Alice Auma (1956 – 17 January 2007) was an Acholi spirit-medium who, as the head of the

Holy Spirit Movement The Holy Spirit Movement (HSM) is a spiritual/religious movement and Ugandan rebel group centered around founder Alice Lakwena (Auma) and the spirits that possessed her. Alice, an ethnic Acholi, was purportedly directed to form the HSM by Lakwena ...

(HSM), led a

millennial Millennials, also known as Generation Y or Gen Y, are the Western demographic cohort following Generation X and preceding Generation Z. Researchers and popular media use the early 1980s as starting birth years and the mid-1990s to early 2000s ...

rebellion against the Ugandan government forces of President

Yoweri Museveni Yoweri Kaguta Museveni Tibuhaburwa (born 15 September 1944) is a Ugandan politician and retired senior military officer who has been the 9th and current President of Uganda since 26 January 1986. Museveni spearheaded rebellions with aid of then ...

from August 1986 until November 1987. The primary spirit she purportedly channelled was that of a dead army officer called "Lakwena", meaning messenger, which the Acholi believe to be a manifestation of the Christian Holy Spirit. The combined persona of Alice Auma channelling the spirit Lakwena is often referred to as "Alice Lakwena". Auma's HSM was ultimately defeated in November 1987 by Ugandan forces led by Yoweri Museveni.

Early life

Alice Auma was born in 1956. Leader of the

Lord's Resistance Army The Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), also known as the Lord's Resistance Movement, is a rebel group and heterodox Christian group which operates in northern Uganda, South Sudan, the Central African Republic, and the Democratic Republic of the ...

Joseph Kony Joseph Rao Kony (likely born 1961) is a Ugandan militant who founded the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), a Christian fundamentalist organization, designated as a terrorist group by the United Nations Peacekeepers, the European Union and variou ...

previously claimed that Auma and he were cousins, however, he merely did so in order to garner support from her constituents. Auma herself always distanced herself from Kony and his views.

Career

Remaining childless after two marriages, she moved away from her hometown. She eventually converted to Christianity but, on 25 May 1985, she reportedly went insane, unable to either hear or speak, later claiming to have been possessed by the spirit Lakwena. Her father took her to eleven different witches, but none alleviated her condition. Auma 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. Before the defeat of Tito Okello, Auma was one of many spirit-mediums working near the town of

Gulu Gulu is a city in the Northern Region of Uganda. It is the commercial and administrative centre of Gulu District. The coordinates of the city of Gulu are 2°46'54.0"N 32°17'57.0"E. The distance from Gulu to Kampala, Uganda's capital and larg ...

as a minor oracle and spiritual healer. She worked in the midst of the chaos of the anti-

National Resistance Army The National Resistance Army (NRA), the military wing of the National Resistance Movement (NRM), was a rebel army that waged a guerrilla war, commonly referred to as the Ugandan Bush War or Luwero War, against the government of Milton Obote, and l ...

(NRA) insurgency of the

Uganda People's Democratic Army The Uganda People's Democratic Army (UPDA) 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 (NRA) ...

and the increasingly brutal counterinsurgency of the NRA. Legend in the later movement holds that on 6 August 1986, Lakwena ordered Auma to stop her work as a diviner and healer, which was pointless in the midst of war, and create a

(HSM) to fight evil and end the bloodshed. This divine mission required the retaking of the capital of

Kampala Kampala (, ) is the capital and largest city of Uganda. The city proper has a population of 1,680,000 and is divided into the five political divisions of Kampala Central Division, Kawempe Division, Makindye Division, Nakawa Division, and Ruba ...

. Thus the Acholi would redeem themselves from the violence they had collectively imposed on the civilians of the

Luwero triangle The Luweero Triangle, sometimes spelled Luwero Triangle, is an area of Uganda north of the capital Kampala, where, in 1981, Yoweri Museveni started the guerrilla war that propelled him and his National Resistance Movement into power in 1986. The a ...

, and would initiate a paradise on earth. A letter to local missionaries explained the transition:

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.

