Category Archives: Justice and Crime

Wanja Muguongo on Exporting Homophobia

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On November 1, Wanja Muguongo, a Yale World Fellow and the Executive Director of UHAI – The East African Sexual Health and Rights Initiative, spoke at Yale’s African Studies program’s weekly speakers’ series. She spoke about homophobia in Africa and the role of the West. I have been meaning to write a recap of what was said, and am finally doing so now for two reasons. Firstly and unfortunately, Uganda’s parliament is again revisiting the infamous anti-gay bill; in addition, an African Studies reading group which I have organized will be discussing Stanley Kenani’s “Love on Trial” [pdf] soon, which is relevant to all of this as well. Below is my attempt to cover everything that Muguongo said at the event, which was cut short (hence the abrupt ending).

It’s important that you understand where I’m coming from and who I am, so a bit about myself and my beliefs: I manage a fund that supports NGOs, and we are a resource but also part of a movement. The conversation of LGBTI rights doesn’t take place in a vacuum; it takes place in a world of power and patriarchy. On top of this, I believe that band-aids don’t help, and that you need to tackle problems to fix them. Ending anti-gay laws doesn’t end hate fundamentally, but it’s a step in the right direction. We must also tackle sex workers’ rights by allowing them to fight oppression and patriarchy and change how society looks at sex. I believe there is way too much power in the world that is being used badly, and that normativity has always been a cause for bullying. I have chosen to endeavor to dis-empower bullies as much as possible. One of the things supporting power is religion being used as a mechanism of that power. Here, when I say religion I do not mean faith or belief, but the institution of organized religion. I have a problem with institutionalized religion as it is being used today.

Faith and belief are supposed to be kind and supportive, but when they are institutionalized they fail to do those things. Religion is about control and can be used to target outliers. We must contemplate what it means to be non-normative in a strongly religious community that supports hate and is intolerant. We tend to think of GLBTI/sex workers are people that are not of faith, which isn’t always true. Things are more complex than they seem. Continue reading →

Silencing Propaganda: When Art and Speech Become Violent

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Last week, my history class discussed the death of Thami Mnyele, a South African anti-apartheid activist and artist who was killed in an attack by South African forces in Botswana. Mnyele, the subject of a biography by Diana Wylie (which was our reading for class), was a South African artist whose works went from emotional depictions of oppression under Apartheid to campaign posters as a part of the Medu Art Ensemble. He was also an anti-apartheid activist influenced by Black Consciousness and was a part of the ANC’s militant wing. Despite not being a high-level ANC leader, Mnyele was killed as a part of South Africa’s famous raid on Gaborone in 1985, when South African soldiers crossed into Botswana in the middle of the night to attack a number of ANC safe houses.

My professor told us to ignore his militant side and asked what it meant to consider whether or not his murder was legal. What it meant to even think about saying it was okay to go across borders to kill an activist. I pointed out that it gives credence to South Africa’s argument that propaganda is violent. But I didn’t say that because I thought the government was wrong – propaganda can definitely be just as violent as a gun or a bomb – words and images have power. I was merely pointing out that contemplating whether or not crossing borders to kill activists is okay implies that it could be. But I suppose the real question is, at what point is it okay to silence that speech? And back to my professor’s point, what does it mean to consider that as an option?

Looking at Mnyele’s art (Wylie’s book is replete with images), my mind kept coming back to Aaron Bady’s recent ruminations on free speech and its place in America. In looking for the line between speech and violence, he argues:

My point is not that any of this is or isn’t legitimate; some forms of speech are odious, and if the state has a right to prohibit, criminalize, and punish “violence,” then criminalizing speech is just one of those things it’s going to do, and does. But the difference between behaviors which are prohibited and those which are protected has nothing to do with the red line between speech and violence, and never has, because  no such line exists.

We’ve been dealing with this a lot, be it freedom to camp in parks as expression or right to post other people’s photographs online. To what extent is expression or speech or art okay, and to what extent does it need to be silenced by censorship, arrest, or even murder? At what point is shooting up an Obama campaign sign or tweeting that #AGoodJew is #ADeadJew something that must be stopped? And at the more extreme end, at what point does anti-state speech warrant assassination? Mnyele was clearly an enemy of the South African government – he was actively opposed to its rule, and worked against it – militarily, yes, but primarily through art and recruitment. Similarly, Anwar al-Awlaki was allegedly involved in planning some terror attacks, but his true value to al Qaeda lie in his ability to preach and recruit for the cause; Samir Khan was an editor for a magazine published by al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. Like Mnyele, neither were high level operatives, but both were effective recruiters through propaganda. Both were American citizens killed by a drone strike in Yemen without due process, solely because of the threat their speech possessed.

