Ugandan 'archers' Helps to Heal War Wounds

Like many children in northern Uganda, Omony has witnessed boys and girls committing terrible crimes. But he can talk about his experiences in a way others cannot.

The reason: because the 15-year-old is a character in a radio soap called Ngom Wa, inspired by the BBC serial The Archers, which is allowing northern Ugandans to confront the horrors of an 18-year civil war in which children have been both victims and aggressors.

The local equivalent of Ambridge is a fictitious refugee camp where four families dramatise the hardships of life in a warzone.

Omony, played by teenager Martin Ojara, is a former abductee - like the thousands of children kidnapped by the rebel Lord's Resistance Army and made to serve as porters, child soldiers, or forced "wives". After escaping from the rebels, he speaks to his family of his experiences in the bush, which include watching other children carrying out murders armed with bayonets and machetes.

"In the [real refugee] camps you can't talk about these things, because there may be rebels in the camp," the serial's director, Ovin Oloya, said. "But on the radio you can. There are many former abductees in the camps now, but they will only talk about what has happened to them if they are inside their homes, not in the open."

Like the characters in Ngom Wa, thousands of northern Ugandans have fled their traditional villages for refugee camps.

Mr Oloya said: "Ngom Wa means 'Our Land', but almost everyone in the north lives in the camps now. They have left their original land. Now they have nowhere to sit and talk to their children. There is a place which our people call a Wang Oo, which is where parents and children sit and talk under the trees in the evening.

"But if you want a Wang Oo today you have to listen to the radio."

In the series, Omony begins to live a normal life after his nightmarish experiences. In one recent episode, he borrows a bicycle to give a lift to a girl he fancies, but embarrassingly suffers a puncture on the way home.

It is the kind of mundane storyline that might sound familiar to listeners to the Archers in Britain, but by showing there is life after the LRA, the drama aims to counter the rebels' brainwashing of their captives.

With the same intent, the radio station which airs Ngom Wa, Mega FM, also broadcasts accounts by genuine former abductees who have successfully returned to society. In response, the station has been threatened by the LRA, which forbids its junior ranks from owning or listening to radios.

The LRA, led by a self-proclaimed mystic called Joseph Kony, appears to behave more like a doomsday cult rather than a conventional guerrilla army. To outsiders its beliefs seem bizarre: Kony claims to be guided by spirits, including an American called King Bruce who is responsible for turning stones thrown by rebel fighters into grenades.

Another of his guiding spirits is Ing Chu, the Chinese commander of an imaginary jeep battalion.

But the rebels' blend of traditional and Christian religious beliefs holds a powerful sway over their followers and creates fear among the general population.

Lacking support from most northerners because of its brutality - the most recent large-scale atrocity was the massacre of more than 200 people at a refugee camp in February - the rebels replenish their ranks with abducted children.

As a result, thousands of children leave their parents' huts every night to walk into towns such as Gulu, where they are thought to be safer.

They sleep wedged together like sardines on the concrete floors of "night shelters", or in canvas tents.

Kidnapped children can spend years in the bush, where the girls are forced to "marry" rebel commanders and their children are raised within the LRA's belief system from birth.

Evelyn Achan, 19, had spent nine years with the LRA when she was freed during a battle with the Ugandan army.

"I was 11 and I was given to a man called Simon Anywar, a major, to be his wife," she said, nursing her two-year-old son Dick at a rehabilitation centre in Gulu. "Anywar was 29 and already had two wives. I felt bad about this because I was so young, but if you refused, they would kill you."

The Ugandan government is intent on ending the conflict by defeating the rebels on the battlefield, and on paper that looks easy.

The LRA has lost the support it once enjoyed from Uganda's northern neighbour Sudan. Lacking bases and sources of new weaponry, it is a ragtag band on the run. But a handful of rebels can still keep a large area in turmoil by striking at civilian targets and evading encounters with the Ugandan army.

Western donors believe that peace can only be achieved through negotiation.

Hilary Benn, Britain's international development secretary, visited Uganda this week to convey this message to President Yoweri Museveni.

"The government needs to do all of the things which we hope will contribute to bringing this to an end, not simply to press the military route," Mr Benn said. "It's about the individuals who are out there fighting, persuading them that if they do give up fighting they can come back and be reintegrated. That there will be a life for them."