Lord’s Resistance Army are Christians. It means God. I was only kidding. Lord’s Resistance Army are Christians. They are fighting the Muslims in Sudan. And Obama has sent troops, United States troops to remove them from the battlefield, which means kill them. That’s what the lingo means, “to help regional forces remove from the battlefield,” meaning capture or kill.
So that’s a new war, a hundred troops to wipe out Christians in Sudan, Uganda, and — (interruption) no, I’m not kidding. Jacob Tapper just reported it. Now, are we gonna help the Egyptians wipe out the Christians? Wouldn’t you say that we are? I mean the Coptic Christians are being wiped out, but it wasn’t just Obama that supported that. The conservative intelligentsia thought it was an outbreak of democracy. Now they’ve done a 180 on that, but they forgot that they supported it in the first place. Now they’re criticizing it.
Lord’s Resistance Army objectives. I have them here. “To remove dictatorship and stop the oppression of our people.” Now, again Lord’s Resistance Army is who Obama sent troops to help nations wipe out. The objectives of the Lord’s Resistance Army, what they’re trying to accomplish with their military action in these countries is the following: “To remove dictatorship and stop the oppression of our people; to fight for the immediate restoration of the competitive multiparty democracy in Uganda; to see an end to gross violation of human rights and dignity of Ugandans; to ensure the restoration of peace and security in Uganda, to ensure unity, sovereignty, and economic prosperity beneficial to all Ugandans, and to bring to an end the repressive policy of deliberate marginalization of groups of people who may not agree with the LRA ideology.” Those are the objectives of the group that we are fighting, or who are being fought and we are joining in the effort to remove them from the battlefield.
The documentary repeats the colonial imperative for Africa to be saved by white people. This video smacks of yet another colonial “civilising” project, where the old binaries of colonialism are revived. These frame Africa as backward, while the west is modern; “we” are positioned as free while “they” are oppressed and so on. In this binary of good and bad, Africans are represented on the not so good side of the binary. Therefore, the solution must be a good one, a white one, and in this hierarchy Africans lose out. Local efforts and voices go unacknowledged in favour of the white saviour complex, which as Teju Cole suggests “supports brutal policies in the morning, founds charities in the afternoon, and receives awards in the evening”…
I abhor the white saviour narrative, where vulnerable children or women of colour must be rescued from men of colour by “culturally superior” white men or women.
Her complaint with the documentary is most certainly valid. The documentary could have benefited from featuring some local African protagonists, of which there exist no shortage of. In fact, I would hazard a guess that the people most involved in the effort to protect the local population would be from within the community itself.
Dispatches’ documentary on Africa’s child witches managed to give a more balanced picture of the situation by including African heroes alongside Gary Foxcroft, such as Sam Itauma. By so doing, they decreased the chances of sending the wrong message. One must be cautious in this regard, especially in the backdrop of a long history of colonial humanitarianism. The West has–and continues to–use humanitarian “concerns” to imply their superiority over darker peoples, as well as to justify military occupation.
Having said that, I do not think one can be too critical of Invisible Children’s documentary. They were in a bit of a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t situation. If they depicted the suffering of Africans, they could be accused of portraying Africa as backward. If they ignore African plight, then they could be accused of racism (do you only care about white people dying?).
Even so, it is very true that Westerners, especially Americans, have a much easier time seeing a black African like Joseph Kony as the ultimate villian. Certainly, Kony and the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) have killed thousands of individuals, abducted tens of thousands, and displaced countless more innocent people. No reasonable person could deny the wickedness of Kony or his cohorts.
Yet, all of this pales in front of the crimes committed by the leaders of the United States, most of whom are “good, white Judeo-Christian folk.” I know even the thought of this seems offensive to all Serious, Decent People, who would be quick to cast this off as some sort of conspiracy theorist talk.
Who then is the greater villain? Pure numbers would indicate the United States. Admittedly, there are other considerations, but the huge disparity in numbers of corpses speaks volumes.
