Kony reveals all in interview
By Frank Nyakairu
April 15, 2004
KAMPALA - The reclusive LRA rebel leader Joseph Kony has given his first-ever
interview and announced he might be relocating to Ethiopia.
The interview is published in the latest edition of The Referendum, a weekly
magazine run by exiles from southern Sudan based in Kenya.
In the interview, Kony speaks of his fear and suspicion of President Museveni
and plans to establish a regime based on the biblical Ten Commandments.
The rebel leader also reveals plans to relocate his rebel group from southern
Sudan to Ethiopia, in the light of an impending peace deal between the SPLA and the
Sudanese government.
"I am considering other options due to some - expected events from the Sudanese
lords," Kony says in the interview.
"I have been invited by some lords in Oromo lands in Ethiopia and I will go
there soon," he told The Referendum magazine.
Kony, who has always received support from the Khartoum government in
retaliation for Kampala's support for the SPLA, has since fallen out of favour as an
internationally brokered peace deal takes shape in southern Sudan.
Aware of the precarious situation such a deal would put him in, Kony says in the
interview: "I want to tell the Sudanese lords to keep away from us because if they
attack us as they have done it this month (March 2004), we will fight and set their
villages on fires."
Kony says his Lord's Resistance Army, which has been blamed for the rape, murder
and abduction in the north, said the group "is fighting for the application of Ten
Commandments of God and we are also fighting to liberate people living in occupied
Northern Uganda."
The magazine says the interview was conducted on March 6 in Sudan's second
largest city of Juba.
The interviewer, who is not named, is described as a former bodyguard of the
rebel leader.
He admits to receiving support from Sudan and visiting Khartoum four times since
1997.
Asked why he did not hold peace talks with government, Kony revealed his
distrust of the President.
"President Museveni cannot talk peace, he is killer and he wanted to kill me by
all means. I have asked the lords of the LRA to kill Museveni," Kony said.
The chief of Military Intelligence, Col. Noble Mayombo, later told The Monitor
that Kony could run but could not hide.
"He is an international criminal; we can get him anywhere he goes even if it
means signing a protocol with Ethiopia we shall," Mayombo said.
The acting Presidential Press Secretary, Mr Onapito Ekomoloit, rejected Kony's
claims against Mr Museveni.
"That is absolute nonsense and an insult to Acholi people. Kony has been
butchering innocent Acholi people systematically and we have systematically been
trying to defend them," Onapito said by telephone.
Sudan magazine interviews Kony
April 14 - 21, 2004
In this interview, [LRA rebel leader Joseph] Kony tells The
Referendum reporter, whose name is withheld, his plans to speak out with media as part
of his war against Ugandan government.
Mr Kony
He complains that he [has] been held hostage by Sudanese government.
"I am told to fight Museveni but I am not allow to talk to media
people like this interview is not permit by the authorities," complained Kony, he
refused to take photos alone on the grounds that he fear (sic) Museveni would
intercept his place and direct missiles with aim [to] kill him.
He decided to joint pictures with some of his commanders but for
technical reasons, the development of photos proved poor. The interview was conducted
at former ODA buildings in Southern Sudan town of Juba on March 6, 2004.
The interviewee was Kony's guard for many years.
The excerpts of the interpreted interview from Acholi to English is
below:
First one would like to thank your security men and women for making
this meeting possible. It is great privilege for The Referendum magazine to talk to
you.
Before I begin my interview, one would like to know title given to
you, do you called yourself commander Kony like Sudanese rebel leaders?
I am Lord Joseph Kony, or refer to me as lordship. All liberators
are lords not commanders.
Lord Kony: Being a new magazine in Southern Sudan, we know little or
nothing about you as well as about LRA, can you give the readers general ideas about
your movement?
First I risked to accept the interview because I want to maintain
direct links with Sudanese lords, especially the Acholis of Southern Sudan. I still
remembered the good old days we spent with Southern Sudanese lords during these years
of struggle. Without the support of Lord William Nyon, LRA would have finished.
It was Lord Nyon who took us to his allies in Juba when the
occupation forces of Yoweri Museveni killed many Acholi men, women and children. I am
also happy with Sudanese Acholics and Madis of Sudan for their supports to LRA during
all these years.
Coming to the point of how I started the movement, it was in 1992,
dreams of the spirit came to me one night and asked me to launch a Lord Resistance
Movement.
I spent 60 days praying and appealing to God to strengthen faith so
that I liberate the people of Uganda from corruption, sins and immoral thinking. I
want the rule of law of the government to be based on the Ten Commandments prescribed
by God.
Q: Your Lordship, where did you launch your movement?
When the dream came to me, I went to the forests of Talanga in the
borderline between Sudan and Uganda and conducted several prayers after that I went
back to my village where I started to recruit more lords for resistant purpose.
I was immediately chased out from Uganda by the occupation forces.
We ran to the top of the mountains in South Sudan. There, Sudanese lords led by lord
Nyon helped us.
We sent our fighters to Gong, Ludu and Palata for military training
and also I was involved in faith orientation in all training.
Q: Your lordship, you didn't say who were your trainers?
The trainers were former Acholic army officers, who were dismissed
by Milton Obote and by occupation force of Museveni.
