his appointment was welcomed by Resolve Uganda and the head of the Senate Africa subcommittee.

TO BE NOTED: From Resolve Uganda:

"Weekly Roundup for March 14-27: Obama nominates top US Africa diplomat, Ugandan military withdraws from DR Congo

March 27th, 2009 by paul in: Main Site, Update from HQ

Last week President Obama nominated Johnnie Carson as the top Africa diplomat within his new Administration. Carson, a former US ambassador to Uganda, brings a wealth of experience dealing with the LRA and northern Uganda to the job and his appointment was welcomed by Resolve Uganda and the head of the Senate Africa subcommittee.

Carson will need every iota of his experience and skills to take up the tough challenge of renewing US leadership on efforts to deal with the LRA. Last week the Ugandan military withdrew its forces from the DR Congo, just over three months after launching a US-supported military operation against LRA rebels hiding in Congolese territory that ultimately failed to capture top rebel commanders. With LRA attacks escalating once again, our efforts are needed more than ever to ensure that Mr. Carson, Secretary Clinton and President Obama take the steps needed to permanently end this war.

The Good: Nearly 80,000 northern Ugandans have left displacement camps to return home since December of last year.

The Bad: Despite this progress, violent conflicts over land have forced hundreds of northerners to flee their homes in recent weeks.

The Ugly: After a brief lull, LRA attacks in the DR Congo are worsening and forcing more Congolese civilians to flee their homes.

Regional Security

• The Ugandan army abruptly withdrew its forces from the DR Congo after a three-month operation against the LRA. Ugandan officials insisted that the operation was a success, but admitted that Congolese political pressure was their primary reason for leaving. The operation failed to capture Joseph Kony or his top two commanders, and also failed to stop massive rebel reprisal attacks on civilians.

• Congolese troops and UN peacekeepers in the DR Congo announced that they would boost troop levels in northeastern DR Congo to better protect civilians and continue operations against the LRA, though their capacity to do so effectively will likely remain limited.

• After lull in February, LRA attacks on civilians in the DR Congo have picked up in March. The LRA has now displaced over 180,000 Congolese civilians and 43,000 Sudanese civilians since September 2008.

• Richard, a Congolese child abducted by the LRA last September, told The Guardian Weekly newspaper about his experience with the rebels after his recent escape.

Situation in Northern Uganda

• Although over half a million people still remain displaced in northern Uganda, nearly 80,000 people have left the camps since last December.

• Violent land conflicts in northern Uganda have killed four people since the beginning of 2009 and forced 120 families to flee their homes. The disputes allegedly involve different clans with competing claims to land in several districts of .

• Change.org's Humanitarian Relief blog carried a post by northern Uganda expert Jon Marino calling for the Ugandan government to demonstrate more leadership to jumpstart the reconstruction process in northern Uganda.

International Response

• President Obama nominated Johnnie Carson as his Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, the top Africa position within the US government. Carson served as the US Ambassador to Uganda from 1991 to 1994 and in recent years has been vocal on the need for sustainable peace in northern Uganda and the country as a whole.

• UN special envoy announced plans to initiate contact with LRA leader Joseph Kony, following the withdrawal of Ugandan military forces from Congolese soil. Ugandan government officials said they welcomed any move by Kony to sign the final peace agreement negotiated last year, but were not willing to re-open negotaions on the deal."

the LRA killed hundreds of civilians in just a few hours in Lira District.

TO BE NOTED: From Resolve Uganda:

"Kill Every Living Thing" - Justice & Reconciliation Project releases new field note

February 24th, 2009 by alison in: Campaign Watch, Main Site

For those of you who have been involved in this movement for some time, the Barlonyo Massacre needs no explanation. For those newer to the cause, it was one of the most horrific attacks in the history of this two-decade war, in which the LRA killed hundreds of civilians in just a few hours in Lira District.

Last Saturday marked five years since this attack took place, and to commemorate this tragic occasion, the Justice and Reconciliation Project has released a new field note - the first ever comprhensive public documentation of the massacre of over 300 civilians in Barlonyo on February 21, 2004.

In this line of work, it's sometimes difficult to internalize the meaning and significance of the words and statistics we so readily use... 2 million people, displacement, abductee, atrocity. For me, those words and statistics were given faces and names last August, when I visited Barlonyo with a colleague from Lutheran World Relief. We found ourselves surrounded by women and children, in a place that seemed utterly forgotten. Their stories were unimaginable and the phrase "most neglected crisis" meant something new to me as I stood there and looked at the group who had gathered to come greet us.

