COIN case: LRA Lords Resistance Army

[M-A Lagrange]

Well 2011 referendum seems a very long term target. 2010 elections could be a more archivable objective as LRA has no logistical support.
Also, despite percistent rumours of guns flying all over the place, there has been light hard evidence of Khartum involvement in it, even of the happening of such thing. The one I know is tanks flying from Kenya to Rumbek for GoSS. But still does not mean it does not exist. Bad people even say that it is GoSS that is arming the place to undermine coming referundum...

Also take in consideration coming DDR schedule in South Sudan. That will ease Kony job to come in and out South Sudan.

Other thing to take in account is that burning the land for food supply works when you have food coming. LRA favorite target always has been humanitarian programs. For the moment, WFP pockets are dry and donors are reluctant to fund, this is a secret for no one. according to FAO, the coming season is hunger...

I do not know about Kony meeting in CAR but in DRC, he was still capable to coordinate multy target attacks while his groups were splited all over the place.

[Michael F]

Well 2011 referendum seems a very long term target. 2010 elections could be a more archivable objective as LRA has no logistical support.
Also, despite percistent rumours of guns flying all over the place, there has been light hard evidence of Khartum involvement in it, even of the happening of such thing. The one I know is tanks flying from Kenya to Rumbek for GoSS. But still does not mean it does not exist. Bad people even say that it is GoSS that is arming the place to undermine coming referundum...

Also take in consideration coming DDR schedule in South Sudan. That will ease Kony job to come in and out South Sudan.

Other thing to take in account is that burning the land for food supply works when you have food coming. LRA favorite target always has been humanitarian programs. For the moment, WFP pockets are dry and donors are reluctant to fund, this is a secret for no one. according to FAO, the coming season is hunger...

I do not know about Kony meeting in CAR but in DRC, he was still capable to coordinate multy target attacks while his groups were splited all over the place.

Some interesting thoughts,indeed.
If i may add mine.

Khartoum has been providing weapons to multiple groups in Southern Sudan across history and according to unconfirmed sources, is currently increasing the weapon flow.
About the areas bordering CAR, there are many strong ethnic and commercial links between local pro-Karthoum Sudanese and CAR groups and so between them and the CAR rebels.

Is Karthoum directly dealing with the LRA in CAR ? still unproven. Is Karthoum arming sudanese and CAR rebells along this border and indirectly the LRA ? It's not proven. Actually, proving it is impossible..... the deniability is too easy.

I've got my own opinion (Katrhoum has the motives, the means and the recklessness to do it so why shouldn't they ???)

[Tom Odom]

They certainly have played a role whenever the opportunity to stick a needle in Museveni presents itself. They played a role arming the ex-FAR while they were still in the main camps outside Goma. I sent the serial numbers of various US munitions and weapons that we found on Iwawa Island in 1995. They had made the circuit from Saudi Arabia to Sudan and then into the weapons smuggling that was arranged via the Egyptians and the Sudanese. So it would surprise me in the least to see they were supporting the LRA with munitions and weapons.

Tom

[davidbfpo]

Taken from FP:http://www.foreignpolicy.com/article...truct_in_sudan

Foreign proxies are also up to no good. The notorious Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), originally from Uganda, has stepped up its attacks in South Sudan. Bashir has a long history of using the LRA as his cat's paw in exchange for weapons, money, and political support. And though it's too early to tell if he is doing so again, Khartoum certainly does have every incentive to use violence in an effort to derail the independence referendum -- or at least seize substantial chunks of territory (some of which is oil-laden) from a newly independent South.

Only a sub-story within a warning on Sudan splitting and the likely mayhem before and after.

davidbfpo

[M-A Lagrange]

There is one question I never had good answer to concerning LRA. When they were moved from Sudan to DRC, it is said it was without weaponery. The fact that they used mainly machettes in a first time, after failed attack during peace negociations, would go that way.
But now, they seems to have gain fire power again. Where they were in DRC is far from Khartoum roads for smuggling. And building an airstrip is not that easy.
I know FARDC are loose on keeping weapons in their hands but still.
Answering to that question would probably help in responding to the question what is their logistic support.

[Tom Odom]

There is one question I never had good answer to concerning LRA. When they were moved from Sudan to DRC, it is said it was without weaponery. The fact that they used mainly machettes in a first time, after failed attack during peace negociations, would go that way.
But now, they seems to have gain fire power again. Where they were in DRC is far from Khartoum roads for smuggling. And building an airstrip is not that easy.
I know FARDC are loose on keeping weapons in their hands but still.
Answering to that question would probably help in responding to the question what is their logistic support.

It is like the movie field of dreams:

If you have cash, the weapons will come

And someone in the FADRC will bring them...

[Michael F]

The LRA, off course, had weapons when they entered the Garamba in 2005. They just did not launch any attack for a long time.
"From mid-2005, when the LRA began to prepare for the
peace process that was to become the Juba talks, its fighters and high command moved towards the border of the DRC in Western Equatoria. On their way west, some of the fiercest fighting with the SPLA occurred in areas that had previously been untouched by the LRA, such as the road between Yei and Juba (BBC News, 2005). However, the LRA has denied that these attacks were carried out by their troops"

The Karthum supply actually must have stopped (temporarily) for logistical reasons while the LRA was in the Garamba. "While civilian and military interviewees say that Khartoum supplied equipment to the Ugandan rebels well into 2006, the LRA says that such supplies ceased long before then.36 Others have reported that supplies stopped in November 2005, when the LRA crossed into Garamba National Park in DRC."

