Richard M. Kavuma
16 June 2003
Kampala — Rebel leader Joseph Kony on Thursday ordered his troops to destroy church missions and kill all priests in northern Uganda.
"Catholic missions must be destroyed, priests and missionaries killed in cold blood and nuns beaten black and blue," said Mr Kony, speaking on the local radio network used by the Catholic institutions in the war-torn area.
The Rome-based Missionary Service News Agency (Misna) reported late on Saturday that priests in the north were taking the threat "very seriously".
"Mr Kony's words are deeply scaring," Misna quoted Kitgum Parish Priest Fr Joseph Gerner as saying.
"Daily violence against civilians in Gulu, Kitgum and Pader districts make us believe that everything may be really possible," he said.
The UPDF spokesman Maj. Shaban Bantariza yesterday said that the army's intelligence had intercepted similar information.
He said that the information is "reliable" and has been corroborated by someone who recently escaped from the Kony rebels.
Misna editor Fr Julio Albanese told The Monitor on Saturday that rebels have recently stolen a lot of radio equipment from Catholic missions in the area that they now use to communicate.
Speaking on phone from Rome, Fr Albanese said that the voice of Kony was heard at about 6 p.m.
Misna quoted Fr Gerner calling for the solidarity of all Ugandans and the government to save the local population from more suffering at the hand of the rebels.
The report did not say what the priest meant by that.
The report said that 11Comboni priests have been killed in various circumstances in Uganda in the last 20 years.
Fr Gerner yesterday refused to talk about the latest threats, saying that there is already enough trouble in Kitgum.
"The situation is very difficult in Kitgum," the priest said on phone, his voice breaking with emotion.
Asked about who heard Mr Kony's message, Fr Gerner referred The Monitor to the Misna story.
He said that he did not want to put other people in trouble.
Asked about the response of the army to this latest threat, Maj. Bantariza said the clergy might have to advise the army.
"We cannot just say that we send soldiers to the parishes," he said on phone. "In the past they have said that our proximity to them made them targets of rebel attacks."
This is not the first time the Kony rebels are threatening the clergy. Last September President Yoweri Museveni wrote to Gulu Archbishop John Baptist Odama warning that Mr Kony had ordered his men to kill the bishops.
The letter followed the confession of a rebel commander who had surrendered to the military.
That warning, coming at the height the clergy's efforts to end the war peacefully was met by defiance, with the archbishop vowing to press on with the pursuit for peace.
The Lord's Resistance Army led by Mr Kony has waged a war of maiming, abductions and killings for the last 17 years.
The civilian population in the Acholi and Lango sub-regions has borne the brunt of the suffering.
Religious leaders in the north have been trying to organise peace talks between the rebels and the government.
Their efforts have so far yielded little in terms of peace.
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