IS THIS A CASE OF MISCHIEF, LOSS OF MEMORY OR IGNORANCE? “I have never called the United Nations to guard your security. Me, Yoweri Museveni to say that I have failed to protect my people and I call in the UN: I would rather hang myself. We prioritized national security by developing a strong Army, otherwise our Uganda would be like DRC, South Sudan, Somalia or Nigeria where militias have disappeared with school children. It would be a vote of no confidence in our country and citizens if we can’t guarantee our security? What kind of persons would we be?” - PRESIDENT YOWERI MUSEVENI OF UGANDA. MORE U.S. TROOPS TO AID UGANDA SEARCH FOR KONY WASHINGTON — President Obama is sending more troops and military aircraft to Uganda as part of a long-running effort to hunt down Joseph Kony, the fugitive rebel commander who is believed to have been hiding in the jungles of central Africa for years, a Defense Department official said on Sunday. The president is sending several CV-22 Osprey aircraft, along with 150 Air Force Special Operations forces and other airmen, to join the American troops already in the region to help the Ugandan government find Mr. Kony. The escalation, first reported on Sunday by The Washington Post, does not change the nature of the United States’ military presence on the ground in central Africa. American forces will continue to advise and assist their counterparts in the African Union’s military task force tracking Mr. Kony and his Lord’s Resistance Army across Uganda, Central African Republic, South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo. The Americans are forbidden to fight the L.R.A. themselves except in self-defense. The hunt for Mr. Kony and his fighters has generated a huge amount of publicity around the world, in large part because of a video on his elusiveness and brutality, “Kony 2012,” that has been viewed nearly 100 million times on YouTube. The rebel leader started out in northern Uganda more than 25 years ago as a Catholic altar boy who spoke in tongues. He went on to form the L.R.A., bent on overthrowing Uganda’s government and ruling the country with the Ten Commandments. “For more than two decades, the Lord’s Resistance Army (L.R.A.) has murdered, raped and kidnapped tens of thousands of men, women and children in central Africa,” Mr. Obama wrote in a letter to Congress when he first announced, in 2011, that he would send military personnel to the region as advisers. “The L.R.A. continues to commit atrocities across the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and South Sudan that have a disproportionate impact on regional security.” The United States also made efforts to stop the Lord’s Resistance Army under President George W. Bush, who authorized the Pentagon to send a team of 17 advisers to train Ugandan troops and provided millions of dollars’ worth of aid, including fuel trucks, satellite phones and night-vision goggles, to the Ugandan Army. Those efforts ultimately helped scatter elements of the L.R.A. in Uganda. But its remnants regrouped in neighboring countries, sometimes killing hundreds of villagers in the Congolese jungle and kidnapping hundreds more, according to witnesses. In December 2008, Africom, the American military command for Africa, helped plan an attack on Mr. Kony’s camp in Congo. But Mr. Kony, having apparently been tipped off, escaped before the Ugandan helicopter gunships even took off. His army is believed to have killed hundreds of nearby villagers in revenge, leaving behind scorched huts. In the months after Mr. Obama sent additional advisers in 2011, the Americans said Mr. Kony’s army of a few hundred fighters had begun to weaken, proving less able to direct such massacres. The United States has continued to run a semi-covert logistics and intelligence operation to extend the Ugandan Army’s reach so it can chase Mr. Kony across the region.
Posted on: Sat, 24 May 2014 07:54:28 +0000
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