Northern Uganda

Today in LA Times, article with photos from northern Uganda. See photos at latimes.com/uganda - some very graphic images. But they are not gratuitous and instead portray an honest representation of the horrors committed by the Lord's Resistance Army led by Joseph Kony. The horrors committed by the LRA are shocking - the torture and maiming, the focus on kidnapping children to serve as soldiers and sex slaves. An entire subculture has emerged in northern Uganda of child night commuters (who must leave their homes each night to seek refuge in a large city, to avoid being abducted) and refugee camps that are essentially prisons because the LRA waits for anybody to leave in order to brutalize them - favorites are to cut off all fingers, lips, and ears.

This summer in DC I heard a priest from the Acholi district of northern Uganda speak, and he made a compelling argument that Kony is not so much a rebel leader as a madman - and should be captured and tried as a war criminal, not brought into political discussion.