The Lord’s Resistance Army leader can be traced back to Alice Lakwena. Alice had believed that God spoke to her and told her to over throw the Ugandan government for being unjust to Acholi. The Acholi were an ethnic group from the areas Gulu, Kitgum, and Pader in Northern Uganda. Her group first called themselves the Holy Spirit Movement. The momentum increased as resentment towards the government increased. Lakwena soon got exiled and than there was no leader after that. Joseph Kony, who claimed to be her cousin, took over and changed it to the Lord’s Resistance Army.
Joseph Kony did not receive support from the Acholi people so he started to abduct children and indoctrinate them into their ranks. He considers himself a very good Christian and has his group based on the Ten Commandments. So far, the LRA has abducted about 20,000 children to use either as fighters or as sex slaves. In part of their initiation they have to kill their parents so they won’t have homes to come back too. Once the children are part of the LRA they are used as pack mules; to carry supplies until they get to weak to walk and when that happens, they kill them or leave them to die. The boys are used as targets or decoys, they send them to the front lines unarmed whenever the Ugandan Army comes after them. The girls that either Kony or his commanders find attractive become their “wives”. Kony supposedly has 60. The prisoners that give him a bad time usually get their noses, lips, and/or ears cut off and then they have to eat their own flesh.
In 1996 the Ugandan government forcibly evicted thousands from their homes and relocated them into overcrowded camps in hopes of protection. Ten years later, about a million individuals are still living in the camps and struggle to survive among the effects of object poverty, rampart disease, and near certain starvation.
In 2001, the US Patriot Act had officially affirmed the LRA to be a terrorist organization. This ended up being a mammoth step in drawing attention to the conflict and the atrocities committed by the LRA. They thought the war was going to end in 2003, because the LRA declared a cease fire and said they wanted to talk to Yoweri Musevini. During that time, the districts of Gulu, Kitgum, and Pader were still being terrorized by the LRA. The main victims were the Acholi people. On July 25,2003, forty eight people were hacked to death near the town of Kitgum in the far north. Newspaper reports read that elderly people were killed with Machetes and spears, and babies were flung against trees.
Feb. 2003 Sudan agreed to let troops from neighboring Uganda enter its territory to attack the LRA rebels who had been trying for years to overthrow the Ugandan government. The Ugandan army called on the LRA to surrender or be defeated. That agreement gave them what they had been waiting for; a chance to eliminate the LRA. The optimism that the war would end started to grow. June 2003, Kony told his fighters to destroy the Catholic missions, kill priests and missionaries, and beat the nuns.
In 2004, the Congress passed the Northern Uganda Crisis Response Act. It was the first piece of American legislation to address the disaster. The Ugandan minister, Amama Mbabazi stated the government of Uganda killed 928 LRA rebels between Jan. 1, 2003 and Jan. 16, 2004. 791 rebels were either captured by the army or surrendered during “Operation Iron Fist”. The army rescued 7,299 abducted people by the LRA. Eighty eight army soldiers died in combat, one hundred forty one were injured, and four went missing. Then in 2005, International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Joseph Kony and his four top commanders. There was soon a strong desire to secure peace around Uganda.
July 2007, the US State department appointed Tim Shortley to Senior Advisor for conflict resolution with his burning focus on Northern Uganda. He solidified the United States commitment to end this conflict peacefully. The same year the United Kingdom bolstered their commitment to peace by allocating 70 million pounds in aid. Germany committed to a twenty five percent increase in aid to Uganda by October 2010. Canada later became more than an international supporter of the peace process in February 2008 by joining peace talks as an official observer.
The Cessation of Hostilities Agreement had expired and Joseph Kony has failed to sign the Final Peace agreement for the 4th time. This proves that his promises are to be futile and ultimately disabling the peace talks. His uncertainty has been lingering.
Since September 2008 hostility in the Orientale province in DR Congo and Western Equatoria in South Sudan has reached an intense ground . The LRA attacks have become more frequent and hostile, which provokes military action against them. Governments of Uganda, DR Congo, South Sudan, and the Central African Republic launched an attack on LRA strongholds within DR Congo. Called it “Operation Lightning Thunder”, turned out to be unsuccessful.
On Dec.24th, 2008 the LRA launched a retaliatory attack against the people of DR Congo. The attack murdered over 600 people and abducted more than 160 children to fight in their group. More than 104,000 Congolese have been displaced since Christmas in attempts to escape from the LRA forces. The LRA motives have just been becoming more ambiguous and the crimes become more horrific.
Just recently, Joseph Kony’s mother who was on her death bed asked him to make peace. His response is yet to be determined. She had believed that her son was possessed with evil spirits. These occurring are still going on in Uganda today right now and there are many people trying to end this war.
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