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.” The LRA has also forced boys to fight and used girls as sex slaves.
The troops act as advisers to support the regional forces striving to remove head of LRA, Joseph Kony, and his advisers from the battlefield. President Obama deployed these troops to further U.S. national security interests and foreign policy along with countering LRA efforts in central Africa.
LRA has killed over 2,400 and abducted more than 3,400 people since 2008. LRA activity has displaced over 380,000 people in the region. Formed in the 1980s, LRA engaged in a twenty-year war in northern Uganda and its neighboring countries.
Although the U.S. has provided over $40 million along with 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.
On Wednesday, President Obama deployed the forces to “provide information, advice and assistance to select partner nations.” The combat-equipped troops will only engage LRA forces as a self-defense necessity. 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 a U.S. military spokesperson said, “Forces are prepared to stay as long as necessary to enable regional security forces to carry on independently”.
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.
Uganda’s acting foreign minister Henry Okello Oryem reported he welcomed the U.S. troops now, but the region has begged the Americans and Europeans to help fight these international terrorists for twenty years.
The 34 LRA-affected groups in northern Congo, Central African Republic, and Southern Sudan communicated their appreciation to President Obama’s commitment to address this problem in December through a letter.
Their 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 more information, please see:
Al Jazeera – Uganda: US Help Against Rebels Overdue – 15 Oct 2011
Xinhua – Obama Sends US Military to Help Fight Lord’s Resistance Army – 15 Oct 2011
BBC – US to Send Troops to Uganda to Help Fight LRA Rebels – 14 Oct 2011
CNN – Obama Orders U.S. Troops to help chase down African ‘Army’ Leader – 14 Oct 2011