It’s unlikely that a YouTube video calling to stop the United States from its history of virtually non-stop war and killing would ever go viral like the Kona 2012 documentary did. Granted, it’s harder to criticize one’s own nation, but it seems more reasonable to channel one’s energy towards one’s elected government. As our generation’s most important intellectual Noam Chomsky said in an interview:
My own concern is primarily the terror and violence carried out by my own state, for two reasons. For one thing, because it happens to be the larger component of international violence. But also for a much more important reason than that; namely, I can do something about it. So even if the U.S. was responsible for 2 percent of the violence in the world instead of the majority of it, it would be that 2 percent I would be primarily responsible for. And that is a simple ethical judgment. That is, the ethical value of one’s actions depends on their anticipated and predictable consequences.
Furthermore, pointing to the atrocities committed by people of other nations while remaining silent about one’s own country’s crimes reeks of hypocrisy of the worst order. Chomsky continued:
It is very easy to denounce the atrocities of someone else. That has about as much ethical value as denouncing atrocities that took place in the 18th century.
The point is that the useful and significant political actions are those that have consequences for human beings. And those are overwhelmingly the actions which you have some way of influencing and controlling, which mean for me, American actions.
For most citizens, however, the situation is exactly reversed. Indeed, American interest in human rights abuses falls into one of three categories:
1. They are most vocal about the inequities of their enemies, especially when there is a national interest involved and the villain is a Muslim (i.e. Iran).
2. They are generally silent about (or merely pay lip service to) the human rights abuses committed against people belonging to nations where no national benefit can be expected (i.e. many parts of Africa).
3. They are wholly ignorant about, adamantly deny, or justify the crimes committed by their own government (i.e. the United States) or stalwart allies (i.e. Israel).
All nationalists have the power of not seeing resemblances between similar sets of facts. A British Tory will defend self-determination in Europe and oppose it in India with no feeling of inconsistency. Actions are held to be good or bad, not on their own merits, but according to who does them, and there is almost no kind of outrage — torture, the use of hostages, forced labour, mass deportations, imprisonment without trial, forgery, assassination, the bombing of civilians — which does not change its moral colour when it is committed by ‘our’ side. . . . The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them.
We always wonder how it was that the Germans claimed not to know what Adolf Hitler and the Nazis were doing. Yet, how similar is our general state of apathy today toward what our own government commits on a daily basis. The reality is that the American can never come to grips with the wickedness of the crimes his nation commits.
American indifference and willful ignorance of the hundreds of thousands of lives our government brings to an end is also due to the fact that we don’t witness the effects of what we’re doing. Whereas Europe and Russia experienced the horrors of war firsthand, the United States has remained relatively safe and secure on the North American continent, not having seen war on its shores for a very long time. War to Americans means little more than increased gas prices–not bombs dropping from the skies while filling gas.
The victims of American foreign policy reside some hundreds and thousands of miles away in countries and continents we’ve never seen. The dead remain nameless and faceless. Even our soldiers oftentimes don’t see who they kill. Imagine if a pilot of a bomber plane had to actually attend the funerals of the peoples’ lives he extinguishes with the press of a button? This situation has become even worse with the advent of remote-controlled drones. Americans are becoming increasingly protected and distant from the violence that they spread throughout various parts of the globe. Our way of killing is just cleaner (and more efficient).
But, it hardly matters to a victim if his relative died from being hacked to pieces by a machete or having a bomb dropped on his head from the skies. The result is the same: death.
There is of course another issue: those “bad guys” we criticize, like Joseph Kony, look like villains. Meanwhile, the perpetrators of American crimes wear suits and ties, look and talk in a courteous, cool, and calm manner. As Glenn Greenwald put it:
There are all kinds of people who advocate extremely heinous ideas, but do so in a very soft-spoken and civil manner. Bill Kristol comes to mind, John Yoo, as well. These are people who can go on and be extremely polite in conversation.
Their mannerisms do not change their deeds, which are heinous. The U.S. presidents have killed more Muslims than Kony has killed Africans. Noam Chomsky opined:
If the Nuremberg laws were applied, then every post-war American president would have been hanged.
How much easier it is to express indignation over Joseph Kony or, better yet, some Muslim villain?
Update I:
Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian of The Young Turksspoke about the criticism Kona 2012 has been receiving. To be clear, I largely agree with Uygur’s analysis. I have an overall positive impression of Invisible Children’s documentary and their efforts. My article should not be seen as criticism of them, but rather, of us Americans in general.
Additionally, I’d like to respond to a question raised by a reader, who asked:
you guys are living in the U.S.A. yet you criticize it. Why?
