By Emmy Ojara
Ms Judith Lucy Adong, writer of the THE SILENT VOICE, a play depicting war crimes and suffering of the people of Northern Uganda in hands of the Lord`s Resistance Army (LRA) for over two decades says she was inspired to write the stage play to clearly bring out how innocent people suffered during the insurgencies in the greater north.
Adong says after witnessing and going through the sufferings caused by the insurgency, she thought it wise to write a play rather than conducting a research which she says only remains unseen in the libraries.
She says she wants to portray the strength of music, dance and drama in bringing peace and reconciliation among people who suffered war crimes.
“There is strong anger among the victims. They feel that perpetrators are being rewarded under the Amnesty program a while they the victims suffer,” The play writer says.
She explains that victims and perpetrators of war crimes in Northern Uganda have not been heard and that this has hindered peace.
“This has hindered reconciliation and justice between the affected persons and the perpetrators.” She said.
The play depicts how young children in Northern Uganda were recruited as child soldiers, forced to kill, young girls turned into sex objects and how both men and women were raped during the insurgency.
She says she is working on many plays which focus on abuse of power, corruption in churches, child sacrifice and anti gay struggle in Uganda among others.
“I felt the pain Acholi people went through during the war, I conducted a research with refugee law project and cannot let the pains, anger of the people go without being highlighted. My research cannot stay in the public library only; I want them to seek redress by making the whole world know. That is why I wrote the play.’’ She said.
She however said Acholi people have a tendency of what she described as copy and paste from international platforms.
“I hate when you copy from someone, it does not portray your message but someone else’s,’’ she said.
She said there is a misunderstanding of what war victims went through adding that many of the war victims in turn have become perpetrators in their various communities because they have lost hope of their problems being addressed.
