Lord’s Resistance Army is Big Business

By modest estimates, the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) has killed 100, 000 people, majority from Uganda but others from neighboring countries of Sudan/South Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Central Africa Republic (CAR). It has displaced about two million, and raped, mutilated or abducted countless others. This includes many children, who have been forced to become soldiers or sex slaves for LRA fighters. Its barbaric methods include dismembering its victims and slashing off noses, lips, ears and limbs. But what is surprising is that Joseph Kony, LRA’s self-styled Christian mystic (though in reality a homicidal psychopath) has somehow eluded death or capture for decades, even with huge investments in the search for him, that involves among others, the Uganda People’s Defense Force (UPDF) and a US special force. Its survival and fortunes seem to wax and wane in line with complex resource based regional politics. 

His arch-enemy, Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni, threw everything at the LRA, eventually driving it out of its birthplace in northern Uganda in 2006. But, like the cancer that it is, the LRA has somehow managed to entrench itself and continue to operate in neighboring countries, especially DRC and CAR. But recent increased action by LRA is worrisome. In 2015 alone, the LRA conducted an estimated 198 attacks, killing 14 people and abducting an estimated 662 civilians. In 2016, LRA has already carried out 200 attacks, killed 19 people and abducting 679 people. This is certainly and upward trend that must worry any concerned person.

Whereas many actors downplay the possibility of LRA ever regaining its peak strength, what really stops Kony’s LRA from regaining its former numbers and strength? It is time for hard questions. What is LRA’s exact mission? What is it currently involved in? Who supports LRA and why? What is the role of LRA in the lucrative illegal natural resource business in the region? Who does not want Kony arrested and why? Or Simply who benefits from this entrepreneurship -The Kony-LRA Multinational Corporation?”