Help or Hindrance?

Obama sends troops to Uganda

By Anna Fifield in Washington

President Barack Obama is sending about 100 “combat-equipped” troops to Uganda to help find rebel leader Joseph Kony and counter his notorious Lord's Resistance Army, part of an effort to hunt down the self-styled prophet who has terrorized people across four central African countries.

The American troops would “provide assistance to regional forces that are working toward the removal of Joseph Kony from the battlefield,” the president wrote in a letter to John Boehner, the Republican Speaker of the House, advising Congress of the deployment.

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“The support provided by US forces will enhance regional efforts against the LRA,” he wrote, describing the move as “in the national security and foreign policy interests of the United States”.

The deployment was consistent with the War Powers Act, he said, suggesting he expected the mission to be concluded within the three months before the president needed Congressional approval for such a mission.

An initial team of military personnel “with appropriate combat equipment” was sent to Uganda on Wednesday and additional forces, including a second combat-equipped team and associated communications and logistics personnel, would be deployed over the next month.

Although the American troops would be combat-equipped, they would act as military advisers, providing information, advice and assistance to allied forces. “They will not themselves engage LRA forces unless necessary for self-defense,” Mr Obama wrote.

The president said that the LRA had been responsible for having “murdered, raped and kidnapped tens of thousands of men, women and children in central Africa” over the last two decades.

It continues to “commit atrocities across the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan that have a disproportionate impact on regional security,” he wrote.

The forces will eventually go to Uganda and those other three countries.

Mr Kony, the leader of the LRA, was indicted in 2005 for war crimes by the International Criminal Court. His followers have a record of mutilating their victims and abducting children to be used as fighters and sex slaves, according to local reports.

After Mr Kony repeatedly failed to sign a peace deal with the Ugandan government, the country’s army in 2008 began trying to root out the LRA’s bases in Uganda and in Congo, but that effort did not succeed.

Mr Obama last year signed a law committing the US to helping four African nations to bring an "end to the brutality and destruction" in Uganda.

Although recent military excursions – notably the mission in Libya – have met with Congressional resistance as the US grows tired with a decade of war, lawmakers have expressed support for greater American involvement to help Uganda counter the LRA.