16 05 14 The Resolve – Why we’re trying to catch Kony (among other things)

The authors’ primary argument faults
the US government’s response to the LRA for being out of proportion to
the scale of the crisis, especially because the group’s capacity for
violence has been greatly diminished in recent years. They see the
overemphasis on the LRA as particularly problematic because the Obama
Administration is failing to respond robustly to more severe crises in
other areas of the CAR, South Sudan, and DR Congo.

They also
fault the US government’s “myopic and distorted vision” on the LRA for
being overly focused on one man: Joseph Kony. They see this overemphasis
as the result, in part, of a misguided domestic political constituency
spearheaded by LRA-focused advocacy groups such as Resolve and Invisible
Children.

At first read, the authors make some compelling
points. As they point out, the rapidly escalating violence in the CAR
and South Sudan over the past six months has highlighted the need to
rethink where counter-LRA efforts exist among the US government’s
regional priorities. No one can deny their claim that a strong domestic
constituency has played a major role in driving US counter-LRA efforts.
And Invisible Children is, after all, most famous for a
personality-driven film titled “Kony2012.”

Picking on Kony?
In
particular, the authors’ claim that for Obama Administration and
advocacy groups “a single goal – with a short timeline – has been set:
to catch Kony” is great for generating well-intentioned outrage among
savvy Africa-watchers turned off by Kony2012’s simple message. But it’s
not very helpful in accurately portraying what the US government and
advocacy groups are actually doing.

It’s true that US officials
and advocacy groups frequently release statements and campaigns that
lean heavily on Kony’s name recognition. The authors’ critique of this
may stem in part from a misunderstanding of how important Kony actually
is to the LRA. Though they mention anecdotally that a group of LRA
defectors in December 2013 had largely lost contact with Kony, a more
comprehensive sampling of LRA defector debriefs clearly demonstrates
that Kony still retains significant influence over many officers. Far
more than a self-interested PR stunt, capturing Kony would deal a huge
blow to the cohesiveness of the LRA’s command structure and its ability
to continue committing atrocities.

But more importantly, the
authors’ argument ignores a inconvenient but important wrinkle: Public
campaigns boosted by Kony’s infamous name have been a very successful
tactic in drumming up political and financial support for the Obama
Administration’s significant civilian-side response to the LRA crisis.
This line of effort encompasses initiatives such as funding for civilian
early warning networks, support for children who escape LRA captivity,
and emergency assistance to displaced persons that have little to do
with Kony. These programs began before and will outlast the US military
deployment, but are absent from the authors’ narrative.

The
authors rightly point out that the Defense Department has taken on a
much larger role in the US counter-LRA response in recent years and that
the military is primarily focused on catching Kony and other senior LRA
commanders. But they fail to recognize that some of US military’s most
successful initiatives have involved encouraging peaceful defections
from the LRA and encouraging African military partners to place a higher
priority on civilian protection, civ-mil dialogue, and information
sharing.

Among advocacy groups, Invisible Children has walked the
talk on the need for a comprehensive response to the crisis. Most of
their programs in LRA-affected areas have little to do with catching
Kony. Instead, they’ve expanded civilian early networks, helped involve
communities in efforts to encourage peaceful defections from the LRA’s
rank-and-file, and provided support to LRA escapees and their families.
Recently, many aid organizations have shuttered operations in
LRA-affected communities because traditional donors shifted funding
elsewhere, abruptly leaving vulnerable civilians in the lurch.
Ironically, Invisible Children has been able to maintain its broad range
of programming there precisely because its Kony-centric fundraising
campaigns have buffered it from dependence on such donors.

Victims of their own success
In
arguing that the US response to the LRA is disproportional to the
“relatively minor threat” the group poses, Titeca and Atkinson highlight
the diminished capacity of the LRA. They note that “the LRA managed
their last large-scale attacks” in early 2010 and that LRA violence,
particularly killings, was already much reduced by the time US advisers
deployed in late 2011.

Overall LRA violence has dropped
significantly in recent years, but more nuanced data from our LRA Crisis
Tracker project shows this birds-eye view can be misleading. In
particular, the drop in overall LRA violence masks highly volatile
patterns of violence at the local level. For example, in mid-2012, the
LRA abducted over 70 people in a series of raids in areas of the CAR’s
Mbomou prefecture that had been at peace for eight months. In mid-2013,
they attacked communities along the Bria-Ouadda road in the CAR for the
first time, abducting 61 people over six weeks. In early 2014, areas of
Haut Mbomou and Haut Kotto prefecture in the CAR and the
Niangara-Bangadi area in Congo saw attacks and abductions increase
dramatically compared to previous years. For these communities, news of
the overall drop in LRA violence is likely not very comforting.

The
authors’ also fail to examine why violence by the LRA has dropped so
dramatically in recent years. The answer is certainly complex, but any
reasonable explanation must recognize that US-supported, Uganda-led
military operations have played a significant part. In addition to the
number of LRA combatants killed or captured, troops have made life on
the run for the LRA quite miserable, encouraging many remaining
combatants to escape. Many such brave souls also been encouraged by
defections programs run by local civil society leaders, Invisible
Children, the US military, and other groups. Ugandan troops have also
provided de facto protection to thousands of civilians living near their
military bases from attacks by the LRA and other armed groups such as
Seleka.

