LRA Update

During last Friday's whistle-stop visit to Uganda, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton refused to be drawn on any questions relating to the hunt for Joseph Kony and his Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). Nevertheless, over recent months, a number of details have begun to emerge about both the pattern, and the progress, of the operation. In particular, in late May, the US Army's Special Operations Command in Africa (SOCAFRICA) provided the first update on its own deployment of 100 Green Berets to the region (who having arrived in the field in November last year, are acting as military advisers to various regional armies). The update confirmed a number of important details, including the fact that the US Special Forces, despite being primarily based in Entebbe, Uganda, have established a number of forward operating bases ('Combined Operations Fusion Centres') in areas of LRA activity: the borderlands between the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the Central African Republic (CAR) and South Sudan. The SOCAFRICA statement also claimed some initial successes for the US deployment, arguing that it has already assisted regional armies to improve their tracking and pursuit of LRA elements, and has thus enabled them to increase the pressure on Kony’s men. Indeed, the US statement even went as far as to say that as a result of the new joint operations, the LRA has now been reduced to ‘survival mode’ only. 

When President Obama first announced the Green Berets’ deployment in mid-October, many commentators initially dismissed the move as largely symbolic, and as aimed primarily at assuaging US-based anti-LRA lobby groups. In particular, the operation was criticized for being based out of Entebbe - which is several hundred miles away from the DRC-CAR-South Sudan border zone - for the somewhat passive role in which it cast the US troops (at the time, US Assistant Secretary of Defence Alexander Vershbow was keen to stress that the Green Berets would not directly engage the LRA, but would instead act only as trainers and advisors to regional militaries), and for its ‘time-limited’ mandate. In addition, the deployment looked unlikely to achieve much in a context in which the Ugandan Army (UPDF) – who had been the primary trackers of Kony’s men in recent years – were beginning to draw down their own anti-LRA operation, in light of growing fatigue and indiscipline amongst its expeditionary force, and due to the UPDF’s growing commitments elsewhere.

However, in recent months both the US deployment, and the regional military efforts that this is designed to assist, have received a major fillip from the enormous public and NGO response to Invisible Children’s ‘KONY 2012’ campaign video. Specifically, the huge amount of interest that the video has generated – which following its uploading to YouTube in early March, has been viewed over 92 million times – has done much to galvanize US policy-makers, in particular, into developing a more robust response to the LRA crisis. Moreover, these efforts have fared well with a White House administration keen to demonstrate its own tough stance on foreign policy matters in the run-up to November’s presidential election. It is in this context, then, that in late April President Obama made a speech at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, in Washington DC, in which he indicated that the Green Berets’ mission was to be both expanded, and extended (and in relation to the latter, he explicitly removed the former ‘time-limit’ on the operation). Since then, the US force, although continuing to avoid any direct engagements with the LRA, has also become more active in the field, especially in the area of intelligence gathering (and SOCAFRICA's recent statement also stated that the US are now planning to increase its surveillance overflights of the LRA-effected areas as well). The public response to KONY 2012 has also helped to galvanize Kampala into renewed action against the rebel group. Thus, in late March, President Museveni announced that the UPDF would be contributing the lion’s share of troops to a new 5,000 strong African Union (AU) force to take on the LRA. Although details of the AU mission have yet to be finalized, this will likely involve both a reallocation of the 1,500 or so Uganda soldiers currently based in the LRA-affected areas, and a further UPDF deployment to the zone. For its part, the Congolese Army (FARDC) had already deployed their elite, and US-trained, 391st Battalion to the LRA-affected areas in order to bolster their own efforts against Kony’s men. At the time of their deployment, in April 2011, the 391st Battalion replaced former units of the National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP) who although formerly integrated into the FARDC, largely operate outside of its command and control structures. But since early March, these troops have become much more active in their anti-LRA activities, and have received additional anti-insurgency training from the Green Beret trainers (at a UN Stabilization Mission in the Congo, MONUSCO, Operations Centre in Dungu Town, in Haut-Uele District). In all of these ways, then, it is worth noting that Invisible Children’s campaign, whatever its other shortcomings, has been highly successful in achieving its primary objective, of achieving an expanded US operation in Central Africa, in support of regional militaries’ own anti-LRA efforts.

