Evelyn Amony – on reclaiming a lost life

Evelyn Amony has had more than her fair share of interviews, in fact, more than any other returnee. But you could put that down to the fact that she is eager to talk about her experiences in the bush.
She is also a busy woman. Although we have an appointment, I have to accost her during the lunch break at a Women’s Advocacy Network (WAN) workshop she is facilitating at Dove Nest Hotel in Gulu Town. When we met, we ended up talking for more than two hours.

Amony is tall and heavyset, a seemingly strong woman who, despite her stature, is soft-spoken, preferring to speak in her mother-tongue, Acholi.
The mother-of-three, a native of Atiak, tells a harrowing tale about being one of the wives of a man who led a devastating rebellion in northern Uganda. The Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) insurgency, led by Joseph Kony, lasted more than 15 years.
Now 33, and married to a former LRA abductee, Amony treads cautiously through a minefield of memories, some too painful to express in words.

A rural childhood
Before her abduction, Amony says her life, in a wealthy family, was like that of any other village girl.
“We had all the basic needs at home. My father was a rich man who had a lot of cattle so milk was very much a part of our diet.”

Her father, Marcelino Olobo, was a veterinarian and her mother, Margaret Akello, was a housewife. It was a lively household with seven children. Amony is the second born.
“There were rumours about the LRA rebels and occasionally, there were distant gunshots. But, that life seemed so far away; I did not know who the rebels were or what they were fighting for.”
However, one bleak afternoon in 1994, Amony came face-to-face with the dreaded rebels.
Five students from Atiak Pupwonya Primary School were walking home when suddenly, a group of unkempt men in army fatigues stood in front of them.
Amony, then 12 and in Primary Four, was the youngest of them.

Three of the girls, probably knowing what the men represented, managed to run away.
“I used to fear the sound of gunshots but the sight of that big gun close to me, paralyzed me,” Amony reminisces, adding that she and her friend were forced to follow the rebels.
“We moved aimlessly, with no sense of direction until we eventually found our way into (LRA deputy commander Alex) Otti Lagony’s camp. We spent three days there, and I realised that I had to quickly get used to bush-life if I wanted to survive. Lack of food was something I immediately faced.”
At the time, Lagony was the third-in-command to the LRA leader. He was sacked, demoted, and later executed in 1999 on Kony’s orders.
Amony’s group of rebels later trekked to Kilak (in Amuru District) where they met another group at a rock in the hills. This group had many abductees, most of them very young.

Early life in the bush
Like a bird used to flying freely, captivity took some getting used to. First, there was the dawn roll-call for the rebels and captives, to discover who had escaped or been injured.
“We remained in Kilak for two months. Every day, the rebels abducted more children. We grew in number and had to go for as long as four days without a single morsel of food.”
The rebels led the abductees to the villages to harvest villagers’ food, fish, or hunt for wild animals.

Four days after her arrival at the Kilak camp, Amony was assigned to look after Salim Saleh, Joseph Kony’s son.
She was curious to know who the rebel leader was. It was puzzling that none of the rebels indicated in their behaviour who he was. They referred to each other as lafonyi – teacher – making it hard to know who was superior.
Courageously, she asked one of the quieter rebels who Kony was.
“I told him that in Atiak, it was said that Kony was a short man with a long beard, who walked with the help of a stick. I hadn’t yet seen anyone fitting that description. The man told me not to worry because before long, I would know Kony.”

Unknown to the young girl, she was speaking to Kony. The man behaved in a peculiar way, laughing alone, uncontrollably.
“When he would start, there was no stopping him. He would laugh for almost an hour. I was puzzled. I wondered if he was mad. So, I asked one of the men why he laughed so much.”
The men she asked happened to be Kony’s bodyguards and they started beating her, asking how their boss’s laughter concerned her. Luckily, she was not reported.
“In the camp, the brutality came from Kony’s ten wives. They made me carry heavy loads as we walked to Sudan. In the rainy season, we slept in huts with leaking grass-thatched roofs. They made me sleep in the pools of water that collected on the floor.”

Inside Sudan

When they finally arrived in Torit (now in Eastern Equatoria state, South Sudan), the rebel group received a rousing welcome from their Arab partners.
“The Arabs held a party for us,” Amony says, continuing, “There was a lot of dancing and eating. There was so much food. That was my happiest moment. I thought we would always have plenty of food to eat.”

How wrong she was! Within a few days, they were back to fighting off hunger pangs. The only consolation was that instead of mud huts, they were now living in bungalows.
“In 1995, all the abductees were forced to attend military training. There were about 200 abductees in the training. Unfortunately, there was a cholera outbreak in the camp. There was no medicine and we were not used to Arabic food.”
Of the 200 abductees, only seven survived. It was during this disaster that Kony made his love intentions known to Amony.

From slave to ‘wife’
“I remember it was about 5pm when Kony told me he wanted me to become his wife. I told him I was only 14. I thought I had only been abducted to look after his children.”
The rebel leader told the young girl not to blame him for making the request.
“He said I should blame my parents because even if he had not been fighting a war I would still be among the girls he (would have) proposed to. I rejected his advances.”

