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

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

by Peter Eichstaedt
First Kill Your Family: Child Soldiers of Uganda and the Lord's Resistance Army

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

by Peter Eichstaedt

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Overview

“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.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781556527999
Publisher: Chicago Review Press, Incorporated
Publication date: 02/01/2009
Pages: 336
Product dimensions: 6.30(w) x 9.20(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Peter Eichstaedt is the Africa editor for the Institute of War and Peace Reporting in The Hague. A veteran journalist, he has worked in locations worldwide, including Slovenia, Moldova, Afghanistan, Albania, Armenia, and Uganda, where he was a senior editor for Uganda Radio Network. He is the author of If You Poison Us: Uranium and Native Americans

Table of Contents

Maps viii

Preface xi

Chronology xv

Prologue: Richard's Story 1

1 Faded Luster of the Pearl 7

2 The Lips Are Not There 23

3 Anatomy of an Attack 39

4 God, Grace, and the Aboke Girls 53

5 Witch Doctors, Rattles, and Unholy Ghosts 71

6 A Game of Blood and Spiritualism 91

7 The Arrow Boys 109

8 Degrees of Darkness 127

9 Back to the Land 147

10 The Call for Peace 167

11 Armed Conflict Is a Health Risk 183

12 In Search of Joseph Kony 203

13 Jungle Rendezvous 223

14 The View from Kilimanjaro 243

Epilogue: Metamorphosis 263

Afterword: Bring in the Drones 279

Acknowledgments 282

Notes 283

Index 289

What People are Saying About This

John Dau

This book is a call to action to help our brothers and sisters in Africa that we can no longer ignore. (John Dau, president, John Dau Sudan Foundation, and coauthor, God Grew Tired of Us: A Memoir)

Desmond Tutu

You must read this powerful book. Peter Eichstaedt has given voice to the victims of the largely unheard-of tragedy of Uganda. This story calls out to our very humanity.

Mac Maharaj

A book filled with haunting images that leave one groping for answers. (Mac Maharaj, South African author and activist)

From the Publisher

"Heartfelt . . . A close analysis of [an] underreported crisis."  —Publishers Weekly

"In-depth reporting . . . an intimate spin."  —Kirkus Reviews

"You must read this powerful book. Peter Eichstaedt has given voice to the victims of the largely unheard-of tragedy of Uganda. This story calls out to our very humanity."  —Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu

"A book filled with haunting images that leave one groping for answers."  —Mac Maharaj, South African author and activist

"This book is a call to action to help our brothers and sisters in Africa that we can no longer ignore."  —John Dau, president, John Dau Sudan Foundation, and coauthor, God Grew Tired of Us: A Memoir

"This fine firsthand account should be read by anyone seeking to grapple with the challenges of war and peace in coming decades."  —Douglas Farah, author, Merchant of Death and Blood from Stones

Douglas Farah

This fine firsthand account should be read by anyone seeking to grapple with the challenges of war and peace in coming decades. (Douglas Farah, author, Merchant of Death and Blood from Stones)

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