New report unearths tale of tragic LRA atrocities in DRC, Sudan
By Julius N. Uma
March 29, 2010 (JUBA) — The rebel Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), a quasi-revolutionary movement with vague political ideas, killed at least 321 civilians and abducted 250 others (including at least 80 children) during a previously unreported four-day rampage in the Makombo area of northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in December 2009, Human Rights Watch said in a report released yesterday.
“The Makombo massacre is one of the worst ever committed by the LRA in its bloody 23-year history, yet it has gone unreported for months,” Anneke Van Woudenberg, a senior Africa researcher at Human Rights Watch said.
Added Van Woudenberg: “The four-day rampage demonstrates that the LRA remains a serious threat to civilians and is not a spent force, as the Ugandan and Congolese governments claim.”
The mouth-watering report entitled, “Trail of Death: LRA Atrocities in Northeastern Congo,” is reportedly the first detailed documentation of the Makombo massacre and other atrocities by the LRA in Congo in 2009 and early 2010.
The 67-paged report, which was based on a Human Rights Watch fact-finding mission to the massacre area in February, documents the brutal killings during the well-planned LRA attack from December 14 to 17 in the remote Makombo area of Haute Uele district, DRC.
According to the US-based rights body, LRA forces attacked at least 10 villages, capturing, killing, and abducting hundreds of civilians, including women and children. The vast majority of those killed, it said, were adult men, whom LRA combatants allegedly first tied up and then hacked to death with machetes or crushed their skulls with axes and heavy wooden sticks.
Eye witnesses also provided detailed accounts of LRA activities in the region, revealing shocking accounts of how innocent women, children and the elderly were killed and other abducted. Many of the children captured by the LRA were allegedly forced to kill other children who had disobeyed the LRA’s rules.
Reacting to the presence of the United Nations Peacekeeping Mission in Congo (MONUC) in the region, Human Rights Watch acknowledged the presence of about 1,000 peacekeeping troops in the LRA-affected areas of northeastern Congo, albeit its said were far too few to protect the population adequately, given the area’s size.
Recently, the Congolese government ordered for the immediate withdrawal of peacekeeping forces from the region. Thus instead of sending more troops to the LRA-infested areas, the peacekeeping force, plan to withdraw from the country by July 2011. MONUC is also reportedly considering removing some troops from the northeast by June in the first phase of its drawdown.
“The people of northeastern Congo are in desperate need of more protection, not less,” said Van Woudenberg, adding that, “The UN Security Council should stop any drawdown of MONUC peacekeeping troops from areas where the LRA threatens to kill and abduct civilians.”
SECURITY COUNCIL INTERVENTION
Meanwhile, in mid-April, the Security Council plans to visit Congo to discuss the peacekeeping force’s plans for withdrawal and the protection of civilians.
The Makombo massacre, noted Human Rights Watch, is part of a longstanding history of atrocities and abuse by the LRA in Uganda, southern Sudan, the Central African Republic (CAR), and Congo. Pushed out of northern Uganda in 2005, the LRA now operates in the remote border area between southern Sudan, Congo, and CAR.
“The people of northeastern Congo and other LRA-affected areas have suffered for far too long. The US and other concerned governments should work with the UN and regional parties to develop and carry out a comprehensive strategy to protect civilians and apprehend abusive LRA leaders,” Van Woudenberg said in the report.
CHRONOLOGY OF ANTI-LRA REGIONAL EFFORTS
– In December 2008, the governments of the region, led by the Ugandan armed forces, with intelligence and logistical support from the United States, began a military campaign known as Operation Lightning Thunder against the LRA in northeastern Congo.
– On March 15, 2009, Operation Lightning Thunder officially ended, following pressure from the Congolese government, which found it politically difficult to support a continued Ugandan army presence on Congolese territory.
– On March 11, 2010, the US Senate unanimously passed the Lord’s Resistance Army Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act. If it becomes law, it will require President Barack Obama’s administration to develop a regional strategy to protect civilians in central Africa from attacks by the LRA, to work to apprehend the LRA’s leadership, and to support economic recovery for northern Uganda. The bill is currently before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs.
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Akuma
New report unearths tale of tragic LRA atrocities in DRC, Sudan
All atrocities committed in DRC, SOuthern Sudan, Central African Republic, Uganda, all these things, LRA and it leaders including Joseph Kony should face International Criminal court for that. Because massacre of innocent civillians, is crime, and ne excuse!
Dr. Akuma,
Chicago USA
Time1
New report unearths tale of tragic LRA atrocities in DRC, Sudan
I think its time for people to come to their sense
-LRA has only about 150-200 rebels left, how do they travel to Congo, to central Africa, to Sudan to Darfur without being traced or stopped? are they a super natural force?
