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Wars of the Past and War in the Present: The Lord's Resistance Movement/Army in Uganda

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2011

Sverker Finnström
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Abstract

War has ravaged Acholiland in northern Uganda since 1986. The Ugandan army is fighting the Lord's ResistanceMovement/Army (LRM/A) rebels. Based on anthropological fieldwork, the article aims at exemplifying the ways in which non-combatant people's experiences of war and violence are domesticated in cosmological terms as strategies of coping, and it relates tales of wars in the past to experiences of violent death and war in the present. There has been a politicized debate in Uganda over whether or not the LRM/A rebels have the elders' ceremonial warfare blessing. In sketching this debate, the article interprets the possible warfare blessing – which some informants interpreted as having turned into a curse on Acholiland – as a critical event that benefits from further deliberation, regardless of its existence or non-existence. It is argued that no warfare blessing can be regarded as the mere utterance of words. Rather, a blessing is performed within the framework of the local moral world. It is finally argued that the issue of the warfare blessing is a lived consequence of the conflict, but, nevertheless, cannot be used as an explanatory model for the cause of the conflict.

Résumé

Depuis 1986, la guerre ravage l'Acholiland, dans le Nord de l'Ouganda. L'armée ougandaise s'y bat contre les rebelles de la LRM/A (Lord's Resistance Movement/Army). S'appuyant sur des travaux anthropologiques de terrain, l'article cherche à exemplifier lamanière dont les expériences de la guerre et de la violence par les non-combattants sont domestiquées, en termes cosmologiques, en tant que stratégies de défense, et établit un rapport entre des récits de guerre du passé et des expériences de mort violente et de guerre du présent. Un débat politisé a eu lieu en Ouganda sur la question de savoir si les rebelles de la LRM/A ont reçu la bénédiction officielle des anciens pour se battre. Dans l'esquisse qu'il fait du débat, l'article interprète cette bénédiction éventuelle, que certains informateurs ont interprétée comme s'étant transformée en malédiction appelée sur l'Acholiland, comme un événement critique qui bénéficie de la poursuite du débat, indépendamment de son existence ou non-existence. L'article soutient qu'une simple formulation de mots ne saurait en aucun cas constituer une bénédiction. Une bénédiction serait plutôt pratiquée dans le cadre de l'univers moral local. Enfin, l'article affirme que la question de la bénédiction de la guerre est une conséquence vécue du conflit qui peut néanmoins servir de modèle d'explication de la cause du conflit.

Type
Research Article
Information
Africa , Volume 76 , Issue 2 , May 2006 , pp. 200 - 220
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 2006

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