Lra Marching to the History

Is Lord Resistance Army marching to history?

In the southern Sudan town of Juba, peace talks between Lord Resistance Army and the government of Uganda are coming to an end. Is this the last accord of one of the most cruel and least understandable conflict of our times?

The primary source of the north-south divide in Uganda is a deep economic imbalance, that suited the objective of the colonial administration. Before the Second World War Ugandans, from the north and south, were recruited into the British colonial army force, the King’s African Rifles (KAR). Initially, a majority of recruits came from the South, which also had the greatest concentration of the country’s economic and educational elite. This changed radically after 1945. The British fearing the consequences of the South having on top of economic power, a large number of trained soldiers, began to recruit mainly in the North.

The policy of balance of power, between largely southern civilian and northern military elites, lasted until independence in 1962. It created a challenge to build a unified nation state afterwards. In fact, the conflict has never been solved and remains the sole responsibility of Ugandan administration and the international community.

In 1987 a new movement called the Holy Spirit Mobile Forces emerged in the North and started a military campaign against the domination of the South. Led by Alice Auma ‘Lakwena’, a spiritual medium, it posed a considerable threat to the government. Alice Auma proclaimed, that a spirit called ‘Lakwena’ (messenger) had ordered her, in August 1986, to end her work as a healer and mobilize a force to wage a war against the evil that had invaded the Acholiland. Although her forces were defeated in 1987 near a town called Jinja, it was the first time the world had heard of Joseph Kony, who is believed to be a relative of Alice Auma.

Joseph Kony is a military, political and spiritual leader of Lord Resistance Army (LRA).

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