In light of the drone strike, the questions mentioned before have been flipped around. Because Apartheid = Bad, and America = Good, al Awlaki’s death is made to seem okay. Instead, people are left to debate what it means to even consider that killing him was wrong. People who raise his rights as an American citizen and point to his low-threat position in militant operations are shunned in the name of national security. “But he was al Qaeda.” But what does it mean to consider that this killing is okay? Again, it means that you’re giving credence to the state’s assertion that preaching and publishing warrants death. And again, it’s not that recruiting through speech and expression can’t have negative effects – it’s that we haven’t been able to find the point at which it’s okay (and as a result, find the point at which it’s not okay) to silence our opposition. And this is because, perhaps like the line between speech and violence – it doesn’t exist. The state will always weild its right to crack down on its enemies, we just have to wait and see who falls into what category. The government will decide who falls into the category threatening enough to put a name on a list. That’s how Mnyele was targeted, and that’s how Khan and al Awlaki were targeted.

But because that wasn’t enough, al-Awlaki’s 16-year-old son would be killed two weeks later, and when asked how he could justify the killing, Press Secretary Gibbs explained, “I would suggest that you should have a far more responsible father if they are truly concerned about the well being of their children.” It’s not just the threat level that goes into determining if you deserve to live or die. It seems, in some cases, your lineage is enough to warrant your guilt, and therefore your assassination – but we already knew that.

Kony 2012 Panel – A Recap

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Last night, I had the privilege of attending a panel discussion of the Invisible Children film, Kony 2012. The panel was convened at the New York Society for Ethical Culture as a part of Congo in Harlem, a week-long series of film screenings and other events related to the DRC. It was the best way I could have spent my birthday (I know, right?) and I would like to recap everything covered at the event for all of you who couldn’t be there. (In addition, the Congo in Harlem website should have a full audio podcast up in the near future). Early next week I will also (attempt to) write up my own response to what was said. Below is a run-down of what was said by whom, in a very not-verbatim transcript rendered from my notes.

Continue reading →

KONY2012: Six Months Later

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It has been six months since Invisible Children’s viral video, Kony 2012, hit the internet.  From getting over 800,000 views in its first 24 hours, the video went on to 100 million views in a week, becoming the internet’s most viral of viral videos and launching Invisible Children and its cause into the spotlight.  Six months later, the attention on the Lord’s Resistance Army has died down, but the campaign continues to plod along.  Where is Kony? Where is Invisible Children? And what has the world’s biggest humanitarian viral video campaign achieved so far? This post aims to look at Invisible Children’s history to explain Kony 2012’s impact, and to look at what exactly that impact has been.

Kony 2012 was the fastest-growing online video in history.

Some are rightfully skeptical that Kony will be captured by the 2012 deadline in the film.  The more pessimistic will say that Kony is no closer to being captured than he was six months ago, and that things haven’t really changed. The LRA’s disparate brigades continue wandering the Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic, and South Sudan, with rumors that some troops, including Kony himself, have sought haven in Sudan, an old ally.  Rebounding from a piecemeal turnout for Kony 2012’s subsequent “Cover the Night” campaign, Invisible Children has moved on to other campaigns.  The San Diego-based non-profit is sending out its fifteenth tour of roadies, interns tasked with showing IC films to audiences at high schools, churches, and community centers across the country.  Their programs on the ground in Uganda and the DRC continue to serve war-affected communities.  But the fact is, things have changed, and to truly see how things have moved in the past six months you have to look back a few years. Continue reading →

A Brief History of Insanity

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Sallie Gardner at a Gallop by Eadweard Muybridge.

Yesterday’s Google doodle was a brilliant celebration of photographer Eadweard Muybridge’s birthday. Muybridge is most well-known for his work in recording animals in motion, specifically the horse’s gallop – which simultaneously solved the question of the manner in which horses gallop and pissed off Governor Leland Stanford. I told my wife about it, as she loves photography and is studying art history – and because it was a really cool feature. Not only had she already seen it, she had already clicked through and perused the accompanying Wikipedia article, informing me of this interesting bit of history:

In 1874, while still living in the San Francisco Bay Area, Muybridge discovered that his young wife Flora had a lover, a Major Harry Larkyns. On 17 October, he sought out Larkyns and said, “Good evening, Major, my name is Muybridge and here’s the answer to the letter you sent my wife.” He shot and killed the major pointblank.

