Kony and the LRA: Truth, Lies, and All the Rest

Ugandan authorities think they've found the remains of Okot Odhiambo, one of the most ruthless deputies of Joseph Kony's army of child soldier, the Lord's Resistance Army.

Odhiambo is rumored by the Ugandan army to have been killed or died about a year ago. But like Odhiambo's former comrade-in-arms, Vincent Otti, neither Otti's nor Odhiambo's remains have been found or identified.

While the news may be a step toward the elimination of Kony and his horde, the news has to be viewed with skepticism.

This kind of news from the Ugandan army is designed so that Kony's name does not fade from the pages of international news for more than a month or two. That the news emanates from the Ugandan army gives the impression that the Ugandan army is on top of the situation. It's not.

The recent French Press Agency story on the Odhiambo discovery quotes a Ugandan defense/military official saying that Kony is on the run and moments away from capture--something the Ugandan government has been saying for two decades.

"It will not be a surprise that he (Odhiambo) could be dead, because the UPDF [Ugandan army] has in the past killed many top LRA commanders and he cannot be an exception," Defense Minister Crispus Kiyonga said last year. "The LRA's strength has diminished and the remaining force, including Kony, are on the run."

These kind of statements are wishful thinking. Similar rumors were spread about ten years ago, about the time my book, First Kill Your Family, was published. Military leaders who were supposedly fighting Kony claimed that each of Kony's devastating counter-attacks were nothing more than the "final kicks of dying horse." The horse was not dying and the kicks were not final.

Some of those old rumors concerned Dominic Ongwen, who at one time was reportedly captured and/or killed when his unit of the LRA had lingered in northern Uganda after Kony and Otti had decamped to the Garamba National Park in northern Democractic Republic of the Congo.

Today we know that Ongwen, known as the "White Ant," is where he belongs in the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands.

How Ongwen ended up there illustrates the convoluted mis- and dis-information about the LRA.

Initial reports suggested that Ongwen had been captured by the U.S. Special Forces backing the Ugandans who are tracking the LRA through the jungles of Central African Republic. In fact, Ongwen surrendered  after a 30-minute firefight to the Christian militia Seleka rebels who had and have been fighting in the CAR.

The Seleka rebels turned him over to the U.S. Special Forces and demanded the $5 million reward that had been offered for Ongwen's capture.

"I did not want to die in the bush, so I decided to follow the right path and listen to the calling of the ICC," said Ongwen, in the Acholi language on a video taken by the Ugandan army, according to reports.

In Dominic's own words, he did not want to die in the bush. Many others who have defected from the LRA have said the same thing. They're tired of running. That's not the same thing as saying they're afraid of the Ugandan army and certainly not any goofy programs orchestrated by U.S-based "humanitarian" groups.

They're just tired.

Given the choice between  a life of endless scavenging in the bush and living in an apartment in The Hague, Ongwen chose the apartment.  He knows the ICC won't kill him, no matter how many people he killed or ordered killed and watched while they died horrible deaths.

But he knows that Kony would eventually kill him, as Kony reportedly did with Otti. Ongwen was not humane, but the court would be. Ongwen knew that.

With the desertion/surrender of Ongwen, it's been interesting to see who's lined up to take credit.

Of course the Ugandan military is first in line, even though Kony still fights as he has since 1985, when the earliest incarnations of what became the LRA battled the Ugandan army of President Yoweri Museveni. Museveni has been unable to stop Kony since 1985. Why could he succeed now?

Next to take credit has been the international community, starting with the U.S. government. It's been quickly followed by the international humanitarian community.

As I wrote in First Kill Your Family, the only way Kony will be defeated is when and if he decides to give himself up--or if and when he's killed. Kony is a self-professed prophet and militia leader. He knows only one life -- killing, plunder, and abduction. He won't change because he can't.

He won't come out of the bush because he fears he'll be killed. And the Ugandans won't go after him because they fear Kony's mystical powers. Kony lives, and for the time being, that won't change.

Deja-vu, all over again

The famous New York Yankees baseball player Yogi Berra once said, "It's like deja-vu all over again," the kind of statement that makes you pause, clear your throat, then chuckle.

That was my reaction to last week's flurry of statements from various corners that Joseph Kony, the notorious leader of the vicious Lord's Resistance Army, was settled somewhere in south Darfur.

