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Advocate For LRA Victims Takes To The Senate Floor

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Advocate For LRA Victims Takes To The Senate Floor

Posted by Amy Doherty on January 28, 2010

In a speech delivered on the Senate floor this week, Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) galvanized support for the Lord’s Resistance Army Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act (S 1067).

Rather than simply issue a statement, Senator Inhofe took the extra step to address the Senate chamber, stressing the vital impact the legislation would have on the children who endured the brutal tactics of LRA: “If you can increase your PEPFAR funding for Africa by $35 billion and you don’t want to spend one-thousandth of that amount, $35 million, to save those kids – 30,000 kids over the years have been mutilated like this – then there is something wrong with this country.” 

The LRA bill calls for the United States to devise a strategy to help bring an end to the more than two decades of terror caused by the marauding LRA throughout Central Africa and provide support to communities rebuilding after years of instability. Here are the senator’s full remarks: 

 

Senator Inhofe sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the Senate Armed Services committee. He has traveled to the region impacted by LRA violence and sponsored other Senate initiatives focused on Africa, including legislation recognizing the continent’s strategic importance and a resolution in support of Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government.

The LRA bill, thanks in part to vocal proponents like Senator Inhofe, currently has 51 co-sponsors, more than any other bill on sub-Saharan Africa since 1973.