FAQ

The arrest warrant against Joseph Kony provides legal justification for attempts to capture the leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA).  But if one takes into consideration the political, moral and humanitarian ramifications of such an enterprise, the question becomes whether legal justification for the capture of Kony is sufficient.

In order to respond to such a question, a number of considerations should first be weighed – particularly in light of the current strategy that seeks to strengthen the Ugandan military (Ugandan People’s Defence Force, or UPDF) by way of AFRICOM (US Africa Command) in order to achieve the stated goal of capturing Kony.

● Local civic and religious leaders in northern Uganda have repeatedly requested international support for diplomatic, as opposed to military, solutions in order to ensure long-lasting peace for the region.  In doing so, they seek to address the underlying factors that led to such a protracted conflict in the first place (ARLPI 2011).

● Previous military operations carried out by the UPDF with the aim of killing or capturing Kony have failed to fulfill their main goal, and also to protect the surrounding civilian population, resulting in massive displacements, killing, abductions and rape (International Crisis Group 2010); Puijenbroek and Plooijer 2009).

● The current strategy for capturing Kony involves strengthening the UPDF, which has been implicated, by the International Court of Justice, in the violation of International Human Rights Law, including the killing and torturing of civilians and the plundering of resources in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

● Intensive focus on Joseph Kony alone does not guarantee the end of LRA violence as remaining groups are likely to struggle for their own survival.

● Focus on Joseph Kony in isolation also diverts attention away from other culpable parties such as the Ugandan government and armed forces which have also been blamed for violations against the civilian population in northern Uganda (Amnesty International 1991; Amnesty International 1999; ARLPI 2001).

● The United States is not itself a participant in the International Criminal Court. It therefore strikes many in the international community as hypocritical that the US expects other countries to adhere to a legal regime that it does not adhere to. Could international support for the ICC be enhanced if activists prodded the US and other non-signatories to join, avoiding the appearance of a legal double standard?

The capture of Joseph Kony in and of itself would be a positive development. However, even if the UPDF could achieve this with ‘surgical precision’ and without ‘collateral damage’ there is a large risk that this will be accepted as the end game and international interest will subsequently turn elsewhere.  This would take the spotlight off Uganda (and the surrounding region) at a time when it would be needed to ensure that long-standing issues are addressed and future conflicts and violence are avoided.  This is the reason local leaders in northern Uganda have pushed for diplomatic solutions – to ensure that short-cut efforts do not undermine long-term reconciliation.

Further Reading

While a minimum amount of awareness can encourage individuals to learn more about violence in central Africa, a simplistic rendering of complex geopolitics can do more to obscure the core issues at stake than to prompt beneficial action.  If the way awareness is raised has the chance of making a bad situation worse, then hard questions must be asked.

Three questions about ‘raising awareness’:

1. What are we being made aware of, and what is obscured, in the Kony2012 campaign?
We became aware of two things: suffering children and an evil warlord. Awareness is not raised about the role of the social conditions that have sustained the LRA, the internment of the Acholi [more here], and the ways that internment is enabling land-grabbing by military elites in a region undergoing extensive oil exploration.

We have not been made aware of the UN-alleged perpetration of war crimes by the UPDF, the internationally-noted lack of electoral freedoms and political rights for Ugandan citizens, well-documented instances of illegal detention and torture by the Joint Anti-Terrorism Task Force, and the alarming rate of sexual and gender-based violence in the country. To gloss over this complexity is to risk complicity in the perpetuation of ongoing violence, a critical concern in light of the recommendations made by Invisible Children to further militarize Northern Uganda and to support the current government and the UPDF.

What we also are not being made aware of is the funding and institutional ties that link Kony 2012 and right-wing US Christian evangelical organizations like The Family, an organization that has been involved in such controversies as the anti-homosexual Bahati Bill, which sought to make homosexuality a capital offense. If spokesmen for Kony 2012 can present it as a secular “trojan horse” for an evangelical mission, is this the best method of raising awareness?

2. Who is being made aware through this campaign and to what effect?
The premise of Invisible Children’s campaign is that the world does not know about Joseph Kony – ‘making him famous’ will facilitate him being  brought to justice. The children captured by the LRA, however, have only been invisible to some – namely Americans and Europeans who are generally poorly informed on the subjects of African history and politics – but certainly not to their families and relatives, Northern Ugandans, the Ugandan government, the UPDF, or the scores of NGOs working in the region.

Awareness-raising premises and constructs a particular subject – the uninformed but newly enlightened distant spectator called to action by a story of innocent children and an Evil African. This narrative builds on particularly insidious colonial tropes about Africa, Africans, and African politics that come to be reduced to a scene of need, suffering, corruption, and the operation of evil. The broader historical, political, and economic factors that make this a ‘more than local’ issue remain invisible, while the campaign seeks to make famous an already well known figure.

