International Crisis Group
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“A major problem facing the operation is the mutual mistrust between Congo and Uganda at both the political and military levels.What’s really needed is sustained institutional and multilateral pressure from western countries, the United Nations, and the African Union on the governments of Uganda and Congo primarily, but also on the South Sudanese.” —Ned Dalby, Crisis Group Central Africa Analyst, on the operation to defeat the LRA
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(CNN) -If Joseph Kony wasn’t the most wanted man in the world, he may be now.
In the past week, a documentary detailing accusations of vile acts committed by the Ugandan warlord has spread like wildfire on social media (at the time of writing it has had more than 50 million views), prompting international outrage and a groundswell of support for his capture.
In the documentary, “Kony 2012,” which was posted online by the U.S.-based group Invisible Children, the tales of atrocities are horrifying: armed supporters force abducted children to kill their own parents, brutal mutilations include the hacking off of lips and limbs, and the sexual slavery of young girls stolen from their families. The group says its aim is to raise awareness and bring Kony to justice.
While some critics question whether the film captures the full scope of the conflict, one matter is without debate: Kony now ranks as one of the International Criminal Court’s most wanted men, facing arrest on charges of crimes against humanity after a 26-year campaign of brutality in his failed bid to overthrow the Ugandan government.
Campaigning to stop warlord Joseph Konyhealer among the Acholi people. He inherited a powerful support base from Alice Lakwena, a spirit-medium.Lakwena’s followers would “daub themselves in shea butter crosses which they believed would protect them from bullets and they believed that stones would explode like grenades,” explains Matthew Green, author of “The Wizard of the Nile - The Hunt for Africa’s Most Wanted,” about Kony.
“It was a mystical rebellion,” Green says, adding that Kony “was very much an inheritor of her mantle.” Lakwena fled to Kenya after Museveni’s forces launched a brutal attack on her and her followers.
Staying in northern Uganda, Kony rallied Lakwena’s remaining supporters and recruited more with a powerful mix of mythical claims, charisma and unconscionable violence.
What is Kony like?
Green describes being one of the few journalists to ever meet Kony when the rebel leader briefly emerged from his jungle hideout in 2006.
“Although he was surrounded by phalanxes of child soldiers with Kalashnikov rifles and bayonets fixed to them, he actually looked terrified of meeting strangers,” Green said.
Despite Kony’s apparent fear and paranoia, Green says the rebel leader was charismatic and clearly a “very powerful orator” when speaking to his people.
“He had an almost musical voice as he spoke in his Acholi language and you could see that the people listening were completely captivated.”
What are Kony’s tactics?
If Kony attracted supporters through his “mystical powers” and charisma, he kept them through fear.
“Certainly the violence is what made his movement so terrifying,” Green says. “These attacks were carried out often with machetes or clubs and the violence was designed with a very clear political purpose. It was designed to illustrate to the people in northern Uganda that the government of President Museveni could not protect them.”
Kony’s forces are believed to have abducted thousands of children to join his cause – however the exact number is unconfirmed. At the height of the violence during the mid-2000s, parents tried to protect their children from harm by sending them to sleep in towns, away from Kony’s ruthless kidnappers.
Brutal punishments were inflicted on those who were accused of disloyalty by an increasingly paranoid leader, Green says. “Kony once gave an order that anyone caught riding a bicycle should have their legs cut off. Bicycles were a very common means of transport in rural areas and he was worried that informers, if they saw the rebels, would rapidly pedal away and alert the nearest army post.”
And similarly he would cut off people’s hands as a kind of warning not to raise any hands against the rebels,“ Green adds.
How organized is the Lord’s Resistance Army?
Kony created the Lord’s Resistance Army with the intention to lead, based on his version of the Ten Commandments. Since then it has grown into a "disciplined fighting force,” says Green, explaining that its members occupy a rank and are rewarded for loyalty.
Kony has been able to maintain his hold over them with his mix of self-proclaimed spiritual powers and military strategy, Ned Dalby, Central Africa researcher with the International Crisis Group, said in a 2011 interview with CNN.
“He cultivates this image of himself as a medium for the power of the spirit and at other times, he presents himself as a ruthless military leader. So he’s able to maintain cohesion as a group and maintain the loyalty of his fighters,” Dalby said.
