I have written extensively in the past about the human-rights catastrophe that the failure to apprehend Joseph Kony, terror of Central Africa, has been in the last decade. Kony, following his self-proclaimed divine mission to implement a magical kingdom based on the Ten Commandments, has ravaged, raped, pillared, and killed his way through vast swaths of the continent, at times aided in a defacto struggle by the Islamic-fundamentalist Khartoum government in its own human rights abuses against its Christian South and Christian neighbors in Uganda. The U.S. Government, which has lent logistical support to the Ugandan military in the past, seems to be stepping up its action plan against Kony, long a scourge of terrified rural populations (well documented in the media through such brilliant films as PBS's The Lords Children, which documented the large numbers of children abducted and forced into a life of butchery and bondage by Kony and his senior commanders). This man, and his “Lords Resistance Army” has been one of the worst non-state violators of human rights in the last decades; the word atrocity does not do justice to his particularly vehement brand of terror. According to a recent report by Human Rights Watch, “Since 2008, Kony's men have massacred some 2,300 civilians and abducted over 3,000 more in a remote area straddling the borders of the Congo, southern Sudan, and CAR. More than 400,000 villagers have fled their homes there. In 2010 alone, Kony's fighters have so far led more than 240 deadly attacks.”
According to an excellent new report by the Pulitzer Center Crisis Group, Obama's new strategy seeks to, “'apprehend or remove from the battlefield Joseph Kony and senior commanders' and to promote the defection of his remaining fighters, bolster civilian protection, and increase humanitarian support.” While commendable, this action has come much too late for the millions already displaced, and the tens of thousands already killed or directly affected by this maniacal warlord. Let us hope that this new hardened stance of the administration (no doubt influenced by the work of Samantha Power in her role as special adviser) pays dividends, quickly and efficiently, to the long-neglected people of Central Africa; let us also hope that the new Republican Congress does not continue the neglect of the past in its rush towards fiscal “austerity” and isolationism.
