Cabbages and Kony

The four-year fiasco that is the futile search for renegade militia leader, Joseph Kony and his army of child soldiers, has once again become the focus in Washington, DC.

Congress discussed Kony recently during a meeting of the House Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations. The hearing was titled, “Ridding Central Africa of Joseph Kony: Continuing US Support.”

While there appears to be continuing support to keep up the hunt for Kony, the reality on the ground in Africa is typically confusing at best.

A recent article in the Washington Post provides a well-crafted update on the search for Kony. It focuses on the apparent dealings the Ugandan army and U.S. special forces advisers have had with Muslim rebel fighters in the region, known as the Seleka.

I have argued in First Kill Your Family that the Ugandans aren't truly committed to finding Kony.

It is absurd for the Ugandans and their American advisers to complain that they can'd find Kony. Many people know where he is. The Post even published the following map:

The only ones who don't seem to know are the soldiers who have been hunting him ever since late 2008 when the Ugandan army botched an air and ground assault on Kony's camp in the Garamba National Park in the north eastern corner of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

In 2011, President Obama ordered 100 U.S. military advisers to help the Ugandans with the hunt for Kony. They've been unsuccessful so far, and Obama will soon have to decide to continue the U.S. support or cut it.

Kony has been killing elephants and rhinos in Garamaba ever since he arrived there in late 2005, having abandoned his marauding of northern Uganda for some "fresh meat." Only recently, however, has this on-going slaughter of wildlife become an issue.

Kony and others, it seems, have been selling the highly valuable tusks to black marketeers who arrive in helicopters, load their cargo, and fly off. If a bunch of men who deal in wildlife parts can find Kony, why can't the Uganda and U.S. Special Forces?

While the Post article looks at a potential controversy should the U.S. advisers be pumping the Seleka for information and cooperation, it's a needless discussion.

The Seleka are apparently among the many who have been dealing with Kony. So if the Ugandans and the Americans are serious about finding Kony and bringing him to just, then WHY NOT talk to them? How can the Kony mission not use any and all means to find Kony?

While the Kony mission stumbles along, the reasons for it lack of success became quite evident as one reads deep into the article. The problems are many.

First, the U.S. has been rotating personnel in and out of the mission, which is based in Entebbe, a town south of the capital of Kampala, and the site of a military airport that also hosts UN planes. This has made it nearly impossible for continuity of the mission.

Second, the U.S. made some noise about adding to the mission three of the highly mobile Osprey aircraft, which can take off and land vertically, along with crew and added personnel. It only lasted three weeks before they were all pulled and reassigned to missions with higher priorities.

This has forced the mission to rely on private contractors to ferry food and supplies around to the various remote base camps. But officials now say that these contractors work at their own pace, meaning that they fit in the work when they can. Hardly a high priority mission.

Third, the U.S. advisers complained about how the Ugandans use, or abuse, U.S. equipment. In one instance, the Ugandans used a U.S. helicopter for a resupply mission, but only put five cabbages on it. Five cabbages? Are you serious?

That's supposedly a resupply mission for soldiers who are supposed to trekking around the jungles looking for Kony?

If anything, it shows that the Ugandans are not serious about finding Kony, as I've long argued, and are more interested in getting and using U.S. arms and equipment for their own purposes.

Kony mutiny not the first

As followers of my writing and this blog know, I advocate serious, coordinated, international action against the renegade militia leader Joseph Kony.

The lack of that kind of action,  however, is the source of endless articles, speculation, and discussion. Good writing about the fiasco to find Kony continues to gurgle up from time to time.

Of late is an article in The New Yorker magazine by a young writer named Ledio Cakaj, He's a blogger for the Enough organization. This is his first piece for the magazine. I recommend it.

The article details interviews with a handful of Kony's former soldiers (there are thousands) about a mutiny and attempted assassination of Kony from within his disaffected ranks. The article suggests that the 2013 attempt on Kony may was the first of its kind against the maniacal leader.

It wasn't.

I spent a significant amount of time in 2005 and 2006 tracking Kony's life and actions, which resulted in the award-winning 2009 book First Kill Your Family: Child Soldiers of Uganda and the Lord's Resistance Army.

It's the first serious work on Kony to be published in the United States. It remains the gold standard of source material for anyone who wants to know about Kony, what makes him tick, and why he has not been captured.

For nearly 20 years, Kony's number two man was Vincent Otti. He  was a former shopkeeper who bridged the chasm between Kony's self-delusions and the real world. Otti regularly talked live via satellite phone on Ugandan radio shows. He was quite entertaining.

Otti brokered the extended peace talks with Kony that began in June 2006 in the remote jungles of South Sudan. As followers know, the peace talks finally broke down after two years during which Kony skillfully turned the talks into a three-ring circus.

After Kony's team would negotiate terms of an agreement, a large contingent of negotiators would, at great trouble and expense, decamp to a jungle rendezvous for the signing. Declarations that "peace was at hand" echoed across the skies and the worldwide web. Activists swooned.

But Kony didn't show. Three times.

The last of Kony's no-shows was followed by the abortive airstrike and (delayed) ground attack by the Ugandan army on Kony's camp in the the Congo's Garamba National Park. Kony had been living there since late 2005, having fled northern Uganda.

But Kony was gone. He'd been tipped off. The same thing happened in 2013. A privately funded attack on his camp, also by an elite unit of the Ugandan army, found an empty Kony camp in the corner of South Sudan where multiple reports said he was living. (Is there a connection here???)

Kony lived relatively well during the peace talks, thanks the largess of the international community. He was sent convoys of trucks loaded with food and supplies. The thinking was that this would keep Kony at the bargaining table. Not!

From the beginning of Kony's early days in Garamba, once a prime wildlife reserve, he helped himself to the abundant wildlife there, routinely slaughtering elephants and the rare and nearly extinct white rhinos that once lived there.

Cakaj's article discusses a number of Kony's men whom he sent from his enclave in the recesses of northern South Sudan to Garamba to slaughter remaining elephants. The tusks were carried back to be sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars and sustain Kony and his men.

Back to Otti. After spearheading the peace talks, Otti realized Kony was playing the activist community for fools and would never sign an agreement to surrender.

Otti was 61 at the time. He was tired and sick of war. He wanted to go home. At least a third of Kony's men, all of whom were under Otti's command, felt the same way. They were sick of Kony and of living on the run, not to mention his endless slaughter of innocent men, women, children, and wildlife.

They were going to leave, a move that would cripple Kony's army.

Kony got wind of the mutiny. Fearing an assassination attempt, he summoned Otti. On October 2, 2007, Kony's personal guards grabbed Otti, forced him to his knees, and as Otti plead for his life,  executed him. His body was never found.

Otti's death was followed by many desertions. Some of these soldiers gave themselves up to the Ugandan army. They provided details of the Otti's death and the failed mutiny. They said that Kony justified the execution of his trusted long-time commander by saying that Otti had tried to kill him.

Kony has survived attempts on his life and massive desertions from his ranks. He will continue to do so until the international community decides they've had enough of this maniac. Kony will survive until those who can take meaningful action.

Kony's plunder of wildlife

A report issued by the Enough Project and titled, Kony's Ivory, documents yet another in an endless string atrocities by Joseph Kony and his Lord's Resistance Army.

The report, http://www.enoughproject.org/files/KonysIvory.pdf,  reveals how Kony and his cutthroats have contributed the destruction of elephant population in Garamba National Park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

According to the report, the elephant population has dwindled from about 20,000 (other reports set the figure at only 7,000) to just 1,500 in the past decade due to poaching, much of it by the LRA.

As anyone who has been following this issue knows, Kony and company set up camp in the Garamba park in late 2005 and early 2006, using it as a base while peace talks were conducted in Juba, South Sudan, with the Ugandan government.

Even then, reports were rife that Kony's men were killing the Garamba wildlife, mostly for the meat.
I visited the periphery of the park twice, both times in connection with research for First Kill Your Family: Child Soldiers of Uganda and the Lord's Resistance Army.

