I was crying as I typed this bit. just like I did when I reported it as a journalist... Incessant shrieks of a monkey in the nearby forest spelt doom in the small village of Atiak, in the northern Acholiland. The monkey’s warning cry was soon followed by a shrilling cry of agony which pierced through the dark night bringing the neighborhood into frightening reality of the danger they were in. Akot was only fourteen years old when The Lord’s Resistance Army rebels struck her village. As she narrates her ordeal at a rehabilitation center in Gulu, many years after the incident, her dark eyes moistened with grief. It was like her eyes no longer look at life as something worth living. Yet she had to continue existing. The torture was too much for her to bear. Two rows of tears slid down her bonny, lifeless cheeks and fell on her laps below. She continued weaving a mat out of palm leaves as she talked; “The door of our grass thatched house flung open with a heavy boot kick. My father was immediately hacked to death. As my mother tried to make an alarm, she was kicked in the head, sending her into immediate state of unconsciousness. Still, we were dragged out of the house and asked to match towards the playground. There, we found many villagers already squatting down, surrounded by armed rebels. Mean looking rebels with dreadlocks were ready to shoot. It was like they were just waiting for an order from the Commander. Women were sobbing slowly while those whose sons and husbands had been killed were beating their breasts in grief and agony. “All of you stand up. I say stand up at once” a tall dreadlocked commander shouted an order in Acholi dialect. His red eyes twinkling devilishly as he scanned around at the helpless captives. “He then ordered all of us to make a circle, still with some of the rebels, surrounding us. He went to the center of the circle and beckoned at a heavily pregnant woman whom he lookedat whimsically, like a doctor looking for the cause of an ailment. He then spoke out in Acholi, asking whose wife she was. Not a sound from the captives. He asked again whose wife she was. No word came out of the mouths of the captives. That was it. It was like the devil in him had been stirred. I whipped out a shining bayonet and gave a sudden strike, slicing open the belly of the pregnant woman. Roaring like a wounded lion, he flung his hand inside the belly and yanked out a writhing fetus. He again let out a loud yell as he tossed the fetus in the air, tilting his dagger upwards waiting for a soft landing of the unfortunate unborn child. Laughing like a demon possessed alien, he watched as life fade away from the hapless thing. The mother equally lay writhing in a pool of blood, dying. It was like darkeness had descended on the people of Atiak. God in His infinite mercy could have made the sun to stand still like He did in the days of Joshua, but He didn’t. As Akot narrated the story, Late Luck Dube’s song came into my mind. He was lamenting the reckless killings in the apartheid South Africa. He said for how long the world will the world fold their arms and watch, as South Africans kill their own brothers and sisters. “Still licking wounds of brutality. Still licking wounds of humiliation”. This was the same feeling I saw in Akot’s face……………To be continued
Posted on: Tue, 10 Sep 2013 12:07:06 +0000
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