
Today is Invisible Children’s “Global Day of Action”—meant to publicize efforts to capture Joseph Kony, of the Lord’s Resistance Army, a warlord who continues to kidnap women and children and turn them into sex slaves and soldiers. One of the criticisms of the group’s film “Kony2012” was that Kony was no longer operating in the place or playing the role that it suggested he was. And yet, because of the likely impending war in the two Sudans, the L.R.A. may become more relevant than it has been in years.
This week, Sudan’s President, Omar al-Bashir, threatened to “liberate” the people of South Sudan from the “insects” in their government. As the possibility of a full-fledged war became unnervingly higher, General Aronda Nyakairima, chief of Uganda’s defense forces, said that his army might be compelled to intervene if Bashir did overthrow South Sudan’s regime. It sounded as if Nyakairima’s army would refuse to let a 2005 peace agreement ending a two-decade civil war dissolve, even if it means a conflict that draws in most of East Africa. The Daily Monitor, an independent Ugandan newspaper, reported that Nyakairima went on to say that the army had intelligence that the leadership in Khartoum had been in touch with the L.R.A., and that Kony’s forces were allegedly moving toward South Sudan.
Uganda has good reason to believe that Bashir’s government is prepared to use the L.R.A. to terrorize South Sudan. In a 2005 video, Joseph Kony confirmed that his forces “helped the Arabs to fight their war in the south while they helped us to fight [Ugandan President] Museveni’s government.” For fifteen-odd years, during the L.R.A.’s insurgency, the Ugandan government accused Sudan of giving the group arms and technical support. (Though the rebel fighters lived in and staged their attacks from the bush, they had equipment like satellite phones, computers, and generators—and seemingly advanced military intelligence.) The L.R.A. was also allowed to have a base across the border in southern Sudan. At the same time, Sudan said that Uganda’s leaders were supporting the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Army, which later became the basis for the new government of South Sudan. President Museveni has supported the S.P.L.A. since the nineteen-nineties, and, before the peace agreement, thousands of southern Sudanese refugees spilled southward over the Ugandan border. South Sudan and Uganda are now major trading partners.
The Sudanese civil war, which began in 1983, had catastrophic results for southern Sudan; it decimated the region’s infrastructure and nearly wiped out a generation. Now, the residents of Sudan’s Nuba Mountains are being bombed by their own government, and troops from both sides are assembling in border towns near contested oil fields. More than a hundred thousand Sudanese have been forced to abandon their homes. It’s looking like 1983 again.
Will the L.R.A. also return for another round? If nothing else, the group has shown itself to be capable of ruthlessly murdering, kidnapping, and mutilating entire villages—and has done so through Darfur, southern Sudan, Central African Republic, the Congo, and northern Uganda. Kony2012 supporters may have a new problem on their hands.
Photograph by Adam Pletts/Getty Images.
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- South Sudanese join hunt for LRA leader - Aljazeera.com - 21/04/2012 08:41
- South Korea Deploys New Missle in Reposte to North - Town Hall - 21/04/2012 07:21
- South Sudanese leaders act like 'guerrillas': envoy - SBS - 21/04/2012 04:14
- South Sudan, Sudan Claim Control of Heglig Despite Withdrawal - Voice of America - 21/04/2012 02:29
- South Sudan: AFRICOM Connects With South Sudanese Military Chaplains - AllAfrica.com - 20/04/2012 21:33
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- WORLD: South Sudan to pull out of oil town, easing crisis - Delmarva Daily Times - 20/04/2012 20:33
- South Sudan to withdraw from disputed town - Washington Post - 20/04/2012 18:12
- Sudan says it chased out South Sudan's army - STLtoday.com - 20/04/2012 18:09
- Sudan says it ran S. Sudan troops out of oil town - Seattle Post Intelligencer - 20/04/2012 18:06
- Sudan and S. Sudan claim control of oil town - Albany Times Union - 20/04/2012 18:05
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