FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 29, 2006
Media Contact: Michael Corby
904.632.3310

FCCJ Kent Campus World Peace Month speaker: December 5 presentation to inform of genocide in Northern Uganda

What:	World Peace Month Lecture: Genocide in Northern Uganda Lecture by exiled Ugandan Okot Nyormoi, M.D., Ph.D.
When:	Tuesday, December 5 at 12:30 p.m.
Where:	FCCJ Kent Campus, Bldg. D, Room 120 3939 Roosevelt Blvd.
Cost:	Free and open to the public.
For more information: call 904.381.3676.

Details: Dr. Okot Nyormoi, Ugandan native, exiled from his land for 20 years, is former chairman and current member of the Board of Directors of Friends for Peace in Africa (FPA; www.friendsforpeaceinafrica.org). The mission of FPA is to try to find peaceful solutions for the many warring factions, including the government of current Ugandan President Museveni, who FPA contends has been the cause of a “slow genocide” in Northern Uganda.

According to FPA, Northern Uganda has for 21 years experienced brutal wars between rebels, currently led by the Lord Resistance Army (LRA) and the government of Uganda. Up to 25,000 children were kidnapped by the LRA to use as child soldiers and as unwilling wives. There are still nearly two million people incarcerated in 200 internally displaced people’s camps where up to 1,000 people die weekly from preventable causes. Before the current peace negotiation, there were up to 50,000 children commuting daily from the outlying areas to seek safety in urban centers for fear of being kidnapped by the LRA.

Jan Egeland, the UN Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs called the situation the greatest forgotten humanitarian crisis in the world. Olara Otunnu, the former U.N. Under-Secretary General for Children in Armed Conflict called it the worst place on earth for children to be. In many ways, the situation is considered to be worse than the better known case of genocide in Darfur. According to Father Carlo Ridriguez, under this horrendous condition, everything Acholi, the most affected ethnic group, is dying. In spite of careful [Ugandan] government concealment, the situation is now slowly being recognized as genocide of a new type.

For more information, call 904.381.3676.