“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.
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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
After spending 2004 in Afghanistan working for the non-profit Institute for War and Peace Reporting and helping build Afghanistan's first independent news agency, Peter Eichstaedt returned to Kabul in 2010.
As he worked with Afghan journalists to document their history and collective struggles, he realized that although Kabul itself appeared cleaned up, with freshly paved roads, the optimism of the freshly liberated capital had faded under the rise of insurgency.
The war in Afghanistan is often examined from the perspective of a foreign correspondent, political analyst, or US soldier. In Above the Din of War: Afghans Speak About Their Lives, Their Country, and Their Future -- and Why America Should Listen, Eichstaedt provides a forum for the everyday people of Afghanistan to be heard.
Eichstaedt interviewed a wide range of individuals in districts and provinces across the country. Above the Din of War includes emotional and critical commentary and opinions from a former warlord, a Taliban judge, victims of self-immolation, poppy growers, courageous women parliamentarians, would-be suicide bombers, a besieged video store owner, frightened mullahs and desperate archaeologists.
Encountering the forces of the Taliban's shadow government throughout his travels, Eichstaedt experienced the reality of Afghanistan -- a reality that goes beyond the reportage of troop surges and withdrawals and special operations.
In Above the Din of War, he reveals the truth behind the calculated quotes of generals, diplomats, presidents and policy makers and shares personal stories of survival, tenacity and inner strength that allow Afghans to carry on through the calamity.
Above the Din of War offers clear insights and arguments for American and NATO exit strategies that could avoid leaving Afghanistan mired in chaos and war.
After 10 years of Americans fighting in Afghanistan, Above the Din of War shatters carefully constructed headlines to reveal the path to a sustainable future for a country called the "graveyard of empires."
Eichstaedt is a veteran journalist who has reported from locations worldwide, including Slovenia, Moldova, Afghanistan, Albania, Armenia, and Uganda. He worked most recently as the Afghanistan country director of the Institute for War and Peace Reporting, during which time he managed journalism development programs, including the Afghan Investigative Journalism Fund, a one-year project to build investigative journalism reporting capacity.
He is the former Africa editor for the institute and the author of Consuming the Congo: War and Conflict Minerals in the World's Deadliest Place; Pirate State: Inside Somalia's Terrorism at Sea; First Kill Your Family: Child Soldiers of Uganda and the Lord's Resistance Army; and If You Poison Us: Uranium and Native Americans. He lives in Denver, Colorado.
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.
"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.
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.
