Gulu is downright loaded with NGO's, but as the hotel owner of the place I'm staying told me, it's still not enough. The NGO's play a political game: they are in it for the profits quite often, and focus on not spreading themselves too thin. So you have about a dozen foreign organizations here, all focusing on their own small agenda of helping out specific groups, while others are ignored or underrepresented.
The ride north went through lush hills and grassland, thick stalks with tiny villages interspersed. Uganda has loads of prime farmland; apparently white farmers, displaced from Zimbabwe, are being offered land in Masindi district between Kampala and Gulu. But around Gulu itself, the land is fertile - yet no one will grow large crops, fearing attacks from the LRA.
The town itself is tiny but bustling, a low sprawl of gridded buildings clogged with bicycles and human traffic and dozens of white Land Cruisers, all billowing flags from whatever organization they were brought here by - perhaps the International Association for the Relief and Development of Displaced and Disorderly Troubled Individuals Collective Aidwork Humanitarian Associated Organization? To say that every vehicle in Gulu is owned by an NGO is only a slight exxaggeration.
Francis was quick to extoll the virtues of the NGOs, but pressing further as he realized I was not your usual journalist looking for the typical canned response or a wanna-be humanitarian trying to get in on the ground floor, started mentioning things in a different light. Yes, they employ a great deal of local people, but they also buy up a whole lot of land in the centre of town, which drives the price of local real estate up. This makes it impossible for local businesses to rent their own office space at reasonable prices, and what ends up happening is that central Gulu is almost 50% operated by humanitarian organizations - the real estate is just too high for an aspiring local businessman to turn a profit while trying to pay for office space.
Gulu boasts its own army barracks, and this morning I saw several trucks full of soldiers coming home from perhaps a patrol in the rural areas. The town itself does see fighting, but not much; the Lord's Resistance Army preys mostly on the small outlying villages in northern Uganda - attacking innocent civilians, pillaging their villages, and most insidiously, kidnapping their children for use in their army or as concubines. Still, The hotel owner told me of the attacks on Gulu town, that they do happen despite the fact that the Ugandan army is based here. "They have strong tricks, and the Uganda army is not able to stop them."
The Lord's Resistance Army is Uganda's largest problem; refugees from Sudan and the SPLM are only a minor issue here in the north, and no one even mentions Congo at all. (the UN is based out of Kasese in southern Uganda, where they move people and equipment back and forth to the DRC from there). Their doctrine is loosely based on wanting to overthrow the government and institute a consitution in Uganda of the Ten Commandments; yet what they do as a rebel group is something quite different.
"When you want to overthrow the government, fine; but should you not have the support of the civilian population to do so?" The hotel owner told me, as I discussed the situation in Gulu around midday today. Indeed, the LRA answer to no one: the bus ambush in Soroti where they killed 23 people included a Priest, some school teachers, and a lawyer. So much for endorsing the church even, when you're going around killing priests. As well, they spare no one when they raid villages: killing all the adults, kidnapping all the children. Just before I got to this internet station I visited the World Vision camp for abducted children, where the children rescued from the LRA go to rehabilitate and live, essentially, as orphans(since their parents were undoubtedly killed).
In another era, the LRA would simply be called Bandits. But since they have a shady political doctrine and catchy acronym, they have been elevated to the status of Rebels. The Ugandan army patrols areas frequently trying to catch them, but they have no stronghold; no towns support them, no villages either. They stage raids on towns to steal supplies and children, then go live in the jungle in an almost nomadic existence. And since they are nothing more than outlaws in a country and region that is almost entirely rural, it is hard to put them down for good.
The sun is hot, and the streets are dusty. Tomorrow I'm heading to Arua, a small town near the DRC. I may spend a few more days in Uganda as my travel companion has fallen sick. I'm going to do a few more day trips around Gulu before heading to the small town of Lira, in the east, near where the LRA are most active right now, and then see from there whether he will be meeting me for the Congo leg or if I'll be heading in on my own.
As the bus pulled into the station in Gulu, I asked Francis if the town had seen recent fighting; perhaps a year ago there had been a major raid on Gulu?
"There are always raids on Gulu."
"But the streets are so busy... are the people not worried about attacks?"
"I say look, the war has been going on for seventeen years. You cannot worry about that; you must just live your life."
