SUMMARY
HSM (Holy Spirit Movement, also called Lakwenas) was a messianic rebel group active in the conflict against the Ugandan government during the second half of the 1980s. In mid-1986, the Acholi region of northern Uganda was in turmoil. In January, the Acholi-led military council that had ruled the country for a brief period, was ousted by Yoweri Museveni and his rebel group NRA. The defeated government army, UNLA, retreated towards its home region – Acholiland – followed by NRA, which had now turned into the national army. When deploying throughout the north the formerly so well-disciplined NRA began committing human rights abuses against the northern population. Many of the former UNLA soldiers who had hid in the region subsequently fled across the border into southern Sudan, and by August they had re-grouped as UPDA and launched an invasion into northern Uganda. It was in this chaotic situation that the prophetic movement HSM emerged. Formed in August 1986 by Alice Auma, more commonly called Alice Lakwena, a spirit medium and healer, the group fought what they termed a “magical” war. Alice claimed that she on 6 August 1986 was instructed by the spirit Lakwena to build up the Holy Spirit Mobile Forces to combat evil in Uganda, something that manifested itself both as an external enemy - the government - and as an internal enemy, in the form of impure soldiers and witches.
In order to achieve its goal, the group used its own unconventional rules of warfare, called the Holy Spirit Tactics, which were intended to force the soldiers to trust God rather than their weapons; these tactics contradicted all military principles. For instance, the fighters were forbidden to take cover on the battlefield and only a few of them were given proper arms, while the rest threw stones that were supposed to turn into grenades. Furthermore, the HSM soldiers were forbidden to kill and were therefore not allowed to aim at the enemy; it was spirits who were to carry the bullets to the enemy and thus decide who deserved to die.
HSM was thus both a military and a religious movement and both of these functions centered on the spirit Lakwena, who, speaking through Alice, was the Chairman of the organization. In the military wing – the Holy Spirit Mobile Forces – Lakwena was represented by the Commander of the Forces. The commander headed four companies named A, B, C and Headquarters; in turn, each company was headed by a Holy Spirit, issued by Lakwena. Lakwena himself chaired the Headquarter Company. HSM also had a civilian wing, called the Frontline Coordination Team (FCT), which was tasked with preaching the message of the Lakwena, providing moral education to the population as well as soliciting moral and material support from them. The FCT was also to provide moral and political education to the troops.
As indicated above, the group started out as an ethnic Acholi movement; Alice herself was an Acholi and the bulk of her first recruits were former UNLA Acholi soldiers. Under the preceding regime, many of them had committed gross human rights abuses in the Luwero Triangle during the conflict against NRA. It was these soldiers that Alice referred to when talking about the “internal enemy”. Consequently, the former soldiers were exposed to lengthy cleansing rituals, after which they were regarded as purified from witchcraft and sorcery, and thus invulnerable in battle. Aside from the former Acholi soldiers, Alice also managed to recruit numerous Acholi peasants and students. During this phase, HSM’s area of operation was confined to the Acholi region. However, as the conflict progressed, the area of operation expanded and the ethnic composition of the group changed. Alice aimed to march all the way to the Ugandan capital Kampala, and thus had to pass through the territories of many other ethnic groups. In order to win the support of these groups, the speeches given by the spirits repeatedly stressed the equality of all ethnic groups, calling for their reconciliation. Despite deep-seated enmity between many of the groups in the north, HSM was able to establish an inter-ethnic alliance between the Acholi, Langi, Teso and Jo-Padhola and the group gained many new recruits on its march through these areas. However, as the Holy Spirit fighters came further south, they were unable to attract the support of the Bantu-speaking ethnic groups.
The size of HSM fluctuated dramatically during its existence. Alice started out with some 20 former UNLA soldiers in August 1986, and by the end of that year, the group had grown to some 1200 troops. During 1987, HSM suffered heavy losses in many battles, but also recruited heavily. At its peak, authoritative sources say that HSM included between 6000 and 10 000 troops. By early November, just before the group dispersed and was defeated, this figure had dwindled to 360.
At the time of HSM’s insurgency, the Ugandan regime was challenged by two other rebel groups, fellow-Acholi UPDA and the Teso-based UPA. Relations between the groups were complicated; despite at times cooperating, there was a clear rivalry between especially HSM and UPDA, which at times led to outright fighting. At the outset, Alice was able to persuade different UPDA commanders to give her some of their fighters. Furthermore, the two groups fought some battles together and shared intelligence. As for UPA, it sent a contingent of its troops to support HSM when the latter entered Lango district in March 1987. At that time, there were even discussions between the leadership of HSM, UPA and UPDA on merging the three movements, but Lakwena’s insistence – through Alice – on the continued use of the Holy Spirit tactic, as well as on Lakwena being accepted as the overall leader, caused the negotiations to collapse quickly. After this, relations turned hostile between HSM and UPDA, and in June 1987, the former launched “Operation Coy” to flush out the latter from the north. During the two week-long operation, numerous UPDA rebels were captured or killed and the group lost many commanders as well as fighters.
Having walked a distance of over 1000 km, fighting repeated battles in increasingly hostile territory, and suffering bigger and bigger losses, HSM was by early November 1987, completely depleted. The last 360 HSM fighters were pinned down in the swamps of Iganga, not far from Jinja, only a little more than 80 km from Kampala. In the following days the group dispersed, some giving themselves up to the NRA army, while others managed to evade the government troops. Many made their way back to their home regions, whereas Alice and 118 of her supporters crossed into Kenya on 26 December. They were subsequently arrested as illegal immigrants, given suspended sentences and handed over to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
