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INSIDE AFRICA

INSIDE AFRICA: People of Northern Uganda Cry for Help

Aired January 1, 2004 - 12:30:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TUMI MAKGABO, CNN ANCHOR: Seeking relief, the people of northern Uganda cry for help as the rebel Lord's Resistance Army advances. We'll tell you how the locals are coping, and why this conflict is being called "the forgotten war."

Victory for some HIV-positive children in Kenya, who now get a chance to dream of a brighter future.

And, a conversation with Nobel laureate Nadine Gordimer, as she reflects on her work.

These and other stories ahead on this edition of INSIDE AFRICA.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

Hello, and thanks for joining us. I'm Tumi Makgabo.

This week, we bring you the story of a people in crisis for whom it seems there is no end to the terror they experience on a daily basis. They are the inhabitants of northern Uganda. Their villages and homes are being raided routinely by armed men who are opposed to the Ugandan government. Yet, the tragedy of this region is barely known to the rest of the world. The United Nations calls it the most neglected humanitarian emergency.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MAKGABO (voice-over): Another innocent victim of what's now being called "the forgotten war;" his body carried on a bicycle by relatives. He was visiting friends five kilometers outside the town of Lira when the rebel Lord's Resistance Army attacked. The previous night, another 13 people were killed.

This survivor explains how the victims' hands were tied behind their backs, and how they were beaten with hoes and sticks. Neighbors heard their screams but chose to flee into the bushes, where many have sought refuge since the rebels returned to the area in October.

This is the way of life in much of northern Uganda, where cult-like rebel groups have been fighting for nearly two decades to topple President Yoweri Museveni.

It began back in 1985 with the charismatic Alice Lakwena and her Holy Spirit Movement, which was defeated in 1987. The present group, the Lord's Resistance Army, or LRA, is led by Joseph Kony, who is said to be a distant relative of Lakwena.

His group wants to replace the Ugandan administration with a government that uses the Ten Commandments as a basis for the laws of the land. Few outsiders have ever met Joseph Kony, seen here in this picture with his son. He has a reputation for brutality.

Residents of northern Uganda say he's instructed his army to attack villages, killing some and maiming others. His soldiers are famous for chopping off peoples' limbs or cutting their lips.

The war has displaced more than a million people. After each attack, many pack up and head for nearby towns. Lira, for example, has three displaced centers with nearly 100,000 internal refugees.

BISHOP TOM OKELLO, ALL NATIONS CHURCH: There is a lack of food now, because our food for the town comes from the village, and these are the villagers, the farmers, the (UNINTELLIGIBLE) farmers, which supply us with food.

MAKGABO: President Museveni has refused to negotiate with the rebels, calling them bandits. During a visit to the north late last year, he insisted that a military solution was the only way out.

YOWERI MUSEVENI, UGANDAN PRESIDENT: It must be military pressure, which crushes them into (UNINTELLIGIBLE) like, for instance, being relocated to stay in some place in the world, but not appeasement. Appeasement is not a solution.

MAKGABO: In a New Year's Day message, the president claimed to have now defeated the LRA, but his critics dismiss that and say the government must negotiate with the rebels to bring peace to the people of northern Uganda.

FRANCIS BWENGYE, UGANDA DEMOCRATIC PARTY: I think first of all, with the government (UNINTELLIGIBLE) be wrong in that the parliament and the public and the civil society and political partners and (UNINTELLIGIBLE) have been pressuring the government to negotiate, but the government has been arrogant in that it thinks and dreams that they will eventually crush the resistance.

MAKGABO: In the meantime, the situation continues to get worse in the north. Overcrowded hospitals are without drugs and equipment. The wounded lie on verandas and sleep on floors.

ALEX HASTON, WORLD EMERGENCY RELIEF: We're coming across severe medical problems with malaria, with pneumonia, with tuberculosis. And so, I would say that there is no doubt in the last six months there is a great, great pressure on people here to try and solve this problem.

MAKGABO: According to Amnesty International and other rights groups, the government of Sudan supports the LRA. But as Sudan moves towards ending its own internal conflict, it's being pressured to close the doors to the LRA, raising hopes among many in northern Uganda that the nightmare here may soon be over.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

Joseph Kony's LRA is known for abducting children and using them as soldiers. Relief groups say more than 10,000 children have been kidnapped by the LRA over the past 17 years. Some rehabilitation centers have been set up by non-profit organizations to help those who escaped.

