After spending a day looking into complaint boxes, we decided to continue our examination of another major object becoming central to our film, the radio. During our time in Gulu, we witnessed how communities there were frequently using programs on the air to express their complaints. From the beginning of our work with the human rights commission, we had also learned how a local radio station in Lira had leaked the story about Esther being held captive in a private clinic for 3 months, which lead to both her release and the commission taking up her case. And while our HEPS tour guide Diana was calling our attention to the vague mounds buffering the city from the village, we knew there was a deep-rooted reason why so many from the North choose the radio to voice their right to health.
Like Lacor Hospital in Gulu, Radio-Wa ("Our Radio" in Lwo) was founded by a Comboni missionary. It started in 2000 during the middle of the war between Uganda's central government and the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA). From the beginning, the station held programs to promote peace and stability in the region. At the heart of its broadcasting were two programs titled Karibu ("welcome" in Swahili) and Dwog Pacu ("come back home" in Lwo). During Karibu, letters from family members would be read to child soldiers calling them home and imploring them to stop fighting. Family members could also phone-in during the program and dedicate songs to the lost children, who they hoped were listening. Dwog Pacu was a program where former rebel soldiers got the opportunity to make an appeal for peace and invite their friends back from the bush. Both of them were hosted by a DJ named Kakaba, who became a legend on the radio not only because of his humor but also because of his clandestine alarms broadcast to villages when rebel troops were approaching. He was a popular man with the military and informants loved to report to him. If he got word of the LRA heading towards a village, he would announce to them on the radio, "There is a lot of smoke in your area today." Villagers would relay the message to their neighbors, gather their children, and together they would flee.
In 2002, Radio-Wa was becoming too much of a nuisance for the LRA, and the rebel leader, Joseph Kony, ordered his soldiers to burn down the building with Kakaba in it.
Today, Radio-Wa is housed in a building next door to the Lira's catholic cathedral in center of town. When we entered the station's compound, we were cheerfully greeted by its new director, Alberto, a middle aged Spaniard. Alberto came to the station a few years ago just as the war in the North was ending, and before that, he had spent years working for development broadcasting programs in East Africa. Despite having lived so far from his home for so long, he still kept its memory alive and well in his office, evidenced by a large poster on the door of David Villa gracefully dribbling a soccer ball. As we sank in to the deep cushions of the armchairs lining his workspace, he was glad to share with us the tales of Kakaba and how the radio had risen from the ashes to continue its mission of peace after being shut down for 6 months and relocating to its new residence. Citing military intelligence reports that he acquired, Alberto also informed us that Radio-Wa's programs have been credited for the escape of over 1,500 abducted child soldiers. With the director's stories only feeding our eagerness to learn more about the station's early life, he arranged for us to take a tour of the radio's former ecclesial home nestled in Lira town's eastern hills.
The LRA's assault had left the station's original infrastructure completely destroyed; the red and beige stripes of the cathedral walls were coated black, though the edifice stood firm. Before leaving Alberto's office, he joked, "If they really wanted to destroy the radio they should have cut down its mast, but they only burnt its insides." These days, the enclosure has regained its rusty bands, but instead of a radio station, it now houses a rudimentary TV broadcasting organization, TV-Wa. Our guide for the grounds was Brenda, a young female host for the TV station's music video programs. She lead us along the clover shaped outline of the building, from its main entrance to the radio tower. Half-way between them, she stopped in a little cove and placed her hand on the outline of a doorway now filled in with cement, "This is where Kakaba escaped." By this point, we had heard numerous versions of how the radio DJ had eluded capture by the rebels. One story was that he was tipped off just as the insurgents were arriving. Another, divine providence had called him away for an appointment during his regular working hours. My favorite version, however, is that Kakaba was a very short man who slipped passed the rebels unnoticed because of his height. Either way, the legendary DJ lived up to his own legend, and survived the attack to continue calling the soldiers home. Sadly, Kakaba passed away last month, he was only 38 years old. His funeral was one of the largest Lira has ever seen. After being a voice for his people on the radio, he championed their demands in government, running unopposed because of his popularity. He outlasted the war, but rumor has it that he died from complications due to one of Radio-Wa's new primary foes in the time of peace, HIV/ AIDS.
Before we could finish our Radio-Wa safari, we ventured into the interior of the renovated church. In order to get to its current resident's recording studio, we walked along a dark corridor, lit only from the sun streaming in through the building's high windows. About 50 feet down the hallway, it forked. To the left, there was a hue of fluorescent light and the glow from TV monitors through a Plexiglas divider making up a dead-end a few yards away. Continuing straight ahead, however, the darkness increased like into a cave. A tall vaulted cavern could hardly be recognized, and black, fluttering shadows would occasionally make an arc halfway towards the floor and return back to the vague ceiling, bats. Hundreds of them. With a slight chuckle, the studio's technical assistant informed me that he normally should be able to access the station's generator through the short passageway ahead, but deeper into it, the bats dart down at such great numbers that he prefers to take the long way outside when the power goes off. The LRA attempted to burn the building down more than once, even after the TV station reoccupied it. But now, the staff worry only about their neighbors from the natural world.
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