Lord’s Resistance Army

Lord Chidgey Excerpts

Monday 26th March 2012 Grand Committee

[Lord Chidgey]

My Lords, for nearly two decades the LRA roamed across northern Uganda, causing 2 million people to flee their homes, and tens of thousands to be kidnapped, mutilated and killed. Over that time, more than 20,000 children were killed. Violence and disease killed 1,000 a week at the height of the conflict, and more than 70,000 people are still in IDP camps.

Joseph Kony, the self-proclaimed mystic, led the Lord’s Resistance Army on a massacre of civilians, as other noble Lords have commented, slicing off the lips of survivors and kidnapping children for use as soldiers, porters and sex slaves. Threatening to destabilise the whole of the region, Kony has repeatedly failed to sign a final peace deal, demanding that he should not be prosecuted by the ICC for war crimes.

Following the ICC’s indictment of Joseph Kony, the African Union formally designated the LRA as a terrorist group, accusing it of murder, rape and child kidnappings in east and central Africa. The AU’s security commissioner, Ramtane Lamamra, called on the UN Security Council to do the same. He has urged all countries to declare the LRA to be terrorists and to forbid its criminal activities on their territory. Mr Lamamra has welcomed the support for the AU by the recent US deployment of 100 specialist troops and appealed to other international partners to,

“reinforce and support … our own regional states in order to enhance their efficiency in fighting the LRA”.

It is of some concern that reports are circulating that Uganda is complaining that the Congo is obstructing its US-backed hunt for Kony. General Jean Claude Kifwa, leading the fight against the LRA for the Congo, has dismissed tensions with Uganda, suggesting Uganda may be dragging its feet in the hunt for Kony. Mistrust between Congolese and Ugandan forces has hampered the sharing of key intelligence and operational plans by the Ugandans, and tensions between Uganda and the DRC have not abated.

Ida Sawyer, a leading Congo analyst with Human Rights Watch, has commented that:

“On their own, regional governments have not shown the capability or resolve to protect civilians from LRA abuses, or…capture the LRA’s top leaders”.

In 2009, the successful author, Jane Bussmann, published a harrowing account of her experiences with the LRA. She, too, confirmed the lack of commitment in the Kony capture plans.

The AU’s efforts will only be the sum of its parts. Two years ago, an AU-led regional initiative was agreed. It included installing a 5,000-strong regional task force and three tactical sector headquarters, a joint operations centre and a joint co-ordination mechanism. Has this initiative been abandoned in favour of the new announcement? Over the past few days, the AU has announced that arrangements for a regional force are in place, seemingly a knee-jerk reaction to the “Stop Kony” video. Comprising troops from Uganda, South Sudan, the CAR and the DRC, it will be based in Yambio. What confidence do our Government have that this plan will overcome the operational tensions and shortages in key equipment and resources any better than previous joint operations?

There is a lack of resources, particularly in intelligence-gathering, military analysis, logistics and air troop transport, over this huge region. Can the Minister confirm when the joint operational centre in Dungu became available, when it became operational and how the required resources are expected to be provided?

Finally, what opportunities are our Government creating to liaise with Governments in the region to provide co-ordination and communication resources for communities to complete early warning systems such as cellphone tower networks, the completion of which has been extremely slow?