Joseph Kony Is on Trial But Continues to Elude Capture

On September 9, the International Criminal Court (ICC) did an unprecedented thing: it has been asserted by the charges against Joseph Kony, the leader of the Ugandan rebel group The Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). Cony faces a long list of accusations, including war crimes and crimes against humanity. The event was historically not because of the charges themselves – it was first released in 2005 – but because Kony was not present. This is the first time that the court has submitted with a trial in the absence. The scene of the public prosecutors who put their case before an empty chair.

This question may chase the area for decades. LRA has been around for nearly 40 years, and its leader has constantly outperformed military, guided and political attacks. Despite the interest created by the “Kony 2012” campaign, despite the presence of consultants for special operations in the United States who are looking for for six years, and despite the rewards of US war crimes that are still worth $ 5 million, Kony is still generally. Thirteen years after his name for a short time, he became one of the most ideas on the Internet, and continues to evade justice.

Kony survived the disappearance of some of the most unable to reach the world and maintain itself through a mixture of illegal trade and agriculture. Gold, ivory, and other smuggled in regional smuggling networks, while honey and small farms kept its fighters feeding. It was equally important, the alliances he formulated with the local armed groups that helped him move away whenever his identical approaches.

The Lord’s Army of Resistance has emerged in the mid -1980s in northern Uganda, in the opposition of the new government of President Yuri Mosafini. The group initially relied on spiritual beliefs, mixing the Christian millennium with local cosmos. But the rise of Koni was built on an ideology less than coercion. The employment quickly came to rely on the kidnapping. By mid -2000, the researchers estimated that the Army of Resistance had kidnapped about 75,000 people, and many of them were children. Boys were forced into combat units, while girls were enslaved as “wives” for the leaders.

Fear was essential to the authority of the Lord’s Army for Resistance. The group carried out massacres, distorted, burning the village, and spreading terrorism across and outside Uganda. For a long time, the Ugandan government was unable to protect the population, and instead prompted them to forced displacement camps.

Make the reputable LRA violence. However, the group made visible, and the vision has proven dangerous. By 2010, the pressure from the Ugandan military and regional forces forced Kony to change the strategy: the massacres and kidnapping were widely diminished. The group fell to some of the least -ruling spaces in Africa: the remote borders between Sudan; Central African Republic (CAR); To a lower extent, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

Most of the world learned the name Kony only in March 2012, when the United States -based Invisible Group Group released its headquarters, “Kony 2012”, a 30 -minute YouTube movie calling for his arrest. The video spread at an unprecedented speed – more than 100 million views in its first week. For a long time, cony has become a familiar name, a rare case of African war princes to storm the culture of Western pop.

The campaign fed an increase in politics. In 2011, the United States deployed about 100 military advisers to support regional forces in Kony. Bring drones, surveillance aircraft and logistics. For years, Ugandan soldiers, with the support of American origin, toured the bush. But hunting came empty. By 2017, Washington ended quietly. Kony, as it was always, is unreasonable.

This also emphasized a deeper fact: finding a rebel leader in some of the most unable to reach the world, protected by the changing fighters and alliances, proved that it is difficult.

How, then, did Lra continue as soon as the days of the mass raids end? The answer to the improvised survival economy that linked the group in broader regional networks of trade, crime and armed policy is.

My central economy was ivory. LRA targeted elephants in the Garmba National Park in the northeastern Congo, one of the last wildlife haven in Central Africa. The fangs were hidden in the temporary storage memory across the border lands, and sometimes for years, before they are smuggled along the trafficking methods. Gold and diamonds also entered the mixture. LRA bought minerals from local merchants and resell them through national networks, as they work as mediators instead of miners.

Not all revenues came from high -value commodities. The fighters cultivated small fields, cultivated corn, peanuts, and harvested honey. Ali Kony-Ibn Joseph, who was supposed to succeed and designed himself as “the group’s foreign minister”-described me during an interview conducted in 2024 how he used a hand grenade chargers whose missile bomb as raw smoke bombs to drive bees from their bees.

The markets were the contract that maintained this economy. Sometimes, the rebels slipped into the current local trading posts. In other cases, they created their own. Amazing examples are “Yemen”, a temporary market in the Central African Republic near the Sudanese border. It can only be accessed by motorcycle paths and pedestrian corridors, and Yemen has become a focus where honey, gold, marijuana, weapons and food changed. The main camp in the Lord’s Army sat down to the martyrs near, with about 100 fighters and their families.

