Shara Esbenshade on United for Uganda
February 23, 2007
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My name is Shara Esbenshade. Over the past twenty years,
Uganda has suffered a devastating civil war. The Lord’s
Resistance Army was founded by Alice Lakwena in 1986 and
has since been causing violence throughout the Acholi
region of northern Uganda. Initially formed to defend
the rights of the Acholi people, today the LRA has lost
its purpose, and exists solely to protect its leaders.
Because of the lack of popular support, the LRA resorted
long ago to the use of child soldiers. Since its
inception, the LRA has abducted tens of thousands of
children ages 5 through 12 who serve as soldiers and as
sex slaves, and against whom the current LRA leader,
Joseph Kony, has committed unthinkable war crimes; he is
known for chopping off the lips and ears of his
soldiers.
The children are forced to kill sometimes their own
loved ones. The psychological and emotional damage this
war has inflicted upon northern Uganda’s youth is vast.
Millions have been displaced.
In August, the LRA finally agreed to peace talks with
the government of Uganda, and a cessation of hostilities
was even signed. But since then, talks have been moving
slowly and ineffectively due to the ICC’s criminal
charges against the LRA. The Ugandan government is
reluctant to speak with declared international criminals
while the LRA leaders demand amnesty from the government
and fear arrest if they resume talks. The Acholi, the
very victims of this crisis, have voiced that they would
rather have peace than the LRA punished but the Ugandan
leaders have yet to rectify their priorities.
United for Uganda is a group of students based at Uni
High School. Our focus is to raise awareness about the
situation in northern Uganda, while conducting in-depth
research and raising money to support the Uganda
Children of War Rehabilitation Center, which provides
former child soldiers with psychological counseling and
medical help. If you would like to make a donation,
email Bianca Zaharescu at bzahares@uni.uiuc.edu.
United for Uganda sponsored a panel discussion last
Tuesday entitled "Invisible: Understanding Child
Soldiers & the Conflict in Northern Uganda." The
panelists, professors Ibulaimu Kakoma, Paula Treichler,
and Kirk Hauser and student activist Laura Stewart,
discussed the above issues, the psychology of child
soldiers, Uganda’s exemplary response to the HIV/AIDS
epidemic, and the spirit of organizational change.
The message of our last panelist Ms. Stewart was a
powerful one: it is our obligation as global citizens,
especially with the resources of the university at our
hands, to give back to this world. Yet an equally
powerful concept discussed Tuesday was Uganda’s
resilience and how intertwined that resilience is with
its spirit of forgiveness. The kind of forgiveness where
one embraces the very people who killed one’s family.
The kind of forgiveness that is hard for us Westerners
to comprehend, and indeed the only kind of approach that
can solve this crisis and heal its victims.
And so I was left with the following firm conviction:
give back to the world, but always remember to learn
from those you would like to help.
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