In the conclusion to the field note, its authors remind us that ultimately our search for an end to this war is not about Joseph Kony. It's about what he's done, and more importantly, the people he's done it to. They have stories that, while hard to hear and difficult to read, must be told, and more importantly, listened to. The people who have survived this brutal war are requesting something of each of us.

As we drove away from Barlonyo last summer, we passed a hut on which the words, "This world is not our home" were painted on the side. I would like to believe that the things promised to these people five years ago: peace, safety, and justice will come to be in their lifetime.

I hope you'll read the report. You can download it here."

What makes Uganda think it can do the job now?

From Peter Eichstaedt:

"Dominic makes two

The French Press Agency is reporting that Dominic Ongwen, another deputy commander of the Lord's Resistance Army, also wants to surrender to Ugandan forces fighting in northeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The possible surrender of Ongwen follows last week's request by LRA deputy commander Okot Odhiambo, who is currently negotiating the terms of a surrender.

If true, the defection and surrender of these commanders would leave Kony largely isolated, yet still with the bulk of his army in the DRC, said to be some 600 or 700 men.

The surrender of both these men would be a huge success for the Ugandan army and theoretically for the international community since both are wanted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

"Dominic Ongwen is here with me, we are together," Odhiambo told AFP by phone from his jungle hide-out, adding they had 120 LRA fighters with them.

Meanwhile, word continues to trickle out about the possible surrender of the deputy commander of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebels, Okot Odhiambo.

According to the Daily Monitor newspaper in Kampala, the Ugandan army commander in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Brig. Gen. Patrick Kankiriho, has given Odhiambo a map sketching out where Odhiambo and his men can surrender.

The options are several locations, or any church or the United Nations Mission in Congo (MONUC) outpost.

“I sent him a sketch map of areas where he can report. I told him if he cannot report in those areas where the UPDF is, he can go to any church or the UN,” Kankiriho told the Monitor.

The church suggestion is ironic since Odhiambo and his men are thought to have been behind a slaughter in a church of about 50 people in the Doruma area in December.

This communique to Odhiambo is the first hard information that the negotiations, which began last week, are still on-going with the rebel unit, said to nubmer about 85 people, including about 45 soldiers, 20 abductees and non-combatants.

"If Odhiambo responds and says he is at point A, then we will know he is serious. We will not hurt him. We can even leave our guns behind and we get UN to escort us and we meet him,” Kankiriho said.

If Odhiambo surrenders, it will be a major success for the Ugandan military strike that began Dec. 14 and sent the LRA, lead by Joseph Kony, on a killing rampage that has taken the lives of nearly 1,000 civilians in the region.

But how long the Ugandan army can or will stay in northeastern DRC? Congolese officials have set today, Friday, Feb. 6, as the deadline for Uganda's withdrawal from the region.

The deadline makes no sense, of course, given the current negotiations, but the Congo is under pressure to rid itself of foreign forces. Neighboring Rwanda currently has about 2,000 troops in the Kivu provinces of eastern DRC, who are ridding the region of the Hutu militias.

The two situation are virtually unrelated, but problematic, none-the-less.

Certainly, simple logic dictates that Uganda should continue this operation against Kony and the LRA, since in both this situation and the Kivus, the DRC is incapable of controlling or solving the problem.

But this also raises the question whether Uganda can solve the Kony problem as well. Given the botched operation that began the current mess, there are serious doubts for any permanent solution.

The question also arises as to why Kony and his army are in the DRC in the first place. Why didn't Uganda solve the Kony problem sometime during the 20 years he fought in Uganda?

What makes Uganda think it can do the job now? "

Me:

Don said...

I'm wondering who supports Kony. Can he really survive without any base in a population? If he has no base, how come Uganda, the Congo, and Rwanda can't stop him?

Don the libertarian Democrat

February 6, 2009 9:49 PM

"If this lasts another six months or a year, they'll start looking for better equipment, and we risk a Mai Mai phenomenon,"

From Stop The War In North Kivu:

"OCHA humanitarian info on North Kivu In From the field on January 16, 2009 at 1:22 pm

I have just received a report from the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) on the information meeting they hold this morning in Goma.

For anyone interested, all their information can be found here."

Let's check in on the Congo. From Reuters:

1 of 1Full Size

By Joe Bavier

DUNGU, Congo (Reuters) - Congolese villagers are forming self-defence groups to protect homes and families from Ugandan LRA rebels.( CAN YOU IMAGINE HAVING TO WORRY ABOUT THE LRA SHOWING UP IN YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD? )

LRA rebels have killed 567 people( 567 ) and displaced 115,000 in northeast Democratic Republic of Congo's Oriental province since September, U.N. refugee agency UNHCR says. Attacks surged after Ugandan forces spearheaded an anti-LRA offensive in December.

