Joseph Kony, LRA, & America!

What is going on with Joseph Kony, the LRA, & America? By: Christina Giers Sociology of Social Problems 212 B-03

Abstract
I looked further into the LRA and Joseph Kony to see what has been achieved in the capture of the warlord and the take down to the LRA. The efforts of Africa’s government, the international organizations, and the help from US government have been unsuccessful with the attempts in ending the terrorist reign. There have been some great organizations created to help with the progress of freeing the people under attack by the LRA. They are the Invisible Children, the Resolve, War Child, and many others. You will see throughout my report the projects that these groups have put in place and read reports on the progress they have made in the attempt to save lives of men, women, and children all over Africa. Lastly I will highlight ways these groups plan to permanently end the horrors and ways I believe will take down Kony.

What is going on with Joseph Kony, the LRA, and America?

Joseph Kony is a war lord and the leader to the Lord’s Resistance Army, a guerilla group in Africa. The Lord’s Resistance Army {LRA} has been around for a long time and has terrorized the citizens and children of Uganda and other cities in Africa for most of 25 years. Kony gained power by manipulating the people in his nation, using their religious beliefs and hopes of better futures. Once he had the support he needed he turned on them for his own agenda. He has created an army of children by raiding villages at night and stealing the children. He would rape the women, and force the boys to kill their parents in front of their other siblings. He would brainwash the older boys and turn them into killing, rapist hating machines for his own benefit. Girls and boys that were too young to kill for him were sold into the sex black market or used as sex slaves for his soldiers. The number of children he has abducted and turned into soldiers for his army and for the sex slavery is astonishing. It is somewhere around 66,000 to 104,000. He is accused of internally displacing over two million people since 1986 and killing 100’s of thousands of people.
The International efforts in taken down Kony and the LRA.
The International Criminal Court issued warrants for Kony and other high ranking officers of the LRA for their crimes against humanity in 2005. Uganda has been trying to track and kill Kony for many years with no success. They have enlisted ex-members of the LRA to help in this mission. The US has named the LRA a terrorist group and placed Kony on the “Specially

Designated Global Terrorists” back in 2008. The US government has been since actively involved with assisting in the capture of Kony and taken down the LRA. We have supported them financially and with logistical assistance, as well as with advisory. We didn’t use any of our troops; instead we used advisers and analysts providing intelligence, equipment, and fuel to Ugandan military counterparts. Barak Obama signed into effect Lord's Resistance Army Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act in 2011. With this we sent about 100 US troops to central Africa to help aid in the search for Kony. Then in March of 2012 the African Union announced their deployment of 5,000 troops to also help with the hunt for the rebel leader Kony and to neutralize him while isolating the scattered LRA groups responsible for 2,600 civilian killings since 2008. This international task force was stated to include soldiers from Uganda, South Sudan, Central African Republic and Congo, countries where Kony’s reign of terror has been felt over the years. Before this unified efforts, the hunt for Kony has primarily been carried out by troops from Uganda. The soldiers will begin their search in South Sudan on March 2012 and keep the search going until Kony is caught and the LRA is disassembled. Through these efforts Ugandan troops