Lord's Resistance Army - End of the Road?

sufi

lala
Interesting to see the LRA (or some of their potential victims) on the front of a UK tabloid this week, the story certainly has some catchy tabloid-friendly elements - the baby snatching is like a modern-day fairy tale, and their unique brand of charismatic cod-religious lunacy also has a certain nasty distinction.

that their insurgency has lasted so long now is partly due to the instability of South Sudan, i read today that Juba has been handed over to the SPLA by the Sudanese Government, with all appropriate fanfare,
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hopefully this development coupled some international interest with may spell the end of misery in North of Uganda, or do Museveni's recent wobbles indicate another source of instability...?
 

john eden

male pale and stale
Which tabloid? I missed it. There was also a glossy Oxfam pullout in the Guardian one weekend recently.

There have been peace talks before which haven't amounted to very much. Certainly the LRA like giving it large about being reaonable people etc but this is a smokescreen from what I can see.

The instability of Southern Sudan is a factor, but they have also been able to operate in the Democractic Republic of Congo. Some accounts say they have been worked hand in hand with the SPLA (I think? SPLF?) in Southern Sudan, even to the extent of having adjoining camps.

The ICC issuing an arrest warrant against the LRA's leader Kony didn't do much good afaik but maybe that is one more factor in trying to reach a peaceful compromise I dunno. As nobody seems clear about their aims it's difficult to determine - some sources say they are bent on installing a govt based on the 10 commandments in Uganda whereas they say they just want to unite the various tribes (fuck knows how they expect to achieve this by kidnapping kids tho).

Museveni is losing it big time (more on this soon) tho he may want a big publicity coup in advance of the elections next year.
 

sufi

lala
aye! thought that may pique yr interest, i think it was metro :confused:
just interesting that after 20 years of thrashing around in the bush LRA are coming to the attention of the world - there was a documentary on beeb the same day i think?
 

rewch

Well-known member
sufi said:
...that their insurgency has lasted so long...

Rumsfeld - `This is a group of people who don't merit the word `insurgency,''' he said Tuesday. ``I think that you can have a legitimate insurgency in a country that has popular support and has a cohesiveness and has a legitimate gripe. These people don't have a legitimate gripe.''

“Over the weekend, I thought to myself, ‘You know, that gives them a greater legitimacy than they seem to merit,’ ” Rumsfeld, at a Pentagon briefing Tuesday, said of his ban on the I-word. “It was an epiphany,” he added, throwing his hand in the air.

(thanks to omaar on the Iraq War the most foolish in 2,014 years thread)

so are the LRA an insurgency or a bunch of wannabe foday sankoh/colonel kurtz fundamentalist religio-maniacs? & why have the ugandan army failed to deal with them in any effective way? and don't give me any large area/border with sudan business, since that didn't stop them in congo...

don't happen to agree with rumsfeld on this one - semantically that is - but i do admire his tendency to deconstruct
 

john eden

male pale and stale
These are the arguments for their survivial which I have read:

1) Tacit support from Sudan / Congo govts.
2) Not a priority to Museveni, cos it's all oop north and who cares about them anyway (i.e. tribal differences)
3) Most people don't even know where Uganda is, so they don't care.

In terms of whether or not they are legitimate I find this really difficult to unpick. Most sources say they are mentalists. The dismemberment of people for no other reason than for riding bicycles would seem to suggest that. Plus the completely mental witchcraft business relating to Alice Lakwena who started it all off waaaaaay back.

But there is a strain of thought which says they are "proper" and are trying to liberate the Acholi people in the north from marginalisation by Museveni etc. The thousands of victims who have been abducted or killed all seem to be Acholi though.

The LRA had a London office and a website for a while, apparently, which I found really surprising.
 

rewch

Well-known member
john eden said:
The LRA had a London office and a website for a while, apparently, which I found really surprising.

so on the one hand they are as you say mentalist, but well organised mentalists, with a pr department... that is surprising... any idea what their website was called or whether it has been archived anywhere? will have a look...
 

john eden

male pale and stale
rewch said:
so on the one hand they are as you say mentalist, but well organised mentalists, with a pr department... that is surprising... any idea what their website was called or whether it has been archived anywhere? will have a look...

Yeah that weirded me out. I read about it in this book. It also says that the office and website were run by disgruntled expat Acholi people in London and the US. No address or anything though and I couldn't find it.

From the book I am guessing this was late 90s or so.

I think I also remember reading that the expats had given up the job when things got slightly more mental at one point.
 
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