First Kill Your Family: Child Soldiers of Uganda and the Lord's Resistance Army [Hardcover]

Peter Eichstaedt (Author)

Book Description

“Richard Opio has neither the look of a cold-blooded killer nor the heart of one. Yet as his mother and father lay on the ground with their hands tied, Richard used the blunt end of an ax to crush their skulls.  He was ordered to do this by a unit commander of the Lord’s Resistance Army, a rebel group that has terrorized northern Uganda for twenty years. The memory racks Richard’s slender body as he wipes away tears.”

 

For more than twenty years, beginning in the mid-1980s, the Lord’s Resistance Army has ravaged northern Uganda. Tens of thousands have been slaughtered, and thousands more mutilated and traumatized. At least 1.5 million people have been driven from a pastoral existence into the squalor of refugee camps.

 

            The leader of the rebel army is the rarely seen Joseph Kony, a former witchdoctor and self-professed spirit medium who continues to evade justice and wield power from somewhere near the Congo~Sudan border. Kony claims he not only can predict the future but also can control the minds of his fighters. And control them he does: the Lord’s Resistance Army consists of children who are abducted from their homes under cover of night. As initiation, the boys are forced to commit atrocities—murdering their parents, friends, and relatives—and the kidnapped girls are forced into lives of sexual slavery and labor.

 

In First Kill Your Family, veteran journalist Peter Eichstaedt goes into the war-torn villages and refugee camps, talking to former child soldiers, child “brides,” and other victims. He examines the cultlike convictions of the army; how a pervasive belief in witchcraft, the spirit world, and the supernatural gave rise to this and other deadly movements; and what the global community can do to bring peace and justice to the region. This insightful analysis delves into the war’s foundations and argues that, much like Rwanda’s genocide, international intervention is needed to stop Africa’s virulent cycle of violence.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Eichstaedt (If You Poison Us) offers a heartfelt if sometimes lopsided look at the consequences of prolonged civil war. Northern Uganda has been under siege by the rebel group the Lords Resistance Army, or LRA, for 20 years, leading to death tolls rivaling those in Darfur, Sudan, which has garnered considerably more media attention. The LRA is known for employing brutal techniques, including mutilating community members who inform on them, kidnapping children to serve as male child soldiers or female brides, sex slaves for rebel soldiers. Interviewing victims of these crimes, as well as perpetrators, government officials and non-governmental actors, Eichstaedt weaves a story of a decimated culture caught between merciless violence and the chaos of refugee camps. The result is a close analysis of this underreported crisis, which has only recently shown signs of abating. However, some of Eichstaedts conclusions seem uninformed at best, including his one-sided look at religious views in Uganda, which prompt his remark, There is no moral center of gravity here, no spiritual compass that one can hold against the horizon to escape the clamor and chaos. (Feb.)
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From Booklist

With a high literacy rate and AIDS seemingly under control, Uganda enjoyed a fine international reputation until it fell prey to revolution. For 20 years, the rebel army has killed and victimized tens of thousands and caused the displacement of two million people. American journalist Eichstaedt has spent over two years there, speaking to many soldiers and victims, including young boys forced to fight, young girl “brides” forced into prostitution, and refugees held in detention camps. He also talks with local politicians (including the rebel militia that cloaks itself in Christian rhetoric) and with UN leaders trying to forge peace. There are several memoirs told from the point of view of child soldiers, but Eichstaedt’s broader, less-personal study offers another perspective. His blend of interviews with observation and analysis of political history, including comparisons between Uganda and neighboring Rwanda, Sudan, and Congo, raises the elemental questions: Why didn’t the world know or care about what was happening? Why do people rebel and how does rebellion get out of hand? And is the call for forgiveness merely a way to prevent reprisals? --Hazel Rochman

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Lawrence Hill Books; 1 edition (February 1, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1556527993
• ISBN-13: 978-1556527999
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (46 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #98,593 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #2 in Books > History > Africa > Uganda
  • #21 in Books > History > Africa > East Africa
  • #26 in Books > History > Africa > Central Africa

More About the Author

Every time you use a cell phone or computer, you could be contributing to the death toll in the world's most violent region: the eastern Congo.