3. How does ‘raising awareness’ become political action? Or, how will “millions of well-meaning and well-intentioned but ill-informed people” making Kony famous result in his capture?
Kony2012 fosters an abstract ethical urge to ‘do something’ (dubbed the ‘white savior industrial complex’), but in obscuring the role of complex trans-local economic, (geo)political, security, and historical factors minimizes the possibility for the video’s primarily American viewers to engage in the conflict by considering the role of their own government, international financial institutions, or transnational corporations in African affairs. Additionally, it makes little reference to what has already been done, continues to be done, and needs to be done in Northern Uganda.

Beyond capturing Kony and disarming the LRA, the region faces crucial questions about the resettlement of interned populations and the reintegration of former child soldiers into the society from which the LRA has alienated them.

The wrong kind of attention to the LRA serves to inflame and prolong the socio-political grievances and imbalances at the heart of the conflict. How attention to this conflict is raised is consequential – it has the capacity to provoke further violence and alienate peacemakers and war survivors, or it can support those actively seeking sustainable solutions.

Further Reading

Or, what is to be done?

Author Teju Cole puts it succinctly: ‘How, for example, could a well-meaning American “help” a place like Uganda today? It begins, I believe, with some humility with regards to the people in those places. It begins with some respect for the agency of the people of Uganda in their own lives. A great deal of work had been done, and continues to be done, by Ugandans to improve their own country.’

As a loose collective of researchers and academics, we cannot give easy solutions, nor do we want to do so. Neither do we want to promote inaction or apathy. The ethos behind this blog is to promote critical thinking.  We believe that if one wants to act or intervene in foreign places it is important to understand the societies, politics and histories of those places, and to engage with local actors. As a collective – in spite of different views among us – we feel that the Kony 2012 gives a poor and misleading view of the situation in Northern Uganda and its neighboring countries.  It attempts to mobilize the compassion, guilt, and empathy of well-meaning people, especially by employing the images and stories of suffering children, towards what is a very contested form of political action.  There is never a humanitarian intervention which is not political, and it is thus critical to understand its political stakes. Even the best intended interventions can be harmful.

Of course, understanding a situation well and making a genuine contribution takes a commitment of labor and time, often years. If you feel drawn to the situation in Northern Uganda, then think about how and if your skills can genuinely contribute. If you wish to lobby your own government, think about whether promoting the military action proposed by Kony 2012 is the best form of intervention. You may wish to consider other options: lobbying around patent rights for medications, or lobbying for a more equal trading system.  There are many areas of critical concern for African countries in which outsiders can become productively involved.  Speak to other organizations in Northern Uganda to get their view. And, if you do choose to support the agenda promoted by Invisible Children and Kony 2012, at least do so from an informed perspective.

Further Reading

A film screening of Kony2012 in Lira, Northern Uganda, proved unsuccessful. For the most part, viewers had expectations that the film would deal with the effect of the war on Ugandans themselves. Instead, many were shocked that the film (aside from the former LRA victim, Jacob), seemed to predominantly feature the life story of Jason, his son, and other Western youth. Many Ugandans also felt that promoting Kony’s image on commercial merchandise celebrates the suffering that has occurred in Ugandan communities and adjacent borderlands. Others worried that the funds raised by Invisible Children would be redistributed to members of the organization rather than diverted to Ugandans themselves. Indeed, Ugandans have not always experienced the direct benefits of transnational NGOs in their communities, and thus extend their historical experiences with other foreign organizations to Invisible Children.

At the heart of Ugandan displeasure toward the film, however, is frustration over their loss of autonomy over how particular images and narratives of suffering are mobilized by Western media. In the Kony2012 film, these images reproduced and recirculated deeply entrenched ideologies and images of Africans as passive victims of violence. Many felt that their own historical and contemporary actions, viewpoints, and ideas for political and social transformation were unacknowledged and/or undermined. Click here for a story on the film screening in Lira, Uganda.

Are there other Ugandan interpretations of the Kony2012 film?
In central Uganda, one finds that many independent bloggers, writers, and urban and political elites critique the film because they are concerned about the distribution, circulation, and reproduction of negative media images of Uganda among Westerners. These individuals are engaged in processes of national “branding” – they seek to shift attention away from images of Ugandan historical violence, suffering, conflict, disease, underdevelopment and poverty to the possibility of a brighter future. They hope to do this by attracting international investment from businessmen and tourists who come to Uganda, thereby aiding the government’s vision for Ugandan national development and prosperity. See here [a response by PM Amama Mbabazi] for the Ugandan state’s response to the film. In addition, in the weeks after the release of the Kony2012 video, many Ugandan “anti-Kony2012” films have circulated on the internet.  For examples, see ‘Real Uganda 2012-No Kony 2012’ and ‘Kony 2012 and the Silence in Uganda’.

