Joseph Rao Kony (pronounced IPA: [koɲ];^[6] born sometime between July and September of 1961)^[1] is the head of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), a Ugandan guerrilla group. While initially enjoying strong public support, the LRA allegedly turned on its own supporters, supposedly to "purify" the Acholi people and turn Uganda into a theocracy.^[2] Kony proclaims himself the spokesperson of God and a spirit medium, has nurtured a cult of personality, and claims he is visited by a multinational host of 13 spirits, including a Chinese phantom.^[2] Ideologically, the group is a syncretic mix of mysticism, Acholi nationalism, Islam, and Christian fundamentalism,^[7] and claims to be establishing a theocratic state based on the Ten Commandments and local Acholi tradition.^[8][9]

Kony has been accused by government entities of ordering the abduction of children to become child-sex slaves and child soldiers.^[10] An estimated 66,000 children became soldiers and two million people have been internally displaced since 1986.^[11] Kony was indicted for war crimes and crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands, in 2005 but has evaded capture.^[12] The LRA operates in Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic and South Sudan.^[13]

Biography[link]

Early life[link]

Kony was born in 1961^[1] in Odek, a village east of Gulu in northern Uganda,^[2][14] to father Luizi Obol and mother Nora, both farmers.^[15] He is a member of the Acholi people.^[2][16] Kony enjoyed a good relationship with his siblings, but was quick to retaliate in a dispute and when confronted he would often resort to physical violence.^[17] His father was a lay catechist of the Catholic Church and his mother was an Anglican.

Kony was an altar boy for several years but stopped attending church around the age of 15^[17] and also dropped out of school.^[2] As a teenager, Kony was apprenticed as the village witch doctor under Jamie Brow, his older brother, and when Jamie died, Kony took over the position.^[18]

Cult leader[link]

Kony first came to prominence in January 1986, as the leader of one of the many premillennialist groups that sprang up in Acholiland in the wake of the wildly popular Holy Spirit Movement of Alice Auma (also known as Lakwena and to whom Kony is thought to be related).^[2] Their relative loss of influence after the overthrow of Acholi President Tito Okello by Yoweri Museveni and his National Resistance Army (NRA) during the Ugandan Bush War (1981–1986) spurred resentment among the Acholi. Kony, along with a small group of followers, first moved beyond his home village of Odek on 1 April 1987.^[19] A few days later, he met with a small group of former Uganda National Liberation Front soldiers and managed to recruit them for his group. His first raid, carried out shortly afterwards, was on the city of Gulu.^[19]

Lord's Resistance Army[link]

Lord's Resistance Army insurgency
Events
1987–1994 1994–2002 2002–2005 2006–2008 Juba talks 2008 Garamba offensive Lord's Resistance Army Holy Spirit Movement Joseph Kony ICC investigation
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Kony's group was originally called the United Holy Salvation Army (UHSA), and was not perceived as a threat by the NRA. By 1988 it had become a major player in Ugandan affairs: an agreement between the NRA and the Uganda People's Democratic Army (UPDA) left members of the UPDA unsatisfied, and many joined the UHSA as a form of rebellion. One such person was the UPDA founder Odong Latek, who convinced Kony to use standard military tactics instead of attacking in cross-shaped formations and sprinkling holy water. The new tactics proved successful, and the UHSA won several small victories against the NRA.^[20] The NRA responded by significantly weakening Kony's group through a military campaign named Operation North. The operation was devastating to the UHSA and, with their numbers reduced from thousands to hundreds, they engaged in retaliatory attacks against NRA collaborators and terror against general civilian population. The LRA say that spirits were sent to communicate this mission directly to Kony.^[20]

The bulk of Kony's foot soldiers were children.^[17] While estimates of the number of children conscripted since 1986 vary, some put the figure as high as 104,000.^[17] When abducting the children, Kony and his army often killed their family and neighbors, thus leaving the children with little choice but to fight for him.^[17] In 1992, Kony renamed the group the United Democratic Christian Army.^[21] For a decade, starting in the mid-1990s, the LRA was strengthened by military support from the government of Sudan, which was retaliating against Ugandan government support for rebels in what would become South Sudan.^[1]

Indictment[link]

On 6 October 2005, the International Criminal Court (ICC) announced that arrest warrants had been issued for five members of the Lord's Resistance Army for crimes against humanity following a sealed indictment. On the next day Ugandan defense minister Amama Mbabazi revealed that the warrants include Kony, his deputy Vincent Otti, and LRA commanders Raska Lukwiya, Okot Odiambo, and Dominic Ongwen. According to spokesmen for the military, the Ugandan army killed Lukwiya on 12 August 2006.^[12] The BBC received information that Otti had been killed on 2 October 2007, at Kony's home.^[22]

On 12 November 2006, Kony met Jan Egeland, the United Nations Undersecretary-General for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief.^{[citation needed]} Journeyman Pictures released a 2006 interview with Kony in which he proclaims, "I am a freedom fighter not a terrorist."^[23][24] He told Reuters: "We don't have any children. We only have combatants."^[25]

Religious beliefs[link]

