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Uganda Holy Spirit Movement
In the 1980s, the Holy Spirit Movement arose in Acholi
territory of northern Uganda, where warfare and political
killings had ravaged society for nearly two decades. Alice
Lakwena, an Acholi prophet, claimed to bring messages from
the
spiritual world advising people, even though unarmed, to
oppose
government intervention in Acholi territory. Lakwena,
known
locally as "Alice," also advised her followers to protect
themselves against bullets by smearing cooking oil on
their skin
and declared that stones or bottles thrown at government
troops
would turn into hand grenades. Many of Alice's followers
were
killed in these confrontations, and many others acquired
guns to
reinforce their supposed spiritual armor. In 1987,
however, Alice
fled to Kenya, where she was jailed. A self-proclaimed
mystic,
Joseph Kony, and Odong Latek succeeded her as leaders of
the Holy
Spirit Movement.
The appeal of the Holy Spirit Movement continued, and
in
early 1989, it disrupted the establishment of the
grass-roots
resistance councils (RCs), which were intended to serve as
the
base for a people's democracy under the National
Resistance
Movement (NRM)
(see Local Administration
, ch. 4).
Government
officials proclaimed periods of amnesty and sought to
weaken the
Holy Spirit Movement's appeal by cutting off supplies of
weapons
(and cooking oil) to the region. As of 1989, the NRM was
unable
to quell this popular rebellion that clothed itself in
religious
dogma.
Data as of December 1990
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