Long road home

Feature

Written by Devapriyo Das

Wednesday, 09 July 2008 17:47

Reality of returning IDPs in northern Uganda IDP children fetch water from a spring in Oyam

Residents of Amukugungo village in Aboke, Apac district, are rediscovering what it means to sleep in peace.
Forced out of their village in 1994 by Lord’s Resistance Army rebels, they became internally displaced persons (IDPs) for the next 13 years, an experience that has left them with huge scars.

“We are angry,” says Amukugungo resident, Rosalind Ogang. “Some of our children were abducted and some killed. Some are still missing while others have returned. Our problems have grown so much.”
While it is true that IDPs like Rosalind are slowly trickling back to their homes, loss and helplessness often mark the uncertain joy of their return.
There are as many stories as there are returnees, but the narratives, like their tellers, often follow the same broken trail.

IDPs, depending on their location, and the level of security in their respective villages, initially returned to work their fields by day, but slept in camps by night. Most resumed farming two years ago, but only moved back home permanently from October 2007. Their biggest challenge today is to put food on their plates and their children in school. But they are determined to improve their lives through sustainable farming and collective action.

Members of the aptly named farmers’ group, Acan Pekun, or “the poor man doesn’t say he’s tired”, are an example. Resident in Ngai Sub-county, Oyam District, group members spent two years in a camp during 2004-05. They say they received no food aid and were instead compelled to hire and cultivate garden plots from an individual whose land fell within the boundary of the camp.

Untiring poor man

Today, group Chairman Patrick Olelo, and Parish Extension Officer Pasca Okello, assess Acan Pekun’s progress with pride. They say the group is hoping to cultivate millet, sorghum, groundnut, simsim [sesame], maize, beans, cassava and sweet potato, adding that, “until last year, we produced just enough food for ourselves. But this year we are hoping to sell some as well.”

The Agency for Sustainable Development Initiatives (ASDI), an Apac-based NGO, helps rehabilitate former IDPs in Oyam and Apac districts through food-security and improved hygiene programmes. Working with farmers’ groups of 30 members (15 couples), it encourages returnees to plant crops like pumpkin, beans, malakwang and boyo (greens) and eggplant, as well as advising them to diversify into growing upland rice. Fertilisers of the commercially available K132 variety are being introduced, and farmers are already seeing how they are boosting crop yield.

Paskwale Obutu, Agricultural Officer at ASDI, observes that: “Farmers were first unhappy about using fertilisers – they had only heard about them and didn’t know their impact. Now they can see the effects and maybe, they will be convinced to use them again. For now, they have no capacity to purchase fertilisers and rely on NGOs to supply it.”

Acan Aryek, a farmers’ collective from Acoo village, Aboke, is also part of ASDI’s rehabilitation programme. Acoo village was raided, and later occupied, by the LRA in 2002. Most villagers fled to an IDP camp at Opera 8kms away, and stayed there for about five years. They found the camp overcrowded, harsh and unsafe, but inmates received government support in the form of beans, posho, blankets, saucepans, jerrycans, soap, mosquito nets, plates, cooking oil and sugar. The camp, like others in Northern Uganda, was attacked by the LRA in 2004.

Targeted supply of select food crop seeds and fertilisers is today helping Acan Aryek kick-start production on its long-abandoned fields. Returnees assert that their farming skills have not declined through disuse, but there are few tools and no investment capital, necessitating intervention by co-operatives and NGOs. The aim is self-sufficiency for returnees, who are expected to purchase their next batch of seeds through the profits made from the sale of their current crop. It is a slow process, precariously dependent on good rains, careful management and good yields.
Eventually, says Mr. Obutu, ASDI “wants returning farmers to buy their items as a village or by forming a co-operative to purchase at wholesale [prices] and have better bargaining power.” Collectivisation might result in common storage facilities, bulk selling and minimum price guarantees for farmers.

Poor but wise

Acan Aryek is Luo for “a poor wise person”. Its members have grown poor through bitter circumstances and have had to remain wise. On return to Acoo, they found their houses destroyed, fields grown wild, and cattle and farm implements, including ox-ploughs, looted. They did not have sufficient spear grass for thatching their hastily rebuilt homes, nor did they receive the iron sheets promised by government. Their most worrying health problems emanate from lack of clean water, resulting in chronic cases such as diarrhoea and typhoid.

The insurgency has left them widowed, orphaned or disabled. Some, like elderly Christine Apio, bear deep sorrows.  “I sent some of the village children to Bareo camp in Ngai, where I heard there was army protection,” she says, “But the children were abducted from there too.” Her own daughter was abducted and remained in the bush for two years.

Yet, Acan Aryek persists. They have planted several acres: beans in 30ft by 50ft plots, maize of the ‘long ear 5 variety’, soya beans and simsim. Youth are staying home to work the fields with their parents, in the small hope that this year’s harvest will bring them the school fees they need to return to secondary education.  They have constructed a fishpond fed by an underground spring, where they successfully breed two types of tilapia. Since fresh fish is hard to get in Aboke, they hope their catch will fetch a good price. They are slowly restocking their lost herds. Moreover, Ms Apio’s daughter has returned and is part of the farming community.

As the carefully nurtured green maize glows softly in the evening light, returnees listen to the radio for good news from Juba and the peace talks. And they continue to hope.