Seema Mathur spoke with a cultural anthropologist, who just returned to the United States after studying the effect the rehabilitation is having on child soldiers.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SEEMA MATHUR, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): As a child, Isaac Yuna (ph) was captured and forced to be a soldier in the Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda. He escaped, on this day still limping, but the wounds, according to Kitty Kelley -- who just back came from studying child soldiers in northern Uganda -- go beyond the physical to the psychological. It begins, she says, with the moment they are stolen from their villages.

KITTY KELLEY, CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGIST: The children are forced to commit atrocities. One boy told me he was 9. He said that they forced him to beat his parents until they couldn't move.

MATHUR: Kelley says being forced to harm their friends and families is a tactic that LRA leader, Joseph Kony, uses to keep the children from trying to go back home.

KELLEY: The tactic is that he's trying to break them and make them totally submissive to him. He makes them cut the heads off their victims and hold them by their hair and march for miles and miles, looking into the face of the person that they killed.

MATHUR: In spite of the horror, children do escape. Kelley interviewed almost 200 at non-profit rehabilitation centers in Gulutown (ph).

KELLEY: The kids in the rehabilitation programs have tremendous hope.

MATHUR (on camera): Once these children have had some rehabilitation, how do their communities receive them?

KELLEY: The kids who have been reintegrated back into civil society are having a lot of problems. They are not well-accepted.

MATHUR (voice-over): One woman told Kelley that she began to fear her son, because he essentially was a trained killer.

KELLEY: She had found the need to chain him to his bed for two years, because she was afraid that he was going -- she was going to wake up. She said, "One night, I'm going to wake up and he's going to be stabbing me to death." Most of the children told me, though, that they weren't ever going to hurt anybody ever again as long as they lived.

MATHUR: Kelley says that she saw the children dancing and playing, very much wanting to reintegrate, but danger lingers. On one drive in the area, Kelley says she came across this family, whose village was attacked by rebels.

KELLEY: All the men were killed in this particular family, and the boys were abducted.

MATHUR (on camera): Unfortunately, this problem is still ongoing, and every night there are thousands of children who take desperate measures to avoid being abducted, and you saw that firsthand.

KELLEY: Around 6:00, you begin to see what turns out to be 6,000 children.

MATHUR (voice-over): These children walk about six miles just to sleep in safety at the well-guarded rehabilitation centers. In the morning, they walk another six miles back home.

KELLEY: The air sparks with fear. Everyone's afraid all the time.

MATHUR: Kitty Kelley says it's a life of fear with not enough help (AUDIO GAP).

Seema Mathur, INSIDE AFRICA.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MAKGABO: After a visit to northern Uganda last year, United Nations Under Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Jan Egeland noted -- quote: "This is not a war where the civilian population is affected through collateral damage. It is a war targeting the civilian population.

He went on to say: "We, the United Nations, have also done too little. The donors have done too little. The government has done too little. We have all done too little. We must rectify that" -- unquote.

Since then, the U.N. has launched a consolidated appeal, asking for nearly $130 million to help the people of northern Uganda. On the political front, pressure groups in Uganda continue to urge the government to negotiate with the rebels.

Well, you can read a little bit more about the United Nations efforts to help the people of northern Uganda by visiting our Web site. Go to cnn.com/insideafrica. And while you're there, remember to take part in our quick vote on the subject. The address, so you'll be sure where to go, once again is cnn.com/insideafrica.

And when the program continues, hope for tomorrow. These HIV-positive children win an important victory. We'll have details of that after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MAKGABO: Welcome back.

And we take a moment now to look at business news. Nadia Bilchik has that -- Nadia.

NADIA BILCHIK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Thanks, Tumi.

Good news for Angola. Washington this week gave the country greater access to U.S. markets, making it one of several African countries which enjoy liberal trade terms with the U.S. This means Angolan goods can now be exported to the U.S. under a lower tariff regime. Eritrea and the Central African Republic were dropped from the list.

A White House spokesman says the countries on the list are those that are moving towards a market-based economy. U.S. oil companies are active in Angola. The country is now Africa's third largest oil producer.

Next to Zimbabwe, where many doctors and nurses returned to public hospitals this week after months of strikes and demands for pay increases. The Ministry of Health says 75 percent of the nurses went back to work by Tuesday. The strike that crippled Zimbabwe's health system may be over, at least for two months. This is the amount of time the doctors and nurses are giving the government to address their economic needs and work conditions.

The president of the Hospital Doctors Association of Zimbabwe says doctors are returning to work to help patients and not because of what the government is offering.

