Skip to main content

More on Uganda

Image
By
Looking back at it, this post was kind of lazy, and not the kind of thing I want to be doing on a regular basis. Let's take a closer look, first with some background from AllAfrica:
Under both Obama and his predecessor, George W. Bush, Washington has provided "non-lethal" and logistical support to the Ugandan army in its efforts to subdue the LRA. The aid increased when Kony failed twice to sign a peace accord in 2008. Since 2008, Washington has provided over 40 million dollars in military assistance to regional armies fighting the LRA.
In December 2008, the Ugandan, DRC and southern Sudanese armies launched "Operation Lightning Thunder", a joint effort backed by U.S. intelligence and logistical support provided by Washington's newly created Africa Command (AfriCom) to track down Kony and his armed followers.
 Kony and much of his army escaped, however, and responded later that month by carrying out their own attacks against defenceless villages and civilians in the DRC and southern Sudan, killing nearly 1,000 people and forcing as many as 1.8 million others to flee their homes, according to human rights monitors.
They've also got a decent profile of the man behind the LRA, Joseph Kony:
Inspired by the words and drawn by the gripping charm of his cousin, Alice Auma Lakwena, a spirit-medium-turned-prophet, Kony established the Lords' Resistance Army (LRA), a ragtag force high on a warped blend of apocalyptic Christianity and nationalism.
In the 20 years that it has been in existence, that brutish group has killed more than 30,000 people in Northern Uganda and displaced two million others.
In recent years, their leader Kony has extended his hand across the border to several parts of Central Africa, causing chaos in his wake.
We also shouldn't forget the broader political context. Kony's group sprang out of serious persecution of the Acholi people in Northern Uganda—but in his madness, he's killed Acholi indiscriminately as well. This kind of stuff is forgotten by the US all too frequently; I'll try to stay up to date on it.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why Did Reality Winner Leak to the Intercept?

By
So Reality Winner, former NSA contractor, is in federal prison for leaking classified information — for five years and three months, the longest sentence of any whistleblower in history. She gave documents on how Russia had attempted to hack vendors of election machinery and software to The Intercept , which completely bungled basic security procedures (according to a recent New York Times piece from Ben Smith, the main fault lay with Matthew Cole and Richard Esposito ), leading to her capture within hours. Winner recently contracted COVID-19 in prison, and is reportedly suffering some lingering aftereffects. Glenn Greenwald has been furiously denying that he had anything at all to do with the Winner clusterfuck, and I recently got in an argument with him about it on Twitter. I read a New York story about Winner, which clearly implies that she was listening to the Intercepted podcast of March 22, 2017 , where Greenwald and Jeremy Scahill expressed skepticism about Russia actually b
Post a Comment
Read more

Varanus albigularis albigularis

By
That is the Latin name for the white-throated monitor lizard , a large reptile native to southern Africa that can grow up to two meters long (see pictures of one at the Oakland Zoo here ). In Setswana, it's called a "gopane." I saw one of these in my village yesterday on the way back from my run. Some kids from school found it in the riverbed and tortured it to death, stabbing out its eyes, cutting off its tail, and gutting it which finally killed it. It seemed to be a female as there were a bunch of round white things I can only imagine were eggs amongst the guts. I only arrived after it was already dead, but they described what had happened with much hilarity and re-enactment. When I asked why they killed it, they said it was because it would eat their chickens and eggs, which is probably true, and because it sucks blood from people, which is completely ridiculous. It might bite a person, but not unless threatened. It seems roughly the same as killing wolves that
4 comments
Read more

Internet Writing and the Content Vacuum

By
It's been a few times now I've had full weekday control of the Monthly 's headline blog, Political Animal, and I feel like I have a decent idea now what it's like being at the top level of blogging. (Not to say that I am  at the top level, of course, just that I've walked in those shoes for a few days and gotten some blisters.) Anyway, the first thing I've noticed is that it is really, really hard to do well. I've had days before when I just didn't have anything to do and ended up at home writing 4-5 posts in one day on this site, but pro blogging is an entirely different beast. The expectation is that during the day you will write 10-12 posts. This includes an intro music video, a lunch links post, and evening links and/or video. So that means 7-9 short, punchy essays on something , with maybe 1-2 of those being longer and more worked out thoughts. This ferocious demand for content is both good and bad. The iron weight of responsibiliy—the knowledge
7 comments
Read more