ARROW GROUP: People’s Power Against Kony

Soroti’s beautiful open grasslands and parking yards are jammed with human and animal traffic. Cows, sheep and goats litter the well planned town.
In the past few weeks, thousands of people, walking, with children on their backs, meagre belongings, chicken and animals were a common sight in Soroti. This is a result of increased rebel attacks along the Soroti-Lira and Soroti-Moroto roads. Military and civic sources said at the current rate of influx, within a week, Soroti town will host over 100,000 and 50,000 internally displaced persons and animals respectively.
“We deserve to live peacefully in our motherland. These rebels shall be defeated. The problem is that the Government has refused to give us guns,” a boda boda cyclist, Simon Onyait, 22, said. He is not alone. The urge to fight the notorious Kony rebels is extremely overwhelming.
The Arrow Group, a population’s initiative to fight Kony are heroes. The high priests of the Arrow Group are Captain Mike Mukula, the State Minister for Health, John Eresu, MP Kaberamaido and Musa Ecweru, the Kasese RDC.
According to Eresu, the Arrow Group is a spontaneous uprising against the Kony rebels. He said on June 15, 2003 when Kony rebels attacked Obalanga trading centre in Kapelebyong county, Katakwi, the security situation was in the rebels favour.
The nearest UPDF presence was over 100 miles away in Lira and in Bugema barracks in Mbale. There were about 300 soldiers at Kapelebyong, part of the anti-Stock theft Unit whose sole responsibility had been to stop Karimojong raiders from the Teso region.
“We decided to find a local solution as we waited for the army. With Kony rebels in our midst, the existence of the Itesot was gone. We thought of our lives, our children, our animals and property. Then we heeded calls by captain Mukula for a local initiative,” Eresu said.
The meeting at Soroti hotel was attended by politicians, retired soldiers, the defunct Uganda People's Army (UPA) rebels, politicians, local councillors, religious leaders, notables and cultural leaders. “We agreed that people all over the Teso region must bury their political differences and take up arms against Kony.”
He said, “We had read and heard a lot about Kony’s atrocities in Acholiland. We did not want the peace we have enjoyed for 13 years to be interrupted. We chose to mobilise the population. We asked all the Teso children with military knowledge inside and outside Teso to return home to fight for their motherland. We asked Mukula to convey our resolutions to President Yoweri Museveni.”
He said the anger in the population was evoked when the rebels planted landmines, which blew up vehicles in Katakwi and when they abducted girls of Lwala Secondary School. He said in a week, they had over 1,000 experienced fighters volunteering to fight. These included ex-UPA, chaka mchaka cadres, army deserters, local defence forces and retired soldiers.
Mukula heads the diplomatic and political leadership and Ecweru heads the overall military leadership. Ecweru who was the external resource mobiliser of the defunct UPA, later became UPA's defence minister. He said, on surrendering in 1991, UPA combatants met President Yoweri Museveni and pledged to defend peace in Teso. “I must say that the LRA attack on Teso gave the army two problems: Language barrier between the intelligence personnel and the local communities and another hindrance was Teso's flat terrain without hills and forests. This is why the Arrow Group had to come in to fill these gaps.”
The Arrow Group does not carry arrows but Ecweru likened it to an arrow which when shot flies as though it is aware of its destination. Ecweru said, “The Arrow Group is not an alternative to the UPDF, but their role is to collect and correct information about the rebel locations and guide the UPDF to attack with precision. In doing that they cannot go without guns. They end up participating in the actual fighting.”
He said the problems the Arrow Group faces are lack of adequate food, no boots, no uniforms and some allowances for their families. He said the Teso leaders are appealing to the Government, NGOs and other well-wishers to help.
Eresu said the Arrow Group has now 10 units and each group fights in its own locality under UPDF command. This is because the group knows the terrain, the people and language better than many of the UPDF soldiers and the rebels.
Others without military knowledge are volunteers in strengthening the intelligence network under Popular Intelligence Network (PIN) which is led by Adiama Ekajju, Katakwi LC5 councillor. Civilians gather and cook for the combatants.
He praised the women volunteers as the best spies because they do not tell exaggerated stories. “The best spies are those whose children have been abducted by the rebels,” a source said.
Eresu, in a faded military fatigue, said the secretaries of defence from LC1 to LC3 have taken up the role of leadership, coordination and information gathering for PIN.
“Kony is fighting us not President Museveni's tribe in Mbarara. This is why the iteso have risen up to face this menace,” said Alfred Imumet, a teacher in Soroti town.
The Reserve Force Commander Lt. Gen. Salim Saleh founded PIN in 1996 in Gulu, but it was fully implemented by presidential assistant, Major Kakooza Mutale. It is a people-based intelligence which relies on free and voluntary services of law-abiding citizens. In Teso, PIN has become the main guide of Arrow Group and the UPDF.
PIN aims at infiltrating shops, markets and churches to locate LRA sympathisers. For such a vigilant population and PIN, the LRA commander Tabuley Nyeko's letter which was aired on Radio Kioga Veritas was a dose too much. A PIN official said hostile media is as bad as the enemy itself and must be charged under the Terrorist Act. The closure of the radio is a relief to the law-abiding population which wants peace and security in Teso. On Saturday, I found Adiama, the PIN boss at a street corner in Soroti, listening to a small transistor radio. It was dark. He said he was waiting for a contact. “I have not eaten food since morning,” said the ex-UPA fighter-turned social worker.
“There is no rest here until Kony is forced to cancel his license to operate here. Our house is on fire and we must put out this fire. We have turned the ex-UPA against Kony. He had come to Teso with the sole aim to win over the ex-fighters,” he said
The rebels have broken into three groups but are still concentrated in Amuria country.

