ABSTRACT
What later became known as The Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) began as one of several armed rebel groups in Northern Uganda that arose after the defeat of the Uganda National Liberation Army (UNLA) in January 1986 by Museveni's National Resistance Army (NRA). Many of the Acholi soldiers in UNLA, who made up almost two thirds of the army, fled to their northern homeland in Gulu and Kitgum provinces, fearing retaliation because of the association of Acholi fighters with the abuses of the regimes of Amin, Obote, and the Okellos, who were themselves Acholi. The return to peasant life proved too hard for many who had had a taste of the high life. Some resorted to pillaging, others joined the successor of UNLA, the Uganda People's Democratic Army (UPDA) which was set up in May 1986, or one of the other groups dedicated to the overthrow of Museveni. Their resolve was strengthened when the NRA battalions who were stationed in the region from March 1986 began, as feared, retaliatory acts of looting, burning of homesteads, rape (of men and women), torture and extrajudicial killings. Their fears were exacerbated by radio broadcasts that called the Acholi 'primitive' and 'murderers', the internment of many in politicisation camps and the violent methods used in the search for weapons (Behrend, 1999c, p. 25, 190; Doom and Vlassenroot, 1999, pp. 14-15; Behrend, 1998a, p. 108). In addition, the cattle raids of the Karamojong in 1986, which removed over 200,000 head of cattle, virtually ending the livestock farming of the Acholi, was thought to have had the tacit support of the NRA (Oxfam, 2000b ).1 Not surprisingly, the Acholi interpretation of these events was that the new government had decided to destroy Acholi culture, if not kill all male Acholi.2