Muybridge was tried for murder. His defense attorney pleaded insanity due to a head injury that Muybridge had sustained following his stagecoach accident. Friends testified that the accident had dramatically changed Muybridge’s personality from genial and pleasant to unstable and erratic.

Ultimately, Muybridge’s insanity plea was dismissed, but the jury found the incident a case of justifiable homicide (which is… interesting). Regardless, we got to thinking – how early did the insanity plea enter our courtrooms? And I don’t mean convenient pleas of temporary insanity (like, say, Congressman Daniel Sickles) – Muybridge (also known as Edward James Muggeridge, Eduardo Santiago Muggeridge, and Helios) exhibited some eccentricities.

There are instances of people of unsound mind committing crimes throughout history, of course, but instances of declaring a defense of insanity took a while to reach the tenuous place we are today. In 1764 a British man named Edward Arnold was tried for shooting at Lord Onslow allegedly after he had been bewitched. He plead insanity, and it was in this case that the judge asked the jury to determine whether Arnold had the mental capacity and reason like that of a wild beast or infant – the apparent measure of insanity at the time. Arnold was found guilty and sentenced to death, a sentence which was commuted to life in prison at the behest of Onslow. In 1840, Edward Oxford tried to kill Queen Victoria and was acquitted by reason of insanity, under the notion that he could not resist the impulse to fire due to lack of mental capacity.

After an attempt to kill the British Prime Minister in 1843, a panel of judges drafted the M’Naghten Rules, which answered hypothetical questions that gave an outline of the insanity plea and its application, including that the suspect be unable to determine the difference between right and wrong or did not understand the nature of the alleged act. Most common law countries used these guidelines until the 1950s, when the American Law Institute issued the Model Penal Code that established that the defendant had to have “substantial capacity” to understand the crime and criminality in order to face trial.

Alvin Ford is escorted by a police officer. Photo from Associated Press.

After John Hinckley tried to kill President Ronald Reagan, the Insanity Defense Reform Act of 1984 was passed by Congress. Unlike the assassination attempts in England that led to updates to laws concerning the insane, Congress’ response to Reagan’s close encounter made it much harder to be found not guilty by reason of insanity, placing more stringent rules on evidence and placing the burden of proof on the defense. In 1986, the landmark Supreme Court decision Ford v. Wainwright argued that the insane cannot be executed, however in 2005 the Court upheld a state’s rights to limit expert testimony to the insanity defense (thus not qualifying to determine criminal intent) in Clark v. Arizona. There are whole states that have actually banned the insanity plea, bans which have so far been upheld in most cases.

We’ve come a long way since Dorothy Talbye was hanged after God told her to kill her daughter. But the insanity plea is actually quite rare, and very difficult to use – even when it actually applies. It’s just a small part in the overwhelming societies that marginalizes, institutionalizes, and incarcerates the mentally ill.

ICC Neutrality Keeps Not Existing

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In December of 2003 the International Criminal Court opened its first situation, the civil war in northern Uganda, at the referral of the Ugandan government. From the beginning, the Court opened itself to criticisms with President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda with Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno-O’Campo’s joint press release on the referral. Critics challenged that the ICC was being used as a tool by Museveni and that the Court would not approach the situation from a balanced perspective.  Indeed, the ICC has only issued five indictments for LRA leaders to date, despite evidence of egregious human rights abuses by the Ugandan army against civilians in the region.

Since this biased introduction to the world stage, the ICC has tried to navigate between government assistance in access on the ground and the desire for judicial fairness. While there was marginal success in some situations, the ICC has more recently continued its record of only investigating one side of the conflict, most recently in Libya.

Last month, in a piece questioning the “Libyan model” and whether it should be used in Syria, Vijay Prashad outlined some of the missteps concerning biased justice in Libya. The ICC made huge strides in getting American and Chinese support for the UNSC resolution authorizing NATO assistance in the Libyan Civil War, but has since faded into memory by not being proactive to try those it has indicted and by refusing to step forward in investigating rebels or NATO forces.

