The Lord’s Resistance Army, or LRA, is a militant group based in Northern Uganda. Under the leadership of Joseph Kony, the LRA has been staging a violent rebellion against the Ugandan government for 23 years. The rebels regularly attack civilians in Uganda, Sudan, the Central African Republic, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. They are notorious for mutilating their victims and abducting children as soldiers.
Last Monday, President Obama signed into law the Lord's Resistance Army Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act of 2009. The new law gives the U.S. government 180 days to develop a multilateral strategy “to protect civilians from the Lord’s Resistance Army, to apprehend or remove Joseph Kony and his top commanders from the battlefield in the continued absence of a negotiated solution, and to disarm and demobilize the remaining Lord’s Resistance Army fighters.”
We will have to wait several months to see how the Obama administration moves forward with its strategy, but for now, the signing of this law is a monumental step towards eliminating the threat of the LRA and moving towards sustainable peace in Uganda and other unstable regions of Africa.
-Kristen
No comments:
Post a Comment