In silence broken only by the buzz of insects and the crunch of earth under their plastic sandals, eight men file through the cool night, hunting rifles in hand, scanning the darkness for those who killed their neighbours and burned their homes.

Elsewhere in the areas surrounding the town of Dungu, dozens more like them stalk the forest, mostly farmers and internal refugees armed with locally made guns or bows and arrows.

"This is very necessary for me, first and foremost, for the town, and for the people who are suffering in the bush, who have done nothing and who are dying," said Pascal Kalemba, the bottom half of his boyish face hidden by an airline sleeping mask.

Lord's Resistance Army rebel fighters attacked Dungu in September, as efforts to negotiate a peace deal to end their two-decade bush war against the Ugandan government broke down.

"They just walked straight into town. They started to burn houses and kill people," Kalemba said.

At the time, not a single Congolese soldier was deployed in the town of 57,000 inhabitants, located near Garamba National Park, the LRA's stronghold since it fled to Congo in 2005.

On December 14, a Ugandan-led multinational force, including Congolese and South Sudanese soldiers, launched an offensive aiming to capture the rebels' reclusive leader Joseph Kony.

Instead, the operation splintered the rebels into smaller groups that are now attacking villages, slaughtering civilians, raping women and kidnapping children for use as sex slaves and child soldiers. The U.N. death toll may be conservative.( UNREAL )

New York-based Human Rights Watch says three days of raids alone, starting on Christmas Day, killed at least 600 people. Most were beaten to death with clubs or hacked with machetes.

ARMY "RUNS AWAY"

The head of Dungu's self-defence force, former chief Etienne Dalafata, said despite the deployment of over 3,500 government troops to the area, villages must defend themselves.

"We've already gone on operations with the army, but when we go into the bush they get scared and run away. They are city soldiers," he said.

Dalafata said his force enjoys the town's support and that militias have sprung up across Congo's northern borderlands.

All of this worries Felicien Balani, president of Dungu's local civil society association.

"Our army must make them unnecessary. They find their justification in its ineffectiveness. If this lasts another six months or a year, they'll start looking for better equipment, and we risk a Mai Mai phenomenon," he said.

Mai Mai ethnic militias sprang up across eastern Congo in the 1990s during invasions by Rwanda and proxy rebel groups.

Like Dalafata's men, the Mai Mai initially said they took up arms to protect their communities. But they became notorious for bloody massacres of civilians, rape, and ritual cannibalism.( PLEASE NOT AGAIN )

Since September, the Dungu militia has taken just three LRA prisoners from a number of clashes with the Ugandan rebels.

All, they said, were turned over to the army.

But this week a self-defence patrol in Nzope village on the eastern edge of Garamba caught two LRA suspects. It mutilated and killed one before handing the other over to the authorities.

In Dungu, Kalemba said he feels no hatred for these latest invaders. He simply wants them to go home.

"Why are they persecuting us? Why?" he said.

"If it comes to a battle, we will die together."

I truly believe that indifference allows this to happen. Shame on us! Including me.

slow but steady devolution of the region into the same bloody no-man's land that Kony created for 20 years in northern Uganda.

Let's check in on the Lord's Resistance Army on Peter Eichstaedt's blog:

"Kony fires Matsanga, others

In a statement said to be from the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) and issued in Paris this weekend, the guerrilla force has apparently fired what's left of its negotiating team, according to the Sudan Tribune, on-line edition.

This is a simpering end to a bizarre and tortured history of negotiations between the LRA and Uganda that has had little or no credibility since they began two-and-a-half years ago in Juba, South Sudan.

The most immediate effect is that it means the end of David Nyekorach-Matsanga's claims that he speaks for the LRA.

As mentioned in an early edition of this blog, Matsanga's credibility was sabotaged in last spring when he announced that he was heading a new team of LRA negotiators

He claimed to be in touch with the LRA's leader, the self-proclaimed prophet and spirit medium Joseph Kony, who had agreed to sign the peace deal with Uganda that had been negotiated by the earlier, and perhaps even less credible team.

Matsanga even convinced the international community to fly him to The Hague, Netherlands, along with a couple of Kampala lawyers, to make an appeal to the International Criminal Court.

The court has indictments against Kony and his remaining two top commanders for war crimes and crimes against humanity pending since 2005.
These Matsanga claimed were why Kony wouldn't sign.

Therefore the court should drop the indictments and let Kony go free, he said. The court didn't, of course, and sent Matsanga packing.

