End of an Era: LRA's final showdown with Museveni

Uganda’s Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) is in the final stages of its dead end, after staging a 20-years brutal warfare against the Government of Uganda (GoU). It is just a matter of time and LRA will be vanquished. Indeed, the signing ceremony slated for February will just be a formality to endorse and celebrate the end of an era of brutality and the triumph of good over evil.
In his trademark shrewdness, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni managed to buy time while engaging (military) diplomacy, seriously weakening the Joseph Kony-led militia. Museveni, himself a former guerilla leader and a retired military officer, could have resolved the conflict in early 1990’s. But he has overtime used the LRA issue and by extension the situation in Northern Uganda as his election agenda to buy voter loyalty and maintain grip on the country’s leadership. Throughout the terrifying period, the Ugandan head would start peace talks with LRA only to break them midway by accusing either his Sudan neighbor President Omar el-Bashir or the late Southern Sudan leader Dr. John Garang de Mabior of supporting Kony.
By prolonging the conflict, Museveni eventually rendered the LRA army weak. Similarly, he employed his diplomacy skills and made use of his rising regional influence to engage the Government’s Sudan, Kenya and Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to make life unbearable for Kony’s men and their dependants. LRA has on several occasions used the three countries together with the semi-autonomous region of Southern Sudan to wage war against Museveni’s Uganda People’s Defense Forces (UPDF).
A clear perusal of documents of LRA refugees in Nairobi sheds some light. Museveni or his men have directly of indirectly influenced UNHCR office in Nairobi to frustrate the immigrants’ attempts to secure permits that would take them to more hospitable destinations like Canada, Australia, Norway or Sweden. Of the 3,000 LRA refugees in Kenya, none has been granted asylum status and instead they have been directed to go back to Uganda “now that peace has been restored”.
The delay tactics have worked for Museveni. After two decades in the bush, Kony is sickly and short of financial resources to keep him and his militia afloat. By so doing, it is quite easy to entice battle-weary LRA fighters to surrender in exchange of amnesty and “just a few coins” for daily family upkeep. He has also proved to Northerners that Kony’s spiritual-based warfare was a charade and that only his Government holds answers to the problems facing their impoverished region. In essence, he will communicating to them that Kony is a liar who took them to a futile journey of struggle, promising “eternal” liberation but in the end left them poor, illiterate, under-developed, wounded and sick.
The miserable state of affairs within LRA has triggered a serious rift among its rank and file. Only recently that a delegation of LRA officials for the first time in 20 years went to Kampala to meet Museveni and a delegation of LRA is slated to address a rally in Kampala’s Nakivubo Stadium next month. This could be Museveni’s strategy to whip LRA into making a public declaration of surrender, technically sideling Kony.
Meanwhile, word has been going round that Kony’s deputy Vincent Otti is dead. He is said to have been killed following instructions from Kony himself. However, other reports say Otti is still alive but under house arrest courtesy of LRA soldiers with direct instructions from Kony. The authenticity of such claims remains varied. It is said Kony is no longer in control of the militia he established and is said to be in poor health. Nevertheless, aides to Dr. Riek Machar, Southern Sudan’s VP say he is alive. Actually, Machar claims to be in frequent touch with him via satellite phone. Top envoy at the Ugandan peace talks in Juba, Southern Sudan and former Mozambique President Joachim Chissano is send to have met Kony during the initial stages of the talks. Kampala, on the other hand, is categorical that Otti is dead and the remaining mission is how to deal with Kony.
The matter is still a subject of discussion even among members of the international community. On their part, Kony’s men are determined to get a fair deal out of the peace talks. They want their leader pardoned for alleged crimes against humanity and a warrant of arrest against him by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague lifted, a request Museveni won’t listen to. Surrender first and amnesty thereafter, has been Museveni’s message.
Word has it that Ugandan authorities are just waiting for February signing ceremony after which the clock would start ticking for Kony to make a formal surrender. And if he doesn’t, they say, “We will launch the last and final offensive for the liberation of northern Uganda”. Analysts doubt Museveni’s commitment to a lasting peace agreement. In fact his side started the talks from a level of advantage. He has experienced negotiators while Kony’s men seem to have little knowledge about diplomacy and have on several occasions relied on International Consultancy groups, who sometimes are biased and prone to manipulation by Kampala.
In the end, LRA most probably will get a very raw deal and will be the ultimate loser. In case of such a scenario, Museveni will have killed two birds with same stone. He will have vanquished the might of the only military rebellion against his administration and he will have endeared himself to the hearts of Ugandans, who have been living in the daily fear of rebel attacks, thereby consolidated his grip on power.
In essence, Museveni is just playing politics.
He knows his ultimate prize: President of the yet-to-be East Africa Federation (EAF). During the disputed 2005 General Election, he vowed not to relinquish Ugandan leadership until the dream of a united East Africa is realized in which he claimed to be a frontrunner for the regional presidency. His opponents, however, argue that for him to realize his political ambitions, he would have to convince voters from other regional states that he is strong enough to deal with internal conflicts within his country before he could lead a united and stable East Africa in a volatile region known for its recurrent armed conflicts.
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