First Published 2009-09-30
Courtesy Of Middle-East-Online
Among the many victims of the LRA
LONDON - The Christian extremist Ugandan rebels known as the Lord’s Resistance Army are reappearing in the news with their brutal methods of murder, rape and enslavement but in recent news coverage little is mentioned of the ideology that drives the bible-bashing fanatics.
The extremist group was founded by a former Catholic altar boy from northern Uganda who - like most extremists of all faiths - turned against fellow believers for not adhering to his particular interpretation of the religion.
This explains his attacks on rival churches, although sectarian fighting is not something exclusive to one brand of Christian (or even non-Christian) extremists.
He uses biblical references to explain why it is necessary to kill his own people, since they have - in his view - failed to support his cause.
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| LRA: 'It is there in the Bible' |
"When you go to fight you make the sign of the cross first. If you fail to do this, you will be killed," one young fighter who escaped from the LRA told Human Rights Watch.
"You must also take oil and draw a cross on your chest, your forehead, and each shoulder, and you must make a cross in oil on your gun. They say that the oil is the power of the Holy Spirit."
His Christian extremist group is notorious for abducting thousands of children, forcing them to become either soldiers for his radical views or sex slaves.
The LRA rebels say they are fighting for the establishment of a government based on the biblical Ten Commandments.
He is described as a self-styled prophet who believes in Jesus, son of God.
One of Kony’s aides, Moses, was quoted as saying: “Kony is a messenger from God! We follow the commands of the Holy Spirit!”
Moses continues to explain Kony’s reasoning: “If someone has done something bad to you, you have to kill them!”
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| LRA: 'We follow the commands of the Holy Spirit' |
“Go and read in Matthew, chapter what and what, it is stated that if your right hand causes trouble, cut if off! It is there in the Bible!”
“He taught us how to pray,” one of Kony’s wives said. He had named was of his sons George Bush. And like the former US president, he also claims to receive personal visions from God.
In an interview with Vincent Otti, who was LRA second in command at the time, the Christian fanatic was asked about the group's name and its ideal system of government.
Otti's response was: Lord’s Resistance Army is just the name of the movement, because we are fighting in the name of God. God is the one helping us in the bush. That’s why we created this name, Lord’s Resistance Army. And people always ask us, are we fighting for the [biblical] Ten Commandments of God. That is true – because the Ten Commandments of God is the constitution that God has given to the people of the world. All people. If you go to the constitution, nobody will accept people who steal, nobody could accept to go and take somebody’s wife, nobody could accept to innocently kill, or whatever. The Ten Commandments carries all this.
LRA leaders appear to regard violence as a way of purging society of impurity; those who die, whether civilians, government troops or LRA child soldiers, are those who are believed to have broken religious commands.
Kony uses passages from the Pentateuch to justify mutilation and murder.
Kony launched his rebellion against President Yoweri Museveni in Uganda in 1987, tapping into political grievances among the northern Acholi people, and infused by a belief he was destined to rule the country according to the biblical Ten Commandments, after establishing a theocratic state.
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| LRA: 'You must make a cross in oil on your gun' |
LRA fighters soon achieved notoriety by turning on the Acholis they claimed to represent, hacking off lips, ears and noses, killing thousands and abducting more than 20,000 civilians, mostly children.
The children who have been abducted were often forced to kill their own parents so they have no way back.
Congo had no part in the war until 2005, when the LRA sought sanctuary in the remote Garamba national park after being forced out of northern Uganda and South Sudan.
During two years of subsequent peace negotiations, the rebels were largely quiet, cultivating land and accepting food aid. After talks collapsed in 2008 due to Kony's refusal to sign a final deal, he ordered his fighters back into action.
Association with the LRA had taken on a new acceptability to the extent that politicians, lawyers, church and civic leaders from Uganda can openly attend the talks as observers or delegates.
Occasionally he became animated – a sudden wide smile and an extended hand – when greeted in Acholi by Ugandan observers from the church and the northern constituencies.
Amnesty International reported that without child abductions, the LRA would have few combatants.
"Men, women, girls, babies, killed with machetes, knives and hoes," said one witness. "In one village they made mothers put their small children inside grain mortars and pound them."
People who were abducted into Kony's forces and later escaped describe him as a crazed religious leader.
But extremists of any faith do not operate in a vacuum and the LRA is said to have had an unlikely alliance with the Sudanese government in Khartoum, who wished to retaliate against the Uganda government for supporting rebels in south Sudan.
The alleged Sudan-LRA cooperation based on mutual interest appears to be reminiscent of America's alliance to Al-Qaeda during the war against the soviets in Afghanistan.
But the government in Khartoum, though not a 100% US-backed dictatorship like the majority of Arab governments, was nevertheless keen on improving soaring ties with the US, who sided with the south Sudan rebels.
This meant there would be less tolerance of LRA by Sudan.
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| LRA: 'We fighting for the Ten Commandments of God' |
Kony’s options narrowed further in 2005 when Khartoum signed a peace deal with the southern rebels to end their long civil war. Both sides agreed foreign forces – including the LRA – must leave. Kony fled across the border into Congo’s Garamba National Park.
But - ironically - some LRA forces remained in or returned to the areas controlled by mainly Christian south Sudan.
Human Rights Watch accused the mainly Christian regional government of southern Sudan of ignoring an International Criminal Court’s warrants for the arrest of four top Ugandan rebel leaders.
In one occasion, Kony, who was in southern Sudan, had even met the Christian region's Vice-President, Riek Machar.
Kony had asked the government of southern Sudan to facilitate talks between him and President Museveni of Uganda.
The LRA has killed more people than many other terrorist groups, yet few Americans or Europeans have ever heard of it.
Attacks attributed to LRA have killed at least 188 civilians and displaced 68,000 in Southern Sudan since January 2009, with 137 abductions also reported, according to the UN.
Currently, LRA continue to lunch attacks in south Sudan, whose mainly Christian civilian population is itself preoccupied with brutal internal killings.
The violence there has surpassed that in the western region of Darfur, yet again little media attention has focused on that part of the conflict where it is mainly Christian civilians killing each other.
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