Rebel prophetess who shook Uganda is buried

BUNGATIRA, Uganda, Feb 3 (Reuters) A Ugandan prophetess, who led a doomed rebel uprising of hymn-singing followers who believed themselves invulnerable to government bullets, was buried today.

Alice Lakwena, a former fishmonger who claimed inspiration from a Holy Spirit, led a major revolt against the government 20 years ago and though her fanatical followers were routed her movement gave rise to Joseph Kony's rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA).

She 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.

Blending the beliefs of her northern Acholi tribe and Christian symbolism, Lakwena persuaded followers they would be immune to bullets and that stones would explode like grenades.

She led an army of 10,000 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.

But her uprising reflected growing opposition among her Acholi ribe to President Yoweri Museveni and her movement gave rise to Kony's LRA.

The LRA's two-decade rebellion in northern Uganda, one of Africa's longest running conflicts, has killed tens of thousands of people and forced nearly 2 million into squalid camps.

Talks since July between the LRA and Kampala have produced a truce that has been largely respected, but no peace deal.

An old woman knelt wailing by Lakwena's open casket in her mother's ramshackle cottage befor the lid was closed as she was lowered into her grave after prayers and hymns.

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 before she mobilsed a revolt in which thousands died.

''She cast out demons,'' said her sister Betty Lanyero, 52.

''People liked the way she was healing, it was even free of charge.'' Seeking to regain power after Museveni toppled a junta of Acholi generals in early 1986, Kony and Lakwena were among a crop of Acholi rebel leaders who emerged to fight his soldiers.

While Kony's rebels later earned notoriety for abducting thousands of children and mutilating villagers, Lakwena's year-long uprising enjoyed far more popular support than Kony managed in two decades.

Lakwena's chanting followers were often mown down in their hundreds while yelling their war cry of ''James Bond.'' Born Alice Auma, she adopted the name Lakwena -- messenger -- after she reported being possessed by the spirit of an Italian soldier during a mythical 40-day immersion in the Nile, enhancing her spiritual appeal.

While the two are often said to be cousins, Lakwena denied links to Kony during her exile in Kenya, where she still preached, knit and told followers she could treat AIDS until her death.

REUTERS PDM PM2322