Defections are happening. Frontline Fundraisers, be sure to watch this.

In the Protection Plan we set down our strategy to expand FM radio networks and encourage LRA combatants to come out of the bush. To launch our plan in the Central African Republic, Invisible Children partnered with an existing local radio station near Obo, called Radio Zereda (or Radio for Peace), and provided them with the resources to expand the broadcast range from a 1km-radius to a  more than 30km-radius. (This blog introduces Radio Zereda and the partnership beautifully.)

This video is proof that LRA combatants are actually receiving the broadcasts and listening to them. Arthur, the founder of Radio Zereda, tells the story of how one of their recent defection broadcasts prompted an LRA combatant to leave the bush and lay down his weapons.

This is real. This is happening. Take heart.

Now that the Invisible Children + Resolve LRA Crisis tracker has been launched, you can stay up-to-date on LRA attacks taking place in Central Africa.

Continue to check back here for a summary of the week’s top stories and regional news from the Invisible Children Mission Department.

Coming to you every week: The Frontline Summary.

LRA Attack Central African Republic Community

September 21st, Barraoua, CAR – A civilian recently reported that LRA forces killed three people in Barraoua, DRC. Security forces clashed with the LRA which resulted in the death of several LRA as well as the release of six abducted civilians. This report was made possible through the LRA Crisis Tracker – with the site up and running, a local source on the ground was able to email reports of the incident through the LRA Crisis Tracker account. Source: LRA Crisis Tracker Database

LRA Sighted in Northeastern DRC

September 23rd, Bangadi, DRC – Despite the majority of LRA groups moving into CAR, nine LRA were seen just outside of Bangadi, DRC this past weekend. Witnesses reported seven male and two female LRA who were speaking Acholi. One man was abducted and later released during this movement. Source: Invisible Children Early Warning Radio Network

Source: 2011 YTD Crisis Tracker Dashboard *indicates a statistic which has yet to be confirmed
Analysis: LRA contingents remaining in DRC during the CAR regrouping are still active. Security forces on the ground are aiming to extract these remaining few groups from DRC.
Source: UN/NGO, Invisible Children Early Warning Network

LRA Activity in Central African Republic Elicits
IC Response

Due to heightened LRA activity and congregation in the Central African Republic, Invisible Children is working to quickly expand programs into the region. A development contractor, who has been living in the area for over thirty years, was recently hired to register upcoming projects, formalize local partnerships, and make preparations in order to successfully implement the Early Warning Radio Network. The contractor will also be analyzing security as well as making recommendations for future protection initiatives. Source: Invisible Children Mission Department

Courts Grant Amnesty to
Former LRA Leader

In line with Uganda’s Amnesty Act of 2000, courts granted amnesty to Thomas Kwoyelo, who was indicted with 53 counts of murder during his time as an LRA commander. He had been captured in DR Congo over two years ago during a Ugandan military operation. Kwoyelo was the first to be on trial in Uganda’s War Crimes Court. The trial caused much debate over forms of justice that should be served to LRA combatants. Source: BBC – Click to View Article

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Contributors:

Caroline Berkey
Missions Department

A few days ago, this community reported into the central high frequency radio hub with this news.

A group of LRA attacked [our community] yesterday evening. They were so many. With guns. During the attack, [a man] who didn’t want to allow those elements to get into his house stood behind his door trying to stop them from entering into his house. They shot him through the door on his left thigh, crossing to his right thigh too. Now he is at the hospital…

Seven people from this community were abducted during the attack and have not yet been heard from. The report goes on to detail fighting between the FARDC (Congolese army) and the LRA, noting that two boys in the LRA were among those shot and wounded.

It is difficult to stomach these atrocities and the fear that this community is now faced with daily. We have been welcomed into homes and forged relationships with people in this particular community during multiple trips to the region, and our thoughts are with them now, as they undoubtedly sleep in fear of another attack.

Reports like this one allow for heightened humanitarian and international response and a clearer picture of LRA movement. Our staff in Congo took details from this report directly to the UN coordination office, and they issued a humanitarian alert immediately. It is our hope that reports like this continue to elicit greater response, with increased protection for communities, deployment of UN Peacekeeping troops to places like Bas Uele, and the LRA threat being treated with the seriousness it deserves.

Contributors:

Just yesterday here in Gulu, the Uganda International Crimes Division court began the trial of one of Joseph Kony’s commanders, Thomas Kwoyelo.  He is the very first Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) commander to face trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity.  Kwoyelo’s trial is a rather complex one because he was abducted while a child and spent half of his life with Joseph Kony’s rebel army.

Nevertheless the move to try such persons is one way of working towards restoration of peace in the region and other African countries suffering as a result of the LRA.

For the last two decades, Kony’s rebel army has terrorised the communities of northern Uganda – killing and forcefully conscripting thousands of people into his army.

It is our hope that peace prevails.

Click here to watch a video about Kwoyelo’s trial.

-Bernadette

BBC: Uganda’s first war crimes trial of LRA commander opens

Thomas Kwoyelo appeared before Uganda’s International Crimes Division court, more than two years after his capture.  He denied 53 counts of murder, hostage-taking, destruction of property and causing injury.

The LRA is notorious for kidnapping children and forcing the boys to become fighters and using girls as sex slaves.  It is listed by the US as a terrorist organisation and now operates mainly in neighbouring countries such as Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan and Central Africa Republic.

Mr Kwoyelo was captured during a Ugandan military raid in DR Congo in 2009.  He is accused of leading a 1996 attack on a Congolese village, in which people were forced to carry the goods stolen by the rebels.  “Those who failed were summarily executed,” said the charge sheet, reports the AFP news agency.

“The rebels brutally tortured the women. The accused then ordered his forces to kill all the elderly captives.”

Mr Kwoyelo has applied for amnesty, but the government rejected his request – a move the defence lawyer said was unfair because it had been granted to more senior LRA commanders.

The court was set up following peace talks several years ago between the government and the LRA.  The government assured the LRA that its fighters would be granted amnesty or they would be tried by Ugandan courts, rather than the International Criminal Court (ICC).

ICC arrest warrants exist for LRA leader Joseph Kony and his close aides. They are accused of rape, murder, mutilation and forcibly recruiting child soldiers.  The talks collapsed after Mr Kony demanded the withdrawal of the arrest warrants and a guarantee that he would not be tried by the ICC.

At least 30,000 people have been killed in the 24-year conflict between the LRA and the Ugandan government.

The LRA claims that it is fighting for a biblical state and the rights of the northern Acholi people.

You heard our mission.
You read our strategy.
You even helped raise the funds.

But you may still be wondering “What is The Protection Plan’s FM radio project?” So, we made a video for you.

Watch to see how Adam Finck and a partnering organization (Interactive Radio for Justice) worked with a local community member, Arthur, to expand a locally run FM station Radio Zereda (“Radio for Peace”).  By boosting the capacity of Radio Zereda, the radius of this local station expanded from a 1km range to 30km.  Now, the programming Arthur and his team at Radio Zereda broadcasts—which includes security updates, LRA activity warnings, and messages to encourage LRA fighters to defect—will reach and protect a much larger population.

As always, we’ve partnered with local Congolese leaders to work alongside to ensure that this project maintains cultural integrity and sensitivity to maximize the project’s effectiveness.

Here are the original plans that we received from local engineers working with our partner organizations the Commission of the Diocese for Justice and Peace.

Our Director of Congo Initiatives, James De Le Vingne worked for 2 years managing IC’s Schools for Schools program in Uganda. Below are the plans that he and the team of Schools for Schools engineers worked on for the center, as well as correspondence regarding the center he recently wrote to our staff in the US.

“The good news is that construction of the center is well under way; your dollars are now transforming a dilapidated skeleton of a building into what will soon be a hub for rebuilding lives. Despite the many challenges of working and living in Dungu, we’re making rapid progress. Construction is providing much needed jobs for internally displaced persons who commute from nearby camps each day to work as part of the huge workforce needed to make the center a reality. If all goes to plan, the centers doors should open in late July.”

Visit our blog next week where we will post video of the center’s construction.

