“Home is not safe.” Ethnicity, religion and the distortion of culture by the LRA in Uganda

LRA locations, past and present

Political instability in Uganda leading up to the LRA Milton Obote being sworn in as president of Uganda, 1980

Tito Okello, 1985

Museveni and President Ronald Reagan at the White House, 1987

Anti-Museveni movements Alice Lakwena (née Auma)

Joseph Kony’s rise to power LRA flag Joseph Kony

Religious aspects of the LRA ChristianityIslam (?) Animism and local spiritual traditions

Thou shalt not kill? LRA child soldiers, Uganda

From abductee to warlord: Dominic Ongwen

Alternative approaches: Zimbardo

Alternative approaches: Druckman “The more alike people are, the easier it is to generate loyalty and cohesion.” (Druckman 56)

Alternative approaches: Brubaker (religion) LRA goals, as described by a spokesman for the group: 1. Remove Museveni and stop the oppression of the Acholi 2. Restore a multiparty democracy 3. See an end to violations of Ugandans’ dignity and human rights 4. Ensure restoration of peace and security in Uganda 5. Unity, sovereignty and economic prosperity that benefits all Ugandans 6. End policy of marginalization of those who disagree with the government [Lawrence E. Cline, The Lord’s Resistance Army (Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2013) 22.]

Alternative approaches: Crawford Children at an IDP camp, northern Uganda

Alternative approaches: Fearon and Laitin “Night Commuters,” northern Uganda

Conceptual framework: Brubaker (groupism) “Lord's Resistance Army are Christians. It means God... They are fighting the Muslims in Sudan. And Obama has sent troops, United States troops to remove them from the battlefield, which means kill them. That's what the lingo means, ‘to help regional forces remove from the battlefield,’ meaning capture or kill. So that's a new war, a hundred troops to wipe out Christians in Sudan, Uganda, and -- (interruption) no, I'm not kidding.” -from “Obama Invades Uganda, Targets Christians,” The Rush Limbaugh Show. 14 Oct

Groupism and the LRA, cont. “Is that right? The Lord's Resistance Army is being accused of really bad stuff? Child kidnapping, torture, murder, that kind of stuff? Well, we just found out about this today. We're gonna do, of course, our due diligence research on it. But nevertheless we got a hundred troops being sent over there to fight these guys -- and they claim to be Christians.” -from “Obama Invades Uganda, Targets Christians,” The Rush Limbaugh Show. 14 Oct

Conceptual framework: Oloya and the repurposing of Acholi culture New LRA abductees go through “...an intense process of transformation through which child abductees are subjected to physical and psychological coercion, torture, and extreme violence, which forces them to rethink their prior cultural understanding of how to be and relate as human persons, and to accept a new reality where violence is the currency of everyday existence.” -from Opiyo Oloya, Child to Soldier: Stories from Joseph Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2013) 76.

Where am I going with this?

Can child psychology help to explain the LRA?

Official responses: disrupting the LRA narrative