Wüstenschiff

Kony has become a household name throughout the world, thanks to the movie Kony 2012 released by Invisible Children earlier this year [...] The sudden success was short lived. Following this unexpected explosion of internet views, a surge of interested people who wanted to learn more about Kony 2012 overwhelmed the corporation’s website disabling it for quite some time. During this period, the only way Invisible Children could communicate with the rest of the world was through social media sites such as Tumblr. This disconnection ignited many criticisms about the validity of this non-profit corporation, suggesting it is a scam and turning a profit through the exploitation of a serious issue. Move, the sequel to Kony 2012, which was released on Octcober 7th, focuses mainly on addressing this criticism rather than concerns about their intentions to help capture Joseph Kony and rehabilitate escapees from the LRA. Does this in itself indicate that Invisible Children is more concerned about expanding their corporation and increasing cash flow than actually bringing about change to Central Africa?

As the military hunt for Joseph Kony continues throughout this region, refugees who fled across the border from Congo to escape his Lord's Resistance Army say their welcome in South Sudan is wearing thin. "I want to go home, but I'm afraid of Kony. As soon as the LRA is gone, I'll go back. It's my country," said Bernadet Adesa, 35, who lives in the Makpandu refugee camp near the border. "This has been a good place for us, but every day there are more and more problems between us and the South Sudanese. If anything bad happens here, we Congolese get blamed for it," she said [...] Sister Calabria said she doubts that diplomacy, religious or otherwise, will work. "There is only one way to stop Kony," she said. "I don't want to kill him. If he is killed, it's his fault because he doesn't surrender. She said Kony was "not a normal person, and he's forced many other people to not be normal anymore. "Probably I'm not a good Christian, but it's time to stop him," she added.

IRIN hat geschrieben:
CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC: Victims cry foul over Uganda's LRA strategy
30.10.2012 - IRIN

BANGUI - Uganda's practice of pardoning and then integrating into its military captured or surrendered members of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), getting them to hunt down their former comrades-in-arms, has come in for criticism by civilians affected by the rebel group in the Central African Republic (CAR).

"This strategy is a real insult to the victims," said Gaétan Zangagoumé, chairman of a victims' association in Obo, capital of Haut-Mbomou Prefecture. The area, in the extreme southeast of CAR, has been heavily affected by LRA activities. Victims there include hundreds of civilians forcibly conscripted into the LRA as well as people from villages repeatedly attacked, torched and now deserted. Fear of further attacks greatly restricts freedom of movement.

Zangagoumé said it is wrong to send former LRA members back to areas in which they operated, now as protectors. Civil society organizations like JUPEDEC (Youth United for Environmental Protection and Community Development), a local NGO working for a "inclusive" plan in the fight against the LRA in the prefectures of Mbomou and Haut-Mbomou, agree.

"At a meeting we organized, a female victim recognized among the Ugandan forces a former LRA rebel who had raped her. He even wanted to court her. She told us this; it is a difficult situation," said Alexis Lewis Mbolinani, the NGO's coordinator.

Arms not enough

In Kampala, Uganda's military spokesperson Col Felix Kulayigye told IRIN that LRA fighters in CAR "who are captured in action or surrender to us are allowed to make a [decision] whether to join us or [whether they] want to go home. There is no secret about it. This happens for reconciliation purposes."

A Ugandan officer in CAR, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said, "They are deployed in the field because they are more familiar with the terrain and areas where [LRA rebel leader Joseph] Kony's bases are."

JUPEDEC believes civil society should play an important role in the hunt for Kony. The idea, it says, is to involve many actors in the fight: Civil society, the church, the army and local authorities must be mobilized to call for LRA members to defect because the rebellion cannot be ended by force of arms alone.

"The more we multiply military attacks, the more we aggravate the situation of the civilian population; hence the need to focus on encouraging defections. The LRA has been in existence for 26 years, and armed response has not been able to stop it," Mbolinani said.

Civilians neglected

Civilians who have escaped LRA captivity in Haut Mbomou have formed self-help associations. The parent organization in Obo has 232 members; others have been set up in the towns of Zemio, Mboki, Bambuti and Djemah, with memberships ranging from 60 to 200. According to Kulayigye, the Ugandan army has freed 800 CAR civilians from the LRA.

The associations hope to attract government or foreign assistance, but sometimes donations turn out to be useless, according to Zangagoumé.

One NGO "has just donated a welder without providing a generator. I do not know how a machine of this kind can operate without a generator in a town without electricity," he said, lamenting the omission of victims' needs from efforts to eradicate the LRA.

Amnesty International Central Africa researcher Godfrey Byaruhanga made a similar point in a June 2012 report [ http://livewire.amnesty.org/2012/06/07/ ... index.html ] from Obo: "The international community appears to be more interested in the infamous Kony and his LRA outfit than in their many victims in CAR and other countries in the region. The LRA threat will hopefully diminish and eventually disappear - with Kony and other LRA leaders brought to justice - but the victims will remain."

But civilians affected by the LRA in southeast CAR are not entirely without help.

COOPI, an Italian NGO, offers psychological counselling and training in livelihood skills. And earlier this month, the US Agency for International Development (USAID) - which provides some humanitarian and reintegration assistance in southeast CAR - launched a three-year programme to provide small grants to LRA-affected civilians to "develop and implement security plans and reduce their isolation and vulnerability through communications technology and skills-building."

26,000 internally displaced

LRA violence first reached southeastern CAR in 2008. According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), there are currently some 26,000 internally displaced persons in the southeast.

In October 2011, the US government sent military advisers to support CAR and Ugandan armed forces in their fight against the LRA.

Similarly, the African Union is in the process of establishing a regional anti-Kony force composed of 5,000 men from the four countries affected by LRA activities. Last September, CAR provided 450 men, South Sudan 500 and Uganda 2,000. The Democratic Republic of Congo has yet to make any troops available.

Ugandan troops in the Central African Republic have killed the chief bodyguard of Joseph Kony, the fugitive head of the Lord's Resistance Army, a Ugandan army official said Monday. Ugandan Col. Felix Kulayigye said the bodyguard, a rebel commander known only as Binani, was among a small group of rebels when he was killed in a firefight Friday 280 kilometers (175 miles) north of Djema, a base in the Central African Republic where Uganda-led African Union troops are being advised by U.S. special forces. It was not clear if Kony, a self-styled mystic who has eluded capture for more than two decades, was part of the group of rebels that fled the attack in which Binani was killed, Kulayigye said. "He was a member of the LRA high command," Kulayigye said of Binani. "He was Kony's chief bodyguard and he was also the LRA's main logistician."

Ugandische Soldaten haben bei einer Schießerei den Chef-Logistiker und Leibwächter des berüchtigten Rebellenführers Joseph Kony getötet. Das ranghohe Mitglied der Miliz Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) sei bereits am Freitag bei Kämpfen 280 Kilometer nördlich der Militärbasis Djema in der Zentralafrikanischen Republik erschossen worden, sagte ein Sprecher der Streitkräfte am Montag in Kampala.

Uganda has suspended its hunt for Lord's Resistance Army chief Joseph Kony in Central African Republic after Seleka rebels took control of the country, an army spokesman said Wednesday. "We have temporarily suspended operations against the LRA until further notice," army spokesman Felix Kulayigye said. "We are not pulling our soldiers out of CAR but they are congregating at our bases."

Wegen des Putschs in Zentralafrika gerät die Suche des berüchtigten Rebellenführers Joseph Kony ins Stocken. Derweil versprechen die USA eine hohe Belohnung für Hinweise auf seinen Aufenthaltsort.