Lord's Resistance Army
The Lord's Resistance Army is a paramilitary group, and a new religious movement. Joseph Kony founded it in 1987, in the north of Uganda, to fight against the government, headed by president Yoweri Museveni. The group operates in Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and in South Sudan. It wants to establish an independent state which is governed by laws based on the Ten Commandments. There is an insurgency called Lord's Resistance Army insurgency, which was basically caused by the group. Uganda was able to evict the group, but it continues to terrorize the population in the other countries where it is active. In conjunction with the conflict, the group is also said to have committed several grave abuses of human rights.It has been accused of widespread human rights violations, including murder, abduction, mutilation, child-sex slavery and forcing children to participate in hostilities.[1][2]
The group is led by Joseph Kony, who proclaims himself the spokesman of God and a spirit medium. Since 1987, Kony is believed to have recruited between 60,000 and 100,000 child soldiers and displaced around 2 million people throughout central Africa.[3] The LRA is one of the foreign organizations designated as terrorist by the United States,[4] and its leadership is wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes and crimes against humanity.[1]
References
[change | change source]- ↑ 1.0 1.1 International Criminal Court (14 October 2005). Warrant of Arrest unsealed against five LRA Commanders. Retrieved 2 June 2009.
- ↑ Richard Dowden. "Court threatens to block cannibal cult's peace offer". Royal African Society. Archived from the original on 21 January 2012. Retrieved 5 January 2011.
- ↑ Conal Urquhart, Joseph Kony: African Union brigade to hunt down LRA leader, guardian.co.uk, 24 March 2012
- ↑ Current List of Foreign Terrorist Organizations and Other Terrorist Organizations