Auma claimed that Lakwena required that she be possessed by numerous other spirits to achieve its goals. This was unusual in Acholi spirit-behavior. At this time, there was a perceived spiritual crisis in the area coinciding with the threat posed by occupying southern forces. The increased level of societal tension and number of deaths were attributed to witchcraft. Moreover, many soldiers fleeing back into Acholi after their defeat at Kampala refused traditional purification ceremonies. These rituals were believed to protect the community from the

vengeful spirit In mythology and folklore, a vengeful ghost or vengeful spirit is said to be the spirit of a dead person who returns from the afterlife to seek revenge for a cruel, unnatural or unjust death. In certain cultures where funeral and burial or crem ...

s of the people the soldiers had killed, but the elders found that they no longer had the authority to force compliance with the convention. After a series of spectacular victories, Auma led the Holy Spirit Movement (HSM) south out of Acholiland towards Kampala. There, she garnered much support from other ethnic groups that had grievances with

's government. However, subsequent military setbacks suffered by the HSM prompted some followers to accuse Auma of being a witch and of using spirits for destructive ends. As the HSM suffered its final defeat under

artillery Artillery is a class of heavy military ranged weapons that launch munitions far beyond the range and power of infantry firearms. Early artillery development focused on the ability to breach defensive walls and fortifications during siege ...

fire in the forests near Kampala, Auma fled and claimed that Lakwena had left her.

Later life

Auma lived in the Ifo refugee camp near Dadaab in northern

Kenya ) , national_anthem = " Ee Mungu Nguvu Yetu"() , image_map = , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Nairobi , coordinates = , largest_city = Nairobi ...

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/AIDS. Auma died on 17 January 2007, after having been sick for about a week with an unknown illness claimed to be HIV/AIDS.

The Tale of Paraa

Although Auma's practice as a medium immediately after returning to Gulu was not particularly successful, the tale of Paraa became the central text of the HSM. In particular Lakwena's discourse that the

insurgency An insurgency is a violent, armed rebellion against authority waged by small, lightly armed bands who practice guerrilla warfare from primarily rural base areas. The key descriptive feature of insurgency is its asymmetric nature: small irr ...

was a rebellion of nature deserves explication. According to the story, Lakwena first held court with all the animals of the park to explore the theme of the ongoing war in the south and the 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 buffalo displayed a wound on his leg, and the
hippopotamus The hippopotamus ( ; : hippopotamuses or hippopotami; ''Hippopotamus amphibius''), also called the hippo, common hippopotamus, or river hippopotamus, is a large semiaquatic mammal native to sub-Saharan Africa. It is one of only two extan ...
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
sin In a religious context, sin is a transgression against divine law. Each culture has its own interpretation of what it means to commit a sin. While sins are generally considered actions, any thought, word, or act considered immoral, selfish, s ...
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
sin In a religious context, sin is a transgression against divine law. Each culture has its own interpretation of what it means to commit a sin. While sins are generally considered actions, any thought, word, or act considered immoral, selfish, s ...
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 Auma to Mount Kilak to deal with the issue of witchcraft. The mountain greeted their arrival with large explosions:

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 y casting spells Some ask me for medicine o 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 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.

References

Bibliography

* ''Alice Lakwena and the Holy Spirits: War in Northern Uganda, 1985–97'',

James Currey James Currey is a former academic publisher specialising in African Studies which since 2008 has been an imprint of Boydell & Brewer. It is named after its founder who established the company in 1984. It publishes on a full spectrum of topic ...

, 2000. . Mitch Cohen, trans. (Originally published as Behrend, H. 1993. ''Alice und die Geister: Krieg in Norden Uganda''. Trickster, Munich.)

External links

"Resistance Army Leader in Kenya after 'Holy War'"
(streaming audio) by Eric Westervelt, ''

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s Weekend Edition Saturday, 12 November 2005
"Uganda's mystic rebel leader dies"
''

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'', 17 January 2007
Rebel leader was seen as 'spiritual medium'
''Mail & Guardian''
"SOLDIER BOYS" Joseph Kony and the Lord's Resistance Army
Video made in 2000 for CTV (Canada), featuring an interview with Alice Lakwena. {{DEFAULTSORT:Auma, Alice 1956 births 2007 deaths 20th-century Christian mystics 21st-century Christian mystics Acholi people African women in war People from Gulu District Protestant mystics Ugandan Christian mystics Ugandan rebels Women in warfare post-1945