---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: John Ashworth <[email protected]> Date: Mon, Apr 30, 2012 at 12:02 PM Subject: [sudan-john-ashworth] Uganda says Sudan is backing LRA To: Group <[email protected]>
1. Ugandan army says Sudan is backing Joseph Kony's LRA BBC 30 April 2012 Last updated at 01:02 GMT The Ugandan army says the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) led by Joseph Kony is being supported and supplied by the Sudanese government. The LRA is accused of rape, mutilation, murder and the recruitment of child soldiers. A Ugandan army colonel told the BBC they had captured a member of the LRA who was wearing a Sudanese uniform, and carried its weapons and ammunition. The US has sent special forces to help in the hunt for Mr Kony. The 100-strong mission is working in four bases across Central Africa, where the LRA is moving in small groups, raiding and abducting villagers to become fighters, sex slaves or porters. An online video produced by the US pressure group Invisible Children earlier this year helped raise international awareness of the LRA's activities. Last month the African Union set up a 5,000-strong force to track down the fugitive warlord. Mr Kony and his close aides have been wanted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court since 2005. 'Tangible' fear Ugandan army spokesman Col Felix Kulayigye told the BBC it had information that the LRA was now moving into Sudan, including areas of Darfur controlled by the pro-government Janjaweed militia. "Kony knows we can't enter that region, so when the pressure is high in Central Africa he crosses into the Sudanese border [areas]," he said. During Sudan's two-decade civil war, Uganda backed rebels, who last year led South Sudan to independence, while Sudan's government was widely believed to have supported the LRA in order to weaken the Ugandan military capability. A senior Ugandan military commander recently said his country might intervene if war breaks out between the two Sudans, implying it would be on the side of the South. Mr Kony, whose army first emerged in northern Uganda, has evaded capture for more than 20 years as his forces terrorised large areas of Central Africa. He claims he has been fighting to install a government in Uganda based on the Biblical 10 Commandments. 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. The BBC's Dan Damon is one of a few journalists who has visited the US forces based in Obo, Central African Republic. He says fear of the LRA is tangible and real to people in Central Africa, especially in remote areas along the heavily forested and often unmarked borders between Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan and Central African Republic. The US forces told the BBC that they were not hunting for Kony themselves, but assisting local armies and coordinating intelligence and communications. Maria Wangechi from the medical charity Merlin says the LRA staged its most recent attack two weeks ago, but the presence of the US and AU forces has helped reassure civilians in the region. The LRA has now split into small groups. The BBC's Dan Damon says they do not use any form of electronic communications, but instead use runners and rendezvous points to keep in touch. He says that means the US electronic surveillance technology may not be so useful as the hunt for Joseph Kony continues. END1 2. For U.S. Soldiers in Africa, a Quarry Is Famous, but the Jungle Is Vast By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN NYT Published: April 29, 2012 OBO, Central African Republic — It has got to be one of the oddest matchups in United States military history: 100 of America’s most elite Special Operations troops, aided by night vision scopes and satellite imagery, helping African forces find a wig-wearing, gibberish-speaking fugitive rebel commander named Joseph Konywho has been hiding out in the jungle for years with a band of child soldiers and a harem of dozens of child brides. No one knows exactly where Mr. Kony is, but here in Obo, at a remote forward operating post in the Central African Republic, Green Berets pore over maps and interview villagers, searching for clues. Their biggest challenge, they say, is Mr. Kony’s turf, a vast expanse the size of California in the middle of Africa that is so rugged it renders much of the American gadgetry useless. Picture towering trees that blot out the sun, endless miles of elephant grass, and swirling brown rivers that coil like intestines and are infested with crocodiles; one of them recently ate a Ugandan member of the force. “This is not going to be an easy slog,” said Ken Wright, a Navy SEAL captain and the commander of the joint American detachment assisting in the Kony hunt. Still, in the past several months since they arrived, the Americans say Mr. Kony’s army of around 300 fighters is showing signs of cracking. No longer is Mr. Kony able to direct the massacres he directed just a few years ago when his fighters waylaid entire towns andhacked hundreds of people to death. His armed acolytes are breaking up into small, desperate groups, American officials say, and for the first time they are abandoning many of the women and children they had abducted who cannot keep up as they flee deeper into the jungle. The American soldiers emphasize that they have no interest in participating in actual combat — “This is strictly an advise and assist role,” Captain Wright said, meant to strengthen the capabilities of African troops. Their deployment is emblematic of the Pentagon’s new military strategy for Africa, unfurled earlier this year, in which Pentagon officials say they will develop “innovative, low-cost, and small-footprint approaches to achieve our security objectives on the African continent.” Already, American-paid contractors and intelligence agents are working quietly in Somalia. And small groups of American advisers have been training African