COIN case: LRA Lords Resistance Army

[M-A Lagrange]

"The population in DRC is not concentrated. So, for the LRA to get time to collect 300 people and kill them, they need days not hours to do so," he said, adding: "In Barlonyo, they were able to kill about 200 because people were in an IDP camp. What about people settled in their villages in a forested region?"
Col. Kulayigye wondered whether the Congo army would not have got wind of LRA activities within those four days and gone to rescue its people. He said the UPDF intelligence indicates that the LRA has less than 200 fighters who have no capacity to kill with impunity.
http://allafrica.com/stories/201003290001.html

Personally, I hate whem officials denie killings in Africa. It always reminds me the sentence: in those countries (African countries), massacres does not count...

But unfortunatelly, may be we do have copy cats there...

[Michael F]

Personally, I hate whem officials denie killings in Africa. It always reminds me the sentence: in those countries (African countries), massacres does not count...

But unfortunatelly, may be we do have copy cats there...

The HRW clearly states that FARDC have been informed of the LRA incursion 02 days after it started and immediately informed the UPDF. Both UPDf and FARDC immediately dispatched local small units to the area and reached it 02 days later.

UPDF is trying to shift the blame for its inefficiency to the FARDC (an easy usual suspect in that matter).

Also, the fact that the information about those massacres only leaked now (12 weeks after FARDC, UPDF, MONUC and others...knew) is for me a clear prove of a cover up. Now it has been leaked they can only minimize it.

BTW it doesn't really matter as the US Senate already passed its LRA bill giving Kampala more money and FOA in that matter.

[M-A Lagrange]

"These claims of massacres coming almost four months late are yet another fabrication by NGOs, which are advocating war," Justine Labeja, LRA’s Nairobi-based spokesman, told Reuters.
"Yes, we are in Congo but we have no problem with the Congolese people or its government and we continue to call for a ceasefire to end this war," he further said.
The rebel official also slammed the United Nations saying they want to use their group to justify their return into Congo. "The U.N. are being kicked out of Congo against their will but they now want to use us as an excuse to stay there," he said.
http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article34588

Now, all this is becoming silly. The LRA can now denie its participation into those massacres. Thanks UPDF...
Well thanks also to MONUC to be SO efficient!
Unfortunately, no one is expecting anything from FARDC and that's may be the best thing.

[M-A Lagrange]

LRA Rebel Pins Sudan On Support

Kampala — THE Sudan government is in touch with the Lord's Resistance Army command and has given the rebels fresh supplies of food and medicines, a captured commander has said.
The LRA political commissar, Okello 'Mission', told journalists in Kampala that he was part of the LRA team that trekked to the Darfur region in Sudan where they met officers of the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) on October 4, 2009.
He said their delegation was led by Caesar Acellam and they met with the SAF brigade commander in Darfur, Col. Hamdou, and an un-named lieutenant colonel said to be the regional chief of intelligence.
He said Khartoum solicited for the meeting.
"The subject of the discussion was to resume the partnership with the government of Sudan," Okello Mission said.

Okello Mission, 30, was captured by UPDF soldiers at Ezo in Southern Sudan after a brief shoot-out in the evening of March 31. Okello was in a unit of 10 rebels, led by Felly Otimi, an escort to LRA leader Joseph Kony.
He graduated from Makerere University in 2004 with a bachelor's degree in computer science and joined the LRA as a peace negotiator in 2006. A relative of Kony, he hails from Lalogi in Gulu district and holds a Democratic Party (DP) membership card.
He joined the Juba peace talks at the same time with Santa Okot, Peter Obina, Yusuf Adek and Quinto Kidega. He said he remained with the rebels to explain the draft final peace agreement to Kony.

http://allafrica.com/stories/201004060006.html

An interesting article on the LRA. I really recommend it for all those who follow the question.

[carl]

Here is a link to a New York Times story and video about the Ugandan army's continuing effort to kill the LRA.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/11/wo...ica/11lra.html

The video has two brief scenes of the air support being given. One scene shows a mighty AN-2 being refueled by chunky anglo guys who I would bet 12 dollars are either Russians or Ukranians, Africa standard. The other scene shows a P68 Observer, not a common aircraft, being started up by its' crew, one of whom was a young anglo guy in what looked like a military flight suit. That guy did not look at all like a Russian.

[davidbfpo]

Here is a link to a New York Times story and video about the Ugandan army's continuing effort to kill the LRA.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/11/wo...ica/11lra.html

Carl,

I was struck by the reported use of ex-LRA members to hunt their former comrades:

In an unorthodox strategy that could help end this seemingly pointless war, the Ugandan Army is deploying special squads of experienced killers to track down the L.R.A.’s leader...These soldiers...are former L.R.A. fighters themselves, and just about all of them were abducted as children. They recently surrendered... the decision was the Ugandans’ and that in this case, as one American officer put it, “these guys may be some of the best they got.”

The battlefield statistics seem to bear this out. In the past 18 months, American officials say, the Ugandan Army has killed or captured more than half of Mr. Kony’s men, including his finance and communications officers, as well as several other high-ranking commanders.

I don't recall seeing this before; whilst it is a standard COIN tactic having read many of the Rhodesian threads of late perhaps I was more alert when reading this.

Plus the NYT video links failed for me.

[carl]

David:

Maybe this link will work. It goes directly to the video.

http://video.nytimes.com/video/2010/...html?th&emc=th

I wonder it they have tried or if it would be practicable to use Pygmy trackers in the effort. Those guys are pretty good.