Resolve

Ugandan officials have recently claimed that the Sudanese government has resumed support for the LRA.  Military officials say that recently-captured LRA had new uniforms provided by the Sudanese military.  Uganda’s foreign affairs minister claims that Khartoum is providing the LRA with guns, medicine, and uniforms, though military officials say they currently do not have concrete evidence of weapons provision.

From 1994-2005, the Sudanese government supported the LRA as a proxy force, providing them with arms, supplies, and safe haven. At the same time, the US and Ugandan governments gave support to the South Sudanese SPLA rebel forces, who are now the national military for the newly-independent South Sudan.  Sudan’s president, Omar Al-Bashir, who joined Kony on the International Criminal Court’s list of indictees for crimes against humanity in 2009, allowed the LRA to maintain their primary bases in the south of the country, from which they committed attacks on northern Uganda.  This Sudanese support allegedly dried up in the mid-2000′s, though since then there have been periodic allegations of resumed support.

LRA leaders reportedly met with the Sudanese military in South Darfur in 2009 soliciting supplies, and Kony was reported to be in Darfur in October 2010. The most recent reports became public last month, including in a press release by Human Rights Watch.  Last week Ugandan military officials told reporters that Kony is currently believed to be moving between southeast Central African Republic and Sudan’s Darfur region.

–Kaitlyn

Photo credit: New York Times