And finally to Tanzania. The country's government and Canadian mining company, Barrick Gold Corporation, have agreed to open a second mine. The new facility will be located near Biharamulo, 1,070 kilometers northwest of the capital, Dar es Salaam. The new mine will open in August of this year.

The mining sector in Tanzania has expanded rapidly since the government of President Benjamin Mkapa liberalized mining laws in 1997. The latest deal with Barrick gives the government 10 percent of the profits. Barrick is Canada's largest gold producer and the third largest in the world.

That's a wrap of business news.

Tumi -- back to you.

MAKGABO: All right, Nadia, thank you very much.

Now to Kenya, where some HIV-positive children have won a significant battle with the authorities there. A Catholic priest had taken the education ministry to court, claiming that the children were being turned away from schools because of their HIV status. A settlement was reached at the 11th hour.

Gladys Njoroge has more on that.

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GLADYS NJOROGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Here are orphans HIV- positive and now caught in the middle of an elementary school court case. Almost all of the potential students in the Nyumbani Children's Home in Nairobi raised their hands when asked how many of them want to go to public schools.

"They refused us admission, because we have AIDS," says this 7-year- old. Even though what it fully means to have the disease is somewhat of a puzzle.

Nevertheless, informal classes go on at the home, even as those old enough going to find a place in public school.

FATHER ANGELO D'AGOSTINO, FOUNDER, NYUMBANI CHILDREN'S HOME: We have three who have gone in without them being identified as Nuymbani. When that happens, of course, they are able to get in. But as soon as they're identified as coming from Nyumbani and therefore being HIV-positive, that's when we run into a problem.

NJOROGE: Prompted by this, the home's Catholic founder took the government to court this week with, as the lawyer puts it, the demands that:

ABABU NAMWAMBA, LAWYER: And we've got (UNINTELLIGIBLE) who should be in school today, but they are not in school because they're living with HIV/AIDS (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

NJOROGE: Within hours of the court case hearing, four students were placed in the public schools that had (UNINTELLIGIBLE) for the last 10 years. The school's principal, who declined to appear on camera, maintains (UNINTELLIGIBLE) discrimination, there was just no room. And the home couldn't afford private schools for them either, so they just have to stay at home.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Money (UNINTELLIGIBLE) and every (UNINTELLIGIBLE) and nothing (UNINTELLIGIBLE) we are spending a lot of money for (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

NJOROGE: Half of the 93 children depend on a daily dose of those ARVs (ph) until (UNINTELLIGIBLE), and getting as many of them to public schools would (UNINTELLIGIBLE) therefore lengthening their lives. But until that happens, these children have to continue to fight the war to win society's acceptance.

Gladys Njoroge for INSIDE AFRICA, Nairobi.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MAKGABO: After the break, South African Nobel laureate Nadine Gordimer with some words of advice for aspiring young writers. So, don't go away.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAKGABO (voice-over): From the pages of our Nobel history, Albert John Vumbi (ph) Lutuli was the first African to win the Nobel peace prize in 1960. He was recognized for his non-violent struggle against racial discrimination in his native South Africa.

At the time of the honor, Lutuli was president of the African National Congress, or ANC. He died at the age of 71 after being hit by a train, although his family still questions the circumstances surrounding his death.

Albert Lutuli from the pages of our Nobel history.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

And we want to thank the documentation center of the University of Quasalunatel(ph)for those photographs of Albert Lutuli.

And this week, we'll conclude our Nobel laureate series with a look at two South African writers. South Africa has more Nobel laureates than any other African country -- six to be precise.

The latest is writer J.M. Coetzee, who was awarded the prize for literature in 2003. The reclusive writer declined an interview with us, but Charlayne Hunter-Gault has a brief look at his life and how news of his win was received back home.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The Nobel prize in literature for 2003 is awarded to the South African writer, John Coetzee.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT, CNN JOHANNESBURG BUREAU CHIEF (voice-over): Not even this dramatic announcement was enough to force the camera-shy 63- year-old writer to go public.

Not so back home in South Africa, where the countryman he has portrayed in often controversial ways spoke with pride.

DAVID ATWELL, WITSWATERSRAND UNIVERSITY: It's a wonderfully mature moment I think for South African literary culture.

HUNTER-GAULT: J.M. Coetzee is one of the most reclusive writers of his time. He rarely makes public appearances and often declines interview requests. Even as the two-time winner of the prestigious Booker Prize, Coetzee didn't show up for the honors. And when he accepted the Nobel prize late last year, he delivered a brief speech, paying tribute to his parents.