Trade was never to survive: as well as protection. By placing themselves as two mediators, the rebels included themselves in regional smuggling circles and armed group networks. The deals with Bedouin and rebel sponsors led to early alert and a degree of protection against government attacks.

Among these alliances, the relations with Sudan were the most dependent. Since the 1990s, Khartoum has seen the Lord’s army to resist as a useful alternative against Uganda, who supported the rebels in southern Sudan. Even after official support decreased, the relationship has never disappeared.

Around 2009, with the closure of regional armies, Sudanese forces allowed to be shelter in Kafia King, a disputed pocket in Darfur. Official protection from Sudanese forces may have ended, but trade with individual Sudanese officers continued. Gold became the main means of exchange, while the emergence of unusual weapons for border lands suggested that the channels to the Sudanese suppliers remained open.

Despite all this, Kony had a $ 5 million bonus on his head. Why wasn’t this enough to tempt one of his allies to betray him?

Part of the answer lies in lack of confidence. In early 2015, the auto-based Seleka rebellion-a loose alliance of Muslim armed groups, Muslim-Training Dominic Onguen, and the commander of the Lord’s Army to resist with the ICC arrest warrant and a reward for it. They handed him over to the American forces and later tried to claim a reward of $ 5 million. But they never received it, and left the broken promise a bitter taste. For former rebels Seleka who interacted regularly with the army of the Lord to resist and work in the same area, there is no great incentive to risk Kony.

However, the survival of the army of the resistance was not free of cost. The attrition is eaten steadily in its ranks. The morale is eroded between the fighters with the continuation of the hardships of hardship.

One of the former fighters told me three years ago: “Always fleeing, always hungry.”

Others grew disappointed with the endless and unreasonable Kony promises to overthrow the Ugandan government in Kampala.

It has unpredictable rule and greatness in despair. In 2007, he ordered the killing of his deputy, Vincent Ote, along with the loyalists in Otti. In 2013, more leaders were cleared. Onginin, the commander of the Lord’s Army, fled to the resistance, the other accusation, slightly, after Kony began suspected of helping others defects. The internal cracks arrived at the Kony family. Two of his sons, Salem and Ali, a particularly heavy blow to the movement.

The survival of the rebellion also depended on more cushioning tasks and risks: trips through remote terrain in search of ivory or minerals. For many fighters, the costs excelled.

In both 2014 and 2018, Splinter Facets separated from Kony leadership. With disappointment because of the authoritarian rule and tired of sending it in the tasks of looting in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the car without reaping the profits, they chose to strike on their own. Its headquarters is at the border, these divided groups eventually decided to lay off. In July and August 2023, a total of 164 fighters placed their arms-the largest public defection in the history of the Army of the Lord for the resistance of about 40 years.

Amid all this, economic challenges deepen. The outbreak of the civil war in Sudan in 2023 disrupted the border areas on which LRA relied. With roads between the Central African Republic and the reduction of Sudan, the illegal group trade diminished.

In these circumstances, Kony heads a force believed to be only about 20 armed men, or at the most hundred people with women and children among them. Once the horror of northern Uganda, it seems that the Lord’s Army for Resistance is now more than just a fugitive family complex in the bush: Kony has now raised a new son to a leadership position – Joseph.

However, Kony is still far -fetch. For decades, it has constantly outperformed attempts to arrest him. The International Criminal Court, which lacks its enforcement arm, depends on the state forces – none of them. Part of the cause is simple: Despite a bad reputation, Kony or Lra is classified as a priority list of any country. In an area crowded with armed groups, they are dangerous but barely more dangerous. For surrounding governments, the Lord’s Army for Resistance is a source of inconvenience more than an existential threat.

Recently last year, Koni escaped by two attacks on his base near the Yemen market, which was conducted by the Russian Wagner Group and the Ugandan army. Every time, it seems that it has only been provided with a sufficient warning to fading.

This leaves the issue of whether Koni himself will surrender. Health problems-including long-term diabetes, which was confirmed by people close to him, did not slow it down. Former fighters insist: surrender is not in its nature.

As one of the previous “wives” told me to be only last week: “Koni will never come out; it will never happen. He is a soldier; he wants to stay there; and he will never come before the court – he is the person who wants to remain responsible.”

He put his son Ali, even after separating his father, in similar terms: “He is a general; he will never give in to this court.”