Congolese: Uganda not serious about Kony

A blog posted this week by writers of the Economist, one of the world's leading news magazines, quoted a Congolese army commander as accusing the Ugandan army of being "not serious" about the capture of Joseph Kony and the Lord's Resistance Army.

The blog is titled Baobob, which is a majestic and extremely long living tree in Africa, and focuses on the plight of an unnamed army lieutenant who has the unenviable mission of leading his men against the LRA as it roams the remote northern jungles of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The officer bemoans the fact that his men have not been paid or resupplied for months, yet they continue to slog after the battle-hardened child soldiers of Kony's LRA.

What makes the army unit's situation all the more depressing is that the Ugandan units that are in the region are well-supplied and well-equipped, but aren't doing anything.

"It's a crooked war the Ugandan are fighting with the LRA," the officer tells the Economist blogger. "They have all the weapons in the world, but they're not serious."

This commander's frustrations parallel my own when it comes to Uganda's abortive efforts to track, capture and/or kill Kony and the minions of his murderous cult. As I have argued in my book, First Kill Your Family: Child Soldiers of Uganda and the Lord's Resistance Army, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni and his army have a vested interest in keeping Kony alive.

As I discuss in my latest book, Consuming the Congo: War and Conflict Minerals in the World's Deadliest Place, Museveni focused his army in the DRC starting in early 1996 when he teamed up with Rwandan President Paul Kagame to topple the regime of Mobutu Sese Seko. Mobutu was replaced with their hand-picked commander, the late Laurent Kabila, whose son Joseph will most likely be re-elected president of the DRC next month.

After Laurent Kabila tried to kick the Ugandans and Rwandans out of his country in 1998, they launched a second war in the DRC that stalled. But Uganda and Rwanda stayed in eastern Congo until 2003, allowing them to plunder the gold, diamonds, timber, as well as untold tons of what has become known as "conflict minerals": tin, tungsten and tantalum.

Meanwhile, back in northern Uganda, Kony continued to fight, wreaking havoc against his own tribe, the Acholi who dominated all of northern Uganda. Museveni let his generals inflate the number of soldiers actually fighting in the north, which became know as the "ghost soldiers." The generals were eventually relieved of their rank, but not until after they'd been able to pocket millions of foreign aid dollars meant to put an end to Kony and the LRA.

Although Kony decamped northern Uganda in 2006 for the remote jungles of northern DRC, he continued as he had done for the prior 20 years, killing, looting and kidnapping, no longer able to justify his criminal behavior by claiming to fight the Museveni government.

In 2008, former President Bush sent US military advisers to Uganda, and with the Ugandans, they devised an attack on Kony's camp, which failed miserably when Kony was apparently tipped off and fled with army. He then went on a murderous rampage, killing nearly 1,000 innocent people in the region.

Because of these past failures by the Bush administration, and armed with a congressional mandate, President Barack Obama has sent yet another bevy of US military adviser to Uganda to see if they can convince Museveni and the Ugandan army to get the job done once and for all.

While some influential commentators, such as the perennially bizarre and woefully confused Rush Limbaugh, have said that Obama is trying to wipe out Christians in Africa, other more knowledgeable ones have said that these advisers will actually be armed and accompany Ugandans into the jungle.

With US forces on the ground, this gives hope that finally something might be done about Kony, but wait! Last Sunday, shortly after Obama made the announcement, Uganda's Museveni says that no, US advisers will NOT be on the ground, and according to reports, "will not participate in actual fighting."

Museveni's comments only reinforce my long-standing belief, which is now shared by that poor Congolese lieutenant, that Uganda does not want Kony captured. Rather, what we can see is more foreign money and arms lavished on Uganda, but to no other purpose but to enrich and empower the Ugandan elite.

Riots a dangerous distraction

The rioting that has rocked Kampala is sad, not only for the needless loss of life, but because it is a dangerous distraction for a country that is in midst of two critical wars beyond its borders.

The last thing Uganda needs right now is a war inside its border or its capital.

One is the only recently acknowledged war against the Lord's Resistance Army which has moved from the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the Central African Republic.

The second is in Somalia where the Ugandan army is the main component of the African Union's peace keeping mission and is the only thing that is keeping the Somalia's Transitional Federal Government from being wiped out by Muslim extremists of the al-Shabab and Hizbul Islami groups.

While Uganda certainly is the "pearl" of Africa in many ways, the recent riots have exposed the Achilles heel of the continent: ethnic conflict.

As noted scholars have said and as Africans confess, ethnic conflict is the basis of every major war and conflict on the continent. Rather than countries going to war to assert dominance, or ideologies clashing, Africa is continually mired in ethnic-based warfare that has no regard for political boundaries.

Look at the Rwandan genocide, the on-going conflict in Darfur, and the post election violence in western Kenya in 2008.

In Uganda, now, we have the Buganda tribe, the country's largest, clashing with the government forces directed by President Yoweri Museveni, who is part of a neighboring ethnic group from southwestern Uganda.

