Joseph Kony "reappears"

With Washington's friend the ethnic cleanser , Museveni, supposedly having a very real interest in capturing Joseph Kony, with the Congolese army and SPLA of South Sudan apparently joining the "pursuit" and with the UN peace keeping mission (MONUC) in the Congo it came as no surprise that the killing in the Congo was being monopolised almost totally by the Rwandan and DRC armies and their enemy the Hutu backed Forces démocratique pour la libération de Rwanda (FDLR). One was tempted to conclude that Joseph's 'Lord Resistance Army' (LRA) was in the process of becoming yesterday's news. That is until a couple of days ago when the 'Guardian' reported that the Mr Kony's LRA had killed at least 321 civilians and abducted hundreds. Why can he not be captured?


Peter Eichstaedt provides an answer when he argues that it is ultimately not in the Ugandan president, Museveni's, interest to have Kony captured. That is right, much better for his corrupt regime to concentrate on its own "little" mass murder and with Ugandan elite syphoning off the money that it receives from the EU and the United States to fight Kony, that is likely to continue. The evidence would seem to suggest that the efforts being made by Uganda to capture Kony are not quite so serious as some of us might have been led to believe. Of course, why should they be, after all, Joseph's dream of replacing Museveni is just not going to happen. No, it would appear that the LRA, provided it doesn't try to saunter down Kampala High Street will be allowed to run wild in central and east Africa -the news is that the LRA has also moved into the Central African Republic - for some time.  Moreover, with bringing Somalia into line being much more important to the West than Kony ever will be and with the Ugandan government willing to send troops to Somalia we can be doubly sure that any effort to catch this particular mass murderer is going to be, at best, half-hearted, as Museveni's backers turn a blind eye to their man in Africa spending their money as he sees fit and not as they might like to see it spent. Another piece of bad news for the people of east and central Africa.