It is important not to lose sight of the significance of the Ugandan government’s role in the LRA conflict in the midst of responses from the country’s urban elite to Kony2012. Nonetheless, we must attend to the many Ugandan apprehensions of Kony2012 (both rural and urban), and acknowledge the different ways that Ugandans seek to define themselves, their own situations, and their possible futures.

From its inception in the late 1980s, the LRA operated in northern Uganda from bases in South Sudan. In 2005 the LRA moved their primary base to eastern Congo (DRC) and withdrew from Uganda by early 2006. In 2005, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for five senior LRA commanders, including Joseph Kony. Soon after the ICC indictments, donors cut funding to mediation efforts already under way.

The peace process began in July 2006, with negotiations leading to a ceasefire agreement in August and a comprehensive agreement in May 2007. These were followed by five more accords, one of which stipulated that the government would request the UN Security Council to ask the ICC to defer prosecutions. In September 2006, the International Crisis Group reported that the peace process had made “surprising progress.”

The process began to fall apart in early 2008 when LRA rebels walked out of talks, after being denied senior government posts. Despite this, the text of the Final Peace Agreement was initialed by the LRA and the government in March 2008 pending signature the following month. But Kony suspended talks again, claiming a lack of clarity on the role of mato-oput (a form of Acholi justice) and the High Court of Uganda in a possible peace settlement. A stalemate ensued, with the government insisting that the LRA sign the agreement, and the LRA insisting that the ICC warrants be lifted.

For its part, the Ugandan government, led by President Yoweri Museveni, has reason to pursue military confrontation instead of a peace process. Museveni has found that the war against the LRA provides justification for a bloated military budget as well as support from the United States (Branch 2011:78-86). Indeed, the US has been providing support and training to the UPDF for years. Museveni has successfully fashioned Uganda as a stalwart ally in the ‘War on Terror’, and as long as he can convince the US that a military solution is the only way to defeat the LRA, he will likely continue to receive American support for the Uganda military – the one part of the national budget he controls with very little accountability (Branch 2011:84). By presenting its pursuit of the LRA through the language of human rights and civilian protection, the government has also been able to rally domestic political support in the face of growing opposition.

There are several reasons to be skeptical about military intervention. For one thing, it has been tried a number of times before with little success. The UPDF is vastly more powerful than the LRA and has still failed to achieve its dissolution through outright military victory (see Operation Iron Fist and Operation Lightening Thunder). It also makes little sense to support a military that stands accused of many of the same crimes as the LRA, even re-victimizing former LRA child soldiers by recruiting them into their own ranks (Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers 2004:45), when the justification for military intervention rests in large part on prosecuting those guilty of conscripting children.

If the object of military intervention is to apprehend Kony, this could conceivably be successful, but will not necessarily bring an end to the LRA or its atrocities (see International Crisis Group, “Road to Peace, With or Without Kony” and “Stopping the LRA is Not All About Kony”). The geographic location of the LRA in eastern Congo and the history of Ugandan military occupation there further complicates the politics of military intervention.

Military intervention could also lead to unintended but serious consequences. Operation Lightning Thunder, for example, led to retaliatory LRA attacks on civilians in eastern DRC (known as the Christmas massacres). Military confrontation is also likely to put the LRA on the offensive, with a probable rise in recruitment and abduction. There are also ethical dilemmas associated with militarily confronting an armed group protected in part by child combatants. In an offensive operation, should child soldiers – or former child soldiers who are now adults – be considered collateral damage in the pursuit of a political aim? Furthermore, is it possible to maintain a distinction between victim and perpetrator in an armed group in part made up of child soldiers, many of whom are now adults and have committed serious crimes?

Many Ugandans want peace and reconciliation, with Kony alive and part of the process, even at the expense of retributive (punitive) justice. There is widespread support for the restorative justice of the Amnesty Act of 2000, in direct contradiction to the retributive justice of the ICC. Yet, many also want retributive justice or the killing of Kony. The situation is further complicated by the existence of Congolese victims of LRA attacks – perpetrated in response to military operations. Ugandan churches played a crucial role in bringing the LRA and the government to negotiations, and in 2008 the executive secretary of the Uganda Joint Christian Council insisted “there is no conflict that cannot be solved through dialogue.”

Clearly, there are no easy answers to what the next step should be, but the solution is not likely to be a military one. Ugandan grassroots justice initiatives should be supported and the solution should be homegrown.  Although international support might play a part, the solution should not be one imposed from the outside.

