Early life
Kony was born in 1961 in Odek, a
village east of Gulu in northern Uganda to father Luizi Obol and
mother Nora, both farmers. He is a member of the Acholi people 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. 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
and also dropped out of school. 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
Cult leader
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). 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.
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.
Lord's Resistance Army
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. 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
The bulk of Kony's foot soldiers
were children.
While estimates of the number of children conscripted since 1986 vary, some put
the figure as high as 104,000. 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. In 1992,
Kony renamed the group the United Democratic Christian Army. 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.
Indictment
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. The BBC received
information that Otti had been killed on 2 October 2007, at Kony's home.
On 12 November 2006, Kony met Jan Egeland, the United Nations Undersecretary-General
for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief. Journeyman Pictures
released a 2006 interview with Kony in which he proclaims, "I am a freedom
fighter not a terrorist." He told Reuters: "We don't have any children. We
only have combatants."
Religious beliefs
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. 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. 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."
Betty Bigombe remembered that the first time she
met Kony, his followers used oil to ward off bullets and evil
spirits. 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. 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."
Action against Kony
Uganda
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.
United States
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, 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. In November 2010, President Obama delivered a strategy
document to Congress,
asking for more funding to disarm Kony and the LRA. In October 2011, President
Obama authorized the deployment of approximately 100 combat-equipped U.S.
troops to central Africa. 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.
African Union
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".
Kony 2012
Main article: 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." The video has been viewed more than 91 million times
as of June 17, 2012. The film has quickly received attention from celebrities.
Invisible Children hoped to raise Kony's notoriety enough to provoke a massive
overnight poster campaign, which would've taken place on April 20, 2012.
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