Obama’s men: We will hunt Joseph Kony to the end

Still elusive. President Barack Obama dispatched 100 American troops to aid the manhunt of warlord Joseph Kony in October 2011. However, four months down the road, the mysterious rebel leader remains elusive as he has for the past 25 years. But what has since happened? Sunday Monitor’s Emmanuel Gyezaho was part of a telephonic news conference on Wednesday in which two top US officials, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, Karl Wycoff, and Rear Admiral Brian L. Losey, Africa Commander Special Operations Command briefed reporters about the progress of American support to counter the LRA. Excerpts of an abridge version of the telephone below;

Operator: We begin with a few remarks from our guests today.
Karl Wycoff: I would like to add my thanks to all of you for joining this call. The US is working to pursue a comprehensive, multifaceted strategy to help the governments and people of this region end the threats posed by the LRA and reduce the human consequences of the LRA’s atrocities. We are providing support to help with four areas; increasing the protection of civilians, apprehending Joseph Kony and the top LRA commanders, facilitating the demobilisation and defection of the remaining LRA members and providing humanitarian relief.

We are working closely with multilateral partners; the African Union, the European Union, the United Nations as well as the four countries involved to help the region end the LRA threat. Over recent months the militaries of Uganda, CAR, DRC and South Sudan have continued to carry out operations against the LRA. With our support these four military forces continue to make progress in reducing the LRA’s members and keeping them from regrouping.

We are working on programmes to help affected communities develop early warning systems and increase information about LRA movements. In the last several months we have seen an increase in the number of people defecting or being released from the LRA’s ranks. This is a welcome development. We look forward to the day when LRA affected areas will no longer need humanitarian assistance and can instead focus on development.

Admiral Losey: We are supporting and not leading this effort. The African security forces in the region have demonstrated their commitment to defeating the threat that the LRA poses to the civilian population.
Today their numbers represent only a small percentage of their former strength. While numbers alone do not completely negate the effect that Kony and his Lieutenants have on the region, the mere fact that the LRA is still operating even at reduced strength is potentially terrifying to civilians in the region. He is able to elude capture largely because he is able to exploit the borders among these four nations.
He uses this space, an area as large as the geographical area of California, to hide and his reputation as a ruthless killer to intimidate populations into allowing his movements in the very dense and difficult terrain.

We are assisting in the fusion of intelligence, the integration of operations with that intelligence, or finding logistics and support processes, communications and coordination across partner nation efforts. We have approximately 100 service members working in all four countries at this time, many who work from Uganda providing support to advisers in forward operating locations. For the past four months, US military personnel have been working hard in establishing camps at these forward operating locations while advising and supporting our partners in coordinating with US embassies to ensure that our efforts are integrated into the broader US government supporting efforts.

We currently have personnel in all four countries, many co-located with these forces who have begun conducting patrols based on intelligence that we share with them. We have established operational fusion centres at our forward operating locations and have embedded US advisers with MONUSCO and their joint operations and intelligence centres to help better integrate MONUSCO’s efforts. We have already seen a decrease in the lethality of LRA attacks which we believe in part is a result of increased pressure that our partner military forces are applying.

While we expect to continue to make progress, we do not have a specific time line associated with this mission nor is it open-ended. Our desire is to ensure that what we are doing is relevant and effective in the current environment.

Operator: We begin today’s question and answer session with questions from our Embassy in Kampala, Uganda.

Emmanuel Gyezaho, The Monitor: My question goes to Admiral Losey. Joseph Kony has been elusive and has escaped the long arm of the law for the last 25 years. Could you please tell us, exactly, if you know, where he is and if you have what it takes to catch him?

Admiral Losey: Yes, absolutely. What we are doing right now is assessing the efforts across the four partner nations and looking to bring together all of the different intelligence from the different countries as well as different folks, not just intelligence but information and situational awareness and understanding.
By bringing all those together and fusing them and then coordinating our operations across that four country area, we are aiming to enhance and increase our effectiveness in locating Mr Kony. So that is part of an on-going assessment in process and as we get more refined in executing that process, we expect also to identify those requirements that will help increase our effectiveness. That is a continual effort.

Leila Ndinda, DW Uganda: I read a report from Resolve and it said President Obama’s LRA strategy runs the risk of becoming another well-intentioned but ultimately unsuccessful effort unless additional steps are taken. I would like to know what these additional steps could be and why this plan may not be successful.

Karl Wycoff: This is a comprehensive effort. The other elements we are working on so much is the protection of civilians. We are trying to help local communities to be able to gather information and process it better like cell phone towers, HF [High Frequency] radios. We are working very hard with civil society and Non-Governmental Organisations who are deeply involved in these very remote areas. We are also very much focused on non-lethal means to reduce the LRA. Military pressure is key to keeping the LRA from regrouping, keeping on the move and worried about their own survival.

