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06 February 2007
When the LRA Ain't Happy, Ain't Nobody Happy
The leader of the Lord's Resistance Army, Joseph Kony, has had it with negotiations in Sudan. If Uganda can't find another place to negotiate with him, the 20-year-old war between the LRA and the Ugandan government will continue. This war has it all, too. Mutilations, tortures, rapes, child soldiers, child prostitutes, murdered foreign aid workers. Why should all the excitement be in Iraq? The LRA is there to show that there are crackpot killers leading mass movements all around the world.
How crackpot are these guys? Well, they've got no hope of winning, yet they insist they're gonna invade Uganda and kick some serious butt. It's more likely they'll hack and slaughter a lot of civilians and then run when the army shows up. They're brutal bandits, and it's a damn shame someone gave them enough support to buy guns. They've been supported by the Sudanese government in Khartoum against the Ugandan government, but that was when Uganda supported the southern resistance to the Khartoum government. Since those factions patched up their differences, the LRA has been on the outs as far as getting supporters.
Don't worry about them, though. Africa's messed up enough, there's bound to be some other conflict erupt somewhere, probably the Congo, that will result in some faction there wanting to support the LRA against Uganda, seeing as how Uganda likes to pick sides in regional conflicts. Until then, who needs Idi Amin when you've got Joseph Kony?