In Consuming the Congo, War and Conflict Minerals in the World's Deadliest Place, Peter Eichstaedt goes into these killing fields to unearth what is behind the bloodshed of eastern Congo, where 5 million people have died in the past dozen years, traveling the countryside to hear the stories of those who live this nightmarish reality.

He talks with survivors of villages decimated by war and desperate miners slogging through muck while militias and renegade army units roam the jungles, killing and raping with impunity, taking the profits, and leaving villagers to grueling labor, brutality, and disease.

Millions of Congolese have died, and the bloodletting continues at a frightening pace.

Consuming the Congo not only reveals the story behind the headlines, but examines how we, as part of the problem, can become part of the solution.

Peter Eichstaedt is a journalist and author dedicated revealing the stories behind human rights abuses. Formerly senior editor for Uganda Radio Network and Africa editor for the Institute of war and Peace in Reporting in The Hague, Netherlands, Eichstaedt has traveled extensively in Africa to cover war crimes and trials.

He won the 2010 Colorado Book Award for history for his book First Kill Your Family: Child Soldiers of Uganda and the Lord's Resistance Army.

Details of his most recent book, Pirate State: Inside Somalia's Terrorism at Sea can be found at www.piratestatesomalia.com.

In it, readers enter the world of piracy through encounters with pirates, their defenders, and those who chase and capture them. Readers meet Somali refugees who have fled the internecine violence that has wracked Somalia and who now struggle to survive in Kenyan refugee camps. The book includes chilling revelations of a former fighter of the deadly al-Shabaab Islamic militia that controls much of southern Somalia.

Eichstaedt's previous book, First Kill Your Family: Child Soldiers of Uganda and the Lord's Resistance Army, (Lawrence Hill Books, February 2009), reveals the horrors behind 20 years of a rebel war in northern Uganda. Eichstaedt explains the origins of this vicious cult army responsible for an estimated 100,000 deaths and displacement of 2 million Ugandans. Although the rebel army has abandoned northern Uganda, it continues to kill, loot and abduct children in the Central Africa Republic and the western regions of South Sudan.

Eichstaedt's first book, If You Poison Us: Uranium and Native Americans (Red Crane 1994), is a ground-breaking work of investigative journalism that exposed the human and environmental devastation of uranium mining on the Navajo Reservation. In this seminal study of environmental racism, Eichstaedt reveals that federal officials were aware of the deadly health risks that unregulated exposure to uranium posed to the largely Navajo miners. Rather than taking steps to mitigate the problem, federal health officials documented the decline and death of thousands of uranium miners.

He received a Fulbright grant in journalism in 1999 and has lived and worked in the Balkans, Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, and the former Soviet Union. He makes his home base near Denver, Colorado, and is currently on assignment in Kabul, Afghanistan.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The war in Uganda is a definite candidate for "the forever war", October 24, 2008

By 

Charles Ashbacher (Marion, Iowa United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: First Kill Your Family: Child Soldiers of Uganda and the Lord's Resistance Army (Hardcover)

(What's this?)