The first time was in 2006 on the northern edge of the park where it borders South Sudan.

The second was on the western edge of the park in 2008 in the town of Dungu, which had been attacked and raided by the LRA, despite the presence of United Nations forces.

In Dungu, I met with wildlife officers who talked about the dangers faced by the park rangers, who had basically withdrawn from much of the park because of the LRA, but also told me of extensive poaching.

It is good that Enough has documented this on-going tragedy, but it may be too little, too late.

The report provides no details on who is buying the ivory, how and why, or where it goes once it leaves the park. The only details we get are from one former LRA captive who says that people arrived in helicopters to buy it. Really? From where?

If the buyers used helicopters, it means some fairly well-heeled smugglers are involved, most likely based in Nairobi, Kenya, or Khartoum, Sudan. Or, more likely, that corrupt military commanders from either country (imagine that!) are in the middle of the illegal trade.

Just last month the Reuters wrote a story about the wider problem of elephant poaching across central Africa, based on a United Nations report, singling out the LRA as an example of the problem: http://news.yahoo.com/libya-war-weapons-may-killing-central-africa-elephants-062616139.html?.tsrc=lgwnaww.

As early as 2004, a year before the LRA entered Garamba Park, the slaughter of white rhinos was being reported as a major concern for wildlife biologists, as noted in the British newspaper, the Telegraph: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/democraticrepublicofcongo/1462372/Poachers-killing-last-of-the-rare-white-rhinos.html.

Closer to home, the National Geographic Society was also involved, reporting in 2004 about the problem on it's website: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/05/0507_040507_whiterhino.html

Solutions anyone?

The common thread here is that various armed groups across Africa kill the elephants and rhinos for their tusks and horns, since they can get several thousand dollars per pound for ivory. The sale of the ivory buys weapons and supplies for armed groups.

One report mentioned that the rhino horns went to Yemen where they were carved into handles for highly prized daggers for wealthy sheiks. Likewise, the rhino horns are valued for their supposed medicinal qualities and the ivory for its rarity by Asians.

Despite the on-going human tragedy and the destruction of the last wild herds of elephants and rhinos in Africa -- a problem that has been highly publicized for more than a decade -- nothing is being done to stop it.

This is all too reminiscent of what is being done, or more precisely NOT being done, about Kony and the LRA. The Ugandan army, which had been chasing Kony in the Central African Republic for the past five or so years, gave up the hunt by using the recent military coup in the CAR as an excuse to quit.

The U.S. Special Forces mission, sent by President Obama in 2011 to help in the search for Kony, also decided to stand down.

As wildlife activists have been saying for years, the slaughter of African wildlife must be attacked on many fronts.

First, enforcement. The poachers certainly must be stopped. This will require a trained and pervasive force which will require commitment and funding.

Second, the traders must be found, stopped, prosecuted and jailed.

Thirdly, the demand must be curtailed. This will require working with the Chinese and Southeast Asian nations to gain their support and cooperation.

While the Enough Project report may help rekindle interest in the poaching problem, it does little more than note a problem that people have known about for decades.

If there is to be any hope of actually solving the problem, Enough and the other groups involved in the report need to much more than plow what is already heavily plowed ground. 

Viral Kony 2012 raises ethical issues

The debate over the Kony 2012 video and the Invisible Children organization raises a host of ethical questions.

The video, the filmmaker Jason Russell, and the Invisible Children organization present themselves as committed humanitarians striving to help the people of northern Uganda free themselves of the terrible rebel militia leader Joseph Kony.

Yet Kony and his army have not been in northern Uganda for six years. The war is over, Kony is on the run in central Africa, and northern Uganda is rebuilding.

Information posted on the group's website shows that only about a third of its $13 million annual budget, which comes largely from small donations from college students across the country, goes to projects in northern Uganda.

That most of the group's money goes to the group's salaries and overhead, its travel and fundraising budget, and its filmmaking efforts, is now being dismissed by Invisible Children and its devotees as not important.

The devotees now say that the group is not really a humanitarian organization, but a "messaging" outfit. Their purpose is to simply tell the world about Joseph Kony, which it has done with enormous success.

Does that mean that the group is actually a news media outlet? If it is an "advocacy" group, the definition of which is vague, does that mean the message does not need to be accurate? Or, if the group is advocating the kill and/or capture of Kony, does that make it a vigilante group?

If Invisible Children is presenting itself as a legitimate information dispersion organization, it needs to assume the mantle of responsible delivery of information. But it is pretty clear that the Kony 2012 video uses historical images to create false impressions about the realities of northern Uganda, Kony, and the Lord's Resistance Army.

Yet, this is being dismissed as less important than the "message." Does the end justify the means?

The filmmaker also uses his wife and son as vehicles to infuse the film with exaggerated emotions. Is this any different that any other stage mom or dad in America? He then uses baby talk -- "there a bad man who makes children to bad things" -- to explain an historical conflict of a terrible, but localized consequences.

The key Ugandan character in the Kony 2012 is a former "night commuter," one of the many thousands of children who at the time were fleeing the LRA. These children no longer exist in northern Uganda because Kony is long gone. These children, along with the tens of thousands of former child soldiers who escaped Kony's army, are now grown and getting on with their lives.

Whether Russell and Invisible Children are videographers, "messagers," advocates, or vigilantes, it is puzzling as to why the filmmakers never talked to any of the former child soldiers who populated northern Uganda then by the thousands and who remain there. Isn't that a much more real and compelling story?

The video asserts that by giving money to the group, the situation can change in northern Uganda, that "you can make a difference."

But giving money to Invisible Children, as the group now admits, does little to help northern Uganda, nor does it help to get Kony captured. That dirty business has to be done by Ugandan soldiers who have shown little will in the past 25 years to get the job done.

There are U.S. Special Forces advisers in Uganda now helping with this, just as they did before in 2008 when the Uganda's army failed to carry out a "surprise" attack on Kony's camp in northern Democratic Republic of the Congo. Kony was warned and fled.

Now that Invisible Children has raised millions of dollars, everything is going to be different? How? Why?

Uganda has financial and military aid reasons to keep Kony alive, just as it has done for 25 years, despite its appeal for help in 2003 to the International Criminal Court to bring Kony to justice.

All of the emotional videos, all of the money, all of the marches, and all of the notoriety generated by Invisible Children does not solve the singular problem that remains: capturing Kony.

Nor does it help the people of northern Uganda.

The truth is that Invisible Children makes people feel good. They tell people they can do something about an obscure problem in a distant land, with no pain or effort. It is nice to think so, but is not true.

This says more about the emptiness of lives in America and the need to be relevant, than it does about solving Africa's problems.

It also reeks of neo-colonialism, which is what angers my African friends, such as Rosebell Kagumire, whose video is also posted on YouTube and typifies the African response.

Ironically, this conversation over the Kony 2012 video is taking place while 50 to 100 people per day are being killed in Syria, right before the world's eyes. Syria is a problem in front of us NOW that can be stopped, but world sits and watches. Where is the viral outrage?

And just across the border there in southern California where Invisible Children is based, there is a drug war raging in Mexico that has claimed some 40,000 lives. Where are the cries of anguish?

This viral video in question is not about any of these more pressing and immediate horrors, but is about a man, Joseph Kony, who is on the run in the remote forests of central Africa, and has been for six years.

Is Kony a perhaps more safe and lucrative thing for the group to focus on?

Viral Kony 2012 versus reality

More than 50 million people viewed the 30-minute video, KONY 2012, during the three days after it was posted on youtube.com.

The video rightly focuses global attention on Joseph Kony, one of Africa's most prolific killers, a maniacal, self-styled prophet, and his Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) of child soldiers.

I lived and work in Uganda in 2005 and 2006 for the Institute for War and Peace Reporting, and like the filmmakers at the Invisible Children organization, was horrified at the LRA’s 20-year war northern Uganda. It had caused the death of an estimated 100,000 men, women and children, resulted in the abduction of well more than
50,000 children and adults, and disfigured many dozens.