Moreover, over recent months, all of this reinvigorated military activity has resulted in a number of significant successes. For example, when on 10th March, a detachment of LRA fighters tried to attack a village along the road between Dungu and Faradje Town, they were repelled by an FARDC patrol (who also killed 2 LRA cadres in the process, and recovered a number of weapons). However, even better was to come in on 12th May, when another group of 30 LRA fighters was ambushed by a UPDF patrol on the banks of the River Mbou (on the CAR side of the border with the DRC). In the ensuing exchanges, the Ugandans captured 3 of the rebel fighters – among them one of the LRA’s most senior commanders, and one of Kony’s most trusted aides, Maj.-Gen. Caesar Achellam Otto. Subsequent accounts of Achellam’s arrest were somewhat confused on the question of whether the ambush and capture had been a chance event, or whether it was the result of an intelligence-led operation. In addition, at least one commentator, Angelo Izama, of the Kampala-based NGO Fanaka Kwawote, suggested that Achellam may have even handed himself in – having been seen as a potential defector for several years now (and the relatively comfortable conditions in which the Maj.-Gen. has been held since his arrest may be further evidence that such a deal had indeed been done). Nevertheless, whatever the circumstances of Achellam’s capture, there is little doubt the arrest has done much to further the impression that the net is indeed now closing on Joseph Kony himself.

Yet whether all of this means that the LRA really has indeed now been reduced to ‘survival mode’ remains unclear. Certainly, recent months have also seen the group narrow its area of operations. Thus, although Kony himself may now be in Darfur, and at least some of his men remain in the CAR, since the turn of the year most of his group’s 200 or so remaining fighters have been concentrated in a relatively narrow corridor running roughly west-east from Bangadi Town, through Dungu, to Faradje, in North-eastern DRC. Moreover, although these fighters (who now operate in cells of between 3-30 men) have continued to carry out large numbers of attacks against civilian populations, recent predations have involved much lower levels of violence that has become the norm in recent years. For example, in 33 LRA attacks carried out in North-eastern DRC between Jan-March 2012, 3 civilian deaths were recorded. Most of the attacks appear to have been orientated towards the looting of supplies, rather than to the abduction of additional fighters (as would have been the case until just a few months ago). However, whether this narrowing of territory, and reduction in levels of LRA violence, can be seen as a result of external pressure being brought to bear on the rebel group – through more effective patrolling of surrounding areas, and a stifling of supply lines – remains unclear. Certainly, this is the story that both SOCAFRICA and the UPDF are keen to promulgate to the world’s media. Yet it is just as likely that these developments are instead an outcome of tactical decisions made by Joseph Kony himself – perhaps made in the context of last September’s ‘council of war’ of senior LRA commanders (held in the CAR) – both to concentrate his remaining force in the dense forests around Dungu, and to try to gain the support of surrounding populations there (which will become more important over time, especially if the LRA remain in Haut-Uele for an extended period of time).

As US intelligence gathering gains pace, and as regional military efforts become more coordinated, both as a result of US training, and in line with the AU’s new plan, pressure on the LRA will certainly increase. However, with the possibility of further material support from Khartoum – who continue to view the LRA as a useful proxy against the South Sudanese Army (SPLA) and the UPDF – Kony may decide to ‘bide his time’, by simply ‘bedding down’ his force in the least accessible parts of Haut-Uele until the current challenges have passed. Certainly, this sort of tactic has worked very well for him in the past. However, whilst this development might bode well for local civilian populations in the short term, it will also do little to diminish the LRA’s overall, and ongoing, capacity for violence.

