Saturday 10 November 2012

Stories of the Poor war victims in Nothern Uganda whose funds have been robbed by thieves in the OPM: 68-year-old LRA mutilation victim swims against the tide



 Ms Hellen Lanyom’s mouth which was cut off by the LRA rebeles, is now emitting pus and her ability to perform any tasks is reducing by the day. PHOTO by Moses Akena.  



FIRST READ:

Uganda legislators Clash with Museveni over Bigirimana: Mps insist he must go while Museveni insists he must stay





 

Uganda’s Born again first lady is under scrutiny for traveling 8 times to Israel in one month : Janet Museveni faces questions over OPM cash saga


 

68-year-old LRA mutilation victim swims against the tide


By MOSES AKENA


Posted  Saturday, November 10  2012 at  02:00

In Summary

Hellen Lanyom’s lips were disfigured by Kony’s rebels in 1990. But despite that, she has managed to keep her head up.

Monitor Correspondent
GULU
Hellen Lanyom’s homestead in Owoo Village in Bungatira Sub-county is dotted with lush green vegetation of trees and food crops such as maize and cassava. It ironically gives the impression that all is at peace. But it is not the case.

It is here that the 68-year-old Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) mutilation victim, who has for the past 21 years witnessed countless psychological and physical torture, resides.

Lanyom poses a giant physique and dark complexion. She is charming and welcoming. However, it is her swollen lips that grab your attention on meeting her. The lamp-like growth on her lips has covered her chin and stretched the skin on her face.

How it all began

Ms Lanyom’s upper and lower lips were cut off in an incident when the rebels of the LRA attacked her home on October 4, 1990 in Pawel Angany, Patiko Sub-county in Gulu District. “They gathered all of us and asked me where my two brothers (one a local council chairman and the other a soldier) were. When I told them that I did not know, they said that they will teach me a lesson for what they termed as stubbornness,” she recalls.

She only blurry remembers the moment a young rebel brandished a machete ready to cut her lips and only regained consciousness the next morning on a hospital bed at St Mary’s Lacor hospital in Gulu town where her wounds were stitched.

Ms Lanyom was just 31 then and nostalgically remembers her once glorious looks. “I was very beautiful and the incident still makes me sad,” she said, before staring blankly at the mango tree .

To her horror, her husband was killed by the LRA on his way to Patiko from Gulu Town, just a few weeks after she was mutilated. After the incident, she was offered a place in Bungatira Sub-county about 5kms from Gulu Town by a man she identified only as Oneka, where she now resides.

No land
However, she is facing challenges as the owner of the land is asking that she leaves the place. But this comes amidst years of endurance that saw her lead peace talk efforts as part of the government delegation. Despite the pain of meeting her former tormentors, she did not bulge down. It is her courage that won her accolades from most people.

“Her years of grief could have easily settled into deep furrows across her brow. But when I look at her, I can see she is free, she has forgiven. She does not show much bitterness or self-pity. Being free is a difficult thing to fake,” says an Australian journalist Sara Sally in her book Go Go mama that profiles the lives of such 12 African women.

Last year, Living Hope, a Watoto Church project took her on and 20 other mutilated women for reconstructive surgery at Corsu Rehabilitation hospital in Kisubi, Entebe. A medical report seen by the Saturday Monitor indicates that she was admitted for 11 days for upper lip loss, and buccal sulcus reconstruction on March 2, 2011.

She again went back from March 28th to May, 2, 2011 for free anterolateral thigh flap.
However, unlike the other women, Ms Lanyom’s condition has worsened with a large swelling on her mouth and she struggles to live with it due to the severe pain it has caused to her.

Her mouth started emitting pus also in the process. As a result of this, her ability to perform any tasks is reducing by the day. She can neither carry 20 litres of water nor collect firewood.