armies for years, though it is not clear how well this always turns out. Just a few weeks ago, Mali’s democratic government was ousted in a coup led by none other than an American-trained army captain. Yet no other American military project in sub-Saharan Africa has generated the attention — and the high expectations — as the pursuit of Mr. Kony, partly thanks to a wildly popular video on Mr. Kony’s notorious elusiveness and brutality, “Kony 2012,” that set YouTube records with tens of millions of hits in a matter of days. Gen. Carter F. Ham, the overall commander of American forces in Africa, has a “Kony 2012” poster tacked to his office door. As one American official put it: “Let’s be honest, there was some constituent pressure here. Did ‘Kony 2012’ have something to do with this? Absolutely.” Mr. Kony started out in a northern Uganda village more than 25 years ago as a Catholic altar boy who spoke in tongues. People said he was a prophet. He went on to form a rebel force, the Lord’s Resistance Army, bent on overthrowing Uganda’s government and ruling the country with the Ten Commandments. Soon enough, though, Mr. Kony was breaking every one. His fighters mowed down impoverished villagers, sawed off lips, and kidnapped thousands of children, brainwashing them for use as tiny killing machines. Mr. Kony often donned wigs and costumes, saying he was possessed by spirits including one named, “Who Are You?” In 2006, Ugandan troops pushed Mr. Kony out of Uganda into the lawless borderlands where the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Central African Republic and what is now South Sudan meet. By this point, Uganda had become one of America’s closest African allies, and when the United States was deeply worried about Somalia’s becoming a terrorist sanctuary, Uganda was the first country to step forward with peacekeepers, scoring major Pentagon points. In December 2008, the new American military command for Africa, known by the acronym Africom, helped plan an attack on Mr. Kony’s camp in Congo, dispatching a team of military advisers to Uganda. But Mr. Kony escaped before the Ugandan helicopter gunships even took off — apparently he had been tipped off. Worse, his army slaughtered hundreds of nearby villagers in revenge, leaving behind scorched huts and crushed skulls. The American government continued running a semicovert logistics and intelligence operation to extend the Ugandan army’s reach so it could chase Mr. Kony across the region. The United States also pumped in more than $500 million in development aid to northern Uganda, turning a former battlefield into a vibrant piece of the Ugandan economy with new banks and hotels. But many Americans, including the advocacy group Invisible Children, which produced the Kony2012 video, wanted more. They pressured Congress to pass the Lord’s Resistance Army Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act in 2010, which paved the way for Mr. Obama to send in the special forces late last year. One Army Green Beret officer based in Obo — Captain Greg, who under ground rules with visiting reporters did not give his last name — said Sunday that he had spent the bulk of his time reviewing intelligence reports with Ugandan and Central African counterparts in an old brick house called the “fusion center.” “Different things pop up all the time,” he said. “Everything from people asking us to fix their broken refrigerator to someone telling us about an attack that ends up not being the L.R.A. or even an attack.” American officials believe Mr. Kony is hiding in an especially remote corner of the Central African Republic, though some Ugandan officials said he had moved into Sudan, with the blessing of the Sudanese government. The Central African Republic would be an excellent place to hide. Its national army is one of the region’s smallest and weakest. Its terrain is primordially thick. And its infrastructure is shambolic. Because there are so few roads and telephones, it often takes weeks for news of an attack to reach the fusion center. By the time the Green Berets sift the information and help dispatch the Ugandan hunting squads, Mr. Kony is gone. The Americans say they never go on patrols themselves. United Nations officials say Mr. Kony’s forces have stepped up their attacks since the Americans arrived, with more than 130 this year, though the attacks tend to be small, often with no one killed. About a week ago, Mr. Kony’s fighters struck a village in Central African Republic and made off with the very material he needs to sustain his movement — several abducted children. Kony has often said that all he needs is 10 men to regenerate. This past week, Betty Bigombe, a Ugandan minister, revealed that she had nearly worked out a deal in 2006 for Mr. Kony, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity, to be exiled to Libya — Col. Muammar Qaddafi had agreed to take him. But in the end, Ms. Bigombe said, Mr. Kony backed away, saying he didn’t trust Arabs. As one American official put it: “There’s only one way this is going to end, and that’s with Kony shot in the back, running for his life, deep in the forest.” http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/30/world/africa/kony-tracked-by-us-forces-in-central-africa.html?_r=1&hp END2 ______________________ John Ashworth Sudan, South Sudan Advisor [email protected] +254 725 926 297 (Kenya mobile) +211 919 695 362 (South Sudan mobile) +27 82 050 1235 (South Africa mobile) +44 750 304 1790 (UK/international) +88 216 4334 0735 (Thuraya satphone) PO Box 52002 - 00200, Nairobi, Kenya This is a personal e-mail address and the contents do not necessarily reflect the views of any organisation -- The content of this message does not necessarily reflect John Ashworth's views. Unless explicitly stated otherwise, John Ashworth is not the author of the content and the source is always cited. 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