'KONY 2012', and a military solution to the LRA crisis

On 2nd March, the US advocacy group Invisible Children posted a 30 min campaign video for their new campaign 'KONY 2012', on the video sharing website Vimeo. Following its transfer to YouTube as well, the film quickly became an internet phenomenon. As a result of its circulation on social networking sites such as Facebook, between Tuesday 6th March and Thursday 8th, the video had been viewed over 21 million times. As of the time of writing, the film's YouTube page records more than 46 million hits (for anyone who hasn't yet seen the film, there is a link to it at the end of this post).

The film focuses on Joseph Kony, leader of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), and implores its imagined US audience to lobby for a military response to Kony's crimes (i.e. to pressure the US government to expand its current military deployment in LRA-affected areas, with a view to arresting Kony). Although it is terribly self-indulgent (on the part of Invisible Children founder Jason Russell), the film is a very slick polemic, more in the style of a Michael Moore documentary rather than a traditional piece of investigative journalism. As such, it relies more on an appeal to emotion - the shock and anger that any rational viewer will feel when confronted with images of Kony's crimes - rather than on a balanced assessment of facts, in its attempt to persuade viewers to join the campaign. As a result, detail goes out of the window, with the entire history of the LRA being reduced to only the actions and intentions of Kony himself, and with the only issue emerging from the 25-year long insurgency being that of child soldiers - both gross over-simplifications (to say the least). In addition, the complexities of the USA's relations with the International Criminal Court (ICC) - in which an arrested Kony would presumably be tried - are never referred to, of course. Nevertheless, the film has been an enormous internet hit.

In the short period of time since KONY 2012 'went viral' a great deal has already been written about the film, both in traditional media outlets, and in the 'blogsphere' (for an example of the former, see the coverage in the Guardian, for an entry point into the latter, see this digest, published on whydev.org). Whilst much of what has been written so far has responded positively to the film, a large number of sources have also been highly critical of the documentary, and of Invisible Children's motives for making it. For example, across the acres of text that have already been generated in response to the video, very many commentators have already raised concerns over everything from the charity's very style of 'celebrity humanitarianism', to its financial accounts (Invisible Children's own response to these charges can be found here). However, by far the greatest criticism of KONY 2012 has been of its central thesis; that the best way to deal with Kony and his Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) is through military intervention, and that this will have the greatest chance of success if carried out in partnership with the Ugandan Army (UPDF). On the one hand, both journalists and bloggers appear to be quite shocked by the very notion that an humanitarian advocacy group such as Invisible Children should be pushing for any form of military engagement at all - given that all forms of violence are apparently at odds with the very ideals of humanitarianism (and this certainly wasn't helped by the subsequent emergence on a number of websites of a rather goofy photograph of Jason Russell and some of his co-founders posing with weapons and soldiers of the Sudan People's Liberation Army, SPLA; see here). On the other hand, commentators are also appalled by the idea that international forces should work alongside the UPDF, given that army's own poor human rights record. 

So what then should we make of KONY 2012, and of these criticisms of the film? Perhaps the first point to make is that there is in fact nothing particularly new in what Invisible Children are advocating for here. Thus, over recent months a growing consensus has emerged - among both advocacy groups and (more importantly) policy makers - around the necessity for renewed military action against the LRA. For example, as the film describes, following the signing into law of the US Lord’s Resistance Army Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act (in May 2010), in October President Obama authorized the deployment of 100 combat-ready Army Special Forces (Green Berets) to the Great Lakes region, to assist in the hunt for Joseph Kony and his men. This was followed, in early November, by an announcement from the German Ambassador to Uganda, Klaus Duxmann, that the EU was ready commit both troops and money to a renewed fight. A few weeks later, the African Union (AU) then officially launched its own 'authorized mission’ against Kony, which aims to eventually coordinate all military action against the rebel group. Finally, in early December, an 11-country UN Committee on security in Central Africa met in Bangui, in the Central African Republic (CAR), with a view to also expanding the UN's involvement in future anti-LRA operations. 

