A TALE OF UGANDA PEOPLES DEFENCE FORCES’ (UPDF) CONGOLESE WOMEN
By Moses Odokonyero

August 22, 2004 - (The Monitor) In 2001, as hundreds of Uganda Peoples Defence Forces trekked back home, after a controversial stay in the DR Congo, they were followed by hundreds of Congolese women, some with babies clinging on their backs, some pregnant. Susan Beni, then 18 was among those women; she was with her husband, Peter Okwi (not real names).

Like many a Congolese young woman, Beni had hoped that she had found love and run away from the chaos in her country; that she would now settle down with her man in a more peaceful country, have children and pay occasional visits to her parents back home, in Congo.

The story, however, turned out to be different. Today, she lies ill and alone in a dump, wretched and dusty hut in Kasubi, a squalid suburb of Gulu town, just a few metres away from the 4th Division headquarters. Her husband, she said, dumped her and that he is now in Soroti "married" to two more women.

Beni has no money, no decent clothes and nobody to take care of her. "My biggest problem is that I don't have any money, even my friends and relatives don't want to visit me, they say I am going to die, " she said desperately trying to hold back her tears. She couldn't; she broke down into sobbing.

Like many Congolese women, Beni now wants to go back home, but she sees no way and has no way. When they came to Uganda, most of the Congolese
women headed north where most of their husbands had been taken.

Today, they are scattered in small patches all over northern Uganda, following their men, as they got transferred. Some are even now married to civilians, having been deserted by their soldier husbands.

They are now living deep inside the heartland of Acholi sub region, in places like Amuru, Pajimu, Alero and Pajule. They too, like the locals, survive on the food doled out by World Food Programme.

But here they are shunned; local artists are having a field day, composing hilarious songs about them and their "immorality."

" They keep telling us that UPDF went to work and not to marry women in Congo, that Acholi girls are not getting men because of us, when we are moving in the villages, children run after us shouting "Congole, Congole," says Anna Shaku, 29, originally from Gwade, which she says is deep inside Congo

"We are the real Zaireans, not these ones from the border like Kisangani," she said.

Anna Shaku has twins, Acen and Apio. Her husband Opio died two and a half years after they set foot in Uganda, from Congo "When we were coming with my husband I was pregnant with those twins that you see," she said, while pointing at two big bellied little girls.

"Soon they will need to start school, but there is no money, there is no where I can get it, my husband died in battle in Sudan two and a half years ago," she said with a voice full of emotion.

"I want to go back home and see my parents. Since I came, I have never heard from them, I don't know whether they are alive or dead," she adds. " I have no garden here, no work I am just suffering. In Gwade, I used to sell fish, just like the women in Gulu, that's were my UPDF husband got me, what am I doing here? Nothing," she answered herself emphatically.

When her husband died she went to Lira and buried him, she then stayed there for a year but left because she says her husband's family were "treating her well."

Now with many other Congolese women, they live in a tiny stuffy room in Koro, next to Koro military barracks. There are six adults, two heavy with pregnancies and four little kids including Shaku's twins.

"We shall die any time we fall sick because we don't have money to get proper medical treatment," says Ekuse Zhozeti Misherini, a plump, very light skinned woman aged 20 and a mother of two with the third in her belly.

"Bemba [rebel leader] ate our Kasurube (bride price), he signed our papers when we were coming, let him bring the big plane that brought us here to take us back home," said Marie Zhoze, 20.

At the time of their coming to Uganda, a large swath of eastern Congo was under the control of Jean Pierre Bemba's Congolese Liberation Front (MLC)

Like many other Congolese women, Marie Zhoze is not happy about the treatment the army gives them when they lose their husbands. "They told us that when our husbands die, we would get their salaries and use it to go back home, we aren't getting that money, the big men are eating it all," says Zhoze.

About five kilometres away, on the other side of Gulu town, Mamisha who says she has only one name, lies wriggling in great pain at the 4th Division military hospital in Gulu barracks. She is very ill, has nobody to take care of her except her seven year old daughter Paalwa Lwize.

On the day I visited her, she was squatting under her hospital bed, trying painfully to wash her beddings. Her little daughter Paalwa struggled on with a can to fetch the water.

Dr John Lusiiba, 4th Divisions acting director of Medical Services, says that Congolese women normally get free medical treatment in the hospital as long as they prove that they are or were once wives of UPDF soldiers.