Most Americans are familiar with much of the bloodshed that has taken place in Uganda since it achieved independence from Great Britain. Unfortunately, a great deal of this is a consequence of the academy-award winning movie, "The Last King of Scotland", which depicted the brutal rule of former Ugandan dictator Idi Amin. Almost unknown is the two-decades long continuous war fought in Northern Uganda by the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) led by a man called Joseph Kony. Kony is a former witch doctor that claims a Christian heritage and power as a medium. Kony argues that his army fights to support the Christian Ten Commandments, which the reason for the inclusion of "Lord's" in the name of his army.
Northern Uganda is a region almost guaranteed by geopolitical and geosocial forces to be in a state of continuous warfare. First and foremost, it is a region with several native tribes with a history of animosity. Some tribes are traditionally farmers, others traditional herders and others traditional warriors that prey on the others. The northern tribes are also distinct from those that inhabit the southern section of the country where the major cities and central government are. Secondly, it is a region, like most of Uganda, of very fertile soil, so it is easy to grow food and support a large population. Finally, the region shares borders with Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The DRC is a chronically unstable country, the central government has no control of the region bordering Uganda and the mineral wealth in that region is a prize to be fought over. Sudan is a country split into two disparate regions, the Arab north and the more African south. The two factions have been fighting for control of the southern Sudan for years and the discovery of large reserves of oil in the region have raised the stakes. Given that neither the DRC or Sudan governments have much control over their regions that border Uganda, this allows the LRA to occupy safe havens just across the border from Uganda. The mineral wealth also makes it a region of interest to other nations.
Peter Eichstaedt is a veteran journalist that traveled to this area in order to study the conflict firsthand. The LRA is known for their brutal treatment of people, often resorting to mutilation of the people they are stealing from and abducting children. Male children are impressed into the army as fighters and the females are handed out as "brides" to LRA soldiers deemed worthy of the prize. Eichstaedt presents an accurate yet very bleak portrait of this war, he goes to great lengths to establish the historical, political and tribal context for what is taking place in northern Uganda and the neighboring countries. It is a very complex situation, Catholic missionaries that have lived in the area for years are still often uncertain as to what the underlying motives of the players are.
Situations like this are an abject lesson for Western observers who believe in simple solutions or that Western values can be applied everywhere. Uganda is 84% Christian with Islam being the next major religion at 12% of the population. Yet, these beliefs are once again being "adapted" to local conditions in a perverse way. Given that the bulk of the Ugandan population lives in the south and there appears to be no reason for the LRA to stop fighting as that is the only life the soldiers know, this is a candidate for "the forever war." In other words a war that continues for no reason other than that the principals fight because that is what their predecessors did and it is the only thing that they have ever done.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ugandan Genocide, October 24, 2008

By 

deeper waters (Michigan, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: First Kill Your Family: Child Soldiers of Uganda and the Lord's Resistance Army (Hardcover)

(What's this?)

Peter Eichstaedt spares no details as he describes the violence of the L.R.A. and the often equally oppressive national army towards the people of Uganda. For some reason, the systematic destruction of this country's human and natural resources has failed to draw the same attention that has been given to similar atrocities in Darfur, and this is a strong effort to create an awareness of and outrage about another African killing field. Eichstaedt shows the tragic interplay of witchcraft, despair, greed, psychological manipulation, modern military weapons and the inattention of the global community that has allowed Joseph Kony to create and expand the L.R.A which relies on children to carry out murder. The lack of commitment by the international community is a discouraging and frightening commentary on our values as well as a harbinger of what the future of the global community will become. This is a powerful and credible work not only because it is accurately researched, but because it is told by people who have first hand experience either as the kidnapped children or individuals who have had intimate contact with them and their families.

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good reporting, not much of a story, December 18, 2008

By 

Pistol Pete "Pete" (Houston, TX United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: First Kill Your Family: Child Soldiers of Uganda and the Lord's Resistance Army (Hardcover)

(What's this?)

"First Kill Your Family" is the story of one reporter's journey to Uganda and examination of the "Lord's Resistance Army" or the LRA. The author goes to different parts of Uganda to find out the effects of the long war that the LRA has waged in northern Uganda. It is fascinating reporting - but each chapter is a story in and of itself. The next chapter is usually only tangentially related to the previous one. The only common theme is the effects of the LRA on Uganda.

While a similar subject, "A Long Way Gone" is much more readable because it is the story of one captured boy soldier and his experiences as a boy soldier in Sierra Leone. It is still worth a read if you are interested in this particular war, but it reads much better if you think of it as a collection of news reports from the battlefield in Uganda.