Moreover, it is clear that if any of these initiatives are to be successful, they will require the involvement of the UPDF. Certainly, the Green Berets may have the capacity to not arrest, but to actually kill, Joseph Kony himself. Following Obama’s announcement of the Special Forces operation, a number of commentators initially dismissed the operation as largely symbolic (an impression that was apparently then confirmed by a statement from Assistant Secretary of Defence Alexander Vershbow, that a majority of the Special Forces would in fact be based in Kampala, and would act primarily as advisors to other regional armies). However, the deployment is more than a token gesture, not least because the troops involved are under the Special Operations Command in Africa (SOCAFRICA). In recent years, SOCAFRICA have proved highly successful in tracking down remote targets in the Horn of Africa (a region over which they took responsibility in 2008). In addition, they have access to a wide array of high-tech assets, many of which are specifically designed to target mobile subjects (and it is already being reported from Haut-Uele in Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, DRC – where a majority of LRA fighters are currently based – that the number of surveillance overflights in the region have increased dramatically in recent months). Thus, the plan will presumably be to try to get a 'fix' on Kony - using either an insider source, or some sort of electronic tag - and to then hit him with a drone. Indeed, it is probably with this in mind that from mid-November onwards, members of the Green Berets deployment have been making regular trips to the DRC-Central African Republic (CAR) border area on various ‘fact-finding’ missions.

Nevertheless, if the US deployment is going to contribute to any wider success - in terms reducing the overall size of the LRA force, and in diminishing the threat that they pose (with or without Kony at their head) - it is going to have to work through regional armies, and (like it or not) this really means the UPDF. This is because other national armies in the region are currently over-engaged elsewhere. For example, the Congolese Army (FARDC) are currently tied up with post-election difficulties in other parts of their vast country, following the contested general elections of December last year. Similarly, the army of South Sudan (SPLA) are engaged in serious conflicts of their own, whilst the national army of the CAR also has its focus elsewhere. The other only significant military actor in the region, the UN's Stabilization Mission in the Congo (MONUSCO) simply doesn't have the capacity to mount sustained operations against Kony and his men. For these, and other, reasons, the UPDF have been the primary trackers of the LRA throughout Eastern DRC, and beyond, ever since the start of ‘Operation Lightening Thunder’ (later renamed ‘Rudia II’) in December 2008 – an operation to which the US also provided over US$38 million in logistical support - and this situation is unlikely to change any time soon. 

However, one major problem here is that following a series of difficulties with Lightening Thunder/Rudia II, in mid-2010 the Ugandans began to significantly draw-down the numbers of soldiers they had engaged in  LRA-affected areas. Today, less than half their original 4,000 troops who started Lightening Thunder still remain. In addition, recent reports have pointed to a growing sense of fatigue, and increased indiscipline, amongst those who are still there. For example, in late 2010, President Bozize expelled the UPDF from Sam Ouandja, in North-eastern CAR, following accusations of illegal diamond mining in the area. Throughout 2011, FARDC officers have made similar allegations against Ugandan forces in Haut-Uele – although to date, they have not produced any evidence to substantiate their claims. But in mid-June, concrete evidence did emerge of UPDF troops in South Sudan engaging in illegal transportation practices.  

Moreover, the Ugandan Army currently has its own burgeoning commitments elsewhere. In particular, Uganda remains in command of, and continues to provide the largest share of the troops for, the African Union’s Mission in Somalia (AMISOM). Indeed, the UPDF’s existing deployment of 5210 soldiers in Somalia is set to rise by a further 50% in 2012, in line with a commitment President Museveni made following the al-Shabaab bombings in Kampala in July 2010. In addition, much of Uganda’s own elite Special Forces Group – which is under the command of Museveni’s son Lt. Col. Kainerugaba Muhoozi – is now engaged in securitization work in and around Uganda’s new oil fields in the Albertine Rift Valley (which, despite the impression given in some of the coverage that has followed the release of KONY 2012, is in fact quite some distance away from the LRA's current areas of operation). Finally, during last year’s Ugandan general election campaign, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni promised an additional deployment of troops to Karamoja, in Northeast Uganda – in line with his long standing policy of using the army as a primary means for improving security in that region as well. In this context, then, the LRA may in fact be a lessening priority for the UPDF at this time. 