It is precisely because I was born, raised, and live in the United States that I speak out against what the government does in my name. Please refer to Noam Chomsky’s quote above.
Update II:
It has come to light that Invisible Children may be advocating direct U.S. military intervention in the region (see here and here). Because of this, I withdraw my words of approval for the group (at least for now).
A former Catholic altar boy from northern Uganda, Joseph Kony has waged war in central Africa for more than two decades.
A video campaign launched by San Diego-based nonprofit, Invisible Children Inc., attempts to harness the power of the Internet–and especially social media, including Twitter, YouTube and Facebook — to stop Joseph Kony, head of the Lord’s Resistance Army. The Uganda-based militia is infamous for killings, kidnappings, mutilations and torture in several African nations.
A 30-minute viral video exposes Kony’s enslavement and abuse of 30,000 children in Uganda, and has received over 10 million views since Monday. The documentary has garnered support from major celebrities, including Oprah Winfrey, Rihanna and Justin Beiber.
Kony attempts to justify his crimes in the name of Christianity, which is clearly a reflection of his own madness rather than a divinely inspired religion. However, the story begs the question: What if he were Muslim?
He claims that his Lord’s Resistance Army movement has been fighting to install a government in Uganda based on the Biblical 10 Commandments.
But his rebels now terrorise large swathes of the Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan and the Central African Republic, and he is wanted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court (ICC).
Regional armies are trying to hunt them down with the help of 100 US soldiers.
Mr Kony was due to sign a peace deal with the Ugandan government in 2008, but peace talks fell apart because the LRA leader wanted assurances that he and his allies would not be prosecuted.
Born in the early 1960s in Odek, a village east of Gulu, Mr Kony is remembered as an amiable boy.
“He played football and was a brilliant dancer,” one of his former classmates said, recalling the rebel leader’s days at Odek primary.
The LRA’s aims were heavily influence by the Holy Spirit Movement, a 1980s group that represented the Acholi people of northern Uganda.
This teenager had her lips, nose and ears cut off by the LRA
The movement was formed by Alice Lakwena, a former prostitute who was believed to be Mr Kony’s cousin.
They felt excluded from power after northern leader Milton Obote was overthrown in a military rebellion, and eventually replaced by current President Yoweri Museveni in 1986.
Ms Lakwena promised her followers immunity from the bullets of the Ugandan army, but Mr Museveni’s troops defeated her movement in 1988 and she fled to Kenya.
After this defeat, Mr Kony founded his own rebel group which over the next 20 years has gone on to abduct thousands of children to become fighters or sex slaves.
Mr Kony himself is thought to have at least 60 wives, as he and his senior commanders take the pick of the girls they capture.
He sees himself as a spirit medium.
“They will tell us what is going to happen. They say ‘you, Mr Joseph, tell your people that the enemy is planning to come and attack’,” he has explained.
Young abductees who have escaped from the LRA say Mr Kony would tell them he got his instructions from the Holy Spirit and would often preach in tongues.
“I will communicate with Museveni through the holy spirits and not through the telephone,” he once said.
He has created an aura of fear and mysticism around himself and his rebels follow strict rules and rituals.
“When you go to fight you make the sign of the cross first. If you fail to do this, you will be killed,” one young fighter who escaped from the LRA told US-based Human Rights Watch.
“You must also take oil and draw a cross on your chest, your forehead, and each shoulder, and you must make a cross in oil on your gun. They say that the oil is the power of the Holy Spirit.”
Mr Kony appears to believe that his role is to cleanse the Acholi people.
He uses biblical references to explain why it is necessary to kill his own people, since they have, in his view, failed to support his cause.
“If the Acholi don’t support us, they must be finished,” he told one abductee.
Christmas massacre
Six years ago, Mr Kony broke his silence and was interviewed on camera in his jungle base at the time in north-eastern DR Congo.
He was surrounded by some of what he estimated were his 3,000 heavily armed fighters, and insisted he was not the monster he was portrayed to be.
“Let me tell you clearly what happened in Uganda. Museveni went into the villages and cut off the ears of the people, telling the people that it was the work of the LRA. I cannot cut the ear of my brother; I cannot kill the eye of my brother.”
He gave the interview at the start of delicate peace process brokered by the authorities South Sudan.