At the same time we are trying to get word to the LRA combatants how they can defect, encouraging them to defect. This gets passed through HF radio and leaflets. Obviously there is pressure from LRA commanders for them to stay in the fight. But we want to provide them with safe avenues to escape from the LRA.

We want to work with local communities to try to ensure that LRA defectors are treated properly and handed over to relevant authorities and are put in a coordinated system so that they can be debriefed, cared for and reintegration or repatriation to their native countries if that is necessary.

At the same time we have to deal with the humanitarian consequences. The US along with the EU-major donors in terms of trying to mitigate the humanitarian consequences of the LRA brutality have put some $50 million into the humanitarian side of it over the last two years.

John Mukobala, Star Newspaper Kenya: Just in case the operations fails like several other operations have failed, will the U.S consider sending in troops to track Kony?

Admiral Losey: I don’t see failure. I see success already from the stand point that the four affected African countries in the region have agreed to look at this problem together. That is already success. By linking that with the civil authorities and the civilian populations, NGOs and multinational efforts, all those efforts collectively are shrinking the space in which the LRA can operate. Clearly we have learned over history that any reduction in military or diplomatic pressure or a provision of safe havens by any of the actors, will be taken advantage of by Joseph Kony and the LRA. It is very important that we maintain this pressure. I think we are a long, long way from bringing into play the idea that any additional US commits will be necessary.

Karl Wycoff: I would just add to that that this is part of a comprehensive and long term strategy. The responsibility to counter the LRA and pursue the LRA militarily and protect the civilian populations is the responsibility of the nations involved. So the UN AU, the variety of actors, certainly including the US are about how can we better support and enable those countries exercise their own responsibility.

Peter K. Johannesburg South Africa: Are they stepping up any efforts to try and discourage your enterprise?

Admiral Losey: I think there is ample evidence that there are some within the LRA that will never give up and comeback in. There is also ample evidence that there are a number of people associated with the LRA that would rather change their way of life. We don’t see indication right now that any of our activities are causing the LRA to lash out in ways that it has lashed out in the past. Again this is not strictly a military operation. This is a population and civil authority also working together to deny the space where the LRA can have a foothold in. Again we are not entirely mature in this effort. It is nascent and we are going to continue to evolve and mature this process.

Guy Oliver, South Africa: You said the LRA’s core numbers have decreased. The numbers I have is of 250 hard core fighters but it has been contested. I am just wondering what the latest figures are on the number of core fighters.

Admiral Losey: Earlier times LRA strength was reflected at higher numbers. Whether those are persons that are abducted into the core elements or not, that is all subjective to how you wanna pass it. We do feel that the numbers have been reduced. As an order of magnitude, I think 250 is close enough to what folks are estimating in terms of LRA fighters that exist.

Guy Oliver, South Africa: The trial of Thomas Kweyole, a mid-level commander, may be used by Kony to say look Ugandans are lying they actually are not going to give amnesty and that also may reinforce the arguments against defections. I just want to know where you get your figures and how many have defected since July 2011.

Karl Wycoff: The trial of Mr Kweyelo has been of interest the US. Our Embassy in Kampala has followed it closely. Clearly we want to see it resolved according to the rule of law. Uganda has a very active and independent judiciary.

As I understand this case is in the Ugandan judiciary. There is an internal process going on there. It strikes me that the Ugandans see this as a somewhat unique case and it is being pursued in a special process.

Broadly speaking we can say that the Amnesty Act goes back a couple of years in Uganda and has been quite successful. I mean more than 12,000 LRA defectors have applied for amnesty and have gone through a process in Uganda to try to reintegrate into their families and their communities. Certainly the US has put a lot of effort, human and financial resources into working with communities in Northern Uganda, the Ugandan government and local authorities to make that process a success.

Brookes James, EU Nato Correspondent Brussels: Are the soldiers of the four countries adequately paid and equipped to carry out the job or does the US need to step in to provide their salaries or supplements and military equipment like it does in Afghanistan?

Admiral Losey: Regarding adequate pay, equipment and training, this is all part of a process we are looking at. Again we are working in a broad four country area. Each of the military have their own unique characteristics in terms of how they are trained, level of training, level and types of equipment and part of the process is to work with our country teams, our US embassies and ambassadors to interface with governments to determine what is exactly the appropriate enablement and assistance to provide these militaries in order to support the LRA fight. That is a continual process and that will also evolve.

Raymond Baguma, New Vision: Currently the Amnesty Law covers crimes committed only in Uganda but some of the LRA fighters are wanted criminals in Congo. How are you harmonising this. Also can you tell us where exactly Joseph Kony is and how many fighters are left?

Admiral Losey: Again as part of the process of coordination and fusing information and collaborating on these issues, what we think about where Joseph Kony might be is not as important as what the UPDF, the SPLA, might think about where Joseph Kony is.

Until we get a good solid solution on that, we are going to continue to work that problem together. It has been mentioned several times and rather broadly agreed to that the general figure for the number of LRA’s fighters that are operating is roughly 200.