However, perhaps the key issue here, and the one that critics of KONY 2012 are really driving at, is what sort of 'moral hazard' any renewed military operations - be they attempts to 'decapitate' the LRA, or wider operations against the group - might generate, in the form of reprisals against surrounding civilian populations. At present, the LRA continue to attack all sorts of civilian targets more or less with impunity, across a broad swathe of territory adjacent to the DRC’s North-eastern border with the CAR and South Sudan. Partly as a result of pressure brought to bear by Lightening Thunder (especially during the second half of 2009), the size of Kony’s force is today greatly reduced from its peak of around 3000 fighters, in 2005. Although exact figures are impossible to come by, the group probably now has no more than 400 cadres remaining. One recent UPDF estimate put the number even lower, at around 200 fighters, whilst the FARDC claim that the LRA is now down to just 30 men (however, both of these figures are almost certainly underestimates). Yet even with such a small number of fighters, the LRA remains a potent threat, organized as it now is into small mobile bands (some of which number just 5-10 people), which operate across a mostly forested area which is the size of France. 

Indeed, history suggests that the LRA would pose an increased risk to civilians as they themselves come under greater pressure. Thus, during 2011, these mobile LRA bands carried out many dozens of small-scale attacks, most of them against civilian targets, resulting in at least 152 deaths, and 531 abductions. In one week alone, in early June, LRA cadres carried out no less than 22 separate attacks – most of them in Haut-Uele – including one (on 7th June) near Bangadi Town in which a woman was abducted from her fields, another (8th June) near Dungu in a which a 50-year old woman was killed, and a third (11th June) also near Dungu, in which 5 people died. All such incidents are now tracked in real time on www.lracrisistracker.com, a website that was set up by Invisible Children and another advocacy organization called Resolve, and which uses a network of radios that the two organizations have distributed across the LRA-affected regions (the network is mentioned briefly in KONY 2012). Moreover, at the present time Kony appears to be, if anything, growing in confidence, as for example evidenced by his recent decision to hold a ‘council-of-war’ for his senior commanders at his current base in the CAR. This was the first time that the LRA leadership has gathered in one place since the start of Lightening Thunder, and was no doubt called in response to the US deployment. In addition, there are growing indications that the LRA leader may be planning for his own ‘offensive’ – along the lines of the wave of attacks that the LRA carried out around Christmas 2008 – in the months ahead. 

In conclusion, KONY 2012 is a well meaning campaign video, whose central message is not as surprising as some commentators have suggested. Nevertheless, there is a great danger inherent in its thesis; if viewers do indeed advocate for increased military action, yet that military action turns out to be inadequate, it may result in worse LRA predations against civilian populations in the Congolese-CAR borderlands.

Invisible Children's film constantly implores its viewers that 'we are all in this together' (or words to that effect). What we are actually all in together is a politically complicated world.

LRA on the march again

The first time I was told that the LRA were on the brink of defeat was in 1997. Since then, the rebel group has shown a remarkable ability for sustaining their insurgency, even in the face of (at times) massive military opposition to it.

The current round of military pressure against the group was begun in December 2008, with the launch of the Ugandan Army's (UPDF) Operation 'Lightening Thunder'. Targeted against the LRA's main bases in North-eastern Congo (DRC), the operation - which had the support of the Congolese Army (FARDC), the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), and even the US Africa Command (AFRICOM), aimed to achieve a final defeat of Joseph Kony's men with 3 weeks.