But the negotiations saw splits in LRA ranks and Mr Kony’s deputy, Vincent Otti, who played a key role in the talks, died in mysterious circumstances.
It is believed he may have been murdered on the orders of Mr Kony, who refused to sign the deal.
The LRA later went on a major offensive, carrying out a massacre on Christmas Day 2008.
On that day and over the following three weeks, the LRA beat to death more than 800 people in north-eastern DR Congo and South Sudan, and abducted hundreds more.
I don’t have a really strong view on whether or not it’s advisable to dispatch a small number of US combat troops to help fight the Lord’s Resistance Army. My instinct is to be skeptical. I want to see less military intervention, not more. But Rush Limbaugh’s instinct is to embrace brutal murderers:
Now, up until today, most Americans have never heard of the combat Lord’s Resistance Army. And here we are at war with them. Have you ever heard of Lord’s Resistance Army, Dawn? How about you, Brian? Snerdley, have you? You never heard of Lord’s Resistance Army? Well, proves my contention, most Americans have never heard of it, and here we are at war with them. Lord’s Resistance Army are Christians. It means God. I was only kidding. Lord’s Resistance Army are Christians. They are fighting the Muslims in Sudan. And Obama has sent troops, United States troops to remove them from the battlefield, which means kill them. That’s what the lingo means, “to help regional forces remove from the battlefield,” meaning capture or kill. […]
Lord’s Resistance Army objectives. I have them here. “To remove dictatorship and stop the oppression of our people.” Now, again Lord’s Resistance Army is who Obama sent troops to help nations wipe out. The objectives of the Lord’s Resistance Army, what they’re trying to accomplish with their military action in these countries is the following: “To remove dictatorship and stop the oppression of our people; to fight for the immediate restoration of the competitive multiparty democracy in Uganda; to see an end to gross violation of human rights and dignity of Ugandans; to ensure the restoration of peace and security in Uganda, to ensure unity, sovereignty, and economic prosperity beneficial to all Ugandans, and to bring to an end the repressive policy of deliberate marginalization of groups of people who may not agree with the LRA ideology.” Those are the objectives of the group that we are fighting, or who are being fought and we are joining in the effort to remove them from the battlefield.
This post is illustrated with a photo of a man who survived a Lord’s Resistance Army machete attack and has the gashes on his head to prove it. You can read more about it courtesy of Human Rights Watch:
LRA forces attacked at least 10 villages, capturing, killing, and abducting hundreds of civilians, including women and children. The vast majority of those killed were adult men, whom LRA combatants first tied up and then hacked to death with machetes or crushed their skulls with axes and heavy wooden sticks. The dead include at least 13 women and 23 children, the youngest a 3-year-old girl who was burned to death. LRA combatants tied some of the victims to trees before crushing their skulls with axes.
The LRA also killed those they abducted who walked too slowly or tried to escape. Family members and local authorities later found bodies all along the LRA’s 105-kilometer journey through the Makombo area and the small town of Tapili. Witnesses interviewed by Human Rights Watch said that for days and weeks after the attack, this vast area was filled with the “stench of death.”
I think reasonable people can disagree as to whether or not chasing a relatively small band of depraved mass murderers around central africa is a reasonable thing for American military personel to be doing. But let’s make no mistake—these are depraved mass murderers. And yet Rush Limbaugh is pleased to welcome them as fellow Christian allies.
In his latest, as of this writing, blog post on his “Police Blotter,” Robert Spencer highlights a piece by Michael Medved entitled, “Disapproval of Islam is No Indication of Bigotry.” Medved writes:
The real question raised by all such expressions of public opinion should confront the nearly 40% of Americans who say they feel positively impressed by Islam and its influence.
What aspect of Muslim teaching and achievement most inspires such respondents? The daily reports of suicidal violence from every corner of the globe, with fellow-Muslims (invariably) as the primary victims? Or the well-known association of Islamic piety with open-hearted respect for the rights of women, homosexuals and infidels? Or is it the sterling record of economic progress, cutting age technology and social justice achieved by precisely those societies (like Saudi Arabia, Iran or Afghanistan) that take Shariah law most seriously? Or would Islam’s American admirers cite the record of Muslim charities in the U.S., the most prominent of which (remember the Holy Land Foundation?) have been shut down by the government for their lavish support of murderous terrorist groups like Hamas?
