A group known for its brutal use of child soldiers and a campaign of violence that has killed or maimed tens of thousands of people in Africa is now in the U.S.’s crosshairs.
On Oct. 14, President Barack Obama announced 100 troops were deployed to Uganda to track down and remove the leadership of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebel group. This will include its leader, the infamous Joseph Kony, as well as his top commanders.
The LRA raids towns and villages, murdering civilians and kidnapping children. Girls are forced to become slaves, while boys are forced to identify and kill their closest relative, making them unable to return home because of guilt, and are brought in as soldiers to carry out the LRA’s bidding. This has been part of the 20-year war in northern Uganda.
The initial team of U.S. troops was sent to Uganda on Oct. 12 and additional forces will follow, including “second combat-equipped team and associated headquarters, communications, and logistics personnel,” according to Obama’s letter to the speaker of the House of Representatives.
Additional U.S. forces will be deployed into South Sudan, the Central African Republic, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The U.S. troops will not engage the LRA except in self-defense, and will mainly direct African forces on the ground.
According to a press statement from the Department of State, the deployment is one part of a larger U.S. strategy against the LRA that follows the signing of the LRA Disarmament and Northern Uganda Act earlier this year. Other parts of the strategy will increase protection of civilians, continue providing humanitarian aid, and encouraging lower-level LRA soldiers to defect.
Human rights groups and nongovernment organizations support the deployment, according to a press release from the ENOUGH Project, a humanitarian group founded to prevent genocide and crimes against humanity.
“If part of a larger multinational strategy, the deployment of U.S. advisers can help play a catalytic role,” said John Prendergast, co-founder of the Enough Project, adding that the effort could be improved with an intelligence and logistics surge from the United States to support the deployment.
Since 2008, the United States has contributed limited military assistance to pursuing the LRA, totaling $40 million in equipment, training, and critical logistical support. Obama deemed these ventures “unsuccessful” for failing to remove Kony or his top commanders from the battlefield.