Kony’s war was faltering at the time because his victims were not the government soldiers he claimed to be fighting, but his own Acholi ethnic group, who feared, but refused to follow him as their military leader and spiritual guide.

By early 2006, Kony and his fighters decamped northern Uganda and based themselves in the Garamba National Park, a former wild game shooting gallery for Belgian aristocrats in the northern forests of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

Back in Uganda, Kony's former child soldiers streamed into rehabilitation centers where they were fed, clothed and counseled. They included young boys and girls, many of whom had given birth to children by Kony's soldiers.

Kony was far from finished.

In June of 2008, I traveled to Dungu, an overgrown town at the western edge of the Garamba park where Kony's men had been slaughtering the endangered wildlife and raiding villages in the
area.

At the time, as Kony was negotiating a peace deal with the Ugandan government that he later refused to sign, his army swept through northern DRC and corners of South Sudan and Central African Republic (CAR). Scores were killed, villages plundered, and hundreds abducted to carry the stolen food and supplies.

One of the kidnapped, a young third-grade teacher named Raymond Rpiolebeyo, had escaped and returned to his village of Doruma. I found a bush pilot who would take me there.

We flew over meandering, muddy rivers and an unbroken canopy of jungle as far as the eye could see before descending onto a narrow, red dirt landing strip. We were welcomed by a committee of villagers and their leaders.

Rpiolebeyo’s story typified 99 percent of those abducted by the LRA. He had escaped after just a week, fleeing in the middle of the night and running through the forests for the next day. We then rode small motor bikes to the surrounding villages where clinics had been burned and medicines stolen by Kony's soldiers.

In late 2008, Ugandan forces conducted a surprise attack on Kony's camp at Garamba. But Kony and his men were gone, having gotten wind of the assault, which had been arranged and funded by U.S. military advisers secretly in Uganda under orders of former President George W. Bush.

The attack failed miserably, but enraged Kony, who divided his army and sent his soldiers on rampages that killed nearly 1,000 people in the region’s three northern DRC, CAR, and South Sudan.

None of this critical background or details of Kony’s current status and location surface in the Kony 2012 video.

The video relies on a images from 2003 that are inserted into a home movie about filmmaker Jason Russell’s son -- his birth, his preschool dancing, and how he makes sand angels on a sunny SoCal beach.

The historical footage in the video is accurate for northern Uganda eight years ago, but unfortunately bears no relation to the situation there today.

Having been chased across three countries for the past several years by Ugandan soldiers, Kony’s forces are scattered and desperate. Lacking food and military supplies, they continue to prey on defenseless villagers.

Kony intentionally positioned himself in the region so as not to bother anyone of significance to the world at large. He also knows that the DRC, the CAR, and South Sudan are effectively failed states that have neither the will nor a way to capture him.

When and if Kony is captured or killed, the thousands of child soldiers depicted in the video will not be suddenly freed since they are not with him. Kony’s army is comprised of his most hardcore fighters who have known nothing but a life of killing, rape and plunder, and have little hope of being reintegrated into society.

Kony rightfully should be taken to the International Criminal Court, which indicted him back in 2005, at the request of the Ugandan government. Unfortunately Russell’s video fails to mention that the United States refuses to join the court.

The Kony 2012 video states that Invisible Children now targets celebrities and policy makers who can make a difference. It may come as a surprise, but the U.S. Congress does not control what happens in sovereign African states and neither does Hollywood.

Yet, 100 U.S. Special Forces advisers have returned to Uganda so that country’s army can again go after Kony with renewed vigor, a move for which Invisible Children can take credit after lobbying a bill through Congress that authorized assistance in Africa to neutralize Kony.

One knotty problem is that the Ugandan government has a vested interest in keeping Kony alive. For the past 26 years, Uganda has used the Kony problem to collect millions of dollars in foreign military aid, with little result. The presence of U.S. military advisers in Uganda shows this practice continues.

Raising awareness is a good thing, but doing so based on neo-colonial notions that privileged white people must solve African problems, and using misleading and incomplete information that evokes overly wrought emotions, is a major disappointment.

- Peter Eichstaedt, author of First Kill Your Family: Child Soldiers of Uganda and the Lord's Resistance Army

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.

Advisers to Uganda is nothing new

President Obama's decision to send 100 military advisers to Uganda to help kill or capture renegade militia leader Joseph Kony is nothing new.

The same thing was done in 2008 by then President George Bush, just three years ago, and with disastrous results.

As those who track events in east Africa know, a bevy of military advisers was sent to Uganda in early 2008 with loads of advice and bundles of cash.

The idea was to kill and or capture Kony and his band of hardened child soldiers who comprise the Lord's Resistance Army, in their long-time camp in the Garamba National Park in the northern jungles of the DR Congo.

The U.S. advisers came up with a surprise attack plan that involved an air strike at dawn on December 14, 2008, followed by a devastating ground attack. The U.S. even handed over $1 million to pay for the logistics.

The attack was completely botched. It was an embarrassment all the way around and exposed the corruption and incompetence of the Ugandan army. And sadly, it raises serious questions whether Obama is simply throwing good money after bad.

First of all, Kony and his men were apparently tipped off that the surprise attack was coming and by the time the bombs were dropped, only kidnapped women and children were left in the camp.

The air attack was grossly delayed, according to the Ugandan army, because Kony's camp was shrouded in fog. This seems hardly likely, since the area is too warm for significant fog to develop, although drifting mist is more than possible.

This four or five-hour delay, it was speculated, allowed the Kony and his soldiers to monitor the radio traffic of the Ugandan army, and allowed them to escape.

Meanwhile, the Ugandan ground forces were still two days away from Kony's camp, and by the time they arrived, they found only a few abandoned laptops, radios and a handfull of mobile telephones.

Enraged by this abortive attack, the psychotic Kony divided his force into three groups, and each when on a rampage of revenge, brutally killing an estimated 800 to 1,000 innocent villagers in the region, some in the Central African Republic and others in South Sudan.

While Uganda has continued to track the Lord's Resistance Army, they have done little but keep Kony and his cutthroats on the move. Uganda's enthusiasm for the killing or capture of Kony has waned as he continues to roam one of the most remote regions in the world, killing and kidnapping with abandon just as he's done for decades.

The U.S. has tolerated Uganda's failure to find Kony, who is undoubtedly Africa's most wanted man, having been indicted by the International Criminal Court nearly eight years ago, because of other regional issues.

Uganda has the bulk of the African Union forces currently occupying Mogadishu, Somalia, and are the only thing that protects the U.S.-backed regime in Somalia, providing a thin barrier between Somalia and total chaos.

The question now is whether this second round of advisers will be able to generate a result that is any different from the disastrous attack on Kony's camp three years ago.

Chances are that it won't. Unlike the previous attack, Kony's forces remain largely scattered and mobile. Tracking and finding Kony and his various units of the LRA will be more difficult than ever and will require the cooperation of three countries.

While that cooperation can be bought with wads of U.S. dollars, coming up with a successful result is quite another matter.

Al-Shabaab's deadly strike

It was only a matter of time.

Some 74 innocent people are now dead in the Ugandan capital of Kampala in the wake of two vicious suicide bombing attacks by the al-Shabaab militia, which controls almost all of southern Somalia.

This is the kind of deadly disaster that I feared would happen in my forthcoming book, Pirate State: Inside Somalia's Terrorism at Sea. Sadly, it won't be the last.

Although Pirate State is ostensibly about Somalia's pirate horde, the pirates and the al-Shabaab militia have emerged from the smoldering chaos that has gripped Somalia for the past two decades.

Remember Black Hawk Down? Al-Shabaab does. But they're not waiting for another invasion of U.S. marines. They've exported their war. Expect it to get worse.

That al-Shabaab attacked two locations in Kampala, Uganda, is no surprise. Uganda provides the bulk of the African Union's 4,000 or so troops now hunkered down in the Somali capital of Mogadishu.