Captain Moses Agaba, 3rd Division political commissar, says the experience in Teso with arrow group is mesmerising and must be emulated by all. Another army source said: “I know the rebels will persist for some time. But they will eventually quit Teso because of the outrage. The situation here is different from the north where some leaders are making political capital out of the war. Teso leaders are not blaming the army and not offering lip-service but actually asking the population to help the army.”
Captain Agaba said the tactic often used by LRA is to split into smaller groups of tens or fifteens. He said, “What the Arrow Group does is one group monitors the rebels while another group informs the army. When the army comes in to hit the rebel, the Arrow Group concentrates on the rebels that scatter. They just annihilate the smaller and scattered groups of the enemy. This group is growing stronger day by day. We have never witnessed a situation where everybody is fighting regardless of their political, social and economic differences. Kony has become an element of unity in Teso,” Agaba said.
A day after Kony invaded Obalanga in Katakwi, 50 of the Arrow Group members armed with 11 AK-47 guns went to mobilise the population in Obalanga in Katakwi district, about a kilometre from where the rebels were. On the second day, the UPDF gave the Arrow Group 50 more AK-47 rifles. The army has since supplied the group with more guns, uniforms and dry ration. The first contact of the group and LRA was at Komolo village in Wera, Katakwi. The Arrow Group withdrew when they realised that LRA outnumbered them.
A week later, when enough UPDF soldiers had arrived, the AG was put under UPDF command. AG's current field commanders include Major Sam Otai, brother of Peter Otai, who is self-exiled in Britain, Akongel Abwatum, an assistant RDC in Bunia.
Faced with lack of military communication, Eresu said the Arrow Group commanders were grateful to MTN for switching on the Katakwi and Kaberamaido lines at the right time. “We just bought more telephones for our commanders. We have now received walkie talkies from the army,” a source said.
Samuel Anyolo, MP for Soroti County is angry, “We have never known why Kony is fighting. Now he is forcing closure of schools and health centres. We are now living in the town as squatters. Is it Kony’s duty to disrupt people’s lives. No, the Iteso are going to fight Kony to his origin.”
Anyolo said Langi and Acholi leaders have come to Soroti to study the Arrow Group arrangement and hope to emulate it. He said the Langi cultural leaders Yosamu Odur as well as district officials have embraced the Arrow Group. On July 7, 2003 Captain Mukula and Felix Okot Ogong (MP Dokolo)state minister for youth and children’s affairs, joined MPs, cultural and district leaders in Lira to launch Amuka Defence Unit or Rhino defence Unit which started with 4,000 volunteers. Its basic aim is to do exactly what the Arrow Group does in Teso. A rhino is a Langi cultural symbol for courage and unity. Anyolo said the Lira meeting agreed that unity among the Teso and Langi cultural, religious, political and military leaders was important in fighting Kony.
The rebels have failed to hold onto their captives due to increased clashes with the UPDF/AG. Fr. Hilder’s primary school in Soroti town has been turned into a reception centre for those rescued from war and for the internally displaced people.
The centre was established by Soroti council and is run by an NGO, the Action Against Child Abuse and Neglect (AACAN). G.W. Okwaput, the programme manager, said 412 children have passed through the centre since June 29, 2003 when it was set up for counselling of traumatised children.
He said 82 children from northern Uganda who entered Teso as part of the rebels have returned to Gulu, Pader and Kitgum.

There was an uproar in some political quarters when Captain Mukula wore military uniform. However, Major Shaban Bantariza, Army spokesman said, “the job the arrow group is doing requires a military uniform. Will it be fair for someone to attend a wedding party simply wrapped in a towel? This is exactly what will happen if Mukula and group who are now entirely doing military job go about their duties in neckties and suits.”
Anyolo praised Mukula for leading the anti-Kony campaign as well as forging unity with Lango and Acholi leaders. “I get sickened when some people in Kampala say that Mukula and other politicians want to grab the Kony war issue to steal the limelight.”
Ecweru attacked some government officials for preaching hatred against people devoted to ending the rebellion like Captain Mukula.
“I left my comfortable job as RDC to languish here. Mukula and other MPs from Teso are here in military fatigues having sleepless nights in trying to end the Kony menace. Those who exploit a people’s suffering to make political capital must be treated as traitors,” he said.
Mukula said he undertook to accommodate and feed the politicians and other AG members without assistance from the state. “I realised that with Kony in Teso whatever projects I make will come to ruin. I have decided to fund the AG activities. I hope the Government steps in quickly,” he said. Mukula said besides Kony and his deputy Vincent Otti, the entire LRA leadership has now entered Teso. “They are fighting a psychological warfare. They want to prove a point, but we want also to prove to them that they will fail against a united people with a cause to resist.”
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