Kony let the matter rest for a few days before he accosted her again.
“He said that from that day I would be his wife. I informed him that from that day, I was returning to my father’s compound. I did not fear him; after all, he was old – older than my father.That same day, at 8pm, the rebel lord sent his bodyguards to take her to his house. Pretending to follow them, Amony slipped away.
“I hid in a pit used as an armoury. There were guns and landmines there and I slept among them. The soldiers looked all over the camp for me but could not find me.”

At dawn, the girl ran to Vincent Otti’s camp, then, called the Operation Room. In 1996, Otti was just an intelligence officer. Later, he became the second-in-command before being executed on Kony’s orders.
“I begged Otti to hide me but he refused, saying that since we both come from Atiak, Kony would think he was favouring me, and as a consequence, he would fall out of favour.
At 10am, Otti took me to Kony.”
Mocking her about how far she thought she could run, the rebel leader gave Amony a thorough beating.

“As he was caning me, he reminded me that he was a soldier and I was a civilian who had to obey him. I told him I would never be his wife. Surprised, he asked why it was so wrong for him to ‘marry’ me. I told him he was so old.”
The girl began mocking Kony telling him she had heard that he was a good man but he was contradicting himself. He sent her away, to his other wives.
The matter was forgotten for the next two weeks. Then, he took her to his house.
“He pulled out a pistol and a gun. He cocked the pistol and pointed it at me, saying I was going to be his wife. When I saw that pistol, I knew I was going to die. I was ready to die. I asked him why he would kill someone he claimed to love.”

Amony says she reasoned with the rebel leader to follow their cultural norms, which dictate that a woman can choose whom to love.
What followed was a brutal rape. As she remembers the incident, Amony goes quiet for a minute or two. Finally, in a very soft voice, she tells me it was an ugly experience she does not want to talk about.
All she can say is that after the rape, Kony’s other wives told her she was free to pay back by mistreating any new wives the rebel brought.
“I did not take their advice; I am not that kind of person.”
She eventually had three daughters with Kony.

LIFE OF A RETURNEE
In August 1994, Evelyn Amony was abducted by the Lord’s Resistance Army rebels from her village in Atiak, Gulu District of northern Uganda. At 12 years, she was forced to become one of rebel leader Kony’s more than 60 wives. She tells a story of torture and loss at the hands of the rebel army as they fought and fled. The Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) insurgency, led by Joseph Kony, lasted more than 15 years. Having spent 11 years in the bush, Amony is still working to rebuild her life and find acceptance in the community. She is the chairperson of Women’s Advocacy Network, a forum where more than 500 war-affected women come together to advocate for justice and acknowledgement for sexual- and gender-based violations inflicted upon them.

Excerpt from Amony’s book
“...When I reached them, the site was shocking. One of Kony’s younger sons was severely burned. He could no longer see, but he could talk. We carried him to a mattress as he cried. As we began to wash his body with water, he died. The sight of his burned body will remain in my mind forever.

Fatima was dead. The boy kept asking, “Who will be my mother? My mother is dead!” He kept crying and shouting. I tried to soothe him, and at the same time I asked him to show me where his mother lay; I thought perhaps she was still alive and he was just in shock.
The boy took me to the body of Fatima. The only part of her body that was recognizable was her fingernails on one hand. She was holding her ear on the side of her head. Her face was not recognisable. In the morning, we began to bury the dead. In total, three wives, nine children, and an escort had died.

Everyone feared staying near Kony during this time. They thought he would do something bad. Some thought that he would shoot people. Others thought that he would shoot himself. This was the time I was closest to him. Kony did not want me to leave his side. Some people said that Kony might kill me and then commit suicide. I was not afraid of him. I thought that if he wants to kill me, let him kill me. Even the rebel commanders were scared to go near Kony. His officers removed all the guns from his compound. He would ask for his pistol endlessly. He asked me to search for another pistol. I tried, but not seriously. I told him I could not find one.”

Who is LRA’s Joseph Kony?
According to Evelyn Amony, Kony is a very prayerful man.
“He always had his Bible with him and he would preach to us from the gospels. This disturbed me because I could not understand why he was ordering his men to kill, yet he would tell us killing was wrong.”

She, however, denies Kony’s involvement in witchcraft or spiritualism.
“There were many rebel camps scattered all over the place and each followed their commander’s beliefs. Some commanders believed in ancestral spirits and witchcraft. I never saw the rebels in our group eating human flesh, but when I returned home, I heard that the rebels based in Atiak used to kill and cook their victims.”
Kony was also not all about brutality. He had a place in his heart for love, especially for his many children.

“He had a child called Kony, whom he loved above all. He would spend hours with him, going everywhere with the boy. Sometimes, they shared the same bed. He also loved his first wife, Fatima Adoch, who was the mother of Kony and Salim Saleh.”
In 2003, while the group was still in Nisitu, it was decided that all the disabled and amputated would live with Adoch, in her house near a rock.
Besides digging, the rebels still hunted for food. To make the hunting easier, they would set the surrounding bushes on fire to frighten the animals into one location.

“That morning, the fire went out of hand and spread to Adoch’s compound burning everything in its path. By the time we reached the compound, Adoch, two other wives, and some of Kony’s children, including young Kony, had been burnt to death.”
Amony says the rebel leader was devastated by the death of his favourite wife and son.
“His mood changed. He became suicidal. He wanted to kill himself. I was the only one who could approach him, and I stopped him from killing himself.”

Interview translated by John Okot.

Evelyn Amony’s story continues in the Daily Monitor tomorrow.