Testimony of Sasha Lezhnev, Enough Project Associate Director of Policy, before the House Foreign Affairs Committee's Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations hearing on “Ridding Central Africa of Joseph Kony: Continuing U.S. Support,” given on September 30, 2015.
By Sasha Lezhnev | Sep 30, 2015
From my 12 years of working on the LRA, both doing policy work with the Enough Project and running projects for hundreds of former LRA combatants with the Grassroots Reconciliation Group, I have observed that the LRA is one of the most resilient rebel groups on the planet in the face of adversity. Despite 25 years of counter-insurgency efforts mainly by Uganda, Kony’s LRA lives on, as its fighters abduct children as young as eight and move through dense jungles for thousands of miles on foot with virtually no technology in some of the most remote terrain on the planet.
Today, I am deeply concerned about the LRA’s new economic activities and its ability to regenerate itself going forward.
Strong bipartisan support in Congress for ending the LRA’s brutality has made a major dent in improving human security and preventing atrocities. Following the passage of the LRA Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act in 2010, which still today ranks as the most popular standalone bill on Africa ever to pass Congress, the Obama administration deployed approximately 100 Special Forces advisors to the African Union Regional Task Force in October 2011. This has helped lead to a 90 percent decrease in LRA killings and a 30 percent decrease in attacks,[1] and has significantly weakened a group that has abducted more than 66,000 children and youths and is responsible for more than 100,000 deaths over the past 28 years.[2] The number of displaced people as a result of LRA attacks is down from 1.8 million to 200,000 today.[3]