These Ugandan soldiers, accompanied by a much smaller contingent of soldiers from Burundi, are all that prevents a complete take-over of southern Somalia by the fundamentalist al-Shabaab militia.

The Ugandan soldiers are kept alive by a life-line of military and logistical support from the U.S. and protect the fragile and pro-western Transitional Federal Government that is holed up in corner of Mogadishu.

This is not the first time that Uganda has been hit by al-Shabaab. On September 17, 2009, al-Shabaab militants, some of whom were reportedly American converts, drove a couple of stolen UN vehicles into the Ugandan's compound and detonated themselves, killing more than 20 people.

Because of the notorious Black Hawk Down debacle, the U.S. has been more than happy to let the Ugandans hold out as the final bulwark of defence for the teetering transitional government.

But clearly there is a price to pay, while Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni relishes his role as the pro-western posterboy for the few African governments that still claim to be "democratic."

After altering the constitution to allow himself unlimited terms, Museveni faces yet another re-election bid in early 2012. Uganda's presence in Somalia has already been challenged, and this bloody tragedy will certainly rouse Museveni's opposition.

The suicide bombing at the private club in Kampala where hundreds had gathered to watch the World Cup final only underscores al-Shabaab's fundamentalist doctrine, which has forbidden such entertainment as anti-Islam.

The attack on an Ethiopian restaurant was also a reprisal, since Ethiopian forces, with U.S. help, defeated the Islamic Courts Union and occupied much of southern Somalia for a couple of years after.

Al-Shabaab, which means "the youth," grew out of the former Islamic Courts Union, which controlled southern Somalia for most of 2006 and at the time was the only law and order the country had known in 15 years.

Al-Shabaab was the ICU's militia. When the ICU was defeated in the opening weeks of 2007, the al-Shabaab scattered, licked its wounds, and regrouped.

Despite the defeat, the militia had established strong ties with the militant and deeply fundamentalist Islamic network that grips the region, including Yemen, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.

Using suspected links with the Somali pirate clans that control the coasts, al-Shabaab has been supplied and staffed by a cadre of seasoned militants who serve as instructors and mentors for the al-Shabaab recruits.

These recruits have included disenchanted American converts, some from the Minneapolis area, but also many from Nairobi, Kenya's sprawling Somali neighborhoods.

I spoke at length with a former al-Shabaab soldier in September of last year. The man had volunteered, been trained by al-Qaeda- and Taliban-linked commanders, then fought for more than a year against the Ugandans in Mogadishu and other towns in Somalia.

Seeing the futility of the killing, he had left, and was on the run in Kenya, convinced that al-Shabaab agents, bent on revenge, would soon kill him.

He told me that al-Shabaab militants permeated Kenyan society and it was only a matter of time before the would begin to strike.

At the time, it was widely rumored that Kenyan authorities has barely been able to foil an al-Shabaab plot to strike hotels in downtown Nairobi during Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's visit in August 2009.

The attack on Uganda shows that al-Shabaab has a long reach that extends through Kenya, Uganda's strongest ally and neighbor. Is Burundi next? Or is Kenya?

Why Kony will never be captured

When I was reporter covering government, I learned that to understand what was behind any particular bill being debated in Congress, one should find out whose cow was being gored.

It was a gruesome, but clear depiction of what propels most government action.

In the case of Uganda's fugitive militia leader Joseph Kony, no one's cow is being gored by his continued existence. On the contrary, Kony's continued existence has been beneficial for Uganda and President Yoweri Museveni.

For the duration of the war in northern Uganda from 1986 to 2006, Museveni used Kony and the LRA to keep the north in a virtual state of war. As I explain in my book, First Kill Your Family: Child Soldiers of Uganda and the Lord's Resistance Army, Museveni applied a limited number of soldiers to fight the LRA.

Museveni was distracted by a much more lucrative proposition: toppling the Mobutu regime in neighboring Democratic Republic of the Congo. Beginning in 1996, Uganda took control much of northeastern DRC and plundered gold, diamonds and timber until 2003, when Uganda was forced to withdraw from eastern DRC due to international pressure.

This has been well documented by Human Rights Watch, the United Nations and forced a judgement against Uganda by the International Court of Justice.

As Museveni applied just enough pressure to control the LRA, he rounded up all of the Acholi people in northern Uganda, his traditional opposition, and put them in refugee camps.

As long as the LRA was alive and well, Museveni controlled and isolated the north, leaving him to plunder the eastern DRC.

Additionally, the LRA irrationally attacked, killed, and mutilated the Acholi people, the same ones who Kony said he was fighting for, claiming that the Acholi were being punished for not joining the LRA's rebellion.

As long as the LRA was alive and fighting, Museveni and Uganda received millions of dollars in foreign aid, with much of the money going to his generals, not soldiers or equipment.

Meanwhile, hundreds of private aid groups from the US, EU, and UN dumped time and money into caring for the people in the camps. This relieved Uganda of its responsibility to care for these Ugandans, who had been put in the camps under the guise of solving the situation in the north.

The LRA has been a cash cow for Museveni and Uganda.

When Kony left northern Uganda, and Uganda failed to kill or capture Kony in the DRC in December 2008, Museveni and Uganda repeated past behavior.

Their failures allowed Museveni to ask for yet more money to fight the LRA, which the US and EU countries continue to give happily.

While humanitarian aid continues to flow into northern Uganda, the latest incarnation of financial support, to the tune of $10 million a year, is in a bill that recently passed the U.S. Senate titled, "The Lord's Resistance Army Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act of 2009."

Many of the bill's supporters think it means an end to Kony and the LRA, despite the fact that bill only calls for the developing of a multi-lateral "strategy" to bring Kony to an end.

The reality is that as long as Kony remains in remote and inaccessibly places, he will never be killed or captured.

The LRA's brutality affects people who neither control valuable resources nor are connected to events or issues of concern on the world stage. This is not heartless. It is a fact. No one's cow is being gored by Kony.

The only reason anyone knows about Kony is because of the outrages he continues to commit, which continue to shock the world. But to a limited extent.

While the International Criminal Court has indicted Kony and LRA commanders, nothing concrete has been done in five years to bring an end to the LRA. This is the fault of Uganda, not the international community, and certainly not the U.S.

Yet, the international community perpetuates the situation by giving Uganda money and relieving Uganda of doing what it should be doing to capture Kony and help rebuilt the north.

The international community should force Museveni and Uganda to capture Kony and put an end to the LRA using the millions of dollars that Uganda has already received, most of which have disappeared due to corruption.

But, we all know this will never happen.

The international community will not act against Uganda because Uganda is very useful in other ways.

Uganda provides the bulk of the troops for the African Union force in Mogadishu, Somalia, that protects the weak transitional federal government there, and the only line of defense against the rising tide of militant Islam there, embodied in the al-Shabab militia.

For the US and the EU, Somalia is much more critical to regional security than Kony will ever be. Since Uganda is willing to fight in Somalia, the international community is willing to forgive and forget about Kony and the LRA.

Sudan's reversal ... or election ruse?

The campaign swing last week through South Sudan by Sudan's President Omar Hassan al-Bashir was remarkable in many ways and signals a dramatic change in the policies of Khartoum government.

That al-Bashir would set foot in the region and campaign for his and his party's election to the Sudan's top office can be seen as an acknowledgement that the south is a legitimate partner in the country's future.

The national elections, which are expected to take place next month, will help set the tone for the government in the coming year, but also for the future of the country.

One would have expected that al-Bashir and company would have preferred to send in troops or better yet, use their favorite tactic: arm and employ proxy militias under the guise of quelling a rebellion.

This is how al-Bashir and the National Congress Party have tragically dealt with Darfur, and more recently, the heavily contested and oil-rich Abyei region that straddles the border between South Kordofan state and South Sudan.

One can't forget that the Khartoum government and South Sudan fought a bloody civil war for 23 years that killed an estimated 2 million people and displaced about twice that number. The war ended in 2005 with the signing of a Comprehensive Peace Agreement. The South is far from recovery.