The surge in firepower actually comes from a different "timing". The LRA, as a tactic, is used to leave arm caches in strategic areas. With the Karthum supplied weapons in the past, it was easy to build multiple caches in Southern Sudan and North Congo and to reuse those weapons as soon as they were hunted down.

I don't think they bought those weapons from the FARDC as the FARDC presence in the area was small during a long time and many other weapon salors were available (Mbororos, Equatorian, GoSS corrupt, Ituri militias,...). The LRA never worked with a lot of cash (they are out of the monetary system) and more by extorsion or support.

Quotes from the very interesting @small arms survey report@ http://www.smallarmssurvey.org/files...%208%20LRA.pdf

[James Bean]

Yeah Arop was captured. Like his unit, he is a fragment.

LRA is still around. Like the election in 2011, and the Sth Sudan Referendum next year.They're there too! I'm sure LRA will be a pest in either case.

The Red Pepper (local Ugandan tabloid) reported yesterday that Konyi has oedema. I reckon he could still move pretty quickly on chubby stumps though...

As I see it, LRA went 'regional' a few years back; perhaps the generic DDR a la Arica model might have worked on a sub-regional insurgency in Acholiland. Now the situation is far more complex.

Getting a balance of IO, UPDF military ops, and a believable sense of progress in Acholiland is really hard. That said, UPDF has arrested 20-odd different insurgencies since '86.

For starters, the usual donor-driven Mack truck with a 70cc Honda engine is predictably not making much progress from Kampala heading for Gulu...can't even get the f--kin thing out of the office it's so full of sh-t!

Visibility is all about "Brought to you by <insert your favourite NGO>". Objective-focused IO is not happening, leaving government looking incompetent. To those who understand recovery, reintegration, and stabilization; making government look incompetent - directly or indirectly - is plain wrong.

Loads of the usual infrastructure-for-all, HIV, GBV, quick-fix programmes that are basically paliative. Most of the NGOs implement-to-form virtually ignoring what is an incredibly dynamic socio-cultural, political, and trauma-riven context.

It will take a lot more imagination, effort, and resources than this to shift Uganda from a 'between-conflict context' to a 'post-conflict context'.

I have written a couple of reports as part of our reintegration work that might interest you folks:

http://uganda.iom.int/publications.htm

[Jedburgh]

IPI, 25 Nov 09: From Uganda to the Congo and Beyond: Pursuing the Lord's Resistance Army

In 2008, the Ugandan military pursued the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), a northern Ugandan rebel group, into neighboring Congo during the military incursion known as “Operation Lightning Thunder.” This paper provides the historical context for this pursuit, including the historical background of the northern Uganda war that produced the LRA, and an analysis of the Juba peace process that began in 2006 and unraveled over the course of 2008.

The paper also examines the three months of “Operation Lightning Thunder,” focusing on official statements, press and NGO reports, and a newsmagazine report that first appeared in June 2009 challenging the official Ugandan version of events.

Finally, the paper explores what might come next that could contribute to peace and stability in northern Uganda and the region as a whole.

[M-A Lagrange]

Congo LRA Rebels Threaten Attacks During Christmas
http://www.easybourse.com/bourse/act...s-group-775146

UN Congo force put on alert against LRA rebel threat – AfricaTimesNews
The U.N. peacekeeping force in Congo has put its soldiers on high alert after reports that Ugandan rebels are threatening to carry out mass killings of the kind they conducted last Christmas, a spokesman said on Friday.
Ugandan Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebels, who murdered over 800 civilians around Christmas and early January last year, have threatened a fresh wave of attacks despite a year of multi-national military operations against them, analysts warn.
“We are taking things seriously,” said Kevin Kennedy, head of public information for the U.N.’s Congo peacekeeping mission. Kennedy said information about the threats by the rebels had been passed on by aid workers in recent days and weeks.

Xmass, bloody Xmass… says the song

[Steve the Planner]

James Message:

"Visibility is all about "Brought to you by <insert your favourite NGO>". Objective-focused IO is not happening, leaving government looking incompetent. To those who understand recovery, reintegration, and stabilization; making government look incompetent - directly or indirectly - is plain wrong.

Loads of the usual infrastructure-for-all, HIV, GBV, quick-fix programmes that are basically paliative. Most of the NGOs implement-to-form virtually ignoring what is an incredibly dynamic socio-cultural, political, and trauma-riven context.

It will take a lot more imagination, effort, and resources than this to shift Uganda from a 'between-conflict context' to a 'post-conflict context'."

Gee, could we insert XXXX for Uganda and have this story be universal.

[M-A Lagrange]

FARDC captures 6 LRA rebels in Duru:
Capt Alex Ochen was capture with 5 others by the FARDC on 18 and 20 December 2009.
full article (in french): http://www.digitalcongo.net/article/63531

Some good news in fact.