Alice Auma
Encyclopedia
Holy Spirit Movement
The Holy Spirit Movement was the Ugandan rebel group led by Alice Auma, a spirit-medium who claimed to receive direction from the spirit Lakwena. Alice, an ethnic Acholi, was purportedly directed to form the HSM by Lakwena in August 1986...
, led a millennial
Millennialism
Millennialism , or chiliasm in Greek, is a belief held by some Christian denominations that there will be a Golden Age or Paradise on Earth in which "Christ will reign" for 1000 years prior to the final judgment and future eternal state...
rebellion against the Uganda
Uganda
Uganda , officially the Republic of Uganda, is a landlocked country in East Africa. Uganda is also known as the "Pearl of Africa". It is bordered on the east by Kenya, on the north by South Sudan, on the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, on the southwest by Rwanda, and on the south by...
n government forces of President Yoweri Museveni
Yoweri Museveni
Yoweri Kaguta Museveni is a Ugandan politician and statesman. He has been President of Uganda since 26 January 1986.Museveni was involved in the war that deposed Idi Amin Dada, ending his rule in 1979, and in the rebellion that subsequently led to the demise of the Milton Obote regime in 1985...
from August 1986 until November 1987. The primary spirit
Spirit
The English word spirit has many differing meanings and connotations, most of them relating to a non-corporeal substance contrasted with the material body.The spirit of a living thing usually refers to or explains its consciousness.The notions of a person's "spirit" and "soul" often also overlap,...
she purportedly channeled was that of a dead Italian army officer called "Lakwena", meaning messenger, which the Acholi believe to be a manifestation of the Christian Holy Spirit
Holy Spirit
Holy Spirit is a term introduced in English translations of the Hebrew Bible, but understood differently in the main Abrahamic religions.While the general concept of a "Spirit" that permeates the cosmos has been used in various religions Holy Spirit is a term introduced in English translations of...
. The combined persona of Alice Auma channeling the spirit Lakwena is often referred to as Alice Lakwena.
Biography
Alice Auma was born in 1956. Remaining childless after two marriages, she moved away from her hometown. She eventually converted to CatholicismCatholicism
Catholicism is a broad term for the body of the Catholic faith, its theologies and doctrines, its liturgical, ethical, spiritual, and behavioral characteristics, as well as a religious people as a whole....
but, on 25 May 1985, she reportedly went ‘insane’, unable to either hear or speak, later claiming to have been possessed by a spirit, Lakwena. Her father took her to eleven different witches but none alleviated her condition. Alice claimed Lakwena then guided her to Paraa National Park, where she disappeared for 40 days and returned a spirit-medium, a traditional ethnic religious role.
Prior to the defeat of Tito Okello
Tito Okello
General Tito Lutwa Okello , was a Ugandan Military officer and politician. He was the President of Uganda from 29 July 1985 until 26 January 1986.-Background:Tito Okello was born in 1914 in Kitgum District...
, Alice Auma was one of many spirit-mediums working near the town of Gulu as a minor oracle
Oracle
In Classical Antiquity, an oracle was a person or agency considered to be a source of wise counsel or prophetic predictions or precognition of the future, inspired by the gods. As such it is a form of divination....
and spiritual healer. In the midst of the chaos of the anti-NRA insurgency of the Uganda People's Democratic Army
Uganda People's Democratic Army
The Uganda People's Democratic Army was a rebel group operating in northern Uganda from March 1986 to June 1988.In January, 1986, the government of Ugandan President Tito Okello was overthrown by the rebel National Resistance Army under the command of Yoweri Museveni, which took the capital city...
and the increasingly brutal counterinsurgency of the National Resistance Army
National Resistance Army
The National Resistance Army , the military wing of the National Resistance Movement , was a rebel army that waged a guerrilla war, commonly referred to as the Luwero War or "the war in the bush", against the government of Milton Obote, and later that of Tito Okello.NRA was supported by Muammar...