Photo: Chris Shutlz/Flickr
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CNN: Five reasons why Lord’s Resistance Army remains on the loose
By Libby Lewis
President Barack Obama announced recently that about 100 U.S. troops are being deployed to Central Africa to help “apprehend and remove” the elusive Joseph Kony and his top commanders of the Lord’s Resistance Army.
It’s not the first time the United States has gone in to help put an end to the marauding, murdering gang known as the Lord’s Resistance Army – LRA, for short.
The LRA has butchered, enslaved and displaced people in Uganda and Central Africa for two decades. Although its brand of terrorism doesn’t target the United States, Washington has listed it as a terrorist group. The U.S. decision to help go after Kony is a strategic – as well as a humanitarian – one. Africa is a frontier for terrorism. Uganda is fighting Al-Shabaab militants in Somalia – which helps the United States – so in turn, the U.S. is helping Uganda fight the LRA.
The Lord’s Resistance Army began in northern Uganda in 1987 as an opposition force to leader Yoweri Museveni. Kony sees himself as a prophet who has said he wants to rule by following the Ten Commandments.
Instead, he has ruled – and thrived – by breaking a lot of those commandments. The Ugandan army – with the help of the U.S. military – has tried for years to take him and his leadership out. The International Criminal Court has had a warrant out for him since 2005.
The Lord’s Resistance Army replenishes its ranks by abducting villagers – men, women and children – brainwashing them and forcing them to fight. Or to serve as sex slaves for commanders. LRA members survive by staying on the move constantly and stealing food and provisions. Last month, according to researchers, an LRA band raided a village in the Democratic Republic of Congo soon after the World Food Programme had distributed food supplies there.
So what is LRA leader Kony’s secret? How has he evaded justice to operate his band of marauders and murderers with impunity for decades?
Here are five reasons some experts give:
1. He uses terror strategically.
You’ve probably seen photos of children whose noses or ears were cut off – because they didn’t obey the LRA’s orders. He’s forced children he’s abducted to kill their siblings or parents. (More: Woman recalls harrowing tale of captivity)
“They use very carefully thought-through strategies to have the biggest impact,” said Tim Allen, a professor at the London School of Economics and co-author of “The Lord’s Resistance Army: Myth and Reality.”
“In northern Uganda in 2004,” Allen said, “they took some 20-odd women with their babies out of the displacement camp, laid them on the ground with their babies on their backs and smashed their brains in.”
And they did it at the edge of the camp – so that everyone in the camp would see.
“They didn’t do that very often,” Allen said. “But you don’t have to do that sort of thing very often to have a large impact on a lot of people.”
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2. Kony exploits regional politics and borders.
He got support from the Sudanese government for years. And the LRA uses borders as a defense: It hasn’t been in Uganda for years. That’s made it hard for the Ugandan army to pursue Kony. The militia is split and is constantly moving between the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Central African Republic and southern Sudan.
3. Uganda’s efforts to get Kony have flagged.
Uganda’s army has been stretched to the hilt, fighting Al-Shabaab militants in Somalia as part of an African Union force.
4. Kony is a smart strategist.
His band travels in small groups, and they’re a moving target. And he has informants – with cell phones. The last time the U.S. military helped Uganda go after Kony, in 2008, it used a traditional air and ground assault. Kony and his leaders escaped, then massacred hundreds of people in revenge. This time, the United States is bringing Special Forces (and probably other intelligence agents) with equipment and tactics to track him in the jungle.
5. Kony mixes military discipline with cultish charisma and spiritual tactics to keep captives in line – and sometimes, to keep the loyalty even of those who escape.
Allen, the London School of Economics professor, has talked to women who have escaped the Lord’s Resistance Army but are still loyal to their LRA “husbands.”
“He cultivates this image of himself as a medium for the power of the spirit and at other times, he presents himself as a ruthless military leader,” said Ned Dalby, Central Africa researcher with the International Crisis Group. “So he’s able to maintain cohesion as a group and maintain the loyalty of his fighters.”
Dalby said some former LRA fighters from northern Uganda have given a clue as to why some outside the group have stayed loyal to Kony.
“They expressed the feeling that because they were given a rank, they were given a certain purpose, and respect and authority,” Dalby said. “And then, once they’re outside the LRA, they find they’ve become just another poor person, trying to survive.”