Born in Cape Town in 1940, Coetzee's work spans the years of the racially-oppressive apartheid system through the country's multi-racial transition. Yet, his work throughout those years has generated much debate.

TABU TUGWANA, STUDENT: First of all, J.M. Coetzee is an Africana, so people have this kind of perception that he writes from that perspective, and he doesn't. And he's very open-minded. And I think in the context of post-apartheid South Africa, it's quite relevant to the kind of messages given to the world.

VERONIQUE TADIO, WRITER: You have this huge weight, this feeling that the place is doomed, in a sense, and there is very little redemption. So, it goes against the whole speech about the rainbow nation.

HUNTER-GAULT (on camera): Despite his detractors, there is the hope that J.M. Coetzee's winning the Nobel prize for literature will open a window on all of the other great South African writers.

Charlayne Hunter-Gault, CNN, Johannesburg, South Africa.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MAKGABO: Another South African writer, Nadine Gordimer, won the Nobel prize for literature in 1991. The Nobel Committee cited her for -- quote - - "her magnificent epic writing" -- unquote.

Gordimer was also noted for her political activism. Shortly after celebrating her 80th birthday last year, she spoke with CNN's Cynde Strand and reflected on the prize, its time and her country's evolution since the end of apartheid.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NADINE GORDIMER, SOUTH AFRICAN WRITER: Well, of course, the prize is a literary prize. It's not a political -- it isn't even marking a political achievement.

I think if you're born into a situation of conflict, such as I was and other writers and authors in South Africa, you live a kind of double life, and you have to. Because I think there is an absolute duty to whatever talents you have, to develop that and to keep it free indeed in concert with what is happening around you.

So, out of the tension between pressures of your society, and your own growing changes, emotional changes, that's where the writing comes from.

CYNDE STRAND, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You've just celebrated your 80th birthday, and I wonder if you could share some of your reflections on the dramatic changes you've witnessed and helped to inspire in South Africa.

GORDIMER: For me, the most extraordinary thing about having lived so long is that I, having gone through the '60s when there was a lot of active, liberation politics, I thought it can't last another few years, you know. We're going to overcome it.

But, of course, it did last, and it got -- the regime became more and more brutal and stronger and stronger in the apartheid regime. And in the '70s and '80s, it was so bad you thought that it's never going to end, or the whites were going to rush like Lengings (ph) to just -- and all over into a civil war for all of us -- black, white, everybody

So, I have lived -- to have lived to see the end of apartheid, happening without a civil war, through a unique negotiation that doesn't seem to be able to be brought off anywhere else in the world, this is the wonderful thing for me.

STRAND: Nelson Mandela, Walter Sesulu (ph), Desmond Tutu and so many others that rose to the occasion in this fight against apartheid, I mean, could you imagine having that many heroes in a work of fiction in a single work of fiction?

GORDIMER: Well, it's strange that you asked, because in a book of mine, one of my three books that were banned by the apartheid regime, Thurgood's (ph) daughter, indeed one of the characters remarks (UNINTELLIGIBLE) she's reflected to herself or whether she sees it, it's a terrible time to be living through. But there's something wonderful in that you are living in the country and it's a time when there are still heroes, because somehow politics elsewhere in the world seem rather shabby.

STRAND: So, do you feel you've observed some great changes?

GORDIMER: (UNINTELLIGIBLE). You see, for us even to go to a play or to movie, as I did last night, and there we are all sitting together, black and white, to go for a walk in the park on a Sunday and see a mixed couple lying and kissing one another, oh, you would have been arrested.

You know, the morality act was so incredible. Well, of course, it was a Nazi act. The Nazi laws were -- and the Nazis were defeated during the war, but then we did it all again here in South Africa.

STRAND: I had read that you revived this Nordine Gordimer prize for short stories written in African languages. I mean, are you excited about encouraging some of these new voices?

GORDIMER: Oh, yes, and actually it's not being revived by me. These friends of mine, led by Rex Ciwaka (ph), decided that this would be a nice thing to do on my birthday. And, of course, I was delighted. And it would be for people writing in their own languages, because I can't believe that there isn't a readership there.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MAKGABO: South African Nobel laureate Nadine Gordimer speaking with Cynde Strand.

As always, INSIDE AFRICA does want to hear from you, so let us hear what you think of today's program in particular. Send us an e-mail at insideafrica@cnn.com, and your letter could be used on a future broadcast.

And that's our look INSIDE AFRICA for this week. I'm Tumi Makgabo.

END

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