a misadventure gone!
The following morning we returned to Maridi.

Maridi Town
Sometimes you wonder why places are called towns. Like Maridi! Ok, it’s a town. I will not take away the label from it. Located 295km (183 miles), west of Juba in South Sudan, Maridi is a far cry from a distinctive town. But anyway, this is a typical African story.
Maridi town is located in Maridi East County of the Western Equatoria State in South Sudan. It has served as a regional centre of government since colonial times. The county remains lush green during the rainy season with Mango trees full of fruits. The population here is a mix of tribes; the Zande, Baka, Mundu, Muro Kodo and Avokaya. The roads that run through the town are murram.
When we entered the town, you could see a town battered by war and neglect. We were hungry and thirsty, so we looked for a restaurant for a meal. We located some open space eatery and settled for whatever was three. I don’t remember whether it was lamb, goat, cow beef but I recall eating something like meat.
In the evening, we looked around for a happening place. There were a couple of bars along the streets.
Old men, unkempt youth and SPLA soldiers dressed in torn uniforms imbibed liquor. The beers were all warm. There was no electricity in this part of the world. One thing that amazed me was the batter trade of bullets for beer. Kadogo soldiers would walk into the bar with their guns. They would then disengage the magazine, pour some bullets in the cup and exchange the mugful of bullets for beer. This is when my colleague, Mr Charles Opolot, that towering Itesot friend exclaimed in Luganda, “banange!”
The question I remained will all along was, ‘what will the bar man do with the bullets? Does he own a gun stockpiling? Does he sell them to his government?” No. That would not make sense. Would he then sell the bullets to rebels? Perhaps! But even then, in South Sudan, there were many illegal guns in hands of private individuals. In early 2007, the government of South Sudan tried to mop-up these guns. The bullets-for-beer exchange by the time we left I concluded that such would be the reason.
After the drink we looked for accommodation. There were huts as hotel rooms. Call them cottages if you are in the mood to flatter! There was a bed and some beddings! I don’t know whether they were nightmares but I would wake up in the middle of the night to ascertain whether I am still alive and if the LRA had not attacked yet. In the morning I had a congested nose. The dampness of the place had affected me. But again as Mr Opolot often exclaimed as we encountered such difficulties, “What can I do, this is not Uganda.”
Before dawn, around 4:00am, we embarked on our road journey back to Juba via Yei. It’s one of the longest journeys on the road. The roads were bad, gullied and winding. Our driver Joseph was good. He steered the Land Cruiser well and fast. We had been cautioned that if we are to reach Juba early and catch a Dairo Air flight back to Kampala, we needed to start the journey early. South Sudan countryside is not so much different from a trip say into rural Uganda: Forests, grassland, mountains, hills and murram roads.

We passed through a seemingly deserted village and the road suddenly sloped into a valley with a bridge over a river. The road had been diverted and the driver did not expect this. He swerved. The vehicle was headed into the river and applied breaks. We were helped by God’s invisible hand at the tip of the bridge. We jumped out and help the driver manoeuvre from the edge.
After congratulating ourselves for another survival, we continued with our journey. When we reached Yei town, Mr Grace Matsiko, who had travelled in another vehicle ahead of us wanted to capture some shots with his, “nsitula ndabe omugole” (tiny) camera. Mr Matsiko, then with Daily Monitor, had replaced Mr Nyakairu in the newspaper’s rotational policy. Unknown to Mr Matsiko, he was photographing a police station. He was promptly arrested and detained for “working for the enemy in Khartoum.”

Frantic calls
Our minders pleaded for his release but the policemen and SPLA soldiers could not allow. We made frantic calls with our Gemtel mobile phone lines. We knew the only way to break this deadlock was to invoke our status. So, one of our local guides told the authorities at Yei Police Station that we are journalists from Uganda.
“Actually they are part of the Government of Uganda peace negotiation team. They are just returning from Nabanga via Maridi where they met Kony. They are rushing to catch a flight to Kampala. Any delay would be costly.” This how we secured Mr Matsiko’s release.
We drove until we were slowed down by the red flags placed along the road by the South Sudan Demining Commission (SSDC) and United Nations Mine Action Coordination Centre, indicating we had entered a mine-field. The UN had indicated that there were a total of 1,243 injuries and 3,158 deaths from landmines in South Sudan since the civil war ended.
A total of 1,653 dangerous areas had been identified and this section along Yei road was one of them. We waded through and reached Juba. After a quick shower. We basked at the beach (artificially created) at the banks of River Nile and took some cold beer as we told the story to those we had left in the hotel.
They were awed and wondered why we would give in to much risk for just a story. Unknown to them I was still dying to meet Kony for a one-on-one. I came in a few months, entered his real based and, shared a meal and shook hands.

To continue next Sunday