, it is claimed that on 6 August 1986 Lakwena ordered Alice to stop her work as a diviner and healer, which was pointless in the midst of war, and create a Holy Spirit Movement
Holy Spirit Movement
The Holy Spirit Movement was the Ugandan rebel group led by Alice Auma, a spirit-medium who claimed to receive direction from the spirit Lakwena. Alice, an ethnic Acholi, was purportedly directed to form the HSM by Lakwena in August 1986...
(HSM) to fight evil and end the bloodshed. Through this divine mission that coincidentally required the retaking of the capital of Kampala
Kampala
Kampala is the largest city and capital of Uganda. The city is divided into five boroughs that oversee local planning: Kampala Central Division, Kawempe Division, Makindye Division, Nakawa Division and Lubaga Division. The city is coterminous with Kampala District.-History: of Buganda, had chosen...
, the Acholi would redeem themselves from the violence they had collectively done to the civilians of the Luwero triangle
Luwero triangle
The Luweero triangle, sometimes spelled Luwero Triangle, is an area of Uganda to the north of the capital Kampala, where Yoweri Museveni started the guerrilla war in 1981, that propelled him and his National Resistance Movement into power in 1986....
and initiate a paradise on earth. An explanation was given in a letter given to local missionaries:
The good Lord who had sent the Lakwena decided to change his work from that of a doctor to that of a military commander for one simple reason: it is useless to cure a man today only that he be killed the next. So it became an obligation on his part to stop the bloodshed before continuing his work as a doctor.
This came in the midst of a perceived local spiritual crisis that coincided with the threat posed by the occupying southern forces. The increased level of societal tension and number of deaths was attributed to witchcraft. Simultaneously, the soldiers fleeing back into Acholi from the defeat at Kampala
Kampala
Kampala is the largest city and capital of Uganda. The city is divided into five boroughs that oversee local planning: Kampala Central Division, Kawempe Division, Makindye Division, Nakawa Division and Lubaga Division. The city is coterminous with Kampala District.-History: of Buganda, had chosen...
often refused traditional purification ceremonies that were said to protect the community from the vengeful spirits of the people they had killed, and the elders found that they no longer had the authority to force compliance.
Alice Auma claimed that the possessing spirit Lakwena required that Alice be possessed by numerous other spirits to achieve its aims, which was unusual in the context of Acholi spirit-behavior. After a series of spectacular victories, Alice led the Holy Spirit Movement
Holy Spirit Movement
The Holy Spirit Movement was the Ugandan rebel group led by Alice Auma, a spirit-medium who claimed to receive direction from the spirit Lakwena. Alice, an ethnic Acholi, was purportedly directed to form the HSM by Lakwena in August 1986...
south out of Acholiland towards Kampala, where she garnered much support from other ethnic groups that had grievances with the Museveni
Yoweri Museveni
Yoweri Kaguta Museveni is a Ugandan politician and statesman. He has been President of Uganda since 26 January 1986.Museveni was involved in the war that deposed Idi Amin Dada, ending his rule in 1979, and in the rebellion that subsequently led to the demise of the Milton Obote regime in 1985...
government. However, subsequent military setbacks suffered by the HSM prompted some followers to accuse Alice of being a witch using spirits for destructive ends. As the HSM suffered its final defeat under withering artillery
Artillery
Originally applied to any group of infantry primarily armed with projectile weapons, artillery has over time become limited in meaning to refer only to those engines of war that operate by projection of munitions far beyond the range of effect of personal weapons...
fire in the forests near Kampala
Kampala
Kampala is the largest city and capital of Uganda. The city is divided into five boroughs that oversee local planning: Kampala Central Division, Kawempe Division, Makindye Division, Nakawa Division and Lubaga Division. The city is coterminous with Kampala District.-History: of Buganda, had chosen...
, Alice fled, and claimed Lakwena had left her.
Alice Auma lived in the Ifo refugee
Refugee
A refugee is a person who outside her country of origin or habitual residence because she has suffered persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or because she is a member of a persecuted 'social group'. Such a person may be referred to as an 'asylum seeker' until...
camp near Dadaab
Dadaab
Dadaab is a semi-arid town in the North Eastern Province in Kenya. As of 2011, it hosts what is often described as the largest refugee camp in the world.-General:...
in northern Kenya for the remainder of her life, and claimed to have been abandoned by the spirits. In November 2004, she was implicated in child trafficking from Gulu to the refugee camp. In 2006, she claimed to have discovered a cure for HIV
HIV
Human immunodeficiency virus is a lentivirus that causes acquired immunodeficiency syndrome , a condition in humans in which progressive failure of the immune system allows life-threatening opportunistic infections and cancers to thrive...
