ADF Creates Serious Implications For Uganda’s Future.

By: Kylie Hapuarachchi

Uganda is facing what seems to be another treacherous outcome. Violence is thrust about Uganda as the center of Kampale is attacked by suicide bombings. 

The bombings were said to have killed at least eight people, including military officials. The number of injuries accounted for is over forty people that have been hurt by the bombing and shrapnel. 

However, these recent attacks are linked to a local group known as the Allied Democratic Forces, also known as ADF. This group originated in the 1990s by Jamil Mukulu, to fight against the injustices that the Muslims had been facing from the government. 

Eventually, the fight for the injustices turned more into a rebel group that attacked the surrounding schools and tormenting villages. 

This group is linked to the Islamic State, which is terror organization that originated out in the Middle East and has spread throughout the bordering nations. 

ADF works under the Sharia Law, which essentially is the law that is derived by Islam. However, in this case the Sharia Law are used for manipulative ways by these terrorist organizations. 

The idea was if you lied about someone, you were killed. If you steal something, you would then lose an arm. It was an extensive way to ensure that the ADF members and surrounding people would not go against the militant group. 

A surviving member of ADF, exclaims how the militant group incites fear amongst their recruits to ensure that they will be loyal to them. 

He claims that throughout the time that he was forced to be a part of this group he had seen multiple beheadings and amputations including those that were part of the group as well. 

Uganda’s government once claimed that ADF no longer posed a threat to its country, yet in the past few years ADF has grown faster and stronger than ever before. 

The main thing about ADF is that they will recruit young men involuntarily. They will ambush villages to take those young men into training camps. With that in mind they would include that these men would be beheaded if they tried to escape which would incite fear among all of them.

Some of these recruited fighters were children, ages 10 to 15. This meant that they had been brainwashed and with the fear incited would work harder to make sure that they would not be the next victim. 

This drives an eerily similar resemblance to the civil war that occured in Sri Lanka. This included a rebel group known as The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, also known as LTTE. 

This group too used the method of child soldiers by inciting fear amongst the child and the families. 

The use of child soldiers in both Sri Lanka and Uganda, is due to the fact that they will be easier to manipulate. 

Children are easier to take care of since they need a smaller amount of resources to live by and they do not understand how dangerous what they are doing might be. 

It is this unbelievable truth that the safety of these people are being threatened every single minute. It gives one the perspective of how horrifying a life can get for these people.

ADF, more recently known as Madina at Tauheed Wau Mujahedeen, also known as MTM. MTM, has pledged their allegiance to the Islamic State. 

MTM now runs strictly on terror rather than the original reason they had originated which was to correct the injustices Muslims were faced by the Uganda government. 

The future for Africa as a whole and for that of Uganda stands still, as the future is unknown. Especially with the new rise of MTM and their threats of terror on the country of Uganda.