By George Murumba

1^st Nov 2010

A spate of gun crime in Lira district has been blamed on the wide availability of weaponry left over from Uganda’s civil war, the Institute for War and Peace Reporting [IWPR] has reported.

At the beginning of October, a 60-year-old woman was gunned down over a land dispute in Alito sub-county in Kole District near the town of Lira. A week earlier, a woman was shot and killed in Barr sub-county, east of Lira, over similar disagreements about land.

At around the same time, two people were shot and killed in Chawente in the neighbouring District of Apac. The police blamed a gang that has been looting and terrorising residents in the area.  Richard Aruk Maruk, Lira’s district police chief said the presence of illegal guns, a legacy of the conflict, is fuelling the violence.

The regional police spokesman Henry Alyanga said in all the recent murder cases, the suspects had been arrested and remanded in custody.  But he also warned that the prevalence of un-licensed firearms in the region means that more killings are likely.

From 1986 to 2006, northern Uganda endured a bloody insurgency by the Lord’s Resistance Army in which an estimated 100,000 people were killed and nearly two million displaced.

Alyanga claimed that during the conflict, local leaders and those willing to join government forces – most notably paramilitaries such as the Amuka of northern Uganda and the so-called Arrow Boys of north-eastern Uganda – were given arms to protect civilians against LRA raids.  After the war, however, many failed to hand their weapons back, he said.

“…People were screened before they got the arms but some who managed to get through the screening included troublemakers who simply disappeared with the weapons.  They now use the guns in their possession to commit murder. Even those who returned the guns still know where to get such firearms if they want to”, Alyanga explained.

Musa Ecwero, the Minister of State for Disaster Preparedness and Refugees also accepted that some of those who received weapons have retained them but was quick to add that new disarmament efforts are under way.

Christopher Ameny, a cleric in the Aboke archdiocese in Apac district appointed by the Uganda Joint Christian Council to educate communities about the misuse of firearms said former LRA soldiers provide illegal weapons.

“…During the implementation of the project, we discovered that there are still lots of illegal arms in the region.  Many of these were in the hands of former LRA fighters. As former fighters returned home, many buried their guns in case they needed them again”, Ameny said.

The Resident District Commissioner of Lira Mr. Godfrey Aluma said thugs have got their own tactics for acquiring arms and it is very difficult to curtail it.  He added that “…it was unlikely that many of the recent murders could have been prevented by tougher gun laws”.

The spate of killings has alarmed people in the region whose memories of the LRA insurgency are still fresh.  END.  Please log into www.ugandacorrespondent.com every Monday to read our top stories and anytime mid-week for our news updates.