Also in the past month, the Sudan government has negotiated a ceasefire with Darfur rebels, also signaling an end to a war that has displaced 2 million people and killed an estimated 200,000 to 300,000 people.

Now al-Bashir is in the south campaigning for a position he took by force in a coup in 1989 when he led a group of officers who ousted Prime Minister Sadiq al-Mahdi.

Yet, there is al-Bashir, the only sitting president in the world who has been indicted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes, campaigning in the backyard of the Sudanese People's Liberation Army, which he once sought to destroy.

Among the statements al-Bashir made while speaking in Maridi, a place I have stayed when in Western Equitoria state, was to end the attacks in the region by the brutal Lord's Resistance Army.

The LRA, as most know, was attacked in December 2008 by the Ugandan army in its camps in northeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, and has been on the run ever since.

But that hasn't stopped the army's brutality. Though broken into smaller groups, the LRA units continue to attack remote villages throughout the region, including western South Sudan and eastern Central African Republic, killing, raping, abducting and plundering.

Al-Bashir's vow to break the LRA is ironic in that his government and elements with in the NCP have long been accused of supporting, supplying, and equipping this now-aimless militia.

A story in the on-line Sudan Tribune (http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article34305) of last week seems to contain an admission by al-Bashir of this support. Written by Richard Ruati, the story quotes al-Bashir as saying, "the National Congress Party is to work towards ending insurgent attacks by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) in the south."

The quote hints at an on-going relationship with the LRA, a relationship that would allow the government "to work towards" ending the attacks. However, it could also be little more than a campaign promise that addresses the innocent victims in the region who continue to suffer from LRA attacks.

Al-Bashir's comments also cast doubt on the frequent assertions that that al-Bashir and the NCP plan to covertly use leader Joseph Kony and his LRA to disrupt the April national elections.

That disruptive use of the LRA is still a possibility, however, given the history of al-Bashir and the NCP, especially if they see the coming election as a threat to their rule.

We can only hope that al-Bashir will keep his word.

Joseph, where are you?

Joseph Kony and his LRA have not been seen or heard in the past month?

In a story by Uganda's government-owned New Vision daily newspaper, written by Raymond Baguma, the statement was made that Kony was thought to be in an area that includes portions of Central African Republic, south Darfur (Sudan) and the western Bahr-el-Ghazal province of South Sudan.

“It is almost a month with no reported LRA activities in the Central African Republic and Southern Sudan,” according to Chief of Defense Forces, Gen. Aronda Nyakairima.

Is Kony dead?

Probably just laying low.

Some have speculated that Kony and his LRA are being re-armed for a possible assault on South Sudan ahead of this year's regional and national elections. That remains a distinct possibility.

But nothing in a month? No attacks? No looting? No abductions?

While these facts stir thoughts that Kony may be approaching the end, I recall my many interviews with northern Ugandans victimized by Kony's atrocities.

They said be careful when it's quiet. Kony is preparing to strike.

We wait.

These nuggets of information came at the end of the New Vision story about the Ugandan soldiers FINALLY getting paid for the dangerous and thankless work they are doing in Somalia.

Uganda provides the bulk of forces battling fanatical Islamic militants in Somalia, and these soldiers are the thin line of defence against the total takeover by militants in Somalia.

Despite the blatant and obvious threat that militant Islam presents to the African continent, the increasingly useless African Union agreed to pay the massive outstanding balances owed the Ugandan troops who now are the bulk of the "peacekeeper" in Somalia.

The troops have not been paid since May 2009. That's nearly a year.

Ugandan defence minister Crispus Kiyonga attempted to clarify the situation when he told the press: “More than six months ago, the African Union secretariat got problems and payments could not continue. But about a month ago, the flow of payments began. The arrears are being paid and all the soldiers will be cleared.”

The AU "got" problems?

In reality, what this means is that the money went missing, or most likely, did not exist because it had not been paid.

Enter the international community, specifically the U.S.

According to the article, each "peacekeeper" gets $750 a month, which is a good wage in Uganda. In the event of death, the soldier’s family receives $50,000, which is huge!

Burundi is the other country contributing troops.

A total of 37 Ugandan peacekeepers have been killed since 2007.

There are six battalions of totaling about 5,200 Ugandans and Burundians, which is far below the agreed upon 8,000 peacekeepers.

“We (are) waiting for friends of Somalia to come,” Nyakairima said, adding that Uganda was considering deploying more forces to the war-torn country.

Let's hope they're not holding their breath.

Another year for Kony and the LRA

Although too early to know, it seems that the feared repeat of the horrific killing of hundreds of innocent Congolese by fighters of the Lord's Resistance Army on Christmas day last year did not take place.

But that does not mean Joseph Kony and his LRA have been quiet. Far from it. Instead, Kony and the LRA are looking at their 24th year of existance as perhaps the most ruthless band of killers in Africa.

The LRA's future, in fact, is bright.

While reports continue to emerge of sporadic attacks by the LRA in the Central African Republic, the most worrisome are coming out of western South Sudan.

A Dec. 21 article in the Sudan Tribune, written by Manyang Mayom, reports the killing of four LRA fighters in the Boro-Al-Madina village of Raja County in the Western Bahr-El-Ghazal state.

Western Bahr-El-Ghazal borders the CAR on the west and South Darfur on the north, which is the region where Kony has been operating most recently.

Although details of the story cannot be independently verified, they appear to confirm earlier reports that Kony and the LRA are receiving training and supplies from the Sudan government in Khartoum.

This underscores what I have been predicting for nearly two years now, that Kony is being positioned by the Sudan government to wreak havoc in the region and disrupt not only the tentative national elections in 2010, but also the pending independence referendum for South Sudan in 2011.

According to the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) official spokesman Major General Diem Kuol, South Sudan forces struck LRA fighters on Dec. 19 when they "attacked the hideout of the LRA."

When the dust settled, four LRA fighers were dead, along with one SPLA soldier. The SPLA recovered "a large quality of food, most of which are Dak, made in North Sudan," Kuol said.

The LRA apparently fled to the west and toward the Central African Republic.

Of course, it is to the South's advantage to demonize the Khartoum government, but the opportunities to do that are plentiful.

"In fact, (the) LRA is re-grouping and gaining intensive training in Sudan," Kuol said. "They are training in Dimo in Southern Darfur. This is fact is known to the intelligence community - in the area of Kaskagi in the northwest of Darfur."

Kuol added that, Kony "is still alive (but) I don’t know where he is now."

One might suspect that the intelligence community to which Kuol refers might also include that of the U.S., which in the past has provided satellite imagery of suspected LRA locations to the Ugandan army currently in the CAR chasing LRA units.

Kuol went on to say that the SPLA forces in the region were being expanded for the purpose of chasing the LRA.

Strategically, this could be the beginnings of critical phase in the pursuit of Kony and the LRA, a classic hammer-and-anvil maneuver. With the Ugandan army pushing the LRA to the east and north from the CAR, and the South Sudanese pushing the LRA westward into the CAR, a trap is being set.

In such a scenario, the only means of escape would be to the north into the border area of Darfur and Chad, or south and east, in the direction of northeastern Congo.

A northern escape could only be with the help of the Khartoum government, which calls into question America's and the international community's dealings with Khartoum.

At last report, the U.S. envoy to Sudan, Scott Gration, had convinced Congress that his nebulous carrot-and-stick approach was most productive. Does that include allowing Sudan to feed, equip and train the LRA?

Neither Gration nor the state department are saying.

Meanwhile, Kony and the LRA continue to run free and are looking at yet another new year in which innocent people continue to die at their hands.

The good, the bad, the ugly

This past week, Norah Anek, the 86-year-old mother of Joseph Kony, the leader of the militia-cult Lord's Resistance Army, passed away. She was buried not far from where she gave birth to Kony in the town of Adek, about an hour's drive southeast of Gulu in northern Uganda.

According to the nurse who was present at her death, "Moments before dying she said, 'Tell Joseph Kony to make peace.'"