Prashad also points to two damning reports on the transitional government’s abuses. Amnesty International has outlined the problems of torture and abuse in detention facilities in post-war Libya, along with discrimination against women, foreigners, and black Libyans. This was followed by a report by the Independent Civil Society Fact-Finding Mission to Libya (PDF) which stated that it was concerned by revenge attacks and intimidation against alleged Qaddafi loyalists, including the potentially extrajudicial killing of Muammar Qaddafi, allegations of executions of detained loyalists, instances of abuse and torture in detention facilities, and the possibility of civilian targeting by NATO.

Some of these allegations have existed since before the war was even over, and the ICC has taken virtually no action to investigate the other side of the civil war. The ICC continues its course of using its allies’ assistance to investigate and indict the other side while turning a blind eye to abuses committed by its allies.  The ICC has been able to issue indictments on all sides in Sudan and Kenya, but this record is dwarfed by the overwhelming situations in which the Court benefits from its silence.  From Uganda to Libya, the ICC has yet to prove that it can truly move beyond victor’s justice.

Seat Belts and Human Rights Prosecutions: A Digressive Review

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Having taken several classes centered on accountability for mass atrocity crimes, I’ve run across a lot of common questions. One question is the notion that we all know that killing is bad – mass killing exponentially so – so what effect does making it illegal or prosecuting it really have?

A couple of years ago I ran across, of all things, Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood speaking on CSPAN (I know, right?). I have no idea what the circumstances were, but he detailed that in the past people rarely used seat belts despite knowing that they protected them. After states began to make it illegal to drive without wearing seat belts, more and more people wear them now. According to some surveys, many wear them not to be in line with the law but because they are safe and that is what you do when you are in a car. In a very weird connection and long stretch, you could say the same about atrocities – after a while the fact that one faces prosecution could change the mindset about actions one is willing to take. It’s weird, but it’s a connection. When society speaks up about what is wrong, fewer people are willing to commit that act.

Enter Kathryn Sikkink, professor at the University of Minnesota and author of The Justice Cascade. I’m currently halfway through the book and it makes a strong case for human rights prosecutions. The book gives an intricate history of human rights prosecutions in Greece, Portugal, and Argentina. Sikkink also works to debunk the notion that the specter of prosecutions is dangerous for transitional democracies, another concern I’ve heard in academia and in advocacy.

But the heart of the book is that Sikkink looks at the diffusion of justice and accountability between countries. The first change in the international justice system was to make individuals accountable instead of just states – and this has definitely grown as more perpetrators are indicted and prosecuted for their actions. She also notes the increase in international, foreign, and domestic human rights prosecutions across the board by using a database.  The database counts all “processes of prosecution” regardless of verdict and uses the State Department’s human rights reports as its source.

According to her research, Sikkink found that Latin America, which has had the most human rights prosecutions of any region, is also the leader in successful democratic transitions. Most of the allegations that trials could lead to a renewal of conflict seem rooted in an attempted coup in Argentina when prosecutions expanded to include more suspects. The coup failed and the trials continued and even spread across the region, fostering democracy. Somehow, the threat has lived on in policy circles.

She also found that more prosecutions foster better human rights practices, and that if four or more countries in one region have prosecutions, the countries nearby could benefit even without having prosecutions – accountability and deterrence cross borders. The question is if that deterrence only works in a regional context or if it can lead to a global deterrence through international prosecutions. I’m only partway through the book so far, but Sikkink makes a pretty good case for how prosecutions can impact societies for the better.

Why I Will Never Vote to Drug-Test Welfare Recipients

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Wednesday night I sat at home aghast at a lot of things. I was watching the Republican Presidential debate, for one thing, but I was simultaneously reading reports (both links are videos) about police violent cracking down on protesters at Berkeley and also hearing about Joe Paterno’s defenders at Penn State rioting and giddily flipping over a news van. But one thing that caught me off guard was one of the polls on Facebook’s questions app.

A number of my friends had voted “yes” on the question, “Do you support drug testing to get approval to be on Welfare?” Now, I’m a vehement no, but I know that A. a lot of my friends are pretty conservative, and B. there’s a strong (and incorrect) stereotype about the people who need welfare and how many are addicts who should just pick themselves up and work harder. But I didn’t vote, initially, because I’ve never answered a question before. Then my wife decided to take a gander, and reported back to me.

So, I voted, because that’s a lot. And at the time of this posting (Thursday night at 7:30), it was 2.2 million for, 108,000 against. I thought I would move on, but this morning I was still a little irked about it, so I threw this piece together. I naively hope that it changes some minds, but at the very least I’m putting my opinion out there, which is practically what the internet is for these days, right?

