Ugandan LRA are on the way to gallows
By Steve Paterno
Jan 23, 2007 — One of the greatest thinkers once professed in one of the greatest books that there are times for everything, and in the case of the Ugandan Lord’s Resistant Army (LRA), they had time to kill and punish others, and now it is time to kill and punish them in return, not only for the sake of it but for holding them accountable for their actions and for deterring them from continuing with their same activities of punitive brutalities.
Having had the support of one of the most notorious and genocidal regime in the world—the Khartoum regime, the LRA, for years enjoyed committing punitive atrocities across the boundaries of three countries of Uganda , the Sudan , and the Democratic Republic of Congo. For all they did, the Khartoum regime took the credit for providing the necessary support and the LRAs earned themselves with being “African Brutal Terrorists.”
However, as dynamic as the world is, the events are changing and changing Fast. Unfortunately or fortunately, the changes of events are nor in favor of the Khartoum regime and neither of the LRA.
In case of the Khartoum regime, they are constantly faced by one challenge after another. The regime is ruling the largest country in the continent that is so fragmented and is about to explode into pieces. In the Southern part of the country, they are squeezed by a parallel government popularly known as GOSS, an acronym for Government of South Sudan. This GOSS has established itself even in foreign countries to conduct its diplomatic missions separately from the one of the Khartoum regime. The GOSS is consolidating powers in a region almost the size half of the country. There are already high enthusiasms from the Southern Sudanese that the Southern part of the country is already seceding given the level of autonomy that the GOSS has and the prospect for secession. The result of this will mean many things including that the regime in Khartoum will relinquish its grip of power from the Southern part of the country and will suffer economically because most of the oil fields which are the lifeblood for that regime are centered in the South.
In the Western region of the country, the Khartoum regime embarked in genocide and is driving the natives of the region out of their lands. However, this regime action of genocide is backfiring to its own detriment. The people of Western region rose up in arms and are fighting back with strong determination to win. The last time the world checked of the status of the progress report in the region, the regime was losing its own war. The result was that the regime bombed the innocent civilians while the natives overran the regime soldiers inflicting to them heavy damages in both equipments and humans. The graphic pictures of dead soldiers and destroyed military hardware were shown allover the world as they were littered across the desert land. The graphic picyures clearly depict how much loses the regime in Khartoum sustained for embarking in genocide against the civilian population. All the Khartoum regime could do in that instant is to blame U.N. Secretary General envoy to Sudan , Jan Pronk and kicked him out of the country as a solution to the failure of their genocidal war.
Losing its own war in the battle field is not the only lost the Khartoum regime suffers in connection with embarking in genocide. In the entire world, the Khartoum regime becomes the most popularly known and hated regime in the world. There are even people who sympathize with Sadam Hussein execution by saying that it would have better been Omer Hassan al-Besher, the president of Khartoum government. One of the most psychologically torturing jobs in the world today is to work at Khartoum diplomatic mission abroad, which they call it Sudan mission abroad. The offices of the Khartoum embassies, consulates, and missions from around the world become working grounds for protesters who are protesting the genocidal act of the Khartoum regime. And the presences of those protesters in those locations are torturous to this regime to say the least.
Another challenge which the regime in Khartoum faces is that almost all of its neighbors such as the country of Chad, the Central African Republic , Uganda , Ethiopia , and Eritrea are ready to wage a military war against this trouble-rouser regime. The regime already exchanged fire with its neighboring Chad and on certain occasions both countries declared war on each other. The Central African Republic with its weak military wishes that the French military should bomb Khartoum with French sophisticated air force. And those Ugandans are already in the southern part of the country. The Ugandans are just wishing the LRA go further north to justify their attack of that regime in the Khartoum . The Ethiopians has just successfully overrun another country and they are reported to be pulling out of that country. Khartoum only can hope that Ethiopian next target of invasion is not Khartoum, for what Ethiopia did in Somalia can be threatening to unstable regime like Khartoum. For the Eritrea, its borders with Khartoum is as just militarized as the ones with Ethiopia and the tendency to attack Khartoum is indeed very high. In summary, Khartoum created enemies for itself who are ready to crash Khartoum in any given opportunity through a military means.
