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| photo by Stuart Price, Joseph Kony,Leader of the Lord's Resistance Army 2006. |
Kony, and men like him across the globe, realized that arming children could serve as a means to gaining military sucess. Their vying for military conquest through any means necessary has not only trapped children into wars, but is also responsible for much of global unrest after the Cold War. Children are chosen for recruitment because they represent a quick, easy, and low-cost way for armed organizations to generate force. Any organization willing to use children as fighters will usually be able to create a force well beyond what they would be able to do without them. Because of this larger child-based force, the balance of potential battles in a war is shifted to the most vicious that have capitalized on their youth. For example, the LRA was nothing more than a cabal that numbered as few as two hundred men, and enjoyed no popular support among the civilian population. But through the abduction and transformation of fourteen thousand children into soldiers, the LRA has been able to engage the Ugandan army in a bloody civil war for the last 20 years.
According to Matthew Green’s book, The Wizard of the Nile: The Hunt for Africa’s Most Wanted, “Joseph Kony emerged at the age of twenty-eight claiming to be possessed by the Christian Holy Spirit”(Green 89). And with the help of a few loyal followers, he took to the bush and launched his war. Green alleges that Kony’s group is “fighting to bring back respect for the biblical Ten Commandments”(Green 88). Through Kony’s interpretation, however, this includes the abduction, torture, rape, and killing of children, the use of sex slaves. In fact, the International Criminal Court (ICC) has charged Kony with as many as 33 counts of war crimes. Kony also has the dubious distinction of being the ICC’s first test case (Burgis). Almost ironically, the LRA’s closest ally has been the militant Islamic government of Sudan, so it once even amended its ‘Christian’ doctrine to include the requirements that prayers be made toward Mecca and that pig farming be banned (Singer 57). The LRA would appear to lack any sustainability due to its seemingly mad leaders and contradictions. But unlike rebel groups of the past, by using child soldiers, Kony has been the force behind a 25year war that has killed more than 100,000, recruited around 30,000 children, and displaced approximately 80% (1.8 million people) from northern Uganda. (US State Department). Currently the government and the LRA are in peace talks that may free Kony to a lesser punishment (Burgis).