“If I carry water, it feels like a big stone on my head,” she said. The operations director of Living Hope, Ms Christine Lutara. acknowledges that there is a risk associated with surgeries said Ms Lanyom will be taken for further corrective surgery abroad.
Despite the challenge, Ms Lanyom is currently hiring a small plot of land where she has planted beans, sweet potatoes and maize. Her worry is that she may be forced out of the place anytime.



When OPM money scandal sucked in Janet, Mbabazi


Sunday, 11 November 2012 22:15

Written by Sulaiman Kakaire

First Lady Janet Museveni was forced to issue a statement defending herself against accusations that she made eight trips to Israel in one month using money meant for the people of northern Uganda.

Ms Museveni’s statement followed media reports suggesting, for the first time, that the First Lady had questions to answer in the ongoing graft scandal in the Office of the Prime Minister. The media reports came after the Auditor General, John Muwanga, met members of the Public Accounts Committee of Parliament (PAC) on Thursday.

Muwanga’s special audit report into the OPM finances, which he discussed with MPs shows that part of the misappropriated Shs 50bn meant for the Peace, Recovery and Development Programme (PRDP) in northern Uganda was spent on purportedly unexplained trips by Ms Museveni and on a new Mercedes Benz for Prime Minister Amama Mbabazi.

Muwanga’s audit revealed how aid from Ireland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Britain, among other donors, was transferred to unauthorized accounts, resulting into the loss of billions of shillings meant for post-war recovery efforts in northern Uganda. Geoffrey Kazinda, the interdicted principal accountant in OPM, who is the main suspect, and 16 officials from OPM and the ministry of Finance were arrested and charged.

What happened after the meeting, and how it was reported is what infuriated Ms Museveni, forcing her to speak of media being used by politicians to tell lies. Because Muwanga did not directly address the press, it was left to PAC members to tell the media what transpired, with not the highest degree of specificity. Speaking to The Observer late on Thursday night, after watching NTV news, Muwanga expressed surprise that MPs had quoted him as having implicated the First Lady over the eight trips to Israel.

“I did not implicate anyone. I simply provided the accountability that I was given by the cashier, showing those eight trips,” Muwanga said.

Ms Museveni says she only travelled to Israel once. This would suggest that cashiers could have made up the figures in a bid to satisfy Muwanga’s nosy auditors. An MP who attended Thursday’s  PAC meeting had told The Observer that Muwanga cited an instance in which Shs 14bn was sent to a personal bank account of the OPM permanent secretary, Pius Bigirimana, under unclear circumstances.

Our source said Muwanga had reported that Bigirimana had told investigators he did not know how the money landed onto his account, before going ahead to spend it. However, Muwanga told The Observer he had not talked about any money going to Bigirimana’s account.

As it turned out, Muwanga had been talking about the Shs 14bn that went into the Crisis Management Account. The OPM had earlier said, in Observer article, that Bigirimana had written to Kazinda questioning the source of money in that account but had failed to get a satisfactory answer.

Enter Mbabazi

Muwanga’s report also revealed that OPM had spent up to Shs 1.7bn of PRDP funds on the Prime Minister Mbabazi’s Mercedes Benz and other cars for the office. In May this year, the Aruu county MP, Odonga Otto, alarmed the public when he said in Parliament that the OPM had bought Mbabazi a car at Shs 600m, which money was meant for northern Uganda’s reconstruction.

In his response, the prime minister said it was not his duty to explain the source of the money for his car, as he is not the accounting officer and is not involved in procurement of vehicles for his office. He said the government bought cars for ministers using money that has been budgeted for the purpose.
The PAC vice chairperson, Paul Mwiru (Jinja municipality  East), who chaired the meeting, said the committee would meet this week to consider the Auditor General’s report.
“We shall be meeting all the individuals who have been mentioned by the AG and we hope that the country will know the truth after we are done with our investigations,” he said.
Mwiru said the people that PAC will meet include: the Prime Minister, the First Lady, Bigirimana, officials from Barclays bank and Kazinda.