-How can 150-200 LRA be able to hide and escape from over 10,000 Uganda, Sudanese and Congolese army?
-How does LRA move from Congo, to Sudan to Cnetral African very fast within few days? LRA of Kony does not know this area of Congo, central Africa and Sudan, where do they get their maps, where do they get the transportation to move very fast and even without being seen from Congo to Darfur and then to central Africa, even a conventional well trained army will not be able to pass from Congo to central Africa, to Sudan within a few days without being seen or without having a well organised transport or knowing the region very well.
-LRA is a Uganda rebel, who has been fighting the government of Uganda to overthrow it, Why is LRA going to Congo to kill innocent civilians? Why is LRA going to central Africa a country which has no connection with Uganda or never had anything to do with LRA, why is LRA there massacring civilians?
– Why only a few organisations and charity groups are the ones who always have the news about LRA, why only a few news agencies are the ones who always know where LRA was and where they killed people. Why are they only European organisations and agencies who know the movement of LRA, meanwhile they say LRA is difficult to trace or to be seen, how come only them are the ones who see the LRA and know about its movement?
-Uganda military alone is not capable of fighting the LRA in Congo, Central Africa and Sudan, it is logically not possible, because this European countries are well organised and misleading the Uganda army all the time through media and their organisations, they keep putting out false alarms and false news, like they said last time LRA was going to Darfur but in reality they were planning the movement of LRA into Congo from Cnetral Africa, this is how this mislead the countries int he region through false alarms, sometimes they also point fingers at khartoum but it is not khartoum alone who is helping LRA, there are also western organisations helpinog LRA.
-So how is LRA doing all this? this is a ciritcal questione the authorities in the countries involved should be asking themselves this critical question if the real LRA is to be stopped, as long as this question are ignored and not though about within the intelligence circles, so called LRA will continue to survive in this in ignorance, is someone hiding behind the name of the LRA and commiting this massacres? for example in Central Africa which has not any history or conenctions with LRA of any kind, why will they go there to massacre people?
-Imagine rebels of the Nigerian niger delta going to morroco and starting to masscre people there just for no reasons at all, will this make sense? what will be there reason to atatck epople there? there has to be a reason to make them do that, will people believe that a rebel of another country will go and cause chaos, killings and massacre in another country just for no any good reason what so ever?
-The truth is there is a western and European forces hiding int he jungles of Congo, Cnetral Africa and Sudan, they are kidnapping people from Congo, CAR and Sudan threatening them and recruiting them forcefully to go and carry out attacks in the neighbouring countries, their mission is to destabilize the whole of central africa and stop development using the cover of the LRA. What they do is this, they kidnap people from Sudan and say it is the LRA then they take people from Sudan to kill people in Congo, while they take people from Congo to kill people in central Africa republic then they kidnap people from central Africa republic to carry out attacks in Sudan and claim it is the LRA, so they saw this confusion meanwhile the real people behind those activity are well safe and secured but they use a few mercenaries to carry out those attacks for them, also those western groups are very smar and intelligent they operate as charity organisations, as aid workers or are people fromt he church, so this makes it very diffucult for authorities in Sudan, Uganda, Congo or central Africa to suspect them or be able to track them, they are the ones who are this LRA, people hear LRA but no one ever sees them or know how they move because the LRA is the same european organisations and charities during the day and during the night they are the lRA.
-For example how did the Human rights organisation and also the Enough organisation know that is was the LRA who carries out this attacks, how did they get the evidence? how did they know the routes they took and the days and time? how did they know how many LRA where involved? and If they had this information before why they did not pass it to authorities int he countries affected?
-This is a western intelligence and special operations being carried out under the unbrella of LRA,
-The rela LRA is still out there but there are other groups who have joined to cause destruction under the name of LRA,
-Also no one has heard from Kony for along time, is he really alive? this forces killing in the name of LRA, is it possible they might have killed the LRA leader or holding him hostage meanwhile they carry out atatcks in the name of LRA? What is stopping Joseph Kony from appearing on radio or media to make his claim like all rebels groups do? is this not very strange?
-because the real LRA of joseph Kony is now finish the Uganda army defeated them but there is a new LRA force which is not the original LRA, the new LRA force is the one under the European mercenary groups. This LRA killings will continue untill this western back mercenary forces come to their sense and just stop by themselves or until the countries involve understand how to play the game of counter insurgencies and counter-terrorism, then track those people down.
-Are African that foolish to be mislead and decieved by european and western groups?
-Unfortunately this is the real story of the LRA.