She earlier had said that Kony's problem, the thing that drives him, was that he is possesed by evil spirits.

One can only hope that she was able to find some peace, having been saddled with the unenviable fame of having given birth to perhaps one the world's most notorious and deadly cult leaders.

Norah Anek's explanation for her son's behavior, possession by spirits, contains a nugget of wisdom that apparently cannot be grasped by those who continue to think and advocate appeasement as a way to deal with Kony and his vicious militia.

The latest of these statements surfaced on November 6, titled, "Elements of a New Strategy to Disarm the LRA," written by François Grignon, Africa Program Director of the International Crisis Group.

While I agree with much of what Grignon proposes, it reflects an approach to solving the Kony problem based on weakness rather than strength. It fundamentally seeks to appease and reward evil, rather than eliminate it.

Rather than support the Ugandan special forces in their on-going search and destroy mission, Grignon suggests that, "The US should instead lead a coalition of the willing to provide... (regional governments with) ...the means and ability to restore state authority along their common borders, corner the LRA in progressively circumscribed areas of operation, and help Special Envoys of the UN and the region negotiate the disarmament of its commanders and combatants...."

(Why is it always the U.S. who is supposed to do the work? Why is it that the French are so quick to criticize the American "hyper-power" unless there is some fighting to be done? Why don't the Belgians and the French, who created the mess in Central Africa, clean it up rather than only helping themselves to the region's mineral wealth? What about the British, who controlled and occupied Sudan and South Sudan for a century or so? Where are they?)

As part of his solution, Grignon suggests that the Catholic aid group, Caritas, once again be enlisted to provide food and aid to those who are willing to abandon the LRA with their arms and abductees.

The concept is to entice the LRA, which has broken into five or six elements, into surrendering piecemeal, until Kony has no other choice but to sign a peace deal.
Grignon justifies this by saying, "Only two things have succeeded to contain Kony’s murderous campaigns in the past: food and talks."

This has already been tried and didn't work.

As I wrote in First Kill Your Family: Child Soldiers of Uganda and the Lord's Resistance Army, I was in Nabanga, South Sudan, in July 2006 when the first convoy of supplies was delivered to Kony and his LRA.

The gesture had doubtful merit even back then. Feed Kony as long as he stayed at the peace talks? It worked for a while, but it wasn't long before Kony and the LRA were back to killing, looting and abducting, even as food supplies were being delivered.

This aiding and abetting of an indicted war criminal, which was illegal, reached a depressing height in the spring of 2008 when Kony rounded up some 500 abductees from the Central African Republic, the DR Congo, and South Sudan. Yet, it continued.

It was done while Kony's opportunistic cheerleader, David Matsanga, proclaimed that Kony was going to sign the negotiated peace deal, which he did not, in April or May, and then again at the end of November.

The UN, meanwhile, was actively attempting to keep it all quiet because they were afraid that Kony would abandon the peace talks because of the logical outrage that would be generated. This was immoral.

The December 14 attack on Kony's camps in Garamba National Park failed, we all know.

It is clear that the LRA's capacity to intercept information about the pending attck, flee from it, and then go on an extended killing rampage had been enabled by the international community's "feed the lion" approach.

We should do something like that again?

When are we going to suck up our sagging guts, and do the right thing? No more appeasment. No more talk. Capture Kony and put him on trial at the International Criminal Court.

At least Uganda is trying and U.S. supports that actively. What is anyone else doing?

Kony, afterall, is an Africa problem, not one that needs to be dealt with by either the US or any European countries. Where are the leaders of the DR Congo and South Sudan? Why should the US have to call them up and hand them a pot of money so they will do their jobs?

Where are the African leaders who are so quick to condemn western nations who dole out aid with strings attached, such as insuring that aid money is spend for the purpose it was intended? Why do they shrink into the shadows when there is work to be done?

The citizens of the DRC and South Sudan are dying at the hands of the LRA. Why does the US or EU need to bribe these leaders into action?

Sudan, meanwhile, should further be held up to intense international ridicule if, as most suspect, it is once again aiding Kony, or elements of his army.

Certainly, the current process of Uganda chasing the LRA around the region is frustratingly slow and tedious. If any of the leaders of the affected nations had an ounce of integrity, they would already be in the chase. The sad reality is otherwise.

Forget more peace talks. Kony has more than humiliated the international community already with his lies, with his looting and killing.

Kony's mother had it right when she said her son was possessed. She knew, unlike some people, that we're not dealing with a rational person. Kony needs to be treated like the psychopathic killer that he is.

Maybe just once, finally, countries in the region (with EU and US support) can do the right thing: find and capture Kony, send him to The Hague, and end the madness.

See Grigin's posting at: http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=6381&l=1

A new chapter?

After predicting more than a year ago that the now rebels-for-hire of the Lord's Resistance Army, led by their maniacal leader, Joseph Kony, eventually could be used against Darfur rebels, it appears to be coming a reality.

In a story published this Saturday in The Independent, and featuring the above photo by Reuters, Africa Correspondent Daniel Howden quotes a South Sudan military man as saying that LRA has entered South Darfur.

"We have confirmed that the LRA are there and they have clashed with the local population," said Major-General Kuol Deim Kuol.

South Sudanese officials are prone to saying such things based on extremely flimsy evidence. They eagerly make statements that call attention to the nefarious and always duplicitous dealings of the Sudan government in Khartoum.

That said, South Sudan knows what it's talking about since the south battled Sudan for more than 20 years. They know well that Sudan loves to use proxy militias, such as the janjaweed, to fight its bloody battles against defenseless civilian populations.

The LRA fits the Sudan ideal since it specializes in attacking, mutilating, raping and destroying the softest of civilian targets, just as it has done for 20 years in northern Uganda and for the past three years in northeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, two of which were during the farcical peace talks in with Uganda, held in Juba, South Sudan.

While I remain skeptical that the LRA will be actively involved in what remains of the war in Darfur, I think the LRA is being positioned for that possibility by the Sudan government, which may again be arming and supplying the LRA.

The region south and west of Nyala, south Darfur's largest town, and extending into southeastern Chad, has been the province of Darfur rebel groups such as the Justice and Equality Movement. The JEM remains a strong threat to the Sudan government, having conducted the wild raid on Omdurman in February 2008, an attack that shocked Khartoum and revealed its glaring vulnerabilities.

With Kony's militia-for-hire in the area, Sudan has a perfect foil to conduct attacks on civilian targets in south Darfur and southeastern Chad, which is where Darfur rebels have found refuge for regrouping and resupply.

This will allow Sudan to tell the world that the war in Darfur is over, when in truth it is not.

My stronger sense is that Kony's move into the Darfur region is more for him to obtain the weaponry and supplies he will need for Sudan's likely efforts to disrupt the coming elections in South Sudan in 2010.

This will be a prelude to what could be an all-out civil war with horrendous civilian casualties as South Sudan moves to its independence vote in 2011, as called for in Sudan's 2005 peace agreement.

Sudan has used the LRA like this before, having given the LRA aid and comfort in South Sudan during the long 20-year war with Uganda. Sudan used the LRA also to fight south Sudan's army, which to the delight of Khartoum, made the region a veritable hell-on-earth where four armies fought: the LRA, the Ugandan army, the Sudan army and the South Sudan army.

Likewise, a consensus is growing that the recent fighting in the eastern South Sudan province of Jonglei is much more than bloody ethnic clashes over cows that it is portrayed to be. Rather, it is part of a calculated effort by the Sudan government to destabilize the region and prevent the development of the region's oil, which South Sudan needs desperately.

While this is speculative, it is based on well-established patterns by Sudan and the horrific history of the LRA. One can only hope that people like the U.S.'s envoy to Sudan, Scott Gration, is cognizant of all of this as he flies around the world trying to negotiate a "deal" with Sudan.

The sad reality is that while the world knows all too well the death and destruction that follows that LRA wherever it goes, nothing is being done about the LRA other than a lot of deep sighing and muttering.

