By Jennifer M. Haralambides
Impunity Watch Reporter, Africa

TAPILI, DR Congo  – A recent Human Rights Watch report accused 300 the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) of killing over 300 unnamed Congolese civilians last December.

This report has gotten the attention of UN peacekeepers who now say that a new strategy is needed to prevent future massacres.  Alan Doss, the head of the UN peacekeepers said that better intelligence gathering and greater air mobility was needed.  Because the LRA operate in small, highly mobile groups that spread over a wide area, it has made the UN’s job very difficult.

“But even small groups, moving as they do in the bush, can create havoc.  Their best weapon is fear and they create fear by their extremely brutal and violent tactics which we saw again in this latest massacre near Tapili.,” said Doss.

Top official of the United Nations Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUC) says even more is needed.  “Money or military troops on the ground that’s not enough…we need more cooperation between the three countries where the LRA is operating — that is the DRC, Uganda and Central African Republic. Also those countries need to have better cooperation in terms of exchanging intelligence so that they can better organize the operation on the ground,” he said.

Early on, LRA leaders claimed their violent mission was to install a theocracy in Uganda based on the Biblical Ten Commandments.  Although, now they are only moving across Sudan, Central Africa, and DR Congo attacking villages.

During the latest attack, in December, villagers were hacked to death by rebels.  Just before they attacked, the rebels pretended to be Congolese soldiers and asked for food and other goods.  Witnesses say the stench of death hung over the area for weeks after the massacre.   Aside from the killings, at least eighty were taken by force.  Boys to become child solders and girls to be used as sex slaves for the LRA fighters.

For more information, please see:

BBC – DR Congo Needs New Strategy, UN Chief – 28 March 2010

Times Online – Lord’s Resistance Army Killed 321 People in Democratic Republic of Congo – 29 March 2010

VOA – MONUC Official Says Regional Cooperation Could Counter LRA Atrocities – 28 March 2010