Juma Oris

Who was Juma Oris?

Colonel Juma Oris Abdalla was a rebel leader in the West Nile sub-region of Uganda in the early 1990s. He was previously a minister in Idi Amin's government, and later was allegedly backed by the government of Sudan. Oris is alleged to have committed human rights violations by planting landmines in ambush attempts in northern Uganda during the mid-1990s. In the late 1980s and early 1990s Joseph Kony, the leader of the rebel group known as the Lord's Resistance Army claimed to be possessed by the spirit of Juma Oris. It appears he was unaware that Oris was at the time still alive—something which he discovered when the two men eventually met in person. Having suffered a stroke in 1999, Oris died in Khartoum in March 2001 not as alleged in fighting with the Uganda Peoples' Defence Forces as reported by the Africa Research Bulletin of July 2001.