Arua, Uganda: Disgruntled members of the Greater Arua Kony War Victims Association are now calling on the government to provide them with guns in order to hunt for the rebel leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army, Joseph Kony after their attempts to get compensated for the lives and property that were lost during the LRA insurgency in Northern Uganda appear to have failed.
Kony and his LRA rebel group invaded the region and attacked a large number of people, primarily targeting the highways in the region where businessmen and women travel to conduct business, from 1993 to the early 2000s, causing bloodshed and property damage.
The 1,102 members of the association have demanded 99,884,000 shillings from the Ugandan government for the losses they suffered during the insurgency—both in terms of lives and property.
The victims peacefully demonstrated at the mayor’s garden in Arua city on June 20, 2022, demanding that the Resident City Commissioner, Alice Akello, investigate the incident.
The office of the president intervened after receiving a phone call from Gen. Taban Amin, the deputy director general for special operations in the Internal Security Organization (ISO), who brought the situation under control after the office of the president made a promise to Alex Matua, the association’s leader.
However, the association’s members have had to come up with a different strategy because the state house has not responded positively to their peaceful demonstration.
“When we had our peaceful demonstration in June last year, the deputy director general Taban Amin called the president and told him the war victims in Arua are demonstrating over their compensation and the president asked him to give the phone to me as their chairperson and I talked to the president where he said people have not been giving him detailed information about the Kony war victims and asked me to work on the documents and give to the director general which I did and I don’t know whether he delivered them to the president,” Alex Matua the chairperson of the association says.
Matua further says that Deputy Director General for special operations in the Internal Security Organization (ISO) Taban Amin has not been picking up his calls so many times.
“We have come up with the following resolutions: No vote for all NRM candidates in 2026 if we are not compensated, Secondly, we need guns from the government if he does not have money to pay us so that we can go and look for Kony who in fact killed us”.
Matua Alex explains. “After here, we are going to organize a general meeting and match to the parliament and we don’t want to see any gunman or else they will finish us because Kony had already killed us before” he continued aggressively.
Rashid Ciriga Alahai, one of the victims from Lodonga Sub County in Yumbe district says “one day we have to undress and match to the office of the leaders and God will then hear us”