Reality dawned on the international community in late April 2008 when Kony didn't show at a pre-arranged site to sign the peace deal, despite the presence of hundreds of "officials" to witness the event.

When it was revealed that Matsanga had never talked with Kony and had duped the entire assembled cadre of blithering apologists for this, Africa's most vicious and demonic cult, he fled the jungle enclave.

As the Sudan Tribune notes, he was arrested at the Juba airport with a letter from Uganda President Yoweri Museveni and $20,000 in cash. The money was his pay from the international community for his "work" as team leader. The letter showed that Matsanga had been used by Museveni.

But the lunacy didn't stop. Others in the so-called negotiating team said it all had been a misunderstanding and that Kony would sign the deal a month later. Again, Kony's didn't show.

By this time, Kony's marauders had already completed an extended raid across portions of South Sudan and into the Central African Republic, killing, looting and abducting hundreds of people to bolster its force. ( A PLAGUE )

Then Matsanga resurfaced, again claiming he was the spokesman for the LRA and that Kony would sign the deal. Then for the third time last year, people from northern Uganda, the UN, and the international community traipsed to the jungle.

Again, Kony didn't sign, and as mentioned in earlier entries, threatened the ethnic leaders from the north, calling them traitors.

Kony was finally attacked on Dec. 14 in his camps in northern DRC by the Uganda army, which propelled Kony's LRA on the bloodiest rampage in the militia-cult's history.

The apparent official statement, meanwhile, ends all contacts with Matsanga and a couple of women named Miss Abalo and Justine Labeja, both presumable from northern Uganda.

The statement was also reportedly sent to all of the official parties who have been involved in the so-called negotiations, including the United Nations, African Union, non-governmental organisations, UN special envoy to the talks, Joachim Chissano, and presidents of the DRC, Kenya, Southern Sudan, Central African Republic, Uganda, and various international observers.

What this means is unclear, but one can guess. First of all, it means that Kony has finally acknowledged that the peace talks were a farce and nothing more than a ruse for him and his negotiating "team" to collect per diem payment from the international community.

Rumors were that in order to be part of the team, one had to share the cash with Kony. This was in addition to the tons of food that was shipped to the jungle each month for Kony by the Catholic Charity, Caritas, and paid for by the blithering apologists.( UNREAL )

Now that he has been attacked, Kony has realized it's over and the gravy train has stopped rolling his way.

What is next, is anyone's guess. My prediction is that Kony will regroup his beleaguered forces and take them to the CAR. In the meanwhile, he'll be desperately reaching out to anyone willing to provide him arms and cash, as he continues to loot and kill innocents in the region.

What we can expect is a slow but steady devolution of the region into the same bloody no-man's land that Kony created for 20 years in northern Uganda.( UNREAL )

Posted by Peter Eichstaedt at 7:52 AM

"Some 20 people were killed in an attack by the Lord's Resistance Army on a park ranger station "

From Peter Eichstaedt's Blog, another post on the LRA pestilence:

"LRA attacks park, rampage continues

Some 20 people were killed in an attack by the Lord's Resistance Army on a park ranger station in northern Democratic Republic of Congo, local officials told the Reuters news agency on Monday.

The attack apparently came last Friday when dozens of LRA fighters fired on the headquarters of the Garamba National Park in the town of Negero, in Congo's Orientale province.

"Ten people were killed, including two women, two park rangers, an electrician and five other civilians who have not yet been identified," Orientale's Deputy Governor Joseph Bangakya told Reuters.

In addition, 10 LRA fighters were killed in what was described as a four-hour gunbattle with armed park rangers and Congolese soldiers based at Negero's airstrip.

The soldiers were stationed there as part of a three-week-old multinational assault on LRA strongholds in northeastern Congo.

But that is not all. In two separate attacks on Sunday, according to Reuters, LRA gunmen attacked the Congolese village of Napopo and attacked Laso, a village in Sudan. It was not immediately known if anyone died in the incidents.

The continuing attacks are yet further evidence that the multinational operation has been a failure and that LRA leader Joseph Kony is not only alive and well, but able to organize attacks at will in various locations in the DRC.

The death toll now in the wake of the botched Dec. 14th attack on Kony's camps is now well over 400, with the BBC reporting that the dead may be as many as 500 people -- all innocent civilians.

"The number of dead just keeps going up. Since the beginning of these operations, it is the civilians who are dying," said Felicien Balani, who heads a coalition of civil society groups, according to Reuters.

Estimated to number between 800 and 1,000 fighters, Ugandan and Congolese officials say the LRA has now splintered into smaller groups. Some are believed to be heading towards neighbouring Central African Republic, where the rebels have carried out raids in the past. "

What a plague.