Curiously, that information has been published and commented on for about six months, going back to an attack first reported last October: "Ugandan rebels attack Darfuris, kill five - army."

The story was reported by intrepid journalist Skye Wheeler, a Reuters correspondent in Juba, who rips around the gritty capital of South Sudan on a dirt bike.

The LRA attack was in the border regions of South Sudan and Darfur, targeting displaced Darfuris, and quoted South Sudan's army spokesman Kuol Diem Kuol.

Subsequent reports fueled speculation, including mine, that Kony had taken up refuge inside Dafur, helping himself to Sudan's hospitality just as he had done a decade earlier while fighting in northern Uganda.

Then Uganda President Yoweri Museveni said Friday that Kony had apparently "disappeared into Darfur," quoting his military sources.

Museveni then made his typical bravado comments about how the Uganda army has all but eliminated Kony, again revealing a short-term memory of his army's botched attack on Kony's camps in the Congo in December 2008.

That failed operation is largely why the world is still dealing with the Kony problem.

Museveni went on to say that while Kony may be in Darfur, the LRA has divided into three independent factions, one headed by Dominic Ongwen, who like Kony is wanted by the International Criminal Court. Leadership and location of the third unit is unknown.

Just a day before Museveni spoke, the tireless people at Enough, also announced that Kony had found a safe haven in Darfur.

Now doing something about Kony and the LRA has only become more difficult due to the inexcusable delays to a bill regarding Kony that was finally acted on this past week by the U.S. Senate.

These needless delays in the bill, which requires the Obama administration to develop a plan to stop Kony, are the kind of inaction that has allowed Kony to survive and keep on killing, looting, abducting and mutilating.

With Kony now in Darfur, any overt action against him becomes all the more complicated, unless and until Kony decides to venture from his safe haven into South Sudan to disrupt the country's coming elections.

It will require constant pressure from groups like Invisible Children, Enough, and Resolve Uganda to keep up the pressure and insist that a plan and then action be taken to capture Kony and his marauding rebels.

Uganda still pursuing LRA

A new reports suggests that the Ugandan army may be in pursuit of units of the Lord's Resistance Army in the Central African Republic, despite its reported withdrawal from the region several months ago after the failed attempt to kill or capture the rebels fighters and their leader, Joseph Kony.

According to an article in today's Kampala weekly Observer by Edris Kiggundu, the Uganda army is hot on the heels of LRA forces led by Okot Odhiambo and Dominic Ongwen holed up in the Central African Republic, along with another LRA commander named Bok Abudema.

If the report is correct, it would fall in line with the government's suggestion that the fight is not over between Uganda and the LRA. And, it would support rumors that the contingent of advisers left behind in the DRC, supposedly to help the Congolese army finish the job, are more than that.

According to recent reports by escapees of the LRA, including one of Kony's top wives named Lily Atong, a significant LRA force retreated to the CAR. It makes sense that this would be the Odhiambo-Ongwen group, the apparent second and third top commanders of the LRA.

It would follow the tried-and-true tactic of the LRA to fragment and scatter, which allows it to operate in relatively independent groups and makes the LRA all the harder to effectively capture and/or eliminate.

Odhiambo and Ongwen were the two commanders who claimed they were willing to surrender earlier this year when the hunt for the LRA was in high gear with the Uganda's reportedly 3,000-strong force.

The two LRA commanders were in contact with an aid group that was working as an intermediary, but nothing came of it. The two commanders, along with their force of several hundred fighters, faded into the jungle.

According to the Observer, two units of the Ugandan army, the 301st and 309th brigades, have been given two weeks for the operation. At least one of these brigades is said to be composed of former LRA fighters, who are perhaps the only ones in the Ugandan army who have the stomach and endurance to effectively take on the LRA.

According to the article, the Ugandan army has also scored recent unreported victories against some scattered units of the LRA that have been wreaking havoc around Yambio, the capital of the Western Equatoria Province of South Sudan.

These attacks have been reported on a very limited basis, and sadly the only defense has been from poorly equipped local militia forces known as Arrow Boys. The name is apt because they are largely only armed with bows and arrows, and hardly a match for the LRA.

But what about Kony? The former wife of Kony said that the psychotic self-proclaimed prophet of his Acholi ethnic group, was frantic after the attack on his camps last December 14.

