More of the same violence in Uganda
Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni strong-armed his countrymen into “re-electing” him in Thursday’s election. That means that he gets more opportunities to trample all over his opposition and pour fuel into the brutal conflict with the LRA in Northern Uganda.
While the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) is terrorizing the Acholi people, the government seems to be determined to pursue the strategy to defeat the LRA militarily. This strategy has not solved the problem in many years, and the only reason to pursue it is to keep receiving military aid from the United States.
However, most of the “fighters” of the LRA are the 30,000 children abducted from the Acholi people and forced through unspeakable cruelty into committing more unspeakable cruelty. This is essentially a large-scale hostage situation; the LRA is a cultish organization that holds an entire people hostage. This is not a scenario that lend itself to conventional military intervention, yet Museveni insists on fighting fire with fire – all on the backs of the Acholi people.
More info on this conflict on the Uganda-CAN website.
March 1st, 2006 at 7:02 am
Actually Museveni could have ended this conflict “militarily” years ago but he (and significant others) has chosen to prolong the suffering of the Acholi people and other groups living in Northern Uganda as political leverage to stay in power for the past 20 years. I emphasize the word “militarily” because there is no chance of negotiating terms of surrender with the ringleader of the LRA, Joseph Kony. Kony is obviously suffering from the psychopathic illusion that his mission is from God Almighty. Non-violent tactics and strategies will only work perhaps with the thousands of child soldiers who remain in captivity under Kony’s brutal rule.
Another question that I have is, “Is Kony working alone or does he have outside (cross-border or foreign) assistance? If it is the latter, then who is it?” O.K., that’s two questions.