“IT is useless and a waste of time for anyone to try and give any advice to Kony. Even now as I am talking, he must be abusing and cursing me from wherever he might be in his hideout in the bush in Sudan. So, why should I waste my words on him by trying to give him advice,” Nighty Arac spoke bitterly of her husband, LRA rebel chief Joseph Kony.
Denis Ojwee reports that Arac, with her two-year old son named Kony, was among the 77 rescued Ugandans airlifted to Gulu from Juba, Sudan on Wednesday.
In a radio interview on Mega FM in Gulu, Arac said it was useless to advise Kony because he does not take anybody’s advice.
“Let him do want he wants, whether to surrender and come out of the bush, or to die in the bush there. For me, I am already out and free, planning to settle and think of what I can do for my future.”
She said she was abducted from Atiak sub-county, Kilak county when she was in P.4. at Pawel school. She expressed worry about the type of work she could get to earn a living.
“I do not know the kind of work I can really get. In order for one to get a good job, you must have studied to a reasonable level. For me who was abducted while still in only primary four, what job can I get? I think I should first rest, then think of what I can do,” Arac said.
She said she was worried of how to look after her son, who does not have a father now.
She said the spiritual powers that allegedly drove Kony to wage war seemed to have faded.
She said as Kony’s wife, she did not notice that her husband was under any influence of the spirits.
“I did not see the spirits that were purportedly controlling him. I saw Kony operating normally, except for some military approaches he used to undertake which helped him to survive UPDF attacks. This made people think he had spirits that guided him. Otherwise, I didn’t see the spirits up to the time I escaped due many sufferings I underwent,” she said.
She said she had been married twice, formerly to two now dead senior LRA field commanders, before Kony took her on as his wife.
Some of the mothers who did not want to be named said they would not be able to look after the children they came back with.
Some of the children’s fathers died in the bush. The women said they were as helpless as the children they carried although they were happy to be out of the bush.
“We wish the Government could take away these LRA children from us and we remain free to do our own things.
“We feel that we should also do something for ourselves,” one of the mothers said.
Most of Kony’s children are boys between the ages of one month and five years.