The operation got off to a poor start, with the Ugandans failing to deliver enough men and supplies to the front line, and with the LRA receiving tip-offs about the attack (many of the Ugandan soldiers involved in the operation were themselves decommissioned LRA fighters, some of whom remained loyal to their former boss). Nevertheless, as the months went on, and especially following the UPDF's entry into the Central African Republic (CAR) in mid 2009 - to which many LRA leaders, including Kony himself, had fled in February of that year - the tide began to turn in the UPDF's favour.

Into late 2009, the UPDF began to score some significant victories, including the capture of one of Kony's most senior officers, Major Okot Atiak, and the killing of at least seven other senior LRA leaders. In November, another senior commander, Lt. Colonel Charles Arop, surrendered to the UPDF. It later transpired that on 2nd October, the UPDF had come close to securing the biggest prize of all when, in an attack in Djemah in Eastern CAR, they had fired upon, and almost captured, Joseph Kony himself.

However, the optimism which followed these victories proved short lived. By the end of 2009, it was increasingly obvious that these military successes were coming at a terrible price, as the LRA, in its weakened state, was carrying out ever greater predations on surrounding civilian populations, as the group looted supplies, and sought to bolster their ranks through the forced recruitment of child soldiers. In one attack in December 2009, LRA fighters killed an estimated 345 civilians over 4 days in Haut-Uele (DRC) in the largest single massacre in the group's 23 year history. By August 2010, it was estimated that in the preceding 18 months, Kony's men had killed up to 2000 civilians (which would again make it the bloodiest 18 months in the group's history). Over the same period, the LRA had also kidnapped 1,600 more people, and had caused a massive 300,000 to flee their homes.

In addition, despite the UPDF's best efforts to disrupt Kony's command and control structures, by mid-2010 the LRA had reestablished organizational coherence, by moving to a 'zonal' mode of operation. In this way, each remaining LRA commander was allocated a particular zone in which he could operate without further authorization from Kony. Thus, Kony's brother, Major David Olanya, was allowed to operate freely in Maboussou-Gambala (CAR), General Binasio Okumu in Obo (CAR), and so on. Operating as independent units in this way, the LRA became much more difficult to disrupt than it had been previously, and it was able to operate over a much wider area. By mid-2010, the group's increasingly bloody attacks were being carried out as far apart as the extremes of Orientale Province (DRC), Western Equatoria (Southern Sudan) and in Eastern CAR as far north as the border with Chad.

At the same time, the UPDF force deployed in the CAR in pursuit of the LRA had began to run into problems of its own. Primary among these was a wave of infighting among the leadership, which eventually resulted in the force commander, Colonel Emmanuel Rwashande, being replaced. In addition, the Ugandan government decided to withdraw 1000 of the 7000-strong force, and to redeploy these men to Karamoja in North-western Uganda. Further drawdowns are also likely as President Museveni seeks to bolster security back home ahead of the next February's presidential elections.

Thus, by September of this year, the LRA had become significantly emboldened that they appear to have made contact with the Khartoum controlled Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF). The LRA was formerly equipped by the SAF throughout its long-running insurgency in Northern Uganda. If these reports are true, it would suggest that LRA leaders are confident that they may once again prove useful to the Khartoum regime - especially if, as expected, the forthcoming referendum in Sudan results in a further round of conflict between the SAF and the SPLA.

Last week's report that Kony himself has now moved to Darfur might also point to this Khartoum connection. So too would recent reports that the LRA are also now forging an alliance with another CAR militia, the Union of Democratic Forces for Unity (UFDR) - another longtime proxy of Khartoum. Certainly, if the LRA and the UFDR were to join forces, then it would bode ill for UPDF troops in the CAR, especially given the wealth of fighting experience, and sophisticated weaponry, upon which the UFDR can draw.

I was recently at a conference at which I heard, in a paper given by a European government official, that the LRA insurgency was now on the wane and that, following the passing of the recent anti-LRA bill by the US Congress (in May this year), that the group should now on the brink of a final defeat. I hope that he's right, of course. However, the first time I was told that the LRA were on the brink of defeat was in 1997.