{"id":547,"date":"2026-05-23T05:06:20","date_gmt":"2026-05-23T05:06:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/americanmovershub.com\/?p=547"},"modified":"2026-05-23T05:06:20","modified_gmt":"2026-05-23T05:06:20","slug":"a-ugandan-latter-day-saint-who-had-a-gift-of-talking-people-out-of-anger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/americanmovershub.com\/?p=547","title":{"rendered":"A Ugandan Latter-day Saint who had a \u2018gift of talking people out of anger\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

In 2006, the 20-year conflict with rebel forces in northern Uganda had subsided and the region, ravaged by war and violence, was in desperate need of healing. Nearly 1.8 million people had been forced into overcrowded displacement camps, where they lived with disease and fear of attacks from both the Lord\u2019s Resistance Army, a rebel group fighting the Ugandan government, and the government itself.<\/p>\n

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When the conflict ended, families scarred by trauma and loss began their journey home only to find their land occupied and their ownership rights disputed by clans after a long absence. Amid this tumultuous resettlement process, one man emerged as a pivotal figure in helping people reclaim and protect their land, and reestablish their homes.<\/p>\n

Ojera James Latigo, an economist and member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from Gulu, Uganda, a small town about 120 miles north of Kampala, played a key role in helping people rebuild their lives \u2014 reunite fractured families, set up support networks, and negotiate with rebels to bring back abducted children and reintegrate them back into normalcy.<\/p>\n

For Latigo, restoring land was about more than property and making a living \u2014 it was a way for people to reclaim a sense of home and identity after losing everything in the war.<\/p>\n

On May 17, Latigo, who was serving as the first counselor in the Gulu Stake, died in a road accident, according to the message from the Gulu Stake.<\/p>\n

\u201cJames became very famous for trying to make sure that people who went back home were accessing their land, using their rights correctly and (that) they were not fighting each other,\u201d said Phillip Odiambo, a Ph.D. student in biochemistry at BYU who worked with Latigo on land issues in Gulu and got to know him in church circles. \u201cHe had a gift of talking people out of anger.\u201d <\/p>\n

Latigo leaves behind his wife, Nalweyiso Barbara Katende Ojera, a social worker, and their four children. <\/p>\n

Latigo had a gift for lowering tensions between competing tribes and acting as a connector between local communities and the government in the Acholi subregion in Northern Uganda, where his work was concentrated. In situations of deep mistrust, he had a knack for creating channels for dialogue and for turning a relationship away from confrontation.<\/p>\n

Odiambo recalled arriving in a small community in northern Uganda with a team of four to train the locals on land issues, only to be met by a group of young people armed with pangas, a type of African machete, and hoes, heavy handheld iron tools used for tilling soil. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe couldn\u2019t run because if you start running back to your vehicle, they will surely begin shooting at you and block the road and then kill you,\u201d Odiambo recalled. <\/p>\n

Instead, they called Latigo for help. After prompt arrival, he proceeded to calm the hostile situation through conversation. By the meeting\u2019s end, \u201cnobody was angry anymore,\u201d Odiambo recalled, and the community invited the group to return for further dialogue. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe knew how to talk,\u201d Odiambo said. \u201cHe did it so well that he could go for peace talks when things were very tough.\u201d<\/p>\n

Odiambo first met Latigo while he was investigating the church, and later reported to him at the Ugandan office of Tr\u00f3caire, the official international development agency of the Catholic Church in Ireland. Latigo also encouraged Odiambo to pursue a Ph.D. at BYU and provided a recommendation. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe always thought it\u2019s good to let people pursue what they have to pursue,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Latigo, who was an economist with a robust legal expertise, negotiated directly with rebel officers, often putting himself in danger. He traveled to clan-held lands and worked with Acholi chiefs to sort out land rights.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was smart, he was well-connected and people respected and responded well to him,\u201d said Ron Atkinson, a retired professor of African Studies at the University of South Carolina, who worked closely with Latigo on land issues. Latigo was sensitive both issues of customary land \u2014 ancestral land governed by traditional community customs \u2014 and people\u2019s positions in society. \u201cIt was very difficult work and sometimes dangerous,\u201d Atkinson said.<\/p>\n