Apparently he is still in the vicinity of the Garamba National Park in northeastern DR Congo. If Uganda finds some success in the CAR, is Kony next?

The depths of depravity

The call supposedly came from this man, Okot Odhiambo, pictured above as published in the Sunday edition of the New Vision newspaper in Kampala.

The photo accompanies an article by staff writer Barbara Among that delves into the issue of the calls and/or calls several weeks ago by Odhiambo, the number two man in the LRA, to the International Organization for Migration, that he and the LRA's nubmer three man, Dominic Ongwen, wanted to surrender.

Among says the call was a hoax and cites a number of sources inside the Ugandan intelligence community.

Security sources have idenitifed the caller as a man named Richard Komakech, who is suspected to have been making calls pausing as Odhiambo offering to surrender, Among writes.

“This man is a former rebel and had a satellite phones and Global Position System (GPS) which he has been using,” a source said.

When news broke of the call, there was a flurry of excitement because it would have been a major blow to the LRA and an even greater victory for the stalled Ugandan operation to kill or capture LRA leader Joseph Kony in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Just as quickly as the story sufaced, it died, leaving the IOM gasping for air, as Among points out.

The IOM has been tight-lipped regarding any information on Odhiambo, Among writes, except for a press statement on February 3 that it did not have any knowledge of Odhiambo’s whereabouts.

“IOM has no authority to arrest any individual… Nor does it have any information on Odhiambo’s whereabouts,” read a press statement on its website.

Questions abound as to whether the organisation was at any one point in touch with Odhiambo, Among correctly writes.

“I highly doubted it was Odhiambo," Gulu Resident District commissioner Col. Walter Ochora told New Vision. "You can’t pick a phone and say ‘I am Odhiambo’, when still under the command of Joseph Kony. That would be madness. Odhiambo could not make that mistake.”

Military intelligence concurred with Ochora, saying the announcement was a military tactic, initiated by Kony’s supporters from outside Uganda.

“Those are tactics. At the time, the forces had mounted pressure on him and he needed a breather,” said a security officer, who preferred anonymity told
Among, adding that Komakech could have been pausing as Odhiambo for the reason security is yet to establish.

I would offer that the reason is simple: we're dealing with the deadly and depraved people here, people who will do and say anything to anybody, any where and at any time, if they think they can benefit from it.

But even more disconcerting is that this apparent hoax could be part of an even more deeply established organization that supports Kony by trying to derail the Ugandan army as it pursues Kony.

This organization, which is inside and outside of Uganda, condones the recent killing of at least 900 innocent civilians in northeastern DRC who have had nothing at all to do with the LRA or its so-called war against Uganda.

After all, no one yet has offered a reasonable explanation as to why or how Kony was tipped off the day before the attack on his camps on Dec. 14.

This of course has led to speculation that it was intentionally leaked, thus allowing the Uganda military operation to continue indefinately and for international money to flow into the Uganda military machine indefinately as well.

There is plenty to wonder about with this operation to find one of the world's most wanted men, but topping the list is, What are the depth of depavity?

Spreading to the CAR

I apologize for my two-week absence. I've been on the road since mid-February promoting my new book on Joseph Kony and the LRA titled First Kill Your Family: Child Soldiers of Uganda and the Lord's Resistance Army.

If you haven't already, order it now at Amazon.com.

So far, the tour has been a success with stops in February across the Midwest at the University of Iowa, Magers and Quinn Bookstore in Minneapolis, U of Wisconsin at Madison, Northwestern, DePaul, Columbia College, Seminary Coop Bookstore in Chicago, U of Indiana, and finally Ohio State.

The tour continues this month:

• 7 p.m. Monday, Mar. 9, at Elliott Bay Books in Seattle;
• 6 p.m. Wednesday, Mar. 11 at Powell's Books in Portland, Ore.;
• 5:30 p.m. Thursday at UC Berkeley's journalism school;
• 7 p.m. Saturday, Mar. 14 at Book Passage in Corte Madera, in Marin Co. north of San Francisco.

For a complete listing, see the book's webpage at http://www.firstkillyourfamily.com/.

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As many others including myself have suspected, Kony is taking his band of killers into the Central African Republic, Reuters news agency reported last week, after the fighters apparently ambushed a national army patrol.

