Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 7, No. 2, 2008, Page 20
Innocent Murderers? Abducted Children in the Lord’s
Resistance Army1
Terra Manca
University of Alberta
Abstract
For over twenty-one years, a guerrilla force known as the Lord‘s Resistance
Army (LRA) has been terrorizing the people of northern Uganda. The LRA
abducts children to help it fight against local civilians and the Ugandan
government. LRA commanders use extreme violence to control these children.
The LRA justifies the use of this violence with its secretive spiritual and
political ambitions. Many of the children in the LRA commit horrendous acts,
such as mutilations and murders, against civilians in a effort to survive while
they await the opportunity to escape. Some of these children eventually
internalize the violence that the LRA subjects them to and become willing
participants in the movement. In this article, I discuss how the LRA‘s
organization, its use of religious doctrine, and its use of physical coercion
manipulate children in an effort to create obedient members of the LRA.
Northern Uganda is experiencing one of the worst and most under-reported contemporary
human-rights crises today because of the atrocities that the Lord‘s Resistance Army (LRA)
commits. For twenty-one years, the LRA has forced children of northern Uganda to terrorize
their own communities. Estimates reveal that the LRA has abducted more than 25,000
children to help it internally displace more than 1.5 million people and cause the deaths of
more than 100,000 people (Prendergast 2005, 3 Taylor 2005, 560).
In its efforts, the LRA combines terrorism with religious concepts from the Acholi (a group of
people in northern Uganda), Christian, and Islamic traditions to control abducted children
and the population of northern Uganda. The LRA‘s uses of the Acholi religion are particularly
potent because ―many Africans make no formal distinction between the sacred and the
secular, between the religious and the nonreligious, between the spiritual and material
areas of life‖ (Vanderwood 1994, 131). Acholi people—the LRA‘s primary targets—run their
lives as if the unseen world is as real as, if not more real than, the physical world (Otiso
2006, 21). As a result, many Acholi believe that Joseph Kony, the leader of the LRA, has
supernatural powers, and therefore they are afraid to resist his movement.
Even with his warlord status, however, Kony and his movement lack popular support and
rely on forcing children to join the movement in an attempt to retain power. Abducted
children who comprise most of the LRA‘s forces generally do not know why the LRA fights or
why it directs most of its attacks onto the Acholi population, whom the LRA claims to be
saving. Furthermore, the death rate of these children is high due to malnourishment, the
harsh climatic environment, and violence. Many recruits forced into the LRA want to escape
but find that their best opportunity to do so will arise if they obey the LRA‘s rules. Recruits
who pretend to internalize, or do internalize, the LRA‘s lifestyle (i.e., who see their role
within the LRA as a positive or permanent part of their identities) become an integral part of
the movement. Some people cannot make sense of the violent actions of children in the LRA
and assume that the children are brainwashed and cannot tell the difference between right
and wrong (Allen 2006, 42 O‘Loughlin 1997, 7). Yet, many children who escape claim that
they knew what they were doing was immoral. These children claim that they obeyed their
commanders out of fear rather than conviction and did whatever they had to, no matter
how violent and immoral, to survive and await escape opportunities.
Innocent Murderers? Abducted Children in the Lord’s
Resistance Army1
Terra Manca
University of Alberta
Abstract
For over twenty-one years, a guerrilla force known as the Lord‘s Resistance
Army (LRA) has been terrorizing the people of northern Uganda. The LRA
abducts children to help it fight against local civilians and the Ugandan
government. LRA commanders use extreme violence to control these children.
The LRA justifies the use of this violence with its secretive spiritual and
political ambitions. Many of the children in the LRA commit horrendous acts,
such as mutilations and murders, against civilians in a effort to survive while
they await the opportunity to escape. Some of these children eventually
internalize the violence that the LRA subjects them to and become willing
participants in the movement. In this article, I discuss how the LRA‘s
organization, its use of religious doctrine, and its use of physical coercion
manipulate children in an effort to create obedient members of the LRA.
Northern Uganda is experiencing one of the worst and most under-reported contemporary
human-rights crises today because of the atrocities that the Lord‘s Resistance Army (LRA)
commits. For twenty-one years, the LRA has forced children of northern Uganda to terrorize
their own communities. Estimates reveal that the LRA has abducted more than 25,000
children to help it internally displace more than 1.5 million people and cause the deaths of
more than 100,000 people (Prendergast 2005, 3 Taylor 2005, 560).
In its efforts, the LRA combines terrorism with religious concepts from the Acholi (a group of
people in northern Uganda), Christian, and Islamic traditions to control abducted children
and the population of northern Uganda. The LRA‘s uses of the Acholi religion are particularly
potent because ―many Africans make no formal distinction between the sacred and the
secular, between the religious and the nonreligious, between the spiritual and material
areas of life‖ (Vanderwood 1994, 131). Acholi people—the LRA‘s primary targets—run their
lives as if the unseen world is as real as, if not more real than, the physical world (Otiso
2006, 21). As a result, many Acholi believe that Joseph Kony, the leader of the LRA, has
supernatural powers, and therefore they are afraid to resist his movement.
Even with his warlord status, however, Kony and his movement lack popular support and
rely on forcing children to join the movement in an attempt to retain power. Abducted
children who comprise most of the LRA‘s forces generally do not know why the LRA fights or
why it directs most of its attacks onto the Acholi population, whom the LRA claims to be
saving. Furthermore, the death rate of these children is high due to malnourishment, the
harsh climatic environment, and violence. Many recruits forced into the LRA want to escape
but find that their best opportunity to do so will arise if they obey the LRA‘s rules. Recruits
who pretend to internalize, or do internalize, the LRA‘s lifestyle (i.e., who see their role
within the LRA as a positive or permanent part of their identities) become an integral part of
the movement. Some people cannot make sense of the violent actions of children in the LRA
and assume that the children are brainwashed and cannot tell the difference between right
and wrong (Allen 2006, 42 O‘Loughlin 1997, 7). Yet, many children who escape claim that
they knew what they were doing was immoral. These children claim that they obeyed their
commanders out of fear rather than conviction and did whatever they had to, no matter
how violent and immoral, to survive and await escape opportunities.