Before focusing his work on land issues, much of Latigo\u2019s work revolved around creating transitional justice frameworks after the devastation caused by the Lord\u2019s Resistance Army insurgency on the Ugandan communities. Latigo was the director of the USAID-backed Northern Uganda Peace Initiative and was on the board of several organizations. He helped establish the Grassroots Reconciliation Group, helping to bring home abducted child soldiers and girls captured by rebels and forced to have babies.<\/p>\n

Throughout his various initiatives, Latigo advocated for local restorative rituals and traditional justice, which he believed were often more effective at repairing a broken society than the purely punitive measures enforced by international courts.<\/p>\n

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He turned to both modern legal methods and traditional mediation to help elders and chiefs settle land disputes. In Nwoya, a district in the Acholi subregion of northern Uganda, he also helped create one of the first government-registered Customary Land Trusts, which kept land under shared clan ownership so it couldn\u2019t be easily sold off or divided.<\/p>\n

Latigo had an \u201cunwavering belief that true, lasting peace cannot be imported from the West,\u201d according to Odiambo. \u201cRather, it must be cultivated from the deep roots of local culture, faith and communal stewardship.\u201d <\/p>\n

In a society rife with corruption and conflict, Latigo\u2019s honesty stood out and made him a rare trustworthy figure.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was trusted by everyone,\u201d said Patrick Lumumba Oola, a former child soldier who has been the mayor of Gulu for 8 years. \u201cThe rebels trusted him, people in government trusted him, people in the U.N. trusted him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Latigo lived a \u201csimple life,\u201d Oola said, without caring for wealth and power.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe cared about education of his children,\u201d Oola said.<\/p>\n

When Latigo and his wife met for the first time, they discovered \u201cthe same interest in loving children.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cI was touched by how he related to them and that\u2019s how we started interacting,\u201d Barbara shared with the LDS Women Project in 2024. Latigo began discussions with missionaries and in 2003, the two were baptized together. In 2012, they were sealed in the Johannesburg South Africa Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Together, they raised four children.<\/p>\n

Latigo had served in various capacities in the church from branch employment specialist, branch president, family and temple history consultant and his last calling as the first counselor in the Gulu Stake Presidency. <\/p>\n

But Latigo\u2019s mediation went beyond land issues. He tried bridging his native culture with the newly embraced traditions and values of his church, which is headquartered in the United States.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe tried to bridge the good things that the church culture brought and also tried to uphold the good part of our culture,\u201d Odiambo said. <\/p>\n

When local traditions posed challenges for young Latter-day Saints trying to start families, Latigo intervened to help. In East Africa, it is customary for the groom to pay a \u201cbride price,\u201d which may include goats, chickens or clothing, to the bride\u2019s family upon marriage. <\/p>\n

Latigo would mediate on behalf of young men, convincing the bride\u2019s family to allow the marriage first and postpone traditional obligations until the couple was financially stable and able to formally honor their parents later.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe meditated a lot, so the couple could live within the covenant path,\u201d Odiambo said. <\/p>\n

Judy Dushku relied on Latigo\u2019s legal expertise when she founded THRIVEGulu, an organization that supports survivors of the Lord\u2019s Resistance Army insurgency and refugees from South Sudan. <\/p>\n

\u201cJames knew everyone, it seemed, and people trusted him and therefore trusted us. We could not have done our work without him,\u201d said Dushku, a Boston-based humanitarian, who is the author of \u201cIs This the Way Home?\u201d, a book that details the homecoming of a young woman abducted by the Lord\u2019s Resistance Army at 11 years old. During her annual visits to the local branches, she observed Latigo seemingly always leading a new branch: \u201cHe has been a huge inspiration to three generations of members.\u201d <\/p>\n

Latigo leaves a legacy of peacemaking and reconciliation both in the civic society and his religious community. Latigo\u2019s burial will take place on May 30 at his ancestral home in Gulu. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe leaves an East Africa where ancestral lands are safer, where former enemies have learned to forgive,\u201d Odiambo wrote in statement to the Deseret News. \u201cAnd where the vulnerable can stand firmly on the ground of their ancestors.\u201d<\/p>\n

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