Listed in: African Studies · Violence in Society · Sociology of Religion · African History · Uganda
Alice Lakwena and the Holy Spirits
War in Northern Uganda, 1985–97
By Heike Behrend
In August 1986, Alice Auma, a young Acholi woman in northern Uganda, proclaiming herself under the orders of a Christian spirit named Lakwena, raised an army called the “Holy Spirit Mobile Forces.” With it she waged a war against perceived evil, not only an external enemy represented by the National Resistance Army of the government, but internal enemies in the form of “impure” soldiers, witches, and sorcerers.
