The US vs. LRA Showdown, As Seen From Uganda

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


Since President Obama’s announcement on Friday that he will send 100 soldiers to Uganda to help fight the Lord’s Resistance Army, a rebel group that’s been responsible for killing thousands of civilians over more than two decades, most of the media coverage has focused on whether American troops will actually be engaging in combat and whether the move is meant to pay back Uganda for keeping troops in Somalia. 

But UN Dispatch‘s Mark L . Goldberg points out some potentially important context about the conflict. Like what happened to civilians when the Ugandan Army took on the LRA in 2009:

About half the 100,000 people displaced amid a wave of atrocities in north-eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where the Ugandan army is leading an operation against Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebels, have no access to humanitarian assistance, according to the UN.

“We estimate that half the displaced are beyond reach. There are no roads or airstrips. In some cases they are close to where the fighting is,” Idrissa Conteh, a spokesman for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), told IRIN in the north-eastern DRC town of Bunia.

In an area where clashes can leave the most vulnerable populations even more vulnerable, there’s no telling what effect this new phase in the war against Kony might have on innocent bystanders.

And, from Ugandan journalist Rosebell Kagumire (h/t Laura Seay), another important piece of the deployment picture: What do Ugandans think?

Many Ugandans, through various social networks, have expressed skepticism over the 100 combat troops the US deployed to Uganda to help stamp out the rebels of Lord’s Resistance Army currently operating in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Central African Republic (CAR) and parts of western South Sudan.

They think what they are actually here to do is secure for their country Uganda’s newly found oil.

That’s probably based more on skepticism about the United States’ motivation to send troops to other countries than actual fact—Uganda and the United States are already plenty friendly enough to strike oil deals. Read Kagumire’s analysis of why Ugandans may need the American support anyhow—and why the Americans will need to wrap up their mission quickly. At least the International Criminal Court, which issued arrest warrants for LRA leader Joseph Kony and four of his other commanders six years ago, is probably happy to have some additional troops on the case. All of the LRA leaders remain at large except for one. And that’s because he died.

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate