Who is Joseph Kony?
Kony is a former choirboy from northern Uganda who leads a personality cult and militia that he calls the Lord's Resistance Army. He founded the group in the late 1980s, modelling it on the Holy Spirit Movement, led by a similarly charismatic former prostitute, Alice Lakwena, who presented herself as the defender of the Acholi people of northern Uganda, against the government in Kampala of Yoweri Museveni. Lakwena promised her warriors immunity from bullets if they rubbed themselves with shea butter. She was defeated by Museveni's troops in 1988 and fled to Kenya, clearing the path for Kony. He first called his militia the Ugandan People's Democratic Army (UPDA), then the Holy Spirit Mobile Force, and then the LRA.
What do Kony and the LRA want?
It is difficult to identify any consistent aims. The group started off as an Acholi militia and then adopted Christian rhetoric with a heavy dose of mysticism. But, as support from the Acholi fell away, Kony increasingly victimised civilians who refused to join him. Whatever Christian characteristic the LRA may have had also fell away to be replaced by a personality cult centred on Kony. As the militia has been forced out of Uganda and moved into southern Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Central African Republic, there is has been less emphasis on defeating Museveni. Its aims have narrowed to survival and pillage.
What crimes has Kony committed?
The first arrest warrants ever issued by the International Criminal Court in The Hague were aimed at Kony and four of his LRA commanders, for crimes against humanity and war crimes. The 2005 indictments include charges of murder, rape, the sexual enslavement of women and girls and forcing children to fight. The Ugandan army has also been accused of using child soldiers, but the LRA's reputation for brutality is unparalleled. When Kony's troops attack a village, they usually kill most of the adult population and abduct the children. They have been accused of forcing boys to kill their parents as an initiation rite. Girl are shared out among the commanders as sex slaves. The LRA has practised mutilation as a tool of terror, cutting off the lips, noses and ears of its victims.
Now Kony apparently has been terrorizing these people with impunity for almost 25 years, largely ignored by the international community.
Recently these atrocities have been brought to the attention of the American people with the assistance of a viral video titled simply Kony 2012, put together by filmmaker Jason Russell and featuring interviews with his son Jacob reacting to information about the atrocities of Joseph Kony.
However even before this video Kony's crimes had come to the attention of our President.
In October of 2011, after hearing reports of these atrocities, President Obama, with the US military still engaged in two wars, decided to take action to help the people of central Africa.
"I have authorized a small number of combat-equipped U.S. forces to deploy to central Africa to provide assistance to regional forces that are working toward the removal of Joseph Kony from the battlefield," Obama said in letter sent Friday to House Speaker John Boehner and Daniel Inouye, the president pro tempore of the Senate. Kony is the head of the Lord's Resistance Army.
One hundred soldiers is relatively nothing considering the enormity of these horrific actions against the people of central Africa, but the President had to be cautious since he was dealing with a hostile Republican party, and his every action was under intense scrutiny.
However considering the reports coming out of the area, WHO could fault the President for wanting to lend support to these people?
Who indeed?
