US Military Role in LRA Operation Examined

Today's New York Times features a must-read examination of the US military's involvement in helping plan and execute the ongoing regional military operation to end the LRA's violence against communities in Congo. The operation, launched in December,  has so far failed to stop the rebel group, instead provoking a wave of brutal LRA reprisal attacks against civilians.

The article, "US Aided a Failed Plan to Rout Ugandan Rebels," reports:

The American military helped plan and pay for a recent attack on a notorious Ugandan rebel group, but the offensive went awry, scattering [LRA] fighters who carried out a wave of massacres as they fled, killing as many as 900 civilians... No American forces ever got involved in the ground fighting in this isolated, rugged corner of Congo, but human rights advocates and villagers here complain that the Ugandans and the Congolese troops who carried out the operation did little or nothing to protect nearby villages, despite a history of rebel reprisals against civilians. 

We said much the same in a January statement released with our colleagues at Enough Project, where we expressed our shock and disappointment at the lack of safeguards in place to protect civilians in the area.

But the urgent need to apprehend top LRA leaders to stop this violence remains, and succeeding in this task is going to require even greater international support. Without it, the war will continue to drag on.

And we can't let that happen, or we will see more of the same, as the Times article reports: 

On Dec. 25, villagers in Faradje, a town near the national park, walked out of church as 50 to 70 armed men emerged from the bush. Most villagers had no idea who they were... but there was no misunderstanding them after the first machete was swung. Whoever could run, did. Christine Ataputo, who owns the one restaurant in town, watched from the forest floor as the rebels raped, burned and butchered. She was lying on her belly when she saw that her 18-year-old daughter, Chantal, had been captured.

“They took her away on a rope,” she said.

Chantal has not been seen since, and even more than a month later, Faradje still has the whiff of char. Around 150 people were killed Christmas Day.