The Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) has been active in northern Uganda for 18 years.  The group’s survival is due mainly to a highly centralized command structure, external aid, and the use of brutal tactics against civilians.  Despite the intense efforts of the Ugandan government, the LRA has continued to wreak havoc in the north of the country.  This campaign has prevented any resolution of the deep-rooted issues that have plagued the African country since it achieved independence in 1956.

The origins of the LRA stem from the aftermath of a 1986 coup orchestrated by current Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, an ethnic Munyankole from western Uganda, against then-President Tito Okello Lutwa, an ethnic Acholi from the north of the country.  Fearing retribution for massacres they committed during their time in power, the remnants of the Acholi forces fled to northern Uganda and Sudan, where they coalesced under the leadership of Alice Auma “Lakwena” to form the Holy Spirit Movement (HSM).  The HSM had broad popular support among the Acholis because it addressed their grievances.  These grievances revolve largely around fear of marginalization in a government dominated by western Ugandans as well as resentment against perceived government-sponsored atrocities and cattle raids. After the defeat of the HSM in 1987, a power vacuum formed in northern Uganda, which Joseph Kony founded the LRA a year later to fill.

Initially, the LRA targeted only government troops, but it began to engage civilians in 1991-1992 when civilian militias were mobilized against it.  In 1994, peace talks between the LRA and the government broke down, and Sudan started to supply the LRA with weapons, ammunition, fuel and other essentials.  This allowed the group to endure even in a region where resources are scarce.  A group of exiled Ugandan businessmen in Rome tried to achieve a truce in 1997, but the effort came to naught when Kony tried to kill one of them in the bush later that year.  Acholi religious leaders have pushed for a peace initiative, and urged the government to pass the Amnesty Act in 2000, hoping to convince rebels to lay down their arms.  So far, however, the core group of LRA commanders remains at large.

The LRA remains centered on its founder Joseph Kony. A ruthless leader and self-proclaimed messenger of God, Kony uses a combination of fear and mysticism to maintain control over the LRA and sustain the conflict in northern Uganda.  Kony’s goals are not immediately clear, even to his own followers.  Though the conventional wisdom is that Kony’s main objective is to establish a state based upon the Biblical Ten Commandments, events, other analysts and former combatants suggest other goals. One former LRA commander claims that Kony wants to “cleanse” Uganda of those who wish to sustain war, and that the struggle would continue until no one had the will to fight any longer. Kony meanwhile has hinted that he is fighting on behalf of the Acholi people of northern Uganda against a government that discriminates against them.

Due to their grisly tactics, the LRA has failed to gain any widespread support among the Acholis. The LRA is mostly made up of children between the ages of 11 and 15.  Half of these are porters and sex slaves who would leave if they could, but do not for fear of being captured by the LRA and killed, or because they simply have nowhere to go.  When the LRA raids a village or town, it rounds up several of the children and forces them to murder their siblings, parents or neighbors.  This cruel initiation is intended to provide a “clean break with the past” since children who have killed in front of their communities are less likely to want to return.  Other children are forced to carry looted items from the raids into the bush.  Girls that are captured are used as sex slaves or are forced to marry LRA commanders, some of whom have more than 30 wives.

These raids and brutal tactics have frightened more than 1.6 million people into fleeing their homes, making it easier for rebels to take what is left behind.  Thousands more flee rural villages at night for the relatively better security of large towns.  The looting and the stress on the labor force have had a devastating effect on agriculture in northern Uganda, which is the economic base of the region.

For a time, there was amazement at the LRA’s ability to sustain itself for such a long time with no popular support and no resources such as diamonds or drugs to trade in exchange for weapons and supplies.  However there are three main factors that allow the organization to endure. Some regional experts and Ugandan officials view Sudanese support as the LRA’s lifeline: without it, some say, the LRA could be defeated in two months.  Although the children, which the LRA regards as expendable, are armed mainly with machetes and axes, LRA commanders have been photographed with shoulder-mounted rocket launchers and other sophisticated weaponry.  This has led some observers to speculate that the group is better equipped than most African armies.

The tactics that the LRA employs are also effective in sustaining the group.  By manipulating and coercing adolescents, the few commanders at the top remain protected.  When the Ugandan army attacks with helicopters, commanders force the children to don their uniforms so that the children are killed instead in their place.  Kony also reputedly instills an apocalyptic spiritualism in his followers, making them unafraid to die.

Meanwhile, the Ugandan government has yet to find an effective way to counter the LRA.  It has declared imminent victory against the organization numerous times and used overwhelming force against it, but it seems that the more the government attacks and boasts of its successes, the more the LRA attacks civilians.  President Yoweri K. Museveni has repeatedly vowed to wipe out the group, but has complained that restrictions on aid packages prevent him from investing in the military capabilities necessary to defeat it.  Donor nations have said that they want the government to arrive at a negotiated peace with the LRA.  Some members of Uganda’s parliament from the northern regions where the LRA operates have accused the Army of doing little to defeat the organization because it provides Army officers with a source of income.

Operation Iron Fist was launched in 2002, during which Sudan allowed Ugandan forces to come into certain parts of its territory to attack LRA bases.  For the most part, however, the LRA simply moved its supply lines north of the area of operations and increased attacks against Ugandan and Sudanese civilians.  Most civilians in northern Uganda do not see the military solution as a viable alternative now, nor do other members of the international community.  Although Sudan has scaled back its support of the LRA, the group is believed to retain large caches of buried weapons and the ability to endure for years even if such support were withdrawn completely.  The International Criminal Court began investigating the LRA for war crimes in July 2004.

Sources

“Behind the Violence: Causes, Consequences, and the Search for Solutions to the War in Northern Uganda.” Refugee Law Project. February 2004.

“Uganda ‘War Crimes’ Probe Opens,” BBC News, World Edition. July 29, 2004.

“UN Urges End to Ugandan ‘Horror’,” BBC News World Edition. Oct. 22, 2004.

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