The Mythical Relation Between Drugs and the Poor

Apparently everybody thinks that the poor do drugs all of the time. I’ve heard, time and again, that the poor wouldn’t be so poor if they kicked the habit and got jobs. If they just picked themselves up, they’d be fine and dandy. Before we assume that this is true, we should acknowledge something else that is true: mental disorders, physical disability, trauma-related disorders, and depression are all things that can lead to substance abuse – and are also found in low-income communities. Now, do they use drugs at a higher rate than the rest of us? Michigan was the first state to implement drug testing for welfare recipients in the 90s, and it found that 10% of recipients were drug users. And a subsequent survey found that 9% of all Michigan residents, on welfare or not, were drug users. Regarding a similar law passed in Florida in the late 90s, some researchers have already said that such assumptions about the poor are “unwarranted.” In fact, another study showed that only 5% of those applying for assistance failed a drug test.

Some studies have definitely shown that those on welfare are more likely to use drugs or be dependent on them, but they are quick to qualify that if they stopped using drugs they would still be living in poverty because of illness, poor education, and unemployment.  And let’s take a second to note that addiction isn’t easy to break, and often one needs support in order to successfully kick a strangling habit like substance abuse. In 1996, over 200,000 people qualified for SSI because of disabilities related to drug addiction and alcoholism. That category has since been eliminated, and those people no longer have that support. Often, drugs are used as escapism, and being stranded without support will only lead to more abuse and less treatment and recovery. This is not the way to actually help people help themselves, nor is it the way to build a healthier society.

Oh, and it’s Unconstitutional

No authority can search you (or your property) without reasonable suspicion. That’s the law, and it includes taking urine samples. And applying for welfare is not reasonable cause, because – as we’ve discussed – there’s no reason to suspect that the poor are more likely to be on drugs. And that’s where the glorious Fourth Amendment comes into play. The wise authors of our Bill of Rights stated that “the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated.”  Which is why the Supreme Court decided in Chandler v. Miller that Georgia could not drug test elected officials, and why state efforts to drug test welfare recipients in the late 90s also faltered. This is also why Florida’s current drug-test-for-welfare program is on hold. Because it’s unconstitutional.

The Race Issue

In America, you can’t talk about “the poor” without talking about racial minorities. Most of our communities of color are disadvantaged, and many residents in these areas need assistance like welfare. Many are also targeted for drug use. Which is where policy regarding the poor is also policy on race. The National Poverty Center lists the 2010 poverty numbers with 27.4% of blacks and 26.6% of Hispanics living in poverty while less than 10% of whites (and 12% of Asians) did. So, we know the poor are predominantly minorities. Which is what makes it interesting that a study from The Sentencing Project (PDF) found that race had virtually no effect on the levels of drug abuse, stating that the disparate numbers were actually the result of law enforcement policy, saying that:

Police agencies have frequently targeted drug law violations in low-income communities of color for enforcement operations, while substance abuse in communities with substantial resources is more likely to be addressed as a family or public health problem.

And yet, The Drug Policy Alliance found that, in New York, young white people are more likely to use marijuana, but that black people were arrested at seven times the rate of whites and Latinos (PDF). The narrative continues to argue that the poor and the colored are the ones using drugs, when it’s really that poor minorities are just the ones being arrested for it. The stereotype affects the mentality of the law enforcement, who in turn reinforce the stereotype with disparate statistics every time they choose to arrest and jail minorities and only confiscate the white offender’s drugs, maybe with a warning.

An Unnecessary Hurdle

Last week I was talking with one of my clients in Glendale. He has lived in the U.S. over a year and is a permanent resident. Unable to get a job, he had run out of money a long time ago and relied on his roommate to pay rent. With his roommate moving, he applied for public housing. Lo and behold, to qualify for public housing in Glendale you have to work within city limits for five years. Because the type of people who can work for five years are the ones most likely to need public housing. And this is just a minor example of how we continue to place hurdles in the way of the poor, essentially keeping them that way forever.

Barbara Ehrenreich detailed how we have criminalized poverty ten years after writing her book on how the poor struggle to get by. She explains that food stamps have increased by huge numbers during the recession, but welfare has barely moved because it is so difficult to actually qualify. You can’t qualify for disability without medical documentation, which costs hundreds of dollars for those without health insurance.  Plus, the bullshit welfare system that we have now, ever since Clinton “reformed” welfare, provides supplemental income – which means you have to get a job first, then the government will help, which deals a huge blow to those who can’t find jobs. Ehrenreich explains how one couple down on their luck had to apply for 40 jobs per week while attending daily “job readiness” classes just to get assistance, which is a tall order for anyone having trouble paying for gas, a bus ticket, or a baby sitter. And that’s just to qualify for welfare.

