UGANDA

THEMATIC ISSUES
Case study: mass displacement in Teso
The below is based on an extract from Prof. Justin Epelu-Opio’s book
“Teso War: Causes and Consequences” generously provided to enrich
the Compendium:
In Teso, mass displacement came in two phases. First, during the Teso
War, and second, during the LRA incursion. The first phase of mass
displacement occurred in 1988 and 1989. Soroti Town was the worst
affected. The population of displaced people was almost 600,000. In
Soroti, people were scattered in open grounds, sleeping on verandas
and in open spaces as there were no IDP camps. IDP camps were to be
found in Bukedea, Kumi, Mukura, Ngora, Nyero, Kanyum, Acowa, Wera
and many other trading centres.
During the second phase, in 2003, IDP camps were located in Soroti
Town as well as in some trading towns in Kaberamaido District, Amuria
Town and near Kapir in Ngora District following the incursion of Kony
and his LRA fighters.
In Teso, life in the IDP camps has totally destroyed the once coherent
social fabric in the community before 1988. Elders lost authority. The
youth were the bosses because elders feared for their lives when they
tried to advise the youth to stop the so-called rebellion which eventually
lost all sense of direction.
Across northern Uganda, participants described the IDP camps as places of restriction,
danger, humiliation, disempowerment, moral degeneration and terrible living conditions.
Participants in Kitgum referred to the IDP camps as “concentration camps.” According
to participants, the future of youth was undermined in the camps, as they missed out
on educational opportunities. It was argued that without proper education, those
who grew up in the camps – who on several occasions were described as a ‘missing
generation’ - are unable to compete on an equal basis with those across the country
who were never displaced. It was said that poverty in northern Uganda can in part be
attributed to prolonged displacement. Similarly, in Soroti, where people were displaced
by the Karimojong, the UPA and the LRA, participants blamed protracted dependency on
aid for increased poverty levels.
One of the most frequently mentioned detrimental impacts of displacement, which
continued or even increased after people left the camps and returned home, was altered
power relations and increased hostility between men and women. When open war
outside the homestead had ceased, conflict inside the home intensified. Participants
attributed increasing levels of SGBV to the fact that men were deprived of their role as
provider during camp life, and were forced to be idle. One woman respondent in Kitgum
described how “In the past men used to be bread winners, but when people went to the
camp, men lost all these authorities, so their anger went to women.”
In Pader and Lira, some participants blamed NGOs who organized ‘sensitisation meetings’
about the rights of women during encampment for distorting relationships between
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