The Sudanese lords and their allies supported us in training the
Ugandan recruits especially when the Sudanese lords split their movement into small
groups. We were getting food, arms, and medical treatments for the wounded from our
brothers in Sudanese government.
The Sudanese also introduced us to their allies in Khartoum and Juba
where we were fully supported to defeat the occupation forces in Acholic land.
Q: How do you come in contacts with the Sudanese lords and who were
supporting you in Khartoum and here in Juba?
When Lord Nyon split from other Sudanese lords, Lord Nyon contacted
us in the Acholi areas in Sudan for survival of his forces, he found it difficult to
maintain his forces so we joined our forces and Acholis were guiding us because Lord
Nyon and us do not know the local routes of Eastern Bank.
We support him and he too support us. When Lord Nyon returns to Lord
Garang, our position was already good because some deserters SPLA mainly from Acholi,
Madi and Muandara men started to join LRA.
Q: You did not talk of Khartoum or Juba?
I have been to Khartoum four times now, the first visit was in 1997
but I came regularly to Juba.
Q: But I have seen your Lordship in Khartoum Armed Forces Officer's
Club in 2002?
How did you manage to see me when the security was strict? It is
true; I was there that year together with lords from Equatoria Defence Force (EDF).
Q: Looking at the political developments in Sudan, those people whom
you termed as lords from Southern Sudan and Sudan government are likely going to sign
a peace agreement, end their war and establish stable ties with Uganda, do you think
this will affect your existence in the borderlines of the two countries?
LRA always depend on God strengthens. We will keep on the fight
until we liberate Acholi lands from occupation. I am considering other options due to
some - expected events from the Sudanese lords.
I have been invited by some lords in Oromo lands in Ethiopia and I
will go there soon but I want to tell the Sudanese lords to keep away from us because
if they attack us as they have done it this month (March-2004) this year, we will
fight and set their villages on fires.
LRA is operating inside Uganda but also we deserve to protect our
Acholis and Madi tribes in Sudan. We are betrayed by Sudanese lords, first by Nyon,
Machar and Akol and now EDF which had just declared us snakes in their returns to Lord
Garang.
Q: Your lordship, are you fighting to apply Ten Commandments of God
or you are fighting to liberate Acholi tribe?
LRA is fighting for the application of Ten Commandments of God and
we are also fighting to liberate people living in occupied Northern Uganda.
Q: Can you not achieve these goals through, peaceful means, your
lordship?
I was asked by God to fight for these goals. Uganda will never
experience peace unless we go back to God to strengthen us.
Q: Your lordship, Uganda President said one time in the media
reports that he want to talk to you, he also said he asked the church leaders to
mediate for peaceful talks, your comment?
President Museveni cannot talk peace, he is killer and he wanted to
kill me by all means. I have asked the lords of the LRA to kill Museveni, Lord Martin
Kenyi of Sudanese lords who we have supported all these years.
We will kill Sudanese lords of EDF wherever they are found. God made
me to dream for the application of Ten Commandments, I started to fight for his cause.
Q: Your lordship, President Museveni reportedly says he want to talk
with your lordship and he sent his telephone number to you, why don't you try to
contact him because he may accept the application of ten commandments. Your comments?
I have just told you that Museveni and Obote are killers and they
wanted me to use the phone call so that his spies can intercept the talks and direct
his assassination on me.
I have no access to phones or radios calls and that is why Museveni
killers failed to locate our lords inside Uganda or in Southern Sudan. I will
communicate with Museveni through the holy spirits and not through the telephone.
Q: So you do not want peace talks. Your lordship?
My dream is for the application of Ten Commandments. I was asked by
God to liberate the people and apply Ten Commandments.
Q: Your lordship, do you have any spiritual dream for how best can
the Nile waters be share by nations?
Yes. My dream about the Nile waters is that, the water should flow
to Egypt. The killers of Museveni wanted to stop the water from reaching other
nations.
Q: But we have been told by many sources that your lordship war is
sponsored by Egyptians and other Arab League nations who want to destabilise or engage
Uganda at war so that Uganda do not implement development projects by using the Nile
waters for irrigation.
Can you react to these allegations?
I don't know Egypt so I cannot be hired by people of Egypt whom I do
not know. How can a person like me be hired? Egypt and Nile waters only come to me
through the spirit of God.
Q: Your Lordship, in Khartoum in 2002, you were reported or alleged
to have met Egyptian officials, what have you discussed in those meetings?
I met many people in Khartoum that year but I cannot remember if I
happened to meet officials from Egypt.
Q: But what made your lordship to dream of water flow to Egypt only
rather than Ethiopia, Sudan or other nations if the allegations which say, that you
are hired by Egypt to engage Uganda at war is not true?
Stop here, please I have no connections with Egypt and I want this
issue closed, (his eye turned reds and he declared that the interview end)
Q: Thank you for taking much of your time but I just wanted to put
the last question Your Lordship, you and your lords are reported to be raping women,
killing civilians and looting people's properties, can Your Lordship explain why your
lords do ungodly practices and you claimed to be a man of God's dreams?
All the allegations are not true. Museveni killers are the ones
doing ungodly practices.
The Mulindwas Communication Group
"With Yoweri Museveni, Uganda is in anarchy"
Groupe de communication Mulindwas
"avec Yoweri Museveni, l'Ouganda est dans l'anarchie"
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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