By Carolyn Abdenour
Impunity Watch Reporter, Africa
KAMPALA, Uganda – On Friday, 14 October, President Obama reported that he sent 100 U.S. troops to Uganda to hunt the leaders of the Lord’s Resistance Army (“LRA”). President Obama said this notoriously violent group “has murdered, raped, and kidnapped tens of thousands of men, women and children in central Africa.” Formed in the 1980s, the LRA engaged in a twenty-year war in northern Uganda and its neighboring countries. Since 2008, the LRA has killed over 2,400 people and abducted more than 3,400, with LRA activity displacing over 380,000 people in the region. The LRA has also forced young boys to fight and used girls as sex slaves.
Although the U.S. has provided over forty million dollars, logistical support, non-lethal equipment, and training and intelligences assistance to support regional efforts to remove the LRA since 2008, the effort has been unsuccessful.
The U.S. troops are reportedly being sent to act as advisers to support the regional forces striving to remove Joseph Kony, the head of the LRA, and his advisers from the battlefield. The International Criminal Court (“ICC”) issued arrest warrants for Kony and four close aides in 2005 for crimes against humanity and war crimes. In 2008, Kony refused to sign a peace deal with the Ugandan government because the agreement would not guarantee withdrawal of the ICC arrest warrants.
President Obama deployed the forces to “provide information, advice and assistance to select partner nations,” claiming that countering the LRA’s efforts in central Africa are in furtherance of U.S. national security interests and foreign policy objectives. The combat-equipped troops will only engage LRA forces if it is necessary for self-defense. With each country’s approval, the troops, primarily comprised of Special Operations Forces, will deploy to Uganda, South Sudan, the Central African Republic, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
President Obama did not comment on the deployment duration, but US military spokesperson said, “forces are prepared to stay as long as necessary to enable regional security forces to carry on independently”.
Uganda’s acting foreign minister, Henry Okello Oryem, reportedly welcomes the U.S. troops, but also notes that the region has pleaded with the Americans and Europeans to help fight these international terrorists for twenty years. However, in December, the thirty-four LRA-affected groups in northern Congo, Central African Republic, and Southern Sudan communicated their appreciation to President Obama for his commitment to addressing this problem.
Their December letter stated, “Each day that goes by without a solution to the problem of the LRA is another day of terror and pain for those of us living under constant threat of renewed attacks . . .. During these attacks, our family members were killed in unimaginably savage ways: their heads crushed with clubs or machetes; their faces disfigured; and their genitals, mouths, ears, legs and arms cut off, for no reason other than to terrorize.”
For further information, please see:
Al Jazeera – Uganda: US Help Against Rebels Overdue – 15 Oct 2011
CNN – Obama Orders U.S. Troops to help chase down African ‘Army’ Leader – 15 Oct 2011
BBC – US to Send Troops to Uganda to Help Fight LRA Rebels – 14 Oct 2011
Xinhua – Obama Sends US Military to Help Fight Lord’s Resistance Army – 14 Oct 2011
