THE LORD’S RESISTANCE ARMY

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Introduction
In the African countries of Uganda and South Sudan, thousands of men, women and children are being brutally murdered. The killers are often child soldiers led by a military madman named Joseph Kony. They call themselves the Lord’s Resistance Army and they are considered to be one of the most vicious terrorist groups in the world.

Beginning of the LRA
The Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) was originally founded in 1986 by Alice Lakwena in northern Uganda. Subsequently, the group was taken over in 1987 by Joseph Kony. Although the group’s original purpose was to demand rights for the Acholi people who were oppressed and abused by the government of Uganda, it has since evolved to become one of the most blood thirsty groups in Africa.
According to the U.S. Department of State, between 1986 and 2005, the armed group under the leadership of Kony moved several times. First it relocated from Uganda to South Sudan, then back to Uganda and in 2006, finally moving its operation to the borders of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the Central African Republic (CAR), and South Sudan.
Since the group vacated Uganda, it has been reported than more than ninety-five percent of those refugees living in the area have been able to recover. Through the support of countries such as the United States, they have been able to leave the refugee camps and begin to rebuild their lives.
As a result of its atrocities, the LRA has been listed by the U.S. State Department as a terrorist group since 2001. Likewise, the group’s leader Joseph Kony has also been listed as global terrorist by the State Department since 2008. The LRA was officially listed as a terrorist organization by the African Union on November 22, 2011.
Kony
Under the ...

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...People’s Defense Force (UPDF) along with the governments of South Sudan and the DRC, began attacking known LRA camps in South Sudan and along the DRC border in what is known as Operation Lighting Thunder. The operation was successful in weakening the LRA, but failed however to force Kony and the LRA into peace talks.
An effort is being made to weaken the Lord’s Resistance Army by encouraging soldiers to defect from the group and return home. Messages from family, community leaders, and former LRA members are aired on local radio stations as well as by helicopters flying above known LRA locations. These messages are produced by U.S. military advisors, the African Union Regional Task Force, and other organizations. The effort has shown signs of success as the number of LRA fighters have declined from over one thousand in 2008, to approximately two hundred in 2014.

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