For the LRAs, they flip the wrong cards. Their spiritual leader, Joseph Kony is perhaps smelling bad fortune by now, if he did not smell it then. Everything that would have gone right for them have all gone wrong. The LRA ally, which is the Khartoum army is pushed way north and is replaced by LRA enemy, the Sudan People Liberation Army (SPLA). It is not an exaggeration that the LRA fears the SPLA more than any army they encounter in their lives. A Ugandan journalist wrote that the LRA actually feel like they are on vocation when they encounter the Uganda People Defense Force (UPDF) inside Uganda because the pressure they always encounter with the SPLA is really intense for them to survive. So, the LRA slipped their ways into the forest in Democratic Republic of Congo to escape the combined mounting pressure, especially by SPLA.
To even intensify the pressure on LRA, the UPDF being the ally of SPLA is not bound anymore by the red zone which restricted the access in pursuing the LRA deep inside Sudan wherever they maybe. Now the LRA does not have the SPLA to inflict pressure on them but they also have the UPDF to pursue them deep inside Sudan, even in the north if that is the path they choose.
And then there is also the International Criminal Court which issued a warrant of arrest for the top LRA leaders. This all added to the pressure that the LRA faces. It seems there is no way out for the LRA. Not even the Holy Spirit can provide the way out evident by the fact that some of the most revered LRA spiritual mentors could not have the Holy Spirit to rescue them in times they needed to be rescued.
To even make things worse for the LRA, the Democratic Republic of Congo has stabilized a little bit politically and militarily. Most of the militias who used to roam around that country are neutralized. The general elections are held. The president who won the election vow to get rid of LRA from that country. And there seems to be a joint agreement between Kampala and Kinshasa of eradicating the LRA. So, where will the go?
The Khartoum regime once LRA ally has already declared war on LRA and wants to use only military means to drive the LRA out of Sudan. Khartoum has exhausted the use of LRA and is trying to get rid of it. The leaders of Khartoum regime and LRA share one thing in common, which is suspects of crimes against humanity and inductees of International Criminal Court. Therefore, Khartoum wants to be unique in that it wants to fight the LRA and crash it even that that will not improve its image even a little bit.
Now the LRA are more confuse than ever before. They have tried to negotiate peace as away out, but they are not sure about that either, for they don’t know what the peace will bring to the fate of their individual leaders. They started off by having the South Sudan Government acting as a mediator for the peace talk, but they snapped somewhere in the middle of the process by demanding that the South African should take over the mediation role. The South African government rejected the demand. Now they want the Kenyan government to take over, and the Kenyan rejected it as well. With the issue of international arrest warrants, they tried to deny their crimes against humanity while hiding in the juggles, but it did not work because they can only do that in court by providing counter evidence to what the court has. And then President Yuweri Museveni of Uganda lied to them that if they accept peace, he will ask the International Criminal Court to drop off the arrest warrants. They bought the lies of Museveni. However, a lawyer explained to the LRA that President Museveni has no jurisdiction or power in requesting for the international arrest warrants to be dropped or withdrawn. So the LRA say then they will settle for a traditional trial for their crimes, but again the lawyer told them that the International Criminal Court will still not let them off the hook but pursue justice against them, especially the fact that the International Criminal Court want to assert its legitimacy and credibility by prosecuting the real case like the one of the LRA which is its first case to ever be filed. The LRAs then say how about they settle to be tried by the Ugandan court system? But seeing Sadam Hussein is having gotten executed by such a trial, the LRA has no way out of justice. They will face justice either way.
The joint and coordinated military attacks consisting of SPLA, the UPDF, the Democratic Republic of Congo army, and the UN peacekeeping should be brought to bear on the LRA to crash them once and for all. If their leaders are captured in the process of those attacks they will be handed over to the international court for trial. If they prefer the traditional trial, they may as well be given that chance because the victims of LRA will just rib their flashes while they are alive. Having them being tried by the Ugandan justice system is also good as they will spend few months in Luzira prison and subsequently be hanged or fire squad. Like those whom we know have undertaken similar fate, there is really no way out for the LRA, and indeed there is time for everything. This time is for the LRA to face the ultimate punishment in whatever form that may happen. It is just a matter of time before justice reign on them.
* Steve Paterno is a Sudanese residing in the U.S.A., and he can be reached at [email protected]