-Sean

Stimson is a DC policy institute focusing on international peace and security. Their recent article “Eliminating the Lord’s Resistance Army Once and for All” should be required reading for anyone following what’s going on with Joseph Kony and the LRA. So, naturally, that includes you, which is why we’re posting it here…

Over the past year, Congress and the Obama administration have taken several laudable steps to address the threat of the Lord’s Resistance Army. The “Lord’s Resistance Army Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act,” signed into law in May 2010, required the US government to develop a regional strategy in support of multilateral efforts to eliminate the LRA threat.

As a result of US supported efforts, the LRA is arguably at its weakest since its emergence 24 years ago. Regional governments, the international community, and the United States have an opportunity to eliminate the LRA once and for all, by making additional small investments that could contribute to a number of other US foreign policy and security interests. Eliminating the LRA threat will serve to help stabilize a region rife with conflict, support the transition and reconstruction of Southern Sudan, and free-up more Ugandan People’s Defence Force (UPDF) forces for deployment in Somalia to fight al-Shabaab, a major US national security concern.

Read the rest of the article on Stimson’s website.

Michael Poffenberger (Executive Director of Resolve) spent some time hitting the keys on his keyboard to write a blog entry about what’s happened over the past year since The LRA Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act passed in Congress. And when we say “passed,” what we really mean is “passed with the most support for Africa-focused legislation in U.S. history.” Yes, that kind of “passed.” Crazy, we know. But there is still so much to be done. Read the first few paragraphs of Michael’s post below, then head over to Resolve’s blog for the rest of the article.

One year ago today, our team stood in the Oval Office as President Obama put pen to paper, signing into law a bill that committed his Administration to step up their leadership for an end to the LRA’s brutal atrocities and abductions. It was a moment of unparalleled optimism for us, made deeply satisfying by the countless hours of determined lobbying, writing, and braving-the-cold-in-Oklahoma-ing from thousands of committed advocates that made it possible.

Never before had the President publicly acknowledged the gravity of what is taking place and committed – in the President’s own words – to

“renew our commitments and strengthen our capabilities to protect and assist civilians caught in the LRA’s wake, to receive those that surrender, and to support efforts to bring the LRA leadership to justice.”

As we celebrated that moment, however, we also questioned what it would really mean for the people who live in daily fear of the LRA, and whose suffering has gone unacknowledged by the rest of the world for so long. U.S. leadership is a lynchpin to seeing this crisis ended. But it wasn’t clear how that success would translate into concrete measures that could put a stop to the violence.

Read the rest by clicking these words.

The radio station also reaches out to LRA combatants with instructions for surrender. During a recent visit to Congo we witnessed a similar project’s effectiveness in facilitating the surrender of nine LRA combatants in two weeks.

And now, another surrender is being reported, directing from the radio station established by Invisible Children, Radio Zereda, included in the report is that Joseph Kony plans to “exterminate the victims” of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) before being captured himself

In an interview with Zereda, a 20-year-old woman discussed her recent escape from the LRA and quotes Kony as saying he will “exterminate all aliens he’s kidnapped before being captured.” She also confirmed that the majority of those abducted and detained by the LRA are from the CAR, Sudan and Congo.

Zereda is broadcasting from Obo, 75 kilometers from where the woman was found in Mboki. After being in the LRA since 2007, she escaped and other female former abductees greeted her once she was found, and admitted into a local hospital for treatment.

News of Kony’s plans comes a few weeks after a team from the Independent Electoral Commission escaped an ambush by the LRA when returning from a mission in this same region.

Ringui Andre Le Gaillard, coordinator and head of the mission, told Radio Ndeke Luka that despite the attack, “the rebels are losing ground,” however the lack of information and humanitarian activity in CAR offer no real intelligence on LRA movements, strength and attacks. No one has any real idea of the strength or day-to-day activities of the LRA.

Gaillard also proposed that the CAR government “strengthen its army to put out the thugs who continue to wreak havoc.”

Local and international forces are under a legislated mandate by the International Criminal Court and the United States to support efforts to apprehend Joseph Kony and bring him to trial for war crimes (including the conscription of child soldiers) dating back to 1986.

Radio Zereda is a locally operated FM radio station established through funding by Invisible Children; its reports are being recorded and aggregated by Invisible Children’s Early Warning System.

Yesterday, it was revealed that Osama Bin Laden had been killed in a mansion in Pakistan.

