Seleka rebels want $5m reward
Ho-hum, the Seleka haven't had their money or a thank you.:wry:
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A Seleka commander said he was captured after a 25-minute battle, after which they informed US forces in the area. A US official had said that Mr Ongwen had defected, before being handed over to their forces.
Link:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-30743647
Dominic Ongwen: The complex story of a child soldier
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the story of the man as I know it, and what his defection might mean to the future of the LRA. More so than Joseph Kony, the founder and leader of the LRA, Ongwen is sadly typical of the LRA rank and file. His example refutes the erroneous but morally and sometimes legally convenient definitions of LRA members as either helpless victims or violent perpetrators. Abducted as a child, indoctrinated and forced into committing unspeakable acts before he had even hit puberty, Ongwen is clearly a victim, but he is also a perpetrator.
Which ends with:
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The only thing clear from Ongwen’s surrender is that the LRA crisis is still not over.
Link:http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...child-soldier/
Of the top five in the LRA, one is left
Pending an official statement by Uganda the NYT reports:
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The bullet-scarred remains of the No. 2 commander in the Lord’s Resistance Army, the guerrilla group that once terrorized central Africa, have been positively identified after having been exhumed three months ago in a
Uganda-led military expedition, a person involved in the recovery operation said Monday.....only Mr. Kony, a warlord and self-described prophet, remains at large.
Link:http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/07/wo...n-uganda.html?
My husband the warlord: an extract from the memoir of Joseph Kony's wife
A short article, no doubt part of the publisher's advertising; caveat aside maybe it helps to explain:http://www.theguardian.com/world/201...memoir-extract
'They have not gone away'
The pressure groups have told at least this Jo'burg-based journalist the LRA are active once more:
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Rebels from the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) have dramatically escalated their attacks, abducting more than 200 people - including 54 children - in the first two months of this year. The LRA carried out twice as many raids in January and February alone as during the whole of 2015, according to "LRA Crisis Tracker".....The LRA had been reduced to as few as 120 fighters and 100 accompanying women and children.
Link:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...f-attacks.html
AFRICOM -v- LRA an albatross?
Is this a pointer to an exit coming? The article opens with:
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Africa Command’s five-year search for the elusive warlord Joseph Kony continues, but the mission in the remote jungles of central Africa has become an albatross for the general in charge of the campaign......An expensive albatross.
Link:http://www.stripes.com/news/africom-...-kony-1.405757
A child soldier with the LRA
A long review by Professor Stephen Chan, an expert on Africa, of a book 'When the Walking Defeats You' by Ledio Cakaj, as he explains:
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It’s narrated by a young Ugandan student, pseudonym “George”, who was expelled from school and sent by his own family to join and fight with the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). He became a bodyguard to the group’s infamous leader, Joseph Kony, who admired him for his learning.
...that as a very young soldier in Uganda, he also had his reasons and reflections, fears and hopes, pride and premonitions.
(Ends with) George’s telling is very much a narration of an encounter, not a psychological or intellectual inquiry. But it isn’t cheap or glib, and the book as a whole raises profund questions. Perhaps there are reasons why children fight – and perhaps even why madmen fight.
Link:https://theconversation.com/in-one-of-2016s-best-books-a-former-lords-resistance-army-child-soldier-reveals-the-reason-behind-the-mayhem-70027?
COIN case: LRA Lords Resistance Army
Lord’s Resistance Army: The U.S. Military’s Unorthodox Mission Against Kony
Moderator adds: the link is to the WSJ and cannot - here - be viewed without $ or registration.
AFRICOM -v- LRA an albatross? Back again
From the NYT:
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The Pentagon is poised to significantly scale back a decade-long mission to capture or kill Joseph Kony, one of Africa’s most notorious warlords, in a sign that the United States and its African allies no longer see him as a regional threat.
Link:https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/22/w...o-africa.html?
Trump's transition team asked questions why, so the renewal in April 2017 may be different.
End of Joseph Kony hunt raises fears LRA could return
One episode in this long running campaign, truly a 'Small War', has come to an end:
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Uganda and the US have ended a six-year hunt for the fugitive warlord
Joseph Kony, the leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army.
Uganda began withdrawing its troops from their base in eastern CAR last week. The departure of 100 US special forces, who worked alongside the Ugandan soldiers, began this week.
There is more detail in the article, including two LRA leaders have defected and the group now may have 120 fighters - hiding in a forest area which both Sudan and South Sudan claim.
Link:https://www.theguardian.com/global-d...ce-army-return
Dominic Ongwen: The complex story of a child soldier
This man appeared in Post 245, in January 2016 and I spotted this update in a photo collection:
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The international criminal court trial of former child soldier turned warlord Dominic Ongwen in Lukodi, Uganda, started on 6 December 2016, and was broadcast live. The first former child soldier to be tried at the ICC, Ongwen, 41, denied 70 war crimes and charges of crimes against humanity
Link:https://www.theguardian.com/global-d...ny-in-pictures
His ICC trial resume today. From:https://www.icc-cpi.int/uganda/ongwen
Kony surviving on ivory deals with Arabs - captive
An allegation made by a defector to a Ugandan online news site; which supports a NGO report in 2015:
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Mr Patrick Kidega, 32, who has been in the rebel ranks for 16 years but defected in December last year from the Central African Republic (CAR), says the elusive rebel leader is killing elephants for their precious tasks and selling them to Arabs to finance his operations.
Link:http://www.monitor.co.ug/News/Nation...kiz/index.html
The same news site in April 2018 reported that Kony was in the Central African Republic (a seperate thread for that troubled nation) and speculated Uganda might help the CAR Army.
Link:http://www.monitor.co.ug/Magazines/P...egz/index.html