THEY'RE called invisible children. They run without shoes -- terrified, tired and often alone -- every evening at dusk as the sky turns bloody red to Gulu, the main town located near the Sudanese border in Northern Uganda. They run from distant villages with only the hope that the family they leave behind each night will be there when they return the following morning, when sunlight shields them from wandering gangs of brutal, murderous militiamen known as the Lord's Resistance Army (L.R.A.). While the children run sometimes five miles to the nearest towns, the L.R.A. raids villages indiscriminately: raping, murdering and mutilating those who obscure their deranged path of religious crusade. In an article in January's Vanity Fair, Christopher Hitchens writes with graphic eloquence of those who can't run fast enough. The militia's brutality, he wrote, "has the power to strike the most vivid terror right into the heart and the other viscera." The term "militia" is misleading, however, because the L.R.A. is comprised mostly of children. Though perhaps the most disturbing chapter of the story comes as victims appeal to Western intervention, assuming, of course, there was any.
Each day, ex-Christian fanatic Joseph Kony (now serving as a sort of deity to his own twisted religion) enslaves more Acholi children from Northern Uganda, roaming the countryside each night in search for more victims and young slaves. Kony enslaves the young boys, brutalizes them, then compels them to return to their villages to seek new victims. For those too tired or too courageous to comply, he forces the "veteran" boy-soldiers to beat the younger kids, one by one, until only the strongest remain.
The methods of torture are almost too sickening to publish. They remove limbs with dull knives, and disembowel young boys (many not yet having reached puberty) with rusty machetes while they are still alive, screaming.
For the villages they encounter during their nightly raids, the fate is equally grim. Kids, who should be attending grade school, remove breasts, lips, ears, and limbs while their victims wail in futile terror. Boys rape women with bloodstained machetes.
At some point, I fear, these descriptions will fade into the largely ignored stories of African wars -- far away, mystifying and unsolvable. I wrote last October about the ongoing genocide in Sudan, and even then, descending into the tone of hopeless despair seemed scarily easy. Then and now, whenever someone writes of African genocide, desperation often overwhelms any glimmer of hope or, god forbid, a solution.
And as is so often the case, these two wars sustain and support each other. According to the most recent report commissioned by Human Rights Watch, the L.R.A. receives material and strategic support from the Sudanese government. In exchange, the L.R.A. wages clandestine warfare against the enemies of the government in Khartoum. When the U.S. pressures the Sudanese government to slow the genocide (this happens less frequently that you'd imagine) the government simply shifts the burden to Kony and the L.R.A., who continue the murdering without scrutiny.
All things considered, the current war in Uganda exhibits noticeable dissimilarities to its equally bloody counterpart to the north. Unlike the genocidal Janjaweed militias in Darfur, which operate as independent cells under intermittent guidance from Khartoum, the L.R.A. is the militant wing of Kony's deranged crusade. That is, the entire organization relies upon his charismatic leadership and his tactics of enslaving and indoctrinating child soldiers.
Arresting him, abducting him, or killing him then seem like obvious strategies. Paralyzing Kony's militias would not only eliminate a tremendous threat to human rights in Northern Uganda, it would empower U.N. and American negotiators with Sudan and most importantly, stabilize a region in desperate need of intervention. Without their proxy genocidaires, the Sudanese government and the Janjaweed militias (arguably the same agent) lack the transnational capability to wage guerrilla terrorism against civilian populations.
The conclusion is so apparent, I doubt I need to make the suggestion: Killing or incarcerating Kony, thereby releasing his thousands-strong army of enslaved boys, would save thousands of lives. And authorities ought to resist the temptation to grant Kony immunity from ICC prosecution for his crimes against humanity. While perhaps politically convenient, such criminal negligence would allow one of Africa's most notorious terrorists to permanently escape justice.
Regardless of your opinions on humanitarian intervention, the opportunity to promote peace and stability while simultaneously dismantling an international terrorist network ought not to pass by unnoticed. The consequences of inaction in the case are not that nothing will happen. Almost undoubtedly something else, something awful will happen. Ignoring this problem tacitly supports terrorist networks in the region and condemns another generation of Ugandan children to an existence that should never be visited on real people.
Dan Keyserling is a Cavalier Daily associate editor. He can be reached at dkeyserling@cavalierdaily.com.
Read More
PATEL: Personal development courses support students beyond the gradebook
By Heer Patel | 4 days agoThe University must rethink its approach to education beyond traditional major-specific requirements and mandate personal development courses.
EDITORIAL: Commercialization threatens U.Va.’s educational mission
By Editorial Board | 5 days agoAfter all, measuring the University’s worth in terms of accrued capital, operational efficiency and numerical rankings molds this space into just another cookie-cutter institution.
YOUNIS: Why every U.Va. student should say yes to English
By Ayat Younis | January 9, 2025Every student at the University, regardless of their primary field of study, can professionally and academically benefit from engaging with the English department.
