The Kony Problem

Uganda’s notorious rebel militia leader, Joseph Kony, has finally said something that makes sense – he’d rather die fighting than face a national court in Uganda or the International Criminal Court, ICC, in The Hague.

Kony made the statement following his non-appearance for a meeting on May 10 with cultural and religious leaders from northern Uganda who had travelled to a venue on the border between South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo, DRC.



The meeting was intended as a last-ditch effort to convince the mercurial Kony to sign a peace deal that has been nearly two years in the making.



It was the second time in two months that Kony had baulked at signing the peace deal, having pulled a disappearing act in April when some 200 people traipsed into the jungle to witness the signing of the same peace accord.



Like most everything about Kony and his Lord’s Resistance Army, LRA, the latest message arrived in somewhat mysterious fashion.



A recent Sunday edition of The Daily Monitor newspaper in Kampala reproduced Kony’s handwritten statement in his native Luo language. It said the document had been delivered via an intermediary to Martin Aliker, an advisor to Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni and the chairman of the Nation Media Group, the large Kenya-based media company that owns The Daily Monitor and Nation TV.



According to Aliker, "Kony says he is not going to sign the agreement because if he does, [he] is sure he will be taken to Europe and hanged. He also says if he comes back to Uganda for trial, he will still be hanged because of the untested local law. He said it was better for him to die fighting than surrender and be killed."



Kony’s statement answered some questions, but have also raised some difficult problems.



Most of those involved in the negotiating process had been reluctant to say the peace talks were dead, even after Kony’s second no-show. No one had wanted to put the final nail in the coffin of the peace talks, fearing that they might be accused of excessive pessimism, or worse still, realism.



Kony did the job instead.



As IWPR reported in April, the rebel leader has spent most of this year rebuilding his force even as peace talks continue. As early as February, and continuing through March and April, Kony’s LRA has abducted an estimated 300 people and has begun training them to be soldiers.



These abductees have come from the Central African Republic, from South Sudan, and from the region around the DRC’s Garamba National Park.



It appears that Kony has decided to reconstitute his rebel army into yet another of the miasma of different militias that control this resource-rich part of DRC.



Clearly, Kony is not interested in cooperating with the international community at large, and if his latest message is an accurate reflection, he has a distinct fear of courtroom justice, exceeded only by his fear of death.



Kony must surely realise, although he has never admitted it, that as commander of the LRA, he stands accused of legal and moral responsibility for some of the most horrific crimes committed across Africa in the past couple of decades. He is wanted by the ICC to face charges on 33 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity,



That he would prefer to “die fighting,” is also telling. Kony apparently still clings to the cause that sent him to the bush originally in the mid-Eighties – to avenge the wrongs committed by Museveni’s army against the Acholi people of northern Uganda.



Most would agree, however, that Kony has been merely fighting for his own survival for the past dozen or more years. The Acholi people have been the primary target of his attacks, not the Ugandan army.



Survival remains on Kony’s mind these days. Strategically, he has positioned himself in one of the most remote and inaccessible corners of Africa. The area lacks roads or access by most modern means of movement except walking, or possibly helicopters.



It is far from the control not only of military forces from DRC, but also of those of South Sudan and Uganda.



Kony is likely to have plenty of notice should any unit substantial enough to attack the LRA force, estimated to be 600 or more soldiers, approaches his base.



A surprise attack would require a fleet of attack and troop-carrying helicopters to ferry hundreds of soldiers deep into the jungle. None of the countries involved have such aircraft at the moment.



So how long can Kony hold out there? Perhaps longer than one might imagine.



There are fears Kony has been stockpiling the vast amounts of food supplies that his force has been given by the international community in the past couple of years, theoretically to keep him at the peace table.



Assuming he has been getting about twice the food his force needs – some say it is three or four times that amount – he could last another couple of years doing very little except raiding local villages, stealing livestock, or killing the wild game of Garamba Park.



There is speculation is that Kony may be about to inject himself into the situation in Southern Sudan. In the past month, fierce fighting has flared in the oil-rich region around Abyei, where the struggle for control of future wealth has intensified between the South and the government in Khartoum.



Kony has been backed by Khartoum before, and with some support he could once again help open yet another bloody chapter in the decades of war between the north and South Sudan.



Strategically, Kony could also move his force north into the Central African Republic without difficulty and still enjoy freedom and impunity, because so much of this region is lawless and ungoverned.



Will anything be done about Kony? That is in doubt. By putting himself where he is now, he has ensured his survival because no one is in a position to do anything about him.



Although Uganda had a massive military force deployed on the north from the late Nineties until 2003, they do not do so now, and it is unlikely they will any time soon, although they have some proxy militias in place.



The reality is that since Kony is long gone from northern Uganda, why would Kampala put itself out? In any case, a large-scale troop movement from Uganda would be easily anticipated, and Kony would undoubtedly use his newly-trained abductees as a first line of defence.



South Sudan has limited capacity to move against Kony, and will be less and less able to do anything as it commits more resources to the fighting in Abyei.



The state in CAR is a virtual non-entity, especially in the far-flung border regions close to Sudan and the DRC, where central government exerts absolutely no control.



The United Nations is an option, but an attack on Kony’s base would not strictly be part of its mission in the DRC. And we can’t forget that eight members of Guatemala’s special forces died in a similar attempt to decapitate the LRA two years ago. The UN will most likely provide only tactical support.



So Kony remains camped in Garamba Park, enjoying his solar-powered videos when he is not abducting civilians and looting, much as he has always done. He vows that he will never go to court and prefers to die fighting.



The question remains, is anyone out there willing to grant him his wish, or better still, bring him to trial?



Peter Eichstaedt is the Africa Editor for IWPR in The Hague.

The views expressed in this article are not necessarily the views of IWPR.