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Lord’s Resistance Army: Come clean, Joseph Kony

New Vision, Uganda
June 29, 2006
www.newvision.co.ug

ReligionNewsBlog.com • Friday June 30, 2006

Joseph Kony has denied complicity in the atrocities that have been meted out on the people of Acholi in the past two decades.

The LRA leader has instead cast the blame on the government, saying all reports to the contrary are propaganda.

Talking to a journalist for the first time in 20 years, Kony claimed government forces have been behind the people’s suffering.

This is the height of absurdity. It is an insult to the hundreds who have been maimed, our memories of the thousands who have died, to the tens of thousands who have been abducted, and to the sensitivities of the odd million that has been displaced.

The evidence against him is overwhelming – what has been documented, the testimonies of escapees, the records of neutral parties, all tell the story of extreme crimes against humanity. For greater measure, these atrocities have been extended across the border, to Southern Sudan, where the LRA has had bases. Southern Sudanese locals have their own testimonies to tell. In all this time, Kony has been leader of the cult-like rebel group. It is this evidence that has led to his indictment, along with four of his senior commanders, by the International Criminal Court.

Kony’s absurd claims come when the Government of South Sudan is attempting to broker peace talks between the rebels and the Ugandan government. So maybe he is just posturing.

If so, he is shooting himself in the foot. Some quarters, both in Uganda and in the wider international community, had been prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt, if only to give the peace talks a chance. He has now removed that doubt.

But there is hope yet. Internal affairs minister Ruhakana Rugunda and international affairs minister Okello Oryem are in Juba to explore the talks. They may find that it would have been wiser for Kony to keep mum, or come clean, if real progress is to be made.