Betty Aol Ocan, the Woman MP of Gulu City, also appealed to the cultural, religious and political leaders to ensure that the people do not remain in exile.
Leaders
in the Acholi sub-region are mooting
the repatriation of members of the defunct Holy Spirit Movement (HSM) living in
a camp in Kenya.
During the cleansing ceremony of former abductees of the Lord’s
Resistance Army (LRA) on Thursday, Christopher Opiyo Ateker, the chairperson of
Gulu District, said there are approximately 1,000 members of the HSM living in
Kenya, with some of them sick and frail, and need to be brought back home.
“So for this reason, our paramount chief and other chiefs, who have
played a great role in bringing back former fighters, let’s form a committee so
that we return the Acholi home. Others are very sick, paramount chief,” Ateker
said.
Ateker revealed that a section of leaders are already in talks with the central
government to plan for the return of the HSM members.
Betty Aol Ocan, the Woman MP of Gulu
City, also appealed to the cultural, religious and political leaders to ensure that the people do not remain in exile.
Aol stressed that if the members are
expressing interest in returning, as is being said by some leaders, they should
be supported to return, especially if they are living under hard conditions.
Aol appealed to the office of the
Prime Minister to put their weight
behind the plan for it to be actualised.
//Cue in: “For those who…
Cue out: …they come back.”//
Rwot David Onen Acana II, the
paramount chief of the Acholi, acknowledged receiving reports that several
members of the HSM are expressing interest in coming back home.
Rwot Acana II, however, said the issue
should be formalised, and all relevant parties involved, so that discussions and plans for their return are
also formal.
//Cue in: “Jo ma yam…
Cue out: …cani gudwog woko.”//
For years, the remnants of the Holy
Spirit Movement, once led by the enigmatic Alice Lakwena in Uganda, have
remained scattered, some settling quietly in neighbouring Kenya after the
movement's collapse in the late 1980s.
About the Holy Spirit Movement
It was led by Alice Auma, a
fishmonger and flour trader at Opit Railway Station.
She was born to the late Severino
Lukoya and Ibarina Ayaa in Bungatira Sub-county, Gulu District.
Auma reportedly fled from home after
two failed marriages, and upon her return after a month, claimed that she was
possessed by a holy spirit, which instructed her to overthrow the government of
Yoweri Museveni because it was unjust to the Acholi.
As the medium through which the
"holy spirit" communicated, Auma later became known as Lakwena, an
Acholi word that means messenger.
Following instructions from the
"holy Spirit", Auma rose against the government of Uganda from August
1986 until 1987.
She claimed that the spirit could
make the bodies of her ill-equipped army bulletproof, after smearing themselves with shea butter oil and earthenware soil. However,
in November 1987, near Jinja, her forces attempted to march to Kampala from the north.
Some of her soldiers followed her to
Kenya, and some joined Joseph Kony, the leader of the LRA, who is reported to be
her cousin. Auma died in 2007 in Kenya.
The
remaining members are said to be living in Kakuma refugee camp in Turkana County,
one of the largest refugee camps in Kenya, which has for long hosted people
fleeing conflict from Uganda, South Sudan and beyond. Others reportedly live in
Kitale and Eldoret, near the Uganda border, and a smaller number moved to low-income
neighbourhoods in urban areas like Nairobi, but not as an organised group.