As the numbers of dead and mutilated and raped continue to grow and as the LRA continues to grow increasingly malignant, those among the international community, such as the Dutch, the Danes, Scandinavians, and others who supplied the LRA from 2006 to 2008, saying that it was necessary for peace, should think again about the blood of innocent people that now covers their hands.

Boots on the ground

I apologize for my long absence from this blog site, but I just recently returned from six weeks of research and travel in East Africa, collecting material for two new books.

The first concerns Somalia and its pirates and the second concerns the seemingly endless fighting in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.

You can expect to hear a lot more about these two topics in future postings.

Before we get there, however, there's an interesting article in The East African, written by Keven Kelley, about the joint military exercise in northern Uganda involving about 450 U.S. troops.

According to Kelley's article, total troops will be about 1,000, with Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi each sending 150 soldiers to join 450 US military personnel in Kitgum for the October 16-25 event.

Labeled as operation Natural Fire 10, it is reportedly the U.S.'s largest African exercise this year. While this is clearly an exercise loaded with significance, it is the not the first such military exercise. Such joint maneuvers began across Africa in 1998, hence the name Natural Fire 10 -- this being the tenth.

The US Army describes it as “a regularly scheduled training exercise, which offers an opportunity for East African partner nations and the US military to work together to increase regional capabilities to respond to complex humanitarian emergencies.”

What is most interesting is the location: northern Uganda. It is a message not only to Joseph Kony and his Lord's Resistance Army, but also Sudan.

That message being, of course, that a multi-national force of 1,000 -- an effective number for a fighting force anywhere in the world -- can be assembled in this strategic location with relative ease.

Such a force would be a huge problem for someone like Kony, should he think about a return to northern Uganda. It shows that Uganda has allies who are willing not only to donate moral support and money in the fight against Kony and his maniacal militia, but are willing to put boots on the ground.

This is an acknowledgement that Kony is much more than Uganda's problem, and has become a regional nightmare. Though Kony's precise whereabouts are not known, the latest information is that he has been operating in the remote eastern regions of the Central African Republic. Uganda's army has permission from the CAR to chase Kony and has been doing so with their typically limited results.

The biggest regional concern, however, is not the CAR, but widely-rumored support that Kony once again is getting from Sudan as we slowly but surely approach the coming election cycle in Sudan and South Sudan.

Since Sudan has effectively backed off its offensive in Darfur, this has freed up personnel and resources for coming confrontations in South Sudan, which is fully expected to vote for independence in 2011 -- an eventuality that Sudan does not want.

Preparing for an expected battle, South Sudan has been arming itself as we know from the famous shipment of weapons that was temporarily delayed off the coast of Somalia by Somali pirates last year. Feisty publications such as Jane's have been following the progress of the weaponry to Juba, South Sudan.

However, should Kony be added to the mix in any pending chaos in South Sudan, the Sudan People's Liberation Army will need some help. What better than an integrated, multi-national force from regional powers, aided and equipped by the U.S.?

There are strategic advantages for the U.S., of course, which has rarely had a good relationship with Sudan, ever since the militant and fundamentalist Islamic takeover of the government a couple decades ago.

We hardly need to mention Sudan's hosting of Osama bin Laden in the late 1990s or the U.S.'s condemnation of Sudan's so-called war in Darfur which the U.S. has labeled a genocide.

The U.S. quietly has been supporting South Sudan's drive for independence, knowing that a staunch ally in Sudan's back yard will give the U.S. a firm foothold in the region and first-hand chance to keep an eye on Sudan.

Among other things, the U.S. very much wants to see the expected revenues from South Sudan's vast and untapped oil reserves to fill the pockets of an ally, rather than antagonistic Sudan.

When push comes to shove in the next year or two, the current joint military exercise taking place just 30 miles from the South Sudan border shows how that support could take a very dramatic step.

War of attrition

While Joseph Kony and his Lord's Resistance Army continue to kill and abduct, most recently in region around Ezo in western South Sudan, their days may be slowly drawing to an end.

According to knowledgeable sources in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, pressure against the LRA by the Ugandan and Congolese armies continues to chip away at the rebel force.

The Ugandan forces are the same ones who supposedly withdrew from the northeastern DRC after last year's abortive attack on the LRA camps in Garamba National Park.

As I suggested several months ago, the so-called Ugandan "advisers" who stayed behind are in reality a fighting force that has been given licence to chase the LRA anywhere they need in the DRC, Central African Republic, and western South Sudan.

The LRA's recent attacks on the communities in and around Ezo are being interpreted by some as desperate moves by the LRA to loot badly needed supplies and abduct soldiers for their dwindling ranks.

Except for a core of Ugandan fighters thought to be from 200 to 300, the rest of his army are abducted child soldiers from the region.

As has been suggested, LRA leader Kony is steadily moving his force to the remote corners of eastern CAR where he hopes to bide his time. Speculation is that he is awaiting for war to erupt between Sudan and South Sudan in advance of, or around the coming 2011 independence for South Sudan.

As those of us who follow this know, South Sudan's shipment of heavy weapons, which were seized and ultimately released by Somali pirates, are making their way to their buyer: South Sudan.

Meanwhile, Sudan continues to arm Messeriya tribesmen in South Khordofan, and build up its forces in anticipation of an outbreak of war. Sudan would most like quickly move to defend it's vital oil supplies in the region.

Kony could benefit from this war by being backed by its former and long-time supporter, Sudan. His LRA could be yet another fighting force in western South Sudan, effectively opening up another front.

But in the meantime, Uganda does not intend to let up as it tracks Kony and the LRA. And, speculation is building that another attack on the LRA is in the planning by the Ugandans, again with the help of US advisers with Africom.

Uganda could get some additional help. The United Nations Security Council is slated to rethink the mandate for the UN troops in northeastern DRC, which have been expanding their presence there.

From their initial base in Dungu, the UN apparently now has about five bases, all of which are better able to help support and supply the Ugandan and Congolese fighters against the LRA.

The possible change in the mandate for the UN in the region, would put it in the position of aggressively imposing security in the region and could include active defense of the villages in the region against LRA attacks.

Such a policy shift would suit the political objectives of the US, which is under increasing pressure to do more to wipe out the LRA. While the US is reluctant to put boots on the ground to do that, supporting and pushing the UN forces is the obvious answer.

Meanwhile, people in the region continue to suffer from the LRA.
In southern Sudan's province of Western Equatoria, the rebels raided Ezo, a town close to the border with Central African Republic. They have also been accused of abducting 10 girls from a local church, according to the UNHCR.

As a result of the intensifying LRA attacks, the U.N. suspended all humanitarian activities in southern Sudan and evacuated 29 humanitarian workers, including seven UNHCR staff.

The U.N. estimates about 28,000 displaced people and refugees in Ezo and Yambio were left without protection or assistance, according to a story by Rueters Alertnet.

The rebels also attacked Bereamburu village, some 35 km from Yambio, the regional capital, burning the local church and a health centre and looting medical supplies, according to UNHCR.

Since the start of this year some 360,000 Congolese have been uprooted in successive LRA attacks in Congo's Orientale province, while some 20,000 others have fled to Sudan and Central African Republic, according to UNHCR estimates.

New school, same old problems

Above, teacher and students at Abela school, attended by LRA leader Joseph Kony. At left, the sacred rock moutain visited each year by Kony and/or his soldiers, and the source of his magical holy water. Peter Eichstaedt photos.

The U.S. Army's Africa Command, AFRICOM, posted a a notice recently about the $180,000 renovation of a school in rebel leader Joseph Kony's home town of Odek.

The press release came via the U.S. embassy in Kampala, with a Gulu dateline, and featured photos Walter Ochora, a Gulu governmental official, some of the 750 children who attend the school.

I visited Odek when I was researching First Kill Your Family, and had a long talk with one of Kony's childhood friends. While Kony may have attended school in Odek, he also attended a school about 15 kilometers away called Abela, which I also visited more recently in 2008.

