8 of the 9 recent adult male defectors.
As we announced on Tuesday, December 10, 2013, the largest defection of LRA combatants since 2008 occurred in Central African Republic last week. The “Zemio 19” was made up of 9 men, 4 women, and 6 children.
How they lived
Invisible Children’s team in Central African Republic had a chance to debrief with the 9 men in the group, including the group’s leaders Lt. Col. Okello Okutti and Lt. Okuda Balla. Okutti had himself been abducted as a child in northern Uganda 24 years ago.
The two officers did most of the talking on behalf of the 9 men. They said that the the Zemio 19 had been traveling on their own for about a year and half, mostly isolated from other LRA groups. They never got orders directly from Joseph Kony, but mostly through LRA commander Okot Odhiambo, who is indicted by the International Criminal Court along with Joseph Kony and one other LRA commander.
The officers said that they had last seen Odhiambo in May 2012 when he ordered them to lay low, and to refrain from committing violent crimes against civilians, which would attract notice. As a result, the group has been looting food and supplies for the last year and a half. This is consistent with what other escapees have told authorities about being ordered to keep under the radar for a while.
The LRA combatants were told by their commanders that the UPDF (Ugandan military) would mistreat them or kill them if they escaped. One of the escapees explained that they are told “different things to make you get lost in your mind.” Things that would make them afraid.
Why they surrendered
They then explained why they decided to leave the LRA, citing Invisible Children’s “come home” messaging as a major influence in their decision to surrender.
“What gave us the courage to surrender was the live airing of the messages of the former abducted.” This gave them confidence that the former defectors were indeed alive. The entire group listened to Invisible Children’s UBC Shortwave program featuring Lacambel every Thursday night at 10pm. For the Ugandans in the group it was in their native language, and week after week they heard more and more former LRA speak.
Earlier in 2013 one of the “come home” radio programs addressed the group’s leader, Okello Okutti, by name, encouraging him to lay down his weapons and leave the LRA.
To the Zemio 19, these messages stacked up as more and more evidence that Kony was lying about what would happen to them if they tried to leave the LRA. The more defection fliers they saw with familiar photos and the more radio messages they heard recorded by familiar voices, they grew more confident that they, too, could leave the LRA for good.
The group insisted that they wanted to record “come home” messages themselves so that they could help give other people the courage to surrender. Within two days of their surrender, helicopter speaker messaging and flier drops were being conducted by Bridgeway Foundation, in collaboration with Invisible Children, to the northeast of Zemio, near Kitessa, where another LRA group is reported to be interested in defecting.
When the Zemio 19 walked out of the bush they got their lives back. For them, the war is over.
And Joseph Kony is weaker because the Zemio 19 included 6 combatants from the LRA’s core of fighters. This is something to celebrate.
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