EARTHWARD
Hell on Earth
Turn your vision earthward –
'Tis we must lend a hand.
Samuel P. Putnam
RELIGIOUS FANATICS FORCE A UGANDAN FAMILY INTO EARTHLY HELL
By Deo Ssekitooleko , ChairmanUganda Humanist Association (uhasso)
PO Box 4427
Kampala, Uganda
Website: http://www.humanists.net/uganda
Email: uhasso@yahoo.co.uk
It is common for Christians to talk about hell when a 'sinner' has died, but the truth is that the real hell is on Earth; and many people are living it and they therefore do not need to be reminded of it.
In early April this year, I came in contact with the Public Relations officer of EARTHWARD, an organization that helps people who are suffering because of religious wars, fanaticism and fundamentalism. EARTHWARD was in contact with a Ugandan family that was living as illegal refugees in Nairobi, Kenya. This particular family of Mr. and Mrs. Okello*, with five children, had been forced to run out of Uganda and to vacate their home and fertile agricultural land in Northern Uganda by the notorious so called LORD'S RESISTANCE ARMY (LRA) lead by one Joseph Kony, a former Catholic catechist, who now practices a primitive form of Catholicism that mixes the Roman type with witchcraft, spiritualism and tribalism.
The LRA has killed hundreds of people, raped women, taken students from schools into captivity, cut off peoples' body parts and burnt their homesteads; thus forcing many people to run out of their homes and causing a catastrophic refugee disaster in the region. Kony's group has ruined lives of children by marrying young girls and thereby infecting them with AIDS/HIV. Kony is said to have hundreds of 'wives' and children. The boys, on the other hand, are forced to become soldiers and trained to kill their parents and relatives who fail to support the LRA.
The Okello* family, who escaped out of Uganda after losing some members of their family to LRA, made a formal request to EARTHWARD seeking assistance in the form of food, medicine, clean water and other basic needs. EARTHWARD approached my organization, THE UGANDA HUMANIST ASSOCIATION (UHASSO), to verify The Okello* family claims before any assistance could be given. We indeed found out that this was a genuine Ugandan family living in exile. We cross checked all the information and ascertained that they had indeed been forced to flee their country.
EARTHWARD offered to provide the basic needs of the family and to provide my transport to Nairobi to deliver the supplies as well as make more study of the situation. So on April 19, 2005 at 4:30 PM, I set off for this 14 hour journey from Kampala to Nairobi with Akamba bus service. I arrived at about 6:30 the following morning, and was welcomed by the Okello* family.
The Okello* family lives in a very dirty suburb within Nairobi city. They stay in one small room on the fifth floor of a big dilapidated building. The whole environment is disease infested. I was told that several people had died of cholera and typhoid. I could hardly find a functioning toilet to use. Water in the building looks to be contaminated and life here is indeed 'hellish'! It is not a home fit for human beings, especially those ever smiling children of the Okellos'*. The Okellos* told me many stories of scarcity of everything including food, medicine, money etc. Nonetheless I did not need their explanation, for I had already understood the whole situation!!! It is a disaster!!! Those children of theirs do not have a future in that building. And their parents are in the same danger, for just after my departure Mr. Okello* was admitted to Kenyatta hospital for several weeks.
As I left Kenya I was wondering why people are ever thinking of hell after death when some people who are not even sinners, in the religious sense, are suffering hell here on Earth!
Finally as a witness of the suffering of this family, my appeal is that we all try our best to resettle this family in another peaceful part of Uganda**. Resettlement will require purchasing them a small piece of land and erecting a shelter for them. And before that they need food, medicine, clean water and money to pay for rent of their dirty home, and other necessities. A FRIEND IN NEED IS A FRIEND INDEED!
* To protect the privacy of the family concerned, fictitious names are used throughout this website, in reference to all members of that family.
** It should be noted that while resettlement of the Okellos* is the strategy currently most favored by UHASSO and EARTHWARD, for the final phase of this project, other alternatives are also under consideration.