[I mentioned that people’s lips were cut off in Rhodesia – and even have photos of it on my website. Mugabe’s army… cut body parts off blacks who opposed his ideology… Now he rules that country. Here we see, this same black-on-black atrocity being practised elsewhere in Africa. Jan]

Kampala – The rebel Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) has stepped up attacks in northern Uganda, killing or mutilating nearly 30 people since a government ceasefire expired this week, officials said on Friday.

Suspected LRA rebels have killed at least 21 people in four northern districts since the truce ended on Tuesday and, in a brutal incident on Thursday, sliced the lips off eight women, the officials said.

The women had left a camp for the war-displaced in Kitgum district to get water from a well three kilometres away when they were accosted by LRA gunmen, according to a military spokesperson and a local official.

“The rebels found them there and cut off their lips,” said Lieutenant Paddy Ankunda.

“These are the people we have to talk peace with.”

Ankunda and the chairman of the Kitgum district council, Norman Ojwee, said the women were left bleeding and in severe pain at the well and had been admitted to a local hospital where they were being treated.

The LRA has gained infamy for its brutal treatment of the civilian population in northern Uganda, particularly the abduction of children, but Ojwee said attacks had been on the decline amid halting peace talks.

“The situation was getting back to normal and we had started telling people to prepare to (leave) some camps to smaller camps, but now we need to move a little more cautiously,” Ojwee said.

Despite the expiration of the truce, Kampala says it remains willing to talk peace with the LRA, whose ranks it maintains have been decimated in recent months by military operations and defections.

Although the rebels have suffered several well-publicised, high-ranking defections since the end of January, their activities this week appear to indicate they are unwilling to end their 18-year fight.

On Tuesday, suspected LRA rebels killed a mother and child near the same camp where the women were mutilated, Ojwee said.

In addition to the lip-slicing incident, suspected rebels also ambushed a military truck in the Pader district on Thursday, killing six people, four soldiers and two civilians, according to Ankunda.

And UN officials said at least 13 people – three in Gulu, and 10 farmers in Apac – had been killed in three separate rebel attacks this week.

The LRA has been fighting President Yoweri Museveni’s secular government since 1988, ostensibly to replace it with an administration based on the biblical Ten Commandments.

Tens of thousands have been killed and at least 1.6 million people displaced by the fighting.

But the rebel group is best known for its brutality against the civilian population and relief agencies say it has abducted as many as 20 000 children for use as soldiers, porters and sex slaves.

Efforts to end the rebellion through dialogue, have yet to yield results and the most concrete achievement to date had been a meeting between a rebel delegation and top government officials at the end of December.

Source: News24.com
URL: http://www.news24.com/News24/Africa/News/0,,2…/p>