Looks like another resource war (oil, gold, other minerals) is
beginning....
Barry
https://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/15/world/africa/barack-obama-sending-100-armed-advisers-to-africa-to-help-fight-lords-resistance-army.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha22
Armed U.S. Advisers to Help Fight African Renegade Group
By THOM SHANKER and RICK GLADSTONE
Published: October 14, 2011
WASHINGTON — President Obama said Friday that he had ordered the
deployment of 100 armed military advisers to central Africa to help
regional forces combat the Lord’s Resistance Army, a notorious
renegade group that has terrorized villagers in at least four
countries with marauding bands that kill, rape, maim and kidnap with
impunity.
Enlarge This Image
Associated Press
Joseph Kony, leader of the Lord's Resistance Army, in 2006 in the
Democratic Republic of Congo.
Related
The Lede Blog: Human Rights Group Welcomes Obama's Decision to Send
Troops to Uganda (October 14, 2011)
Uganda Enlists Former Rebels to End a War (April 11, 2010)
At War Blog: An Insider’s Portrait of Joseph Kony (December 31, 2010)
Times Topic: Lord's Resistance Army
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The deployment represents a muscular escalation of American military
efforts to help fight the Lord’s Resistance Army, which originated as
a Ugandan rebel force in the 1980s and morphed into a fearsome
cultlike group of fighters. It is led by Joseph Kony, a self-
proclaimed prophet known for ordering village massacres, recruiting
prepubescent soldiers, keeping harems of child brides and mutilating
opponents.
“For more than two decades, the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) has
murdered, raped and kidnapped tens of thousands of men, women and
children in central Africa,” Mr. Obama wrote in a letter to Congress
announcing the military deployment. “The LRA continues to commit
atrocities across the Central African Republic, the Democratic
Republic of the Congo and South Sudan that have a disproportionate
impact on regional security.”
The decision by Mr. Obama to deploy armed military advisers into the
region was welcomed by human rights advocates who have chronicled the
atrocities committed by Mr. Kony and his subordinates. But it also
raises the risk of putting American military personnel in harm’s way
in another region while the United States is winding down the wars in
Iraq and Afghanistan.
Mr. Obama wrote that he had decided to act because it was “in the
national security and foreign policy interests of the United States.”
He also wrote that the deployment was justified by a law passed by
Congress in May 2010, the Lord’s Resistance Army Disarmament and
Northern Uganda Recovery Act, which favored “increased, comprehensive
U.S. efforts to help mitigate and eliminate the threat posed by the
LRA to civilians and regional stability.”
American efforts to combat the group also took place during the
administration of President George W. Bush, which authorized the
Pentagon to send a team of 17 counterterrorism advisers to train
Ugandan troops and provided millions of dollars worth of aid,
including fuel trucks, satellite phones and night-vision goggles, to
the Ugandan Army. Those efforts scattered segments of the Lord’s
Resistance Army in recent years; its remnants dispersed and regrouped
in Uganda’s neighbors. In spring 2010, apparently desperate for new
conscripts, Mr. Kony’s forces killed hundreds of villagers in the
Congolese jungle and kidnapped hundreds more, according to witnesses
interviewed at the time. Unlike the earlier effort, the 100 military
advisers sent by Mr. Obama will be armed. They will be providing
assistance and advice to their African hosts, Mr. Obama said, and
“will not themselves engage LRA forces unless necessary for self-
defense.”
The initial deployment will be in Uganda, the president said, and the
advisers will operate in South Sudan, Central African Republic and the
Democratic Republic of Congo “subject to the approval of each
respective host nation.”
A senior Pentagon official underscored that the American military
personnel would not be operating independently nor carrying out
unilateral operations.
The official also said the United States had provided about $33
million in support to regional efforts to battle the Lord’s Resistance
Army since 2008, an effort that has not been sufficient to guarantee
that local security forces dismantle the group.
One effort has trained a light infantry battalion of the Democratic
Republic of Congo’s military, with that unit now deployed in the Dungu
region of northeastern Congo, where the Lord’s Resistance Army is
operating.
The Special Operations forces assigned to the new mission “bring the
experience and technical capability to train, advise and assist
partner security forces in support of programs designed to support
internal security,” the Pentagon official said.
“Our intention is to provide the right balance of strategic and
tactical experience to supplement host nation military efforts,” the
official said. “Ultimately, Africans are responsible for African
security, but we remain committed to our partners to enable their
efforts to provide for their own security.”
Tom Malinowski, the Washington director of Human Rights Watch, said
his group had been advocating for such a deployment. Putting more
skilled advisers in the field with the armed forces of these countries
would be a significant improvement over the previous level of
assistance, he said. “I would not suggest that U.S. forces should be
fighting the L.R.A. themselves,” he said, but “there are lot of things
they can do with this kind of deployment that they weren’t able to do
previously.”
Mr. Malinowski also said the Lord’s Resistance Army probably has only
a few hundred fighters, “but they are incredibly vicious and have
committed numerous massacres. It’s a group that seems to exist for no
other purpose than to kill.”
Thom Shanker reported from Washington, and Rick Gladstone from New York.
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: October 14, 2011
An earlier version of this article misspelled Tom Malinowski’s surname
as Malinowsky.
A version of this article appeared in print on October 15, 2011, on
page A9 of the New York edition with the headline: Armed U.S. Advisers
to Help Fight African Renegade Group._______________________________________________
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