From: People For Peace
Colleagues Home & Abroad Regional News
BY FR JOACHIM OMOLO OUKO, AJ
NAIROBI-KENYA
TUESDAY, MAY 15, 2012
What may appear to be a major victory as UPDF arrest Lord’s Resistance Army field commander, Caesar Acellam Saturday in the Central African Republic after he had crossed from the Democratic Republic of Congo may not be so.
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One of the reasons it may not be easy as such is that the Lord’s Resistance Army is fighting in the name of God. They believe God is the one helping them in the bush. It is against the background that the name Lord’s Resistance Army was created.
Acellam was arrested on the banks of River Mbou in Central African Republic as he crossed with his family from the Democratic Republic of Congo, according to Col. Abdu Rugumayo, the UPDF Intelligence Officer in charge of the counter-LRA operation.
Even though Acellam may be free and a happy man, but the presence of other top rebel commanders that have either been killed by, or surrendered, to the UPDF, ‘Brig.’ Sam Kolo; a former LRA spokesman, ‘Brig.’ Kenneth Banya, ‘Col.’ Alfred Onen Kamdulu and LRA fourth-in-command Thomas Kwoyelo captured in 2009 is still a threat.
At the time of his reported capture on Saturday, Acellam was the field commander for LRA, placing him at the apex of executing the rebel group’s operations. He previously served as LRA’s Military Intelligence chief, but Kony stripped him of the responsibility after UPDF soldiers in 2002 injured him in the right leg inside South Sudan during Operation Iron Fist.
President Barack Obama last October authorised deployment of about 100 US Special Forces to collate intelligence using high-tech gadgets, and act as field military advisers to the regional armies, to effect the elimination of the LRA.
Yet still, even though his capture would be a heart-break to Kony since he is likely to spill details of the insurgent group’s formation, recruitment and operation plan as well as whereabouts of its senior commanders that UPDF troops are hunting down in the DRC and CAR jungles, this may not be easier as such because they can change the military tactics and location.
Charities working in the central African regions violated by the Lords Resistance Army have also warned that renewed military action to capture its leader, Joseph Kony, risks triggering retaliations, threatening more deaths and displacement. There are also concerns for the abducted children who have been forced to join Kony’s rebel army and will be on the frontline of any fighting.
A bishop in Sudan believes it is only through dialogue that can end LRA war. He has backed a call by a Ugandan archbishop who is also in the same opinion. Bishop Eduardo Hiiboro Kussala of Tombura-Yambio says military action over several years had failed to stop killing sprees and abductions of children because LRA is a movement that is not easy to end with war.
Kony stands accused of overseeing the systematic kidnapping of countless African children, brainwashing the boys into fighting for him, turning the girls into sex slaves and killing those who don’t comply.
His forces are believed to have slaughtered tens of thousands of people and are known for hacking the lips off their victims. Kony has been wanted by the international criminal court since 2005 on charges that include crimes against humanity. He has been living in the bush outside Uganda since that time. The charges include murder, enslavement, rape, pillaging.
The insurgency of the LRA against the government of Uganda began in 1987 in the aftermath of the failed Holy Spirit Movement Rebellion of Alice Auma (also known as Alice Lakwena). The movement has been known to the world to be one of the most brutal, famous for massacres on civilians, kidnaps, rapes and the use of child soldiers and sex slaves.
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