Further Reading

The role of President Yoweri Museveni and the Ugandan government has shifted somewhat over the past 26 years of war in Northern Uganda. When he first took power in 1986, Museveni and his army consolidated control by pursuing ex-government soldiers into the north, committing myriad human rights abuses along the way. By 1989, the constellation of rebel groups opposed to Museveni’s regime had consolidated under Kony and the LRA; since then, the government has dedicated itself first and foremost to eliminating the LRA by military means. In the early 1990s, most of these operations targeted Northern Uganda, but internationalization of the conflict soon followed. The LRA won support and sanctuary from the Sudanese government beginning in the mid-1990s, and over the past decade the scope of counter-LRA operations has expanded into Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and the Central African Republic (CAR).

While the LRA is now much weaker than it was in the 1990s, many scholars question whether the war can be won by military means alone. Museveni has decimated but not defeated the LRA, and it is unclear whether the army can ever eradicate the rebels in the porous, thinly-policed environment in which they operate. Unfortunately, diplomacy has yielded disappointing results as well. The past four years have witnessed several attempts at a negotiated ceasefire, all to no avail. In 2008, Kony and the Ugandan government twice agreed to sign a comprehensive peace agreement brokered by South Sudan; on both occasions, Kony failed to show up on the designated date. Shortly thereafter the Ugandan military resumed bombing LRA camps, this time targeting northeastern DRC in a campaign code-named Operation Lightning Thunder and endorsed by the US (see FAQ on US support of the Ugandan government).

Meanwhile, the situation for civilians has been fragile. The Museveni administration, with humanitarian support, was responsible for maintaining camps for the nearly 200,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Northern Uganda. Conditions at these camps – which began to close in 2006 – are, in general, abysmal: IDPs suffer from a lack of basic social services and from frequent abuses by the Ugandan army. Although today most people have left these camps, the persistence of combat operations leaves civilians across the region vulnerable to reprisal attacks, displacement, and human rights violations committed by a variety of militants involved in the conflict.

Further Reading

The US government has long supported Museveni and the Ugandan government. US Africa Command (AFRICOM) has maintained military deployments in Northern Uganda for many years, and the US has provided tens of millions of dollars in aid and “non-lethal training” to the Ugandan military. President George W. Bush added the LRA to the US government’s list of terrorist organizations in 2001, and in 2010 President Barack Obama signed into law the “Lord’s Resistance Army Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act,” which endorses “increased, comprehensive US efforts to help mitigate and eliminate the threat posed by the LRA to civilians and regional stability.” Tactical planning for Operation Lightning Thunder (see FAQ on the role of Museveni and the Ugandan government) was approved, if not assisted, by the US military, and President Obama deployed an additional 100 troops to Uganda to combat the LRA in 2011.

Many experts have viewed US aid to Museveni as something of a puzzle, as Northern Uganda does not seem to represent a vital national security interest for the U.S. The LRA has never targeted Americans or American interests, and is generally acknowledged to be incapable of overthrowing the Ugandan government. What, then, explains US support? There are several possible answers, any or all (or none) of which may be correct. One possibility is that American aid is meant to reciprocate Uganda’s peacekeeping and counterterrorism efforts in East Africa, where the US does have more compelling national security interests. Another possibility is that the US is positioning itself to take advantage of the recently-discovered oil reserves in and around Uganda’s Lake Albert. While we cannot know for certain whether or not this is true, we do know that the Ugandan government has attempted to leverage its oil to attract US aid. A Wikileaks cable dated March 13, 2008, for example, describes a request by Museveni’s cabinet for US assistance “to train and equip a lake security force which could enforce Uganda’s territorial waters, protect Uganda’s oil assets, and reduce violent incidents.”

Museveni has also been adept at framing the conflict to fit within a post-9/11 counter-terrorism narrative. According to this narrative, the Ugandan government is simply defending itself against a brutal and primitive terrorist organization. When President Obama announced the deployment of advisors to Uganda, acting Foreign Minister Henry Okello Oryem noted that the Ugandan government had been lobbying for US aid for decades: “For 20 years, the government of Uganda has been pleading with our American and European friends to help in the LRA problem, because these are international terrorists.” Ronald Atkinson criticizes this narrative as a “simplistic, black-and-white view of the war as essentially ‘good’ (the Ugandan government and army, the US, the ICC) versus ‘evil’ (the LRA).” Nevertheless, this counter-terrorism framing may have helped Museveni secure funding not just from the US but from a variety of bilateral and multilateral donors.

This narrative seems to have gained credence through some media reports on the conflict. The war in northern Uganda has attracted brief but intense spells of media attention since the early 2000s. Most of that attention, however, has focused on LRA brutality and has rarely addressed atrocities committed by the Museveni administration. A number of advocacy groups—notably the Enough Project, the Resolve Campaign, and Invisible Children—has pressured the Bush and Obama administrations to boost American financial and military support to Uganda. This pressure seems to have played an important role in catalyzing US assistance to Museveni and the Ugandan government.

Further Reading