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Funeral held for rebel prophetess who shook Uganda
03 Feb 2007 16:01:19 GMT
Source: Reuters

BUNGATIRA, Uganda, Feb 3 (Reuters) - A Ugandan prophetess who 20 years ago led a major revolt against the government and whose movement gave rise to Joseph Kony's rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), was buried on Saturday.

Alice Lakwena died aged 50 last month at a refugee camp in Kenya where she had lived in exile after the Ugandan army crushed her year-long rebellion in 1987.

A one-time fishmonger who claimed inspiration from the Holy Spirit, Lakwena led an army of 10,000 followers from her native northern Uganda to within a few day's march of Kampala before her forces were routed and she fled on a bicycle.

Lakwena is also remembered for persuading followers they would be immune from bullets and that stones would explode like grenades. Her uprising reflected the emergence of opposition among her northern Acholi tribe to President Yoweri Museveni.

Relatives among the scores of people who gathered for the funeral in the northern village of Bungatira were anxious to remember her work as a traditional healer rather than her revolt in which thousands died.

"Many people were saying that they had been cured because of her," said George Olam, 46, at the burial. "She was a good person."

The LRA is in peace talks with the government after a vicious 20-year war.
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