Quite naturally, the people who look favorably on Islam feel unconcerned over its ancient teachings or loathsome perversions in benighted corners of the globe, and focus instead on the law-abiding, patriotic, family-loving Muslims who have established benign communities throughout the United States. But even the decent people who reside in those communities rightly worry that their impressionable off-spring may become too religious, too zealous in their fervent commitment to The Prophet and his teachings.
Notice how, in a few short paragraphs, Medved cites such things as suicide terrorists, countries like Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Afghanistan, and Islam’s “ancient teachings” and infers that, therefore, Islam itself is bad.
There is no real parallel to this fear in Christian or Jewish homes. Christian parents may feel embarrassed by their religiously reborn children suddenly studying the Gospels obsessively, or witnessing obnoxiously to family or friends, but they needn’t worry about wayward kids blowing up themselves or others in the name of Jesus.
Really? What about the “Christian Bin Laden” who was arrested for plotting to blow up a women’s clinic? Or Timothy McVeigh? He was a known Christian. What about the Lord’s Resistance Army?Oh, but these are not Muslims, so they don’t count.
Medved goes on:
Jewish mothers and fathers may hate the scraggly beards and black hats adopted by a suddenly Orthodox generation, or resent the refusal to eat non-kosher food at home, but even the most fanatical of their kids feel scant temptation to travel to remote mountain hideouts as part of an international terror conspiracy.
Wow. Then, Mr. Medved must not have heard about the recent book Jewish Terrorism in Israel, written by two Israeli scholars, that documents Jewish terrorist activity dating from before the creation of the Jewish State. This is from the conclusion of the book:
It is true that radical Islamists to a certain extent justify their terrorism with their aspiration to help the Palestinian nation realize its nationalist goals and by claiming they are responding to the ongoing harm to Palestinians. However, even a movement such as Fatah, all the more so Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, and al-Qaeda, openly declare that they will not rest until the complete liberation of the Al-Aqsa Mosque is achieved [the Al-Aqsa Mosque is located on the same site in Old Jerusalem as the Temple Mount, the holiest site in Judaism].
On the other hand, although in much smaller numbers, there are Jews who regard the very presence of the mosques as an obstacle to the redemption of the people of Israel. A larger number hold a Kahanist worldview, according to which—irrespective of the conflict with the Palestinians—the Jewish state should cast out the Arab minority from within. Some of them are willing to try to implement this goal in a violent way or by means designed to bring about a violent escalation in the relations between Jews and Arabs.
Again, they don’t talk about Muslims, so it doesn’t count. Medved also failed to mention thecomments of Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, the head of Shas’s Council of Torah Sages and a senior Sephardi adjudicator, who said that Gentiles are meant to serve Jews:
“Goyim were born only to serve us. Without that, they have no place in the world – only to serve the People of Israel,” he said in his weekly Saturday night sermon on the laws regarding the actions non-Jews are permitted to perform on Shabbat.
In Israel, death has no dominion over them… With gentiles, it will be like any person – they need to die, but [God] will give them longevity. Why? Imagine that one’s donkey would die, they’d lose their money.
This is his servant… That’s why he gets a long life, to work well for this Jew,” Yosef said.
“Why are gentiles needed? They will work, they will plow, they will reap. We will sit like an effendi and eat.
The spiritual leader of the proposed Islamic Cultural Center near Ground Zero insists that the true problem is extremism, not Islam itself. “The real battlefront today is not between Muslims and non-Muslims,” declared Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf to the Council on Foreign Relations, “but between moderates of all faith traditions against the extremists of all faith traditions.”
This ignores the huge differences –both quantitative (Islamic radicals are vastly more numerous) and qualitative (Muslim fanatics endorse uniquely murderous rhetoric and deeds) – between extremists in one faith tradition and all others.
A Christian fundamentalist may talk about burning Korans; Muslim crazies regularly burn buildings- and people. Even after Pastor Terry Jones called off his idiotic barbeque of the Islamic holy book, Muslims reacted with deadly riots in Kashmir that killed 16 and wounded sixty, while burning several schools and other government buildings.
Some Americans may dislike the style of worship in Pentecostal or Catholic churches, but the faithful (no matter how tackily dressed) never surge out of their sanctuaries on Sundays with fury and blood-lust, looking for non-believers to stone and property to destroy. Every Friday, however, somewhere in the vast Muslim world, some congregations of the devout react to their uplifting prayer services by going directly from their mosques to rousing orgies of rage and violence.
