Quotes of the Day

The thorn bushes left their marks on Pauline Ajok's thin legs. A man she will not name scarred her where you cannot see. The 15-year-old pensively fingers a faded yellow bracelet, recalling her kidnapping and four years of roaming the bush with the cultlike Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), which has fought for 14 years to establish a theocracy in northern Uganda. Ajok's task was to carry loot stolen during raids on villages. An LRA commander who already had three wives took her for his fourth. Ajok boasts of one big victory, before her eventual escape, in her own war with her captor-husband: "He never managed to make a baby with me."

When U.S. President George W. Bush visited Uganda three weeks ago, he hailed the government of President Yoweri Museveni for its remarkable success in battling aids. But Museveni hasn't had the same success in his fight against the LRA. The fighting has forced more than 850,000 people from their homes. The rebels have kidnapped more than 15,000 children into the ranks of the LRA, and two weeks ago, 45 boys and girls drowned when their captors forced them to try to cross a rain-swollen river. Three days after Bush left, more than 20,000 children marched through the town of Kitgum, demanding an end to the misery, carrying signs that said let us to go to school and we want to be free and don't make us slaves. The war "is a crime against humanity that is being ignored," says Father Josef Gerner, a German missionary in Kitgum, who helped organize the rally. "Whoever has eyes to see and ears to hear" — the rebels, the government, the rest of the world — "should pay attention to what's going on."

In 1986, Museveni, a southerner, seized power, ending the long and bloody domination of northerners such as Milton Obote and Idi Amin. Ex-soldiers from the north who found themselves out of favor with the new leadership flocked home. Many joined rebel groups like the Holy Spirit Movement, led by self- proclaimed prophetess Alice Lakwena. The army defeated her in 1988, but some of her followers soon regrouped as the LRA under her cousin Joseph Kony. Kony's teachings may have Christian roots — he advocates replacing Uganda's Constitution with the Ten Commandments — but many LRA practices, such as polygamy and the kidnapping of girls to be sex slaves, jar with the orthodox faith. Former LRA members say Kony has dozens of "wives" and a penchant for long sermons, and even many who hate his group believe he has supernatural powers. One of his oddest prohibitions is against bicycles; apparently he fears they could be used to warn the authorities of LRA presence, so anyone on a bicycle risks having his feet hacked off or being killed. The LRA, which is listed by the U.S. State Department as a terrorist group, has never been large; it's estimated to have about 5,000 adult soldiers. Its longevity owes much to Sudan, which permitted the LRA to be based on its territory in retaliation for Uganda's backing of anti-Khartoum guerrillas. In 1999, Sudan and Uganda made up, signing a peace accord. And in March 2002, Museveni ordered Operation Iron Fist, a crackdown that destroyed LRA bases in Sudan — Khartoum allowed Ugandan ground forces and gunships to attack — but also sent angry rebels streaming back into Uganda.

Talk to Ugandan troops, and they say the end is finally near. "I assure you the LRA is finished," says Lieut. Isaac Muwa, as he leads a battalion guarding an aid convoy to the town of Cwero. But Kampala isn't so optimistic. In an interview with time, First Deputy Prime Minister Moses Ali pledged to continue Iron Fist, but declined to predict when the war might end. He noted that the military lacks people's trust. "We need the support of the population next to the operations of the army," Ali said. "The people should listen to Museveni."

Uganda's troubled 40-year history provides some idea why, despite the LRA's atrocities, they don't. The country was a colonial creation, the lumping together of ethnic groups that "are very different people," says one government official. "We are like strangers in the same country." To others, the differences — or stereotypes — run deeper. "The Banyankole, the tribe of Museveni, used to be our servants. We, the Acholi, would employ them to look after our cattle," says Macleord Baker Ochola, the retired Anglican Bishop of Kitgum, who lost his wife and daughter in the war and is now vice chairman of the Acholi Religious Leaders' Peace Initiative (ARLPI). Northerners are skeptical of Museveni; some say that many in his regime want revenge for what past leaders, including the infamous Amin, did to the whole country. The military has not helped government p.r. Some youths who escaped from the LRA said that, while being debriefed by soldiers, "the army tried to recruit them," says James Otto of the local NGO Human Rights Focus, which also accuses the army of rape and torture. Many people think Iron Fist has only enraged, not weakened, the LRA. Deprived of bases where they grew food, rebels now attack villages and steal food aid needed by terrorized communities that have had to let their fertile fields lie fallow. As marauding rebels are most active at night, families send their children to sleep in the relative safety of bus stations in Kitgum and Gulu, the region's biggest town, or in churches and schools.

No matter whose fault the mess may be, "we have had enough," says Kitgum district commissioner Santo Okot-Lapolo. "The people have become tired of this senseless and useless war." Father Carlos Rodríguez, a Spanish missionary working with the ARLPI who has mediated several rounds of peace talks since 1997, notes that army leaders "say they are making a lot of progress, but there is no improvement in the security situation. The government is always waiting for some equipment to deal the decisive blow."

Many Ugandans feel that only outside diplomatic intervention can end this war. "We need all the help we can get," says an official who doesn't think the military solution will work. Kampala and the ARLPI both claim Sudan still supports the LRA — Khartoum denies it — and say this is an international problem. Three weeks ago, during Bush's brief Uganda visit, Ochola and other religious leaders — Catholic, Anglican, Orthodox and Muslim — sent the U.S. President a letter asking him to push for action at the U.N. level. "We are concerned that the international community remains silent," they wrote, "when children are dying." Rodríguez, for one, expects the silence to continue. Uganda has little to attract the interest of a powerful mediator. "If there were a wealth of minerals here," he says, "I think this would have been dealt with long ago."

Not all treasure is silver and gold. The children's shelter, where the Gulu Support the Children Organization (GUSCO) prepares ex-captives like Ajok to return home, is full of hopeful examples of human potential. For all they have lost to war — material things, family life, childhood innocence — the young people have managed to hang on to some dreams. Ajok, for instance, does not want to go back to school. After all she has been through, she feels too old. But she hopes to become a seamstress. After two years as an LRA fighter, Denis Nyeko, 15, was wounded and abandoned. He returned to civilian life with a left knee blasted by a bullet and new resolve to restart his studies. "Before my abduction, I was a good pupil," he says. "I have decided to become a doctor to help the sick and the wounded." Uganda could certainly use the healing.

• JEFF CHU
• The child victims of Uganda's civil war fight back