Northern Uganda Publications

Current efforts to end the Lord’s Resistance Army, or LRA, including the deployment of U.S. military advisors to East and Central Africa, are unlikely to succeed if they are not accompanied by substantial diplomatic, military, logistical, and intelligence support. This series of LRA issue briefs describes the main obstacles to success and explains what steps the United States and its partners should take in their efforts to end the LRA threat.

A joint report by the Enough Project  and a coalition of non-governmental organizations seeks to assess progress made by UN actors against the benchmarks outlined in the UN Regional Strategy on the Lord's Resistance Army. 

Current efforts to end the Lord’s Resistance Army, including U.S. military advisors currently deployed in East and Central Africa, are unlikely to succeed if they are not accompanied by the proper diplomatic, military, logistical, and intelligence support. This series of LRA Issue Briefs describes the main obstacles to success and explains what steps the U.S. and its partners should take in order to end the LRA as soon as possible.

This week, the International Contact Group on the Great Lakes Region will meet in The Hague, Netherlands. The upcoming meeting will likely focus on four urgent subject areas: security reform and civilian protection in eastern Congo, continued irregularities in the Congolese political process and the upcoming provincial elections, continued reform in the conflict minerals sector, and armed groups and regional dynamics including the FDLR and LRA. As a whole, these areas represent core impediments to peace, stability, and development in the Great Lakes. The Enough Project has developed recommendations to the group on specific elements of each subject area where this body can act to create real progress to mitigate conflict and fill critical gaps in cross-border coordination and communication.

In Issue #3 of our LRA Strategy Report Cards we take stock of what President Obama has accomplished in the first year of implementing his comprehensive strategy to address Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) violence in central Africa, and what he will have to do in the coming months if hopes for an end to LRA violence in 2012 are to be realized.

Within its first month of independence, South Sudan was named  among the top five countries in the world where terrorist attacks are most likely to occur. Further attempts toward destabilization by militias are therefore imminent and are, in fact, likely still happening in the field.

This report describes the experiences of former LRA who have recently returned to northern Uganda, explaining their reasons for leaving the LRA ranks and the challenges faced throughout the demobilization period, the current status of the remaining LRA groups in Sudan, Congo, CAR, and recommendations to align existing efforts and provide greater incentives to encourage more LRA fighters to defect, disarm and come home.

Based on extensive research in all areas where the LRA operates, as well as in northern Uganda where the LRA originated, this paper aims to shed light on the nature of the “new” LRA in the hope that some of the information presented here can help to finally bring an end to the conflict that is taking place outside of Uganda but which continues to affect northern Uganda also.

Enough Field Research Ledio Cakaj follows the violent path of Joseph Kony and his Lord's Resistance Army