Today, 96 Members of Congress, led by Congressmen Jim McGovern (D-MA) and Ed Royce (R-CA), sent a letter to Secretary of State Clinton expressing their concern about the continuing massacres and abductions being carried out by Joseph Kony and the Lord’s Resistance Army, or LRA, in central Africa, and calling for increased U.S. leadership to protect civilians in the rebels’ path.
The letter, signed by members of Congress on both sides of the aisle, asked Secretary Clinton how the Obama administration plans to work with international partners to address two main goals: Stopping the LRA and ensuring the safety of the region’s civilians. They noted the introduction and bipartisan support of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act of 2009 (S. 1067/H.R. 2478), which is aimed at developing a strategy to apprehend the rebel group’s leader Joseph Kony and bring an end to the LRA, and to rebuild communities affected by the LRA’s long reign of terror.
Click here to read the letter.
Last month, Enough and Resolve Uganda partnered with Invisible Children for How It Ends Lobby Days. This event helped to garner a large number of additional co-sponsors for both the Senate and House version of the LRA Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act; 13 additional senators and 76 representatives signed on after activists descended on Capitol Hill.
The momentum behind this issue and the political will to establish a comprehensive strategy to bring more than 20 years of abduction, murder, and violence to an end appears to be steadily building. But for these efforts to translate into meaningful action in central Africa, attention to this conflict must be sustained. To learn how you can get involved in advocating to help bring an end to Africa’s longest running war, check out Enough’s special LRA page.
Photo: Woman in a village burned during an LRA raid. AP