This last statement is an over-reaching exaggeration at best. And, once again, Medved says these things while seeming to ignore all the atrocities committed by Christians and Jews in the name of their religion. It is all documented on the website: www.whatiftheyweremuslim.com. It goes to show that extremists are all the same – namely, extreme – and come from all walks of spiritual life.
But, that doesn’t fit into the neat little world of people like “Scholar” Robert Spencer and Michael Medved, and so they ingore the facts and continue on with their assertions about Islam.
Medved concludes:
This observation isn’t an expression of bigotry; it’s a factual product of reading the newspaper, and regularly monitoring international news. The lame-brained insistence that all faith traditions deserve equal respect (or equal condemnation) doesn’t demonstrate tolerance or broad-mindedness; it expresses, rather, a refusal to take any religion seriously enough for honest evaluation of its virtues and flaws.
Reservations about Islam, and even fears of the Muslim faith’s influence on the world at large, don’t constitute paranoia or intolerance. These concerns represent an honest and reasonable response on the part of a significant segment of the public to a serious global challenge to the values that Americans hold most dear.
No, Mr. Medved, your “observation” is nothing more than a repeating of the Muslim “Police Blotter,” citing the crimes of those who are Muslim and then projecting their criminality to all of Islam. It is as unfair as judging a town by its own police blotter. Now, I’m not saying that Mr. Medved is a bigot because he, obviously, has a negative view of Islam. I am only showing that the facts are not on his side.
The specter of terrorism is haunting the continent of Africa. In one of Africa’s longest running insurgencies, a rebel group is wanted for terrible war crimes. Infamous for regional atrocities including brutal massacres of innocent civilians, four African nations in conjunction with the African Union are now moving to reclassify this group, currently considered a rebellion, to the status of terrorist insurgents in an effort to bolster greater international support and cooperation.
In the last two years alone, this group of terrorists has killed about 2,000 people and displaced over 400,000 according to the United Nations. These terrorists cite the sacred scripture of a major world religion and believe they are fighting in a holy cause to overthrow infidel governments and replace them with God’s law. But who are they?
If you’ve been watching Fox News like many Americans, the answer couldn’t be easier: Muslims, of course. After all, Fox News anchor Brian Kilmeade recently proclaimed, “All terrorists are Muslims.” No doubt many in the anti-Muslim blogosphere agreed with his “factual” statement (at least before he was forced to make a half-hearted pro forma apology). But if you guessed Muslims, you’d be wrong. No, these terrorists aren’t fighting for Allah. They’re fighting for the Lord Jesus Christ (or so they claim, but we don’t think this is what Christ taught).
Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports via Yahoo News.
LIBREVILLE (AFP) – Central African countries plagued by the brutal rebellion of the Lord’s Resistance Army are working to reclassify the group as terrorists, the African Union said on Saturday.
At a meeting this week in the Central African Republic aimed at promoting a joint approach to the LRA, participants agreed to take steps to have the LRA classified as terrorists, rather than rebels, by the AU.
This would give affected countries greater access to international funds and require increased levels of judicial cooperation.
The group has killed about 2,000 people in the last two years, and displaced more than 400,000, according to the UN.
Representatives from Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Sudan met in Bangui on Wednesday and Thursday, along with Kenya, where they also agreed to step up joint military action.
“Participants agreed to the following concrete measures: the creation of a joint centre of operations, the creation of a joint taskforce to lead actions against the LRA, and the deployment of joint border patrols,” the AU said in a statement.
The LRA emerged in 1998 in northern Uganda as a rebel movement dedicated to overthrowing the east African country’s government and establishing a regime to uphold the Biblical Ten Commandments, but it was largely put down in its own country.
Today it is infamous for regional atrocities against civilians, including massacres, and its leaders are wanted for war crimes. Uganda launched a joint raid with DR Congo troops against it in December 2008, but failed to crush it or capture its chief, Joseph Kony.
A former Catholic altar boy from northern Uganda, Joseph Kony has waged war in central Africa for more than two decades.
This teenager had her lips, nose and ears cut off by the LRA
Lord’s Resistance Army
The Loonwatch.com Digest 