/AIDS
AIDS
Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus...
. Auma died on 17 January 2007, after having been sick for about a week with an unknown illness.
The Tale of Paraa
Holy Spirit Movement
The Holy Spirit Movement was the Ugandan rebel group led by Alice Auma, a spirit-medium who claimed to receive direction from the spirit Lakwena. Alice, an ethnic Acholi, was purportedly directed to form the HSM by Lakwena in August 1986...
, in particular in the discourse about the insurgency
Insurgency
An insurgency is an armed rebellion against a constituted authority when those taking part in the rebellion are not recognized as belligerents...
being a rebellion of nature itself, and deserves explication. According to the story, Lakwena first held court with all the animals of the park on the theme of the ongoing war in the south and destruction of the environment by warring parties:
Lakwena said to the animals: ‘You animals, God sent me to ask you whether you bear responsibility for the bloodshed in Uganda.’ The animals denied blame, and the buffaloAfrican BuffaloThe African buffalo, affalo, nyati, Mbogo or Cape buffalo is a large African bovine. It is not closely related to the slightly larger wild Asian water buffalo, but its ancestry remains unclear...
displayed a wound on his leg, and the hippopotamusHippopotamusThe hippopotamus , or hippo, from the ancient Greek for "river horse" , is a large, mostly herbivorous mammal in sub-Saharan Africa, and one of only two extant species in the family Hippopotamidae After the elephant and rhinoceros, the hippopotamus is the third largest land mammal and the heaviest...
displayed a wound on his arm.
Lakwena then questioned the water about the war:
Lakwena said to the waterfall: ‘Water, I am coming to ask you about the sinSinIn religion, sin is the violation or deviation of an eternal divine law or standard. The term sin may also refer to the state of having committed such a violation. Christians believe the moral code of conduct is decreed by God In religion, sin (also called peccancy) is the violation or deviation...
s and bloodshed in this world.’ And the water said: ‘The people with two legs kill their brothers and throw their bodies into the water.’ The spirit asked the water what it did with the sinSinIn religion, sin is the violation or deviation of an eternal divine law or standard. The term sin may also refer to the state of having committed such a violation. Christians believe the moral code of conduct is decreed by God In religion, sin (also called peccancy) is the violation or deviation...
ners, and the water said: ‘I fight against the sinners, for they are the ones to blame for the bloodshed. Go and fight against the sinners, because they throw their brothers into the water.
After briefly returning home, Lakwena led Alice to Mount Kilak, which greeted their arrival with large explosions, to deal with the issue of witchcraft:
The spirit Lakwena said to the mountain or to the rock: ‘God has sent me to find out why there is theft in the world.’ The mountain answered: ‘I have gone nowhere and have stolen no one’s children. But people come here to me and name the names of those whom I should kill [by casting spells]. Some ask me for medicine [to bewitch]. This is the sin of the people. I want to give you water to heal diseases. But you must fight against the sinners.
In the climax to the story, God
God
God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....
Himself specifies who is to blame for all of the suffering and bloodshed:
God said that there was a tribe in Uganda that was hated everywhere. This tribe was the Acholi. And God ordered that a lamb be offered, so that they should repent their sins and to put an end to the bloodshed in Acholi.
External links
- "Resistance Army Leader in Kenya after 'Holy War'" (streaming audio) by Eric Westervelt, National Public Radios Weekend Edition Saturday, November 12, 2005
- "Uganda's mystic rebel leader dies", BBC News OnlineBBC News OnlineBBC News Online is the website of BBC News, the division of the BBC responsible for newsgathering and production. The website is the most popular news website in the United Kingdom and forms a major part of BBC Online ....
, 17 January 2007 - Rebel leader was seen as 'spiritual medium', Mail & Guardian