In the past week, a 30-minute video about Joseph Kony and his rebel group, the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), has received more than 90 million internet hits. Viewers of the video now know, if they didn’t before, that he is a wanted man with much blood on his hands. For years Human Rights Watch has investigated the LRA’s horrors, from Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo to the Central African Republic (CAR) and South Sudan. We have visited remote massacre sites and listened to hundreds of victims and survivors who want their stories heard.
We’ve spent years investigating the horrors perpetrated by the LRA in central Africa — Uganda, Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic (CAR), and South Sudan. We gathered evidence at massacre sites — wooden clubs covered in dried blood, rubber strips from bicycle tires used to tie up the victims, and freshly dug graves – and spoke to hundreds of boys and girls forced to fight for his army or held captive as sex slaves. And we’re elated that #stopKony is a trending topic on Twitter – if anyone deserves global notoriety it’s Kony.
President Obama needs to put this principle into practice, and there is no better case for the humanitarian use of force than the urgent need to arrest Joseph Kony, the ruthless leader of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), and protect the civilians who are his prey.
The former Mozambican President Joaquim Chissano will give his final briefing to the United Nations Security Council on July 15 in his role as the secretary-general's special envoy for the areas of east and central Africa affected by the Lord's Resistance Army and their two-decade campaign of violence. Although Chissano's mandate was suspended as of June 30, abuses by the LRA - ruthless rebels whose actions have had a devastating effect on civilians in four countries - continue.
The Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) commanders, wanted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity, have killed numerous civilians and abducted thousands of children across four countries over the last two decades. Uganda’s "Operation Lightning Thunder," with limited US support, failed to root out the LRA from its Congolese bases. US - not Ugandan - leadership is a key component in any multilateral strategy to protect civilians from ongoing LRA attacks and to apprehend the groups’ commanders.
The pace of proceedings is quickening at the International Criminal Court. On July 3, Jean-Pierre Bemba, the former vice president of Congo charged with war crimes, arrived in custody in The Hague. And today, July 14, the ICC prosecutor is expected to request new arrest warrants based on alleged crimes in Darfur against senior Sudanese officials, reportedly including the Sudanese president. Those are real accomplishments for a judicial institution whose underlying statute is now seeing only its 10th birthday.
In the past week, a 30-minute video about Joseph Kony and his rebel group, the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), has received more than 90 million internet hits. Viewers of the video now know, if they didn’t before, that he is a wanted man with much blood on his hands. For years Human Rights Watch has investigated the LRA’s horrors, from Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo to the Central African Republic (CAR) and South Sudan. We have visited remote massacre sites and listened to hundreds of victims and survivors who want their stories heard.