"In the division hospital, we give free medical treatment to soldiers, their families and any emergency cases that may come up. For example if you came to visit a soldier in the barracks and collapsed, we would treat you," says the youthful military doctor.

"The problem is that some of these women just came following the others, they were not even wives to UPDF soldiers. In that instance, it might be difficult," adds the doctor.

That aside, some Congolese earn their daily bread through selling themselves to men as a result of the hardships they are under going, and this, local leaders say, is a danger as it might increase HIV/Aids prevalence.

"These people are really suffering, this has made them prostitutes, in my area there is a risk that HIV/Aids will increase as a result of the presence of these Congolese women," says Akena Richard, LC1 chairperson of Techo-Subward, an area with a large Congolese presence.

He, however, says people don't hate the Congolese, "because of the problems they are in, people are sympathetic to them, they allow them to pluck cassava and potato leaves from their gardens which they cook as vegetables."

"The other day one of them died and they had no where to bury her, one of my resident here allowed her to be buried in his compound, next to the graves of his children," Akena adds.

The issue of Congolese women, and their fate in a foreign country, has caught the attention of some social workers, among them Sandra Oder, the founder of Children's Environmental Health Network (CEHN), a local child focused NGO.

"The issue of Congolese women is a big issue that should be addressed and acted upon. As an NGO we have tried our level best, but we are constrained by inadequate resources," said Ms Oder.

"There are those who now want to go back home, but they have no money, what do you do with those ones? What about their children?" Oder asks.

Since her mother got admitted to hospital, Paalwa Lwize has been getting help from CEHN "we visit her and the mother, counsel them give them sugar, bread and eggs but as you know, that is not enough," she says.

Seated in front of her small hut, Sophia, 23, another Congolese who says she comes from Bujimali in Gbadolite, in north-eastern Congo, points dejectedly towards Gulu airfield and says; "There is a bush some where there, it's were we get buried when we die," Sophia said, then she added "I would rather be buried in a bush in my own country."

Dr Lusiiba however says "when they die, where they get buried is an arrangement between their husbands and their families."

Several attempts made by this writer to get a comment from the army's northern region spokesperson Lt. Paddy Ankunda were futile as he kept saying; "I know you want to write about how these people are suffering and all that, there I am not talking to you" on more than three occasions when contacted over the issue of Congolese women.

But its not all doom and gloom for the Congolese women. Sheila, who declined to reveal her age and surname, says that unlike other Congolese women who followed their UPDF husbands, she came with a "mission" to do business.

She is running a bar in Gulu town that her husband whom she declines to name but says is a " UPDF officer" helped her set up. She is from Aruu in Eastern Congo; she says she is happy in Uganda because she has a "lovely husband who cares for her". The only thing, she adds, that disturbs her is that it's very difficult to communicate with people back home in Congo.

They have a child with her UPDF husband now in P.4 at an elite Catholic mission run school, Negri Primary School, located about 4kms from Gulu town.

Their home is in Pece, a suburb of Gulu town. They live in a two-roomed apartment, and it's a neat room with a fan blowing cool air and Congolese music booming out of a Sony radio cassette.

Mid way in our interview, a well built man walks in, they both smile to each other. I suspect the man is Sheila's husband so I explain my mission to him, then they both laugh and the man says; "I don't know anything, talk to her," before going into the inner room.

As I was working on the last bits of this story, two things happened; first I suddenly bump into Anna Shaku and another colleague in the streets of Gulu. They were walking at a terrific speed and sweating profusely, they then tell me that Ekuse Zhozeti Misherini, their other pregnant colleague whom I had earlier on met had been admitted in hospital.

"She is going to give birth, but it seems there is a problem, she is taking too long, her husband is not there, we want to give him a call but we don't have the money, help us."

I then give them my mobile, they dial Ekuse's husband, then in Kiswahili tell him to immediately rush to Gulu Referral Hospital. They thank me, make a U-turn and dash towards the direction of the hospital.

My little help was a small solution to a big sea of troubles for a group of people facing hard times in a foreign land.

The second thing that happened is that I got news that Mamisha had died, may be like many others, she is now lying in that bush near the
airfield, where the Congolese normally get buried.

My prayer is that little Paalwa who was taking care of her, albeit without gloves never contracted HIV/AIDS that her mum eventually
succumbed to.

From: http://allafrica.com/stories/200408230379.html