Abela was not far from Kony's sacred mountain, a place where gathered herbs as young witchdoctor, and which oozed "holy" water. Everyone said that Kony returned once a year to this rock outcropping, called a koppe and a typical feature of east Africa. If Kony didn't come in person, he send a small unit there to collect the sacred water and take it back to wherever he was.

No one knows precisely where Kony and his ruthless Lord's Resistance Army are these days, best guesses are he's in the forbidding forest in the northeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Kony and his army of child soldiers continues to kill and kidnap at will in that remote corner of the world, just has they have done for the past several years despite the failed attack on his forces last December.

That attack, as we all know, was the result of the combined efforts of America's AFRICOM and their best friend in the region, Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni and his Uganda People's Defense Forces.

Word of the renovated school in Odek points to the destruction that Kony left behind, and to the massive amount of work that needs to be done to rebuild northern Uganda -- if Uganda does not want to face yet another bloody rebellion.

While the Odek school is a sparking example of what can be done, there are hundreds and hundreds more across northern Uganda that need immediate attention. The Ugandan government has been painfully slow, if not intentionally so, in fulfilling its promises millions of dollars in aid for the north. The world is watching and northern Uganda is waiting.

There's a pattern here.

The Odek school reflects what else Uganda has failed to do regarding Kony and his murderous horde. The recent visit to Uganda by Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, was a sharp reminder of Uganda's failure to bring Kony to justice and to put an end to the LRA.

Museveni, after all, was the man who first went to the ICC way back in 2003, in an effort to garner international help in corralling Kony. While that help came, it did not relieve Uganda of its primary responsibility to capture Kony.

Moreno-Ocampo's visit also was well-timed since Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir was planning to visit Kampala days later -- and man who also has been indicted by the ICC.

Moreno-Ocampo's presence, if not this blunt words in private, warned Museveni that if he wanted to have any respect on the international stage, he has to show some backbone and live up to his commitments. This includes not only the capture of Kony, rebuilding of northern Uganda, but also the arrest of al-Bashir.

Al-Bashir quietly declined to travel to Kampala, and one can only imagine the back-channel phones calls that prompted al-Bashir's decision to stay home. One could almost hear Uganda's collective sigh of relief.

But life is never simple. And for Museveni, it's getting more complex. Look at Somalia. While playing regional power broker and darling of the West, he has about 2,000 soldiers trying to keep a lid on the chaos in Mogadishu as the primary force for the African Union there.

Uganda has wedged itself into tight place by in reality being the proxy force for the West (U.S), as the Somalia's Transitional Federal Government tries to hold off the surging fundamentalists fighters of the al-Shabab (The Youth) movement.

To say that Uganda is overstretched is probably an understatement. The problem is that Uganda seems to be everywhere, but not accomplishing anything no matter where it is. The question is, how long can Uganda maintain this charade before they're forced to produce results?

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 Kony dilemma

The address this past Monday by Phillip Carter III, of the State Department's Bureau of African Affairs, to activists who participated in lobby day in Washington D.C. shed no light on the festering problems surrounding the Lord's Resistance Army.

Carter recited what had been done by the U.S. over the past few years in terms of its involvement in the failed Juba peace talks between the Ugandan government and the LRA, and how the U.S. has supported the reconstruction of northern Uganda.

The address was a polite brush off to the thousands of activists affiliated with the Invisible Children organization, Resolve Uganda and the Enough Project -- all three of which are dedicated to ending the suffering caused by the LRA.

Sadly, and despite the vague comments by Carter to the contrary, the U.S. and most of the other so-called "players" in the region are not going to do much about the LRA.

As I have pointed out on prior occasions, LRA leader Joseph Kony is driven by his desire to survive, first and foremost, an impulse that overrides his megalomania.

Kony has situated himself and his band of bloody soldiers in one of the most remote regions of the world, and despite the abortive attack on his camps last December and the subsequent pursuit by the Ugandan army, he has survived.

By literally hiding out in the recesses of northeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, he has successfully defied the will of Uganda, the DRC, and the whole of the international community to stop him.

As we saw from the debacle of last December, mounting an operation against Kony is a monumental undertaking. And, it is complicated by the fact that the LRA is accustomed to operating in small, fractured units, much like any other guerrilla army.

Destruction of several parts does not inflict enough harm to stop the whole.

While everyone seems to acknowledge the true tragedy that the continued existence of the LRA means, it has never been enough to generate the kind of resolve needed to end Kony and his army, which has relished killing innocent people by the thousands for 23 years.

The reason is simple. Kony has not caused enough problems for those capable of doing anything to stop him and his army.

In Iraq, huge oil reserves were lurking in the background as the U.S. invaded under the guise of fighting terror. Likewise, the war in Afghanistan has the Taliban and the background of 9/11.

Resolving the situation with Kony and his LRA or the fighting in Darfur suffer from the same dilemma, however. Definitive action in both instances would be based on moral principle alone, such as relieving human suffering and injustice where possible.

But it's clearly not enough to get the powerful to act. There has to be a monetary or material need as well, or at least a perceived threat to broader issues of safety, security and the "national interest."

While the lobbying in Washington DC is worthwhile and admirable, and the supporters of bills to heat up U.S. action in central Africa are to be applauded, it all won't result in much unless oil, gold, diamonds or some such wealth is suddenly found in these regions.

Or, as ridiculous as it seems, unless Kony and/or the Sudan government present a threat to the U.S. or European Union interests.

Only then would we see a rush to bring these tragedies to a swift and final end.

Good-bye, Joachim

The United Nations Secretary-General's office this week announced that it's closing the Kampala office of Joachim Chissano, the special envoy to what is called the "LRA-affected areas."

The closing of the office comes as something of a surprise, since just last December, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon extended Chissano's mandate for a year. Now, the office is closing six months early.

He was initially appointed in 2006, not long after peace talks with the Lord's Resistance Army began. In truth, Chissano has been aloof, inaccessible and ineffective, having mostly tagged along as Ugandans and chief mediator Riek Machar did the work.

On one occasion, in an attempt to revive the sagging peace talks, Chissano made a publicized attempt to meet with Kony personally. Only Kony didn't show up, despite apparently have agreed to do so.

Clearly this signals that not only the UN, but most everyone else has given up on trying to reach a peace deal with the Joseph Kony and his Lord's Resistance Army.

The spokesperson for Ban Ki-moon, Michele Montas, took a question on the issue Thursday in her daily press briefing:

Question: "Yesterday it became clear that the Secretary-General was closing down the office in Kampala with Chissano, who is done six months earlier. Does that mean that the UN has resigned itself to believing that the arrest of [LRA leader Joseph] Kony is the only way to move forward?"

Montas: "Well, I think it’s a fact that, you know, what is happening on the ground… Mr. Kony has never shown up to sign the agreement, I think is definitely a factor. Mr. Chissano really cannot do much more than he has already done. We’re not resigning ourselves to the fact, but we’re just saying that there is no point in trying to keep the office open if nothing is happening."

Question: "Can’t the UN arrest him, or what…?"

Montas: "The UN does not have the power to arrest anyone."

So what's next? Chissano is probably headed back to Mozambique, which is where he is from and where he served as president.

And, Kony is still out there, roaming around the remote recesses of the northeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. While the severity and frequency of his attacks have diminished, they're still taking place.

Just this past week, there were fresh attacks by LRA fighters on communities in South Sudan, not far from Yambio, the regional capital of the Western Equatoria state. The people providing any resistance are the so-called Arrow Boys, who are a home-grown militia that is armed with only bows and arrows.

South Sudan President Salva Kiir has promised to send some of his Sudanese People's Liberation Army there, but it's too little, too late, since South Sudan failed in its mission to "seal" its border with the DRC and prevent the LRA from entering the country.

This closure comes in the wake of calls from such groups as Enough for regional forces, supported again by the U.S., to "finish the job" on Kony. And, a bill has been introduced into Congress that essentially calls for the same thing.

Unfortunately, a second effort against Kony would most likely be headed by the Ugandan army once again. And what would that result be?