The clash triggered fighting that killed several fighters, according to a colonel in the republic's forces. The attack took place in the remote southeast of the country, which is sandwiched between Congo and Sudan.

"They were routed by the heavy retaliation from our soldiers," the colonel said. "One of our officers and a soldier were injured ... I cannot give the exact number we killed, but those who survived were chased to the other side of the Sudan border," he said.

As we have been reporting and discussing for months now, the LRA has killed nearly 900 civilians in northeastern Congo in retaliation for the Ugandan army attack on the LRA's camps in mid-December.

Kony has long wanted to move his base from the Garamba National Park in the DRC to the remote and lawless lands of the CAR, but was previously prevented from doing so by his late deputy commander, Vincent Otti. Kony killed Otti, according to defectors who witnessed the execution.

If Kony is moving to this region, it would add a new dimension to the conflict, which has spread death and destruction all over the northeastern DRC, and would embroil the CRA more deeply into the problem than ever before.

Fearing they would cross the border, Central African Republic sent extra soldiers last month to beef up patrols in its remote southeastern region, where LRA fighters last year invaded and kidnapped hundreds and looted dozens of villages and towns.

Those attacks continued sporadically for most of 2008, and tried the patience of the international community, which finally consented to the attack on Kony after his third and final failure to sign a peace deal with Uganda.

Kony's clash with the CAR makes it clear that he still has ammunition and weapons, which makes him a lethal force. Speculation had been growing that Kony was out of ammo since his killers had resorted to hacking people to death with machetes.

Several question still linger, however.

• Will the Uganda, CAR and South Sudan forces pursue Kony north into the CAR?
• How far can the Ugandan operation be stretched before it breaks?
• How many troops does Kony have?
• What happened to the widely reported offer to surrender by Kony's two top deputies, Okot Odhiambo and Dominic Ongwen?

The surrender was being negotiated with the aid group, International Organization for Migration, a Swiss-based group with operations all over the world.

• What happened?
• Did Kony kill Odhiambo, as has been rumored?
• Did Okot die, since he was reportedly wounded badly?

Stay tuned.

Things fall apart

Troubling new information emerging from the surrender negotiations of two commanders of the Lord's Resistance Army indicate that the deal is collapsing.

While the Congolese government is telling the world that LRA chief Joseph Kony and about 250 rebels are trapped in a swamp in the Garamba jungle in north-eastern DR Congo, word comes from the Daily Monitor in Kampala that one of the commanders is under arrest by Kony.

The commander, Okot Odhiambo, was reportedly severely wounded and about two weeks ago called the aid group, International Organization for Migration, to help negotiate his surrender along with a small force of soldiers and captives.

While no one knows if the arrest claim is legitimate, it means someone is trying to block the deal. That would most likely be Kony, who would see his army cut in half and leave him isolated. Or, it could be one of his supporters on the outside, who are trying to block or delay his capture.

Along with Odhiambo, his other top commander, Dominic Ongwen, has also asked for a surrender. It hasn't happened yet and word has been scarce. And, since the flow of information to the public is being carefully controlled by the Ugandan government, we're not going to be told the truth.

But, if Kony does have Odhiambo in his grasp, it means certain death for Odhiambo. Kony killed his former deputy, Vincent Otti, in October 2007 after Otti pushed too hard for the peace deal with Uganda and was prepared to take his followers, about half of the LRA, out of the bush.

If Kony has reasserted himself into the situation, it would be typical Kony tactics. By "arresting" Odhiambo and executing him, he would be enforcing his brutal and blood form of discipline, insuring that any others who want to desert stay with him out of pure fear.

The call regarding the arrest does not square with comments by Congo spokesman Lambert Mende who told AFP news agency, “They have no way out of these swamps except to surrender,” regarding the LRA.

He also said that a UN peacekeeping force in Sudan, UNMIS, had been preparing their return to Uganda. Was this all a publicity stunt to help a mission that has failed to kill or capture the LRA leaders?

“For reasons that remain unclear none of the combatants had presented themselves at the designated rendezvous as of Saturday afternoon,” said David Gressly, UNMIS regional coordinator for southern Sudan.

Odhiambo and Ongwen are wanted by the International Criminal Court in The Hague for war crimes.