IPFS News Link • WAR: About that War
US legislation authorizes military action against the LRA in Uganda
• Samar Al-Bulushi, Pambazuka News[See Lord's
Resistance Army Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act of 2009 for current status of this bill which is now in the House. See "US
passes law to hunt down Kony", for an editorial opinion. Both parties are in support of this bill -- have we seen this movie before? Think IRAQ!]
Despite harsh condemnation from US
legislators in response to Uganda’s
draft bill criminalising homosexuality, the Senate passed a bill in
mid-March that will prop up Uganda’s government by authorising military
action in the highly volatile region of Central Africa. Introduced last
May, the Lord’s Resistance Army Disarmament and Northern Uganda
Recovery Act aims to ‘support stabilisation and lasting peace’ in
Northern Uganda – the site of conflict between the Ugandan government
and the rebel group Lords Resistance Army (LRA) since 1986. The bill
calls for an assessment of options through which the United States,
working with regional governments, ‘could help develop and support
multilateral efforts to eliminate the threat posed by the Lord’s
Resistance Army’.[1]
While the bill allocates funding towards humanitarian aid and post-conflict justice and reconciliation processes, the primary focus in Congress is on a military strategy to ‘apprehend or otherwise remove’ LRA leaders. And despite the bill’s requirement that the government of Uganda commit to ‘transparent and accountable’ reconstruction efforts, it makes no similar demands of a military operation, thereby giving a green light to extrajudicial executions. With recent reports of US military drones flying over Mogadishu to help the transitional government in Somalia to track the Shabaab resistance, we can expect a similar ‘multilateral’ approach to eliminating the LRA.
The bill emerged in response to aggressive calls, not from the Ugandan people, but from a handful of US-based organisations. Much like the Save Darfur Coalition has done with Sudan, groups like the Enough Project, Invisible Children, and Resolve Uganda have developed an influential voice in Washington that speaks on behalf of Africans thousands of miles away, calling for the US to facilitate ‘peace’ in conflict zones through military intervention.
While the bill allocates funding towards humanitarian aid and post-conflict justice and reconciliation processes, the primary focus in Congress is on a military strategy to ‘apprehend or otherwise remove’ LRA leaders. And despite the bill’s requirement that the government of Uganda commit to ‘transparent and accountable’ reconstruction efforts, it makes no similar demands of a military operation, thereby giving a green light to extrajudicial executions. With recent reports of US military drones flying over Mogadishu to help the transitional government in Somalia to track the Shabaab resistance, we can expect a similar ‘multilateral’ approach to eliminating the LRA.
The bill emerged in response to aggressive calls, not from the Ugandan people, but from a handful of US-based organisations. Much like the Save Darfur Coalition has done with Sudan, groups like the Enough Project, Invisible Children, and Resolve Uganda have developed an influential voice in Washington that speaks on behalf of Africans thousands of miles away, calling for the US to facilitate ‘peace’ in conflict zones through military intervention.
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1 Comments in Response to US legislation authorizes military action against the LRA in Uganda
WTF? Oh, that is right, Nigeria unfortunately for them has our oil under their soil, and Black Bush wants oil just like his predecessor, Boy George.