The Holy Spirit Movement (HSM) is a spiritual/religious movement and Ugandan rebel group centered around founder Alice Lakwena (Auma) and the spirits that possessed her. Alice, an ethnic Acholi, was purportedly directed to form the HSM by Lakwena, one of her spirits, in August 1986. The movement grew to adopt a military wing and waged a major but short-lived rebellion as part of the war in Uganda (1986–1994). It inspired Joseph Kony to begin his rebel group, the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA). Technically, the Holy Spirit Movement was the political wing of Alice's organization and the Holy Spirit Mobile Force (HSMF) was the military wing, but there was no real separation of functions and the titles are used interchangeably. Growth Following the collapse of Tito Okello's Uganda National Liberation Army (UNLA), several soldiers left to create a separatist guerilla movement headed by Odong Latek, the Uganda People's Democratic Army. This army fought for Acholi supremacy over regions historically belonging to the ethnic group. In 1986, Holy Spirit Movement founder Alice Lakwena (at the age of 27) and her supporters were given weapons by former UNLA officers. She thus began commanding her own troops, which she called the Holy Spirit Battalion, one of four rebel groups seeking to gain control over the Gulu and Kitgum districts of Uganda. The Holy Spirit Battalion and the UPDA held a steady alliance until the Battle of Corner Kilak yielded a more contentious relationship. After an independent UPDA attack on Gulu on 20 April 1987, UPDA soldiers grew fearful of the Holy Spirit Battalion, leading to many defecting and joining Lakwena. Independently in April 1987, another 'spiritual medium', Joseph Kony, held a Holy Spirit Army of his own, consisting of over 5,000 men, including defectors from the UPDA's Black Battalion. While Kony and his Holy Spirit Army was not affiliated with Lakwena and her Holy Spirit Battalion, the former was joined by Lakwena's father, Severino Lukwoya. Lakwena launched an offensive in Southern Uganda in August 1987, as her numbers grew stronger and stronger. Lakwena was known to recruit disillusioned professional soldiers from the UDPA, and coerce young men from local villages to join her by killing their family members. After fighting a fairly successful campaign in Uganda, Lakwena and 118 followers crossed the Kenyan border, and were arrested as illegal immigrants, on 26 December 1987. After Lakwena's arrest and detainment in Kenya, several former rebels