Museveni's excessive response to the Buganda's desire to conduct rallies was clearly uncalled for, but it also raises questions about the Bugandan motives.

There is historical precedent here. When Uganda first became independent in 1962, the constitution made the Bugandan king, the "kibaka," the constitutional president, while the prime minister was elected and ran the country. It was a variation of England's constitutional monarchy in which the prime minister is elected, but formally appointed by the ruling monarch.

The Ugandan experiment soon failed when the Bugandan king had a shoot-out with the late president Milton Obote and eventually fled the country, dying in exile in England.

When Museveni took power in 1986, he recognized the Bugandan king and "kingdom" but did not grant the king any power other than ceremonial.

When I lived in Uganda in 2005 and 2006, similar clashes occurred because the Bugandans, unfortunately, believe they have been robbed of their right to rule.

As difficult as it may be, most African countries will be unable to progress politically and economically unless they can transcend ethnic jealousies and begin to function as states.

The riots, meanwhile, are particularly troubling for Uganda which currently is fighting two wars.

The Ugandan mission in Somalia is critically important. Uganda is supported and supplied by the US and others in the international community who want to keep Somalia from becoming a safe haven for Muslim extremists.

The significance of this grows daily as Pakistan and the US put pressure on the Taliban, al-Qaeda, and their allies, forcing them out of Pakistan's lawless northwest province.

Increasing numbers of these fundamentalist fighters are fleeing to Somalia, bringing weapons and money that fuel a likely take-over of war-torn Somalia.

An extremist takeover in Somalia would have disastrous consequences for East Africa, the entire continent, and the world at large. The extremists are looking for their next new safe haven, and Somalia has been selected.

Uganda and the international community need to focus efforts on containing the terrorist threat in Somalia, as well as tracking down Joseph Kony and his militia.

Riots in Kampala, meanwhile, are a dangerous and needless diversion.

Dominic makes two

The French Press Agency is reporting that Dominic Ongwen, another deputy commander of the Lord's Resistance Army, also wants to surrender to Ugandan forces fighting in northeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The possible surrender of Ongwen follows last week's request by LRA deputy commander Okot Odhiambo, who is currently negotiating the terms of a surrender.

If true, the defection and surrender of these commanders would leave Kony largely isolated, yet still with the bulk of his army in the DRC, said to be some 600 or 700 men.

The surrender of both these men would be a huge success for the Ugandan army and theoretically for the international community since both are wanted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

"Dominic Ongwen is here with me, we are together," Odhiambo told AFP by phone from his jungle hide-out, adding they had 120 LRA fighters with them.

Meanwhile, word continues to trickle out about the possible surrender of the deputy commander of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebels, Okot Odhiambo.

According to the Daily Monitor newspaper in Kampala, the Ugandan army commander in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Brig. Gen. Patrick Kankiriho, has given Odhiambo a map sketching out where Odhiambo and his men can surrender.

The options are several locations, or any church or the United Nations Mission in Congo (MONUC) outpost.

“I sent him a sketch map of areas where he can report. I told him if he cannot report in those areas where the UPDF is, he can go to any church or the UN,” Kankiriho told the Monitor.

The church suggestion is ironic since Odhiambo and his men are thought to have been behind a slaughter in a church of about 50 people in the Doruma area in December.

This communique to Odhiambo is the first hard information that the negotiations, which began last week, are still on-going with the rebel unit, said to nubmer about 85 people, including about 45 soldiers, 20 abductees and non-combatants.

"If Odhiambo responds and says he is at point A, then we will know he is serious. We will not hurt him. We can even leave our guns behind and we get UN to escort us and we meet him,” Kankiriho said.

If Odhiambo surrenders, it will be a major success for the Ugandan military strike that began Dec. 14 and sent the LRA, lead by Joseph Kony, on a killing rampage that has taken the lives of nearly 1,000 civilians in the region.

But how long the Ugandan army can or will stay in northeastern DRC? Congolese officials have set today, Friday, Feb. 6, as the deadline for Uganda's withdrawal from the region.

The deadline makes no sense, of course, given the current negotiations, but the Congo is under pressure to rid itself of foreign forces. Neighboring Rwanda currently has about 2,000 troops in the Kivu provinces of eastern DRC, who are ridding the region of the Hutu militias.

The two situation are virtually unrelated, but problematic, none-the-less.

Certainly, simple logic dictates that Uganda should continue this operation against Kony and the LRA, since in both this situation and the Kivus, the DRC is incapable of controlling or solving the problem.

But this also raises the question whether Uganda can solve the Kony problem as well. Given the botched operation that began the current mess, there are serious doubts for any permanent solution.

The question also arises as to why Kony and his army are in the DRC in the first place. Why didn't Uganda solve the Kony problem sometime during the 20 years he fought in Uganda?

What makes Uganda think it can do the job now?