Sitting on a train headed to San Diego, I almost leapt to my feet to announce the news… but alas, I was unable to look up from my Al-Jazeera live stream.

I am proud of the United States, and our collective power to pursue and ensure the protection of our people. Last night, I immediately thought: ‘Joseph Kony, you’re next.’ A secular society’s right and imperative to protect its people with lethal force as a last resort is something I believe in. Going to Law School solidified this. And an evolving global identity is expanding the central nervous system of ‘civillian safety’ to marginalized individuals (children, women, ethnic groups) outside of our national boundaries. But it was moving, humbling, profound, and strange to see mobs of people take to the streets at the news that a man and his family have been killed. I get it: he is an anti-social monster, the very personification of what cannot be tolerated by a global society. His death, I believe, was necessary. And I applaud the strategic efforts of the United States military and intelligence community for pulling off this long over-due and much anticipated mission.

But it does make me think… about the LRA and justice and peace and celebration.

And I hope beyond hoping that one day, we will hear the news of a man named Joseph Kony being captured and delivered to The Hague. I hope we will rejoice at his capture, and watch with bated breath as he is tried and sentenced by the ICC. But if he is killed, I hope we, the community of Invisible Children, will sigh in relief at the end of his tenure as a demi-god of terror, and mourn the perversion of a human soul and the tragedy of his crooked life. When we respect life, even the lives of evil men, we withhold the seeds of future evil planted in the children of perversion.

I must also remember that I am called to grapple with such moral labyrinths. I believe we must seek justice and serve our fellow man. And for a secular society, justice is not suicidal self-sacrifice in the face of evil. That may be ideal in the moral rafters of the spiritual life, as it should be, but such loftiness cannot be and should not be expected of a diverse republic. Nor expected by the international community of ideologies. It is the necessary and restrained use of force in the face of imminent danger that establishes the rule of law. (and also guarantees the free exercise of faith)

And I also believe there is an important difference between chanting ‘USA! USA!’ at the death of one mass-murderer… and the burning of American flags and celebration at the death of innocent people on 9/11.

When Kony is removed, I will toast to peace. I will celebrate the triumph of justice. I will most definitely high-five this hoodwink team of culture shapers that have pursued him together. But I hope that somewhere in the celebration, I will pause for the tragedy of the existence of super-villians, and the slow response that stopped him.

All that said, Joseph Kony is still at large, and he continues to murder. With him, we have the opportunity to chase justice with resolve and see another victory worthy of celebration down the road. A moving, human, and conflicted celebration.

Here’s an article I read at Salon.com about this whole thing that got me thinking. Remember, these are my views. I encourage you to tell me yours. – JJ

There is ample reason to feel relief that Osama bin Laden is no longer a threat to the world, and I say that not just because I was among the many congressional staffers told to flee the U.S. Capitol on 9/11. I say that because he was clearly an evil person who celebrated violence against all who he deemed “enemies” — and the world needs less of such zealotry, not more.

However, somber relief was not the dominant emotion presented to America when bin Laden’s death was announced. Instead, the Washington press corps — helped by a wild-eyed throng outside the White House — insisted that unbridled euphoria is the appropriate response. And in this we see bin Laden’s more enduring victory — a victory that will unfortunately last far beyond his passing.

For decades, we have held in contempt those who actively celebrate death. When we’ve seen video footage of foreigners cheering terrorist attacks against America, we have ignored their insistence that they are celebrating merely because we have occupied their nations and killed their people. Instead, we have been rightly disgusted — not only because they are lauding the death of our innocents, but because, more fundamentally, they are celebrating death itself. That latter part had been anathema to a nation built on the presumption that life is an “unalienable right.”

But in the years since 9/11, we have begun vaguely mimicking those we say we despise, sometimes celebrating bloodshed against those we see as Bad Guys just as vigorously as our enemies celebrate bloodshed against innocent Americans they (wrongly) deem as Bad Guys. Indeed, an America that once carefully refrained from flaunting gruesome pictures of our victims for fear of engaging in ugly death euphoria now ogles pictures of Uday and Qusay’s corpses, rejoices over images of Saddam Hussein’s hanging and throws a party at news that bin Laden was shot in the head.