Joseph Kony, the fugitive rebel leader of the Lord's Resistance Army, has been wanted by the ICC for more than 20 years. A former altar boy and self-proclaimed messiah, prophet and messenger of God, Kony founded the rebel group in 1987 with the aim of overthrowing Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni and establishing a theocratic regime based on the ten commandments in the Bible. The LRA's bloody insurgency is one of Africa's longest and most brutal conflicts.
It has claimed more than 100,000 lives and displaced more than two million people, mainly in northern Uganda, according to the UN. The group carried out numerous massacres and kidnappings of children, who were recruited by the thousands to fight or to satisfy Kony's commanders' sexual appetites. Driven out of the country in 2006 by the national army, the group gradually faded from the public eye, although it remains active in isolated border areas of Central Africa.
But in recent months, the LRA has once again made headlines. Central African authorities are concerned about a resurgence of attacks in the east and southeast of the country. At least 25 children have been abducted there during several raids on villages in attacks attributed to Kony’s notorious militia.
FRANCE 24 spoke to Leonie von Braun, Senior Trial Lawyer at the ICC and lead investigator in the Joseph Kony case, about the group's resurgence. **The Lord’s Resistance Army seemed to have virtually disappeared in recent years. How do you interpret these new attacks?** **Leonie von Braun:** The LRA is much less powerful than it was in the 2000s. The organisation used to be highly hierarchical, with four brigades, each estimated to have several hundred fighters.
Today, they operate on a much smaller scale. However, they remain active, employing a survival strategy very similar to the one used in northern Uganda and, later, when they were driven out of their country, in South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In the Central African Republic, we are seeing attacks on villages located in the region where they have set up their camps.
Civilians are being abducted and enslaved. This information shows that they are still armed and ready to commit acts of violence. The more people they abduct, the stronger they become.
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