Former LRA captives commemorate the abduction of Aboke girls. PHOTO | FILE
Twenty eight years ago in October, Pope John Paul II joined the litany of personalities from different parts of the world in pleading with Joseph Kony, the leader of the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), to release 30 girls, part of a group of 139 girls that his men had abducted from St Mary’s College Aboke
The girls were abducted from the Apac-based school when a group of LRA rebels, part of an outfit that claimed to be fighting to install a government in Uganda based on the Biblical 10 Commandments, raided the Catholic girls’ boarding school early in the morning of October 10, 1996, ransacked the sick bay and attempted to burn down some of the buildings.
The rebels, who were under the command of Mariano Ochaya, alias Lagira, abducted girls from Senior 1, 2 and 3. Most of those who were taken captive were between the ages of 15 and 17.
Following the raid, the deputy head teacher of the school, Sister Rachele Fassera, and a teacher, Mr John Bosco Ocen, followed the rebels into the bush and attempted to negotiate the release of all the girls.
Fassera, a Sister of Italian origin, offered to take the girls’ place in return for their release. It was as a result of that negotiation that 109 of them were released.
Mr Ocen narrated to The Monitor newspaper how the rebels had gone about selecting who to release.
“The rebels first selected 30 light-skinned and beautiful girls and said they were taking them to their leader (Kony) before releasing the rest,” the newspaper’s edition of October 30, 1996, quoted Mr Ocen to have said.
Those who were not released at the time were expected to either become wives of the different LRA commanders or become sex slaves and soldiers.
According to The Monitor, prior to her foray into the bushes for negotiations with the rebels, Sr Fassera had travelled to Gulu where she reportedly spoke to Col James Kazini, the commander of the division, and Maj Gen Salim Saleh, who was the presidential advisor on military affairs.
She reportedly also met with President Museveni, who had for most of that year been camped in Gulu to oversee a counter-insurgency operation, using a combined armed element strategy which involved the simultaneous use of helicopter gunships and the infantry, including the use of Armoured Personnel Carriers (APCs) for rapid troop movement.
Pursuit of the 30
Despite having secured the release of the majority of the girls, Sr Fassera is said to have continued pursuing the rebels with a view of securing the release of the 30 who had been retained.
By the close of October 1996, Sr Fassera’s whereabouts were unknown. There were conflicting accounts about where she was.
A few people in Apac claimed that she had left the country for Nairobi, Kenya, for a holiday that was partially meant to enable her to recover from the trauma of the raid on the school and her rescue mission.
Other sources indicated that she was in the south of Sudan pursuing the release of the 30 girls who the rebels had clung to.
The LRA was at the time said to be operating three major camps in Sudan. Those included Jebellin, Kit II and Musito. Jebellin, which is sometimes spelt as Jabalayn or Jebelen, was approximately 30kms south of Juba.
Kit II camp was said to be located near a prominent bridge on one of the tributaries of Kit River and lying between Pageri and Juba. Kit II which is said to have been located about 25kms north of Zabular, is said to have been the biggest LRA camp, with about 6,500 men.
The other camps were Musito camp, which housed mostly the sick and injured and the much smaller Biroka Camp.
Not much was reported about Sr Fassera after.
Pope’s letter
Writing in the story, ‘Remembering the wisdom of Uganda’s Aboke girls, 20 years later’, which was published on October 7, 2016, Mr Bede Sheppard, the deputy director of Children's Rights Division at Human Rights Watch, credited Sr Fassera with having drawn the world’s attention to the LRA’s diabolic attacks on education institutions and abduction of children.
“Her (Sr Fassera’s) courageous actions helped bring public attention to the Lord’s Resistance Army’s practice of attacking schools and abducting children,” he wrote.
It is not clear whether the intervention of the Pope had been prompted by Sr Rachele’s movements, but the Pontiff sent out from the Vatican a message to the Catholic community in a Sunday, October 27, 1996, message to the Catholic community worldwide.
It should be remembered that the Pope visited Uganda from February 5 to February 10, 1993. During the five-day visit, he went to Gulu in northern Uganda, Soroti in eastern Uganda, Kasese in the west and Kampala.
In his message, the Pope said the abduction had blighted the Sunday of missionary prayer and appealed to Kony to unconditionally release the girls who were still being held captive.
“I appeal to the conscience of those responsible for bringing this brutal kidnapping to an end: respect the life and dignity of these young people! In the name of God I ask for their immediate liberation,” the Pontiff wrote.
The message renewed hopes that the rebels would release the girls. Sister Alba Balo, the head teacher of the school embodied those hopes.
“We are praying that and requesting that they let the 30 girls free,” she told this newspaper back then.
Kony and most of his commanders subscribe to the Catholic faith and Kony was said to have been an altar boy during his youth. Unconfirmed reports also indicated that he had attended the Catholic Seminary in Aboke.
The Pope’s words were in the circumstances expected to have an impact on him and his commanders, but that did not happen.
As it turned out, the last of the 30 girls escaped the LRA clutches in 2009, some 12 years after she was abducted.
Meanwhile, a monument known as the Aboke Girls’ Memorial was erected near the Lira District headquarters in memory of the 139 girls who were abducted.
Ms Els De Temmerman, who was to later become the editor-in-chief of the government-owned New Vision newspaper also authored a book titled Aboke Girls. The book focuses on abductions and the effects of abductions.
Amnesty condemns
Meanwhile, On October 29, 1996, the global human rights watchdog Amnesty International issued a statement in which it also called on the rebels to release the abducted girls. The organisation pointed out that the abductions demonstrated that the “rebels are blatant in their disregard for the human rights of the very people on whose behalf they claim to be fighting”.
The watchdog also did not have kind words for the Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF), which it blamed for allegedly fuelling the violence in northern Uganda.
It cited an incident in August 1996, in which the commander of the 4th Division, Col Kazini, and one of his deputies, threw four suspected rebels to a lynch mob.