Kony was thought among followers and detractors alike to have been possessed by spirits; he has been portrayed as either the Messiah or the Devil. He reportedly made annual trips to the Ato Hills in Uganda, where he would allegedly ascend to the highest of the hills and lie down in the hot sun for days. Kony believes in the literal protection provided by a cross symbol and tells his child soldiers a cross on their chest drawn in oil will protect them from bullets.^[17] He also believes in polygamy, and as of 2007 he was thought to have 88 wives, claiming Old Testament authority for this, along with 42 children.^[4][26] Kony insists that he and the Lord's Resistance Army are fighting for the Ten Commandments. He defends his actions: "Is it bad? It is not against human rights. And that commandment was not given by Joseph. It was not given by LRA. No, those commandments were given by God."^[27]

Betty Bigombe remembered that the first time she met Kony, his followers used oil to ward off bullets and evil spirits.^[28] In a letter regarding future talks, Kony stated that he must consult his self-styled holy spirit. When the talks did occur, they insisted on the participation of religious leaders and opened the proceedings with prayers, led by LRA's Director of Religious Affairs Jenaro Bongomi. During the 1994 peace talks, Kony was preceded by men in robes sprinkling holy water.^[14] According to Francis Ongom, a former LRA officer who defected, Kony "has found Bible justifications for killing witches, for killing [those who farm or eat] pigs because of the story of the Gadarene swine, and for killing [other] people because God did the same with Noah's flood and Sodom and Gomorrah."^[29]

Action against Kony[link]

Uganda[link]

The Ugandan military has attempted to kill Kony throughout the insurgency. In Uganda's attempt to track Kony down, former LRA combatants have been enlisted to search remote areas of the Central African Republic, Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo where he was last seen.^[30]

United States[link]

After the 11 September attacks, the United States declared the Lord's Resistance Army a terrorist group.^[31] On 28 August 2008, the United States Treasury Department placed Kony on its list of "Specially Designated Global Terrorists", a designation that carries financial and other penalties.^[32]

In November 2008, U.S. President George W Bush personally signed the directive to the United States Africa Command to provide financial and logistical assistance to the Ugandan government during the unsuccessful Garamba Offensive, code-named Operation Lightning Thunder.^[33] No U.S. troops were directly involved, but 17 U.S. advisers and analysts provided intelligence, equipment, and fuel to Ugandan military counterparts.^[33] The offensive pushed Kony from his jungle camp, but he was not captured. One hundred children were rescued.^[33]

In May 2010, U.S. President Barack Obama signed into law the Lord's Resistance Army Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act,^[34] legislation aimed at stopping Kony and the LRA. The bill passed unanimously in the United States Senate on 11 March. On 12 May 2010, a motion to suspend the rules and pass the bill was agreed to by voice vote (two-thirds being in the affirmative) in the House of Representatives.^[35] In November 2010, President Obama delivered a strategy document to Congress, asking for more funding to disarm Kony and the LRA.^[36] In October 2011, President Obama authorized the deployment of approximately 100 combat-equipped U.S. troops to central Africa.^[37] Their goal is to help regional forces remove Kony and senior LRA leaders from the battlefield. "Although the U.S. forces are combat-equipped, they will only be providing information, advice, and assistance to partner nation forces, and they will not themselves engage LRA forces unless necessary for self-defense," President Obama said in a letter to Congress.^[38][39]

African Union[link]

On 23 March 2012 the African Union announced its intentions to "send 5,000 soldiers to join the hunt for rebel leader Joseph Kony" and to "neutralize" him while isolating the scattered LRA groups responsible for 2,600 civilian killings since 2008. This international task force was stated to include soldiers "from Uganda, South Sudan, Central African Republic and Congo, countries where Kony’s reign of terror has been felt over the years." Prior this announcement, the hunt for Kony has primarily been carried out by troops from Uganda. The soldiers will begin their search in South Sudan on 24 March 2012 and that the search "will last until Kony is caught".^[40]

[edit] Kony 2012

Kony received a surge of attention in early March 2012 when a 30-minute documentary titled Kony 2012 by film maker Jason Russell for the campaign group Invisible Children Inc was released. The intention of the production is to draw attention to Kony in an effort to increase United States involvement in the issue. The Huffington Post commented: "The 27-minute video was posted on Vimeo and YouTube by Invisible Children and became a worldwide trending topic on the Internet. Personally, I have never seen an outpour of support from people on my Facebook news feed like this."^[41] The video has been viewed more than 80 million times as of 17 March. The film has quickly received attention from celebrities.^[42] Invisible Children hoped to raise Kony's notoriety enough to provoke a massive overnight poster campaign, which took place 20 April 2012.^[43][44]

See also[link]

	Uganda portal
	Biography portal

• International Criminal Court investigations
• Lord's Resistance Army insurgency
• The World's 10 Most Wanted

References[link]

Bibliography[link]

• Green, Matthew (2008). The Wizard of the Nile: The Hunt for Africa's Most Wanted. Portobello Books. ISBN 978-1-84627-030-7. 
• Briggs, Jimmie (2005). The Innocents Lost: When Child soldiers Go to War. Basic Books. 
• Bussman, Jane (2009). The Worst Date Ever: War Crimes, Hollywood Heart-Throbs and Other Abominations. Macmillan. ISBN 0-230-73712-9. 

External links[link]

• Hague Justice Portal: Joseph Kony
• Joseph Kony on Interpol's wanted list