In addition, the authors fail to differentiate between
the LRA’s tactical evolution and their capacity. While the LRA certainly
has less capacity to commit the large-scale massacres they once did,
reports from LRA defectors indicate reductions in killings are also the
result of tactical commands issued by LRA commanders partly in response
to their fears that attention-grabbing massacres would result in greater
military pressure.

Seen in this context, some of the authors’
critiques of US counter-LRA initiatives seemingly fault the Obama
Administration for being too successful. One is left wondering whether
they would advocate for the US to pull back its support for military
operations just when the evidence is mounting they are partly
responsible for a decrease in LRA violence. Such a move would likely
give the LRA a chance to regroup and rebuild its fighting capacity, a
feat Joseph Kony and other LRA leaders have proven capable of several
times in the past.

Measuring US priorities – a zero sum game?
Even
if the LRA was as weak as the Titeca and Atkinson suppose, their
argument assumes a zero sum game in which the substantial resources the
US has dedicated to the LRA reduce its capacity to respond to other
crises in the region that are more severe.

However, a closer look
at US counter-LRA support does not bode well for the authors’ claims.
Certainly, Obama administration officials have invested significant
diplomatic capital in responding to the LRA crisis and mention the LRA
frequently in public statements. However, even a cursory analysis of US
diplomatic efforts and public statements makes clear that the US sees
the crises in eastern Congo and South Sudan as far more of a priority
than the LRA*. Similarly, the US dedicates far more humanitarian and
development funds to respond to the broader crises in Congo and South
Sudan than they do LRA-affected communities.

It is true that in
recent years the Obama administration has invested more diplomatic heft,
public attention, and humanitarian funding to the LRA than it did to
the Central African Republic. But, as informed observers of US foreign
policy there are aware, this dynamic has rapidly reversed as the crisis
in the CAR has escalated. And far from being a zero sum game, it’s
likely that the Administration’s counter-LRA response, which has been
CAR-focused for years and has emphasized atrocity prevention, has
actually spurred the US to respond faster and more substantively to the
broader crisis in the CAR than it otherwise would have.

Groups
like Invisible Children and Resolve are encouraging this transition by
putting our advocacy experience and grassroots mobilization resources to
use in collaboration with a wide range of civil society partners active
on the CAR. Our success in mobilizing a robust response to the LRA is
an asset, not a liability, to efforts to generate a more robust US
response to the CAR crisis.

The authors are most critical of the
Obama Administration’s military response to the LRA, which includes the
deployment of military advisers and the funding of aircraft and
intelligence assets to assist Ugandan operations. However, redeploying
such military assets to US responses to the crises in the CAR, Congo,
and South Sudan would be inappropriate and counter-productive. And given
the realities of US government budget allocations, resources freed up
by reducing the military component of the counter-LRA response would not
be used to boost civilian responses to those crises.

The
greatest potential for the Obama Administration’s counter-LRA strategy
to result in a harmful zero sum game is if it undercuts US efforts to
address the deteriorating condition of human rights and democratic
governance in Uganda. This includes US opposition to Uganda’s onerous
Anti-Homosexuality Act, which the authors mention briefly. LRA-focused
advocacy groups are acutely aware of this possibility and have actively
collaborated with rights groups focused on these issues in an attempt to
ensure a balanced US response to both sets of concerns. Our efforts are
a work in progress, but that’s much different than having a “myopic and
distorted vision.”

Room for constructive dialogue
Our
critiques of Titeca’s and Atkinson’s arguments are not meant to
exonerate the Obama Administration or LRA-focused advocacy groups. In
recent years there’s certainly good reason to critique US and Uganda for
inefficient allocations of resources, questionable political
incentives, and tragic failures to prioritize civilian protection in
their counter-LRA military operations**. Advocacy groups were too
shortsighted to anticipate the shortfalls of campaigns like Kony2012. We
were also too slow to translate the overwhelming response to such
campaigns into as much concrete progress in generating a comprehensive,
effective response to the LRA response as we could have.

Unfortunately,
the authors’ tidy, oversimplified explanations and misleadingly
selective choices of evidence fail to capture the nuance and messy
complexity of these dynamics. Perhaps the same media environment that
incentivized advocacy groups to overemphasize the infamy of Kony and the
LRA’s brutal tactics has also incentivized critiques that are,
ironically, just as oversimplified and bombastic. Whatever the cause,
such arguments polarize the debate instead of providing a foundation for
constructive dialogue.

* If there is a zero sum game in these
instances, it is the counter-LRA response that often loses out, as has
happened in recent years when US officials have been reluctant to use
scarce leverage with the Sudanese government to urge it to expel LRA
forces from the disputed Kafia Kingi enclave.

** The authors seem
particularly concerned about the timing and efficacy of the US
deployment of Osprey aircraft to support counter-LRA operations.
LRA-focused advocacy groups share similar concerns. However, the
authors’ “puzzlement” at the withdrawal of the Ospreys can be easily
explained:as we have publicly noted, the Ospreys were only ever intended
for periodic deployments to counter-LRA operations.