Stop Aiding SPLA, Gulu Women Plead

By Odokonyero Moses & Lucy Lapoti, The Monitor

GULU, Nov 27, 2003 — Women here have asked government to stop aiding Sudanese rebels. The women say this could boost the peace efforts in the war-torn northern Uganda.

The Sudan People’s Liberation Army has been fighting the Khartoum government since 1983.

The women said that Sudan supports rebel leader Joseph Kony because the Ugandan government helps the SPLA.

“We the women are saying that our government should stop supporting the SPLA so that Sudan can stop supporting Kony and we have peace,” Ms Margaret Odong, a local district councillor, said on Tuesday.

She was speaking at a two-day workshop organised by the Uganda Women’s Media Association.

She spoke on behalf of Gulu women affiliated to a local NGO called the Grassroots Women Association for Development.

The Gulu LC-V Chairman, Lt. Col. Walter Ochora, said, however, that all “pan-Africanist” countries support the SPLA because the Sudanese government wants to “Arabaise” the south which has mainly Christians and blacks.

“In this policy of Arabaisation, able youth from the south are taken to Khartoum and replaced in the south by male Arab youth with the intention of having Arab offspring and increasing the Arab population. That is why all countries are helping the SPLA,” Ochora said.

The UMWA boss, Ms Margaret Sentamu, said the workshop was aimed at making the war in the north a national issue and not an Acholi or Teso problem.