If you find yourself worse off, you face constant harassment at the hands of useless laws like loitering, jaywalking, and the like. Ehrenreich also tells an anecdote of police raiding a homeless shelter to arrest the homeless (while in a shelter) for prior offenses like sleeping on the sidewalk. Las Vegas has even made it illegal to give food to the needy unless you’re a certified organization. When I was in high school I volunteered at a food bank where the poor had to bring proof of residence in order to receive meals – apparently the homeless weren’t allowed food (I didn’t volunteered there again). When you’re not poor, it’s easy to not realized just how many obstacles are on the path to assistance for those who really need it.

Spending Money on the Right Things

People continually argue that, it’s not a war on the poor and it’s not racism, it’s just about fiscal responsibility. We just want to make sure our tax dollars don’t go towards buying illegal things like drugs. So we put the poor through all of these steps in order to make sure that welfare money goes towards what it’s meant to. But, I say, why stop there? Other people receive public funds as well, and we don’t check them.

We should drug test all of the seniors on Social Security. I mean, they’re frail and dying, they’ve got to be on something. Have you seen Little Miss Sunshine? And while we’re at it, I know some friends in college who smoked weed and they were on state-funded scholarships. In a time when it’s harder to afford college, shouldn’t drug users have to fund their own addiction while we give scholarships to the ones who earned it? And we should definitely drug test anyone who wants a driver’s license. When I was teaching last semester, I got the impression that at least a few high school students do drugs, and yet they’re still allowed to drive. I don’t get it. It’s illegal to drive under the influence, but we don’t preemptively check. It’s like we’re just telling them it’s okay to do drugs.

But while we’re talking about watching our dollars, how much does it cost to administer drug tests, process results, and print out new forms and all of that? I mean, Florida’s currently-on-hold law stated that the state would reimburse applicants once they passed, which led to lots of additional costs when only 2% of applicants failed to pass the drug tests (no reliable data on how many chose not to get tested, for obvious reasons). Everyone knows that bureaucracy costs money, but they’re okay adding to it as long as it affects the poor. I mean, this isn’t to improve the welfare system at all, so much as it is about keeping them marginalized.

Why Uganda? Why Now?

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So, I’ve been working on revising a paper about US relations with the ICC for the past week or so, and I find myself revisiting the issue of Obama sending 100 troops to Uganda to help hunt down the LRA.  I went to a professor of mine to talk ICC, and we ended up debating the deployment quite a bit, discussing the reasons for sending troops to Uganda now.

I wrote a pretty jumbled analysis of the decision already, but I concentrated on whether or not it was a good idea and if it would work. I barely scratched the surface of why. But it’s definitely worth asking. The LRA have been committing atrocities pretty much from its inception in the late 1980s. The ICC issued indictments for Joseph Kony & Co. in 2005.  The LRA were driven out of Uganda in 2006, and civilians have been leaving displacement camps for home ever since. Why is the US sending military advisers there now?

It’s definitely true that there is broad grassroots support for this type of action.  Between Invisible Children and Resolve, there are tens of thousands of supporters who have been writing letters and attending local lobbying meetings pressing the issue.  I was among over a thousand people who went to DC in the summer of 2009 after the LRA Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act was introduced, lobbying for its passage.  Ultimately the bill passed with more support than any Africa-related issue in US history (allegedly).  But that’s only part of the story.  The law passed last May, and the White House’s strategy was released last November. Why did it take nearly a year for (part of) the strategy to be implemented?

Some suspect that this is America’s pushback to Sudan’s power in the region.  The US pushed Sudan to oust Osama bin Laden back in the day, and Bush was a huge supporter of South Sudanese autonomy and later a critic of Khartoum’s actions in Darfur.  Obama has been similarly vocal about both issues.  So, it’s pretty clear that the US has staked out its position against the Sudanese government.  While it’s true that the LRA enjoyed Sudanese material and financial support as well as safe haven in the past, it seems that such a relationship hasn’t existed for years.  Because of this, I don’t think that the deployment of 100 troops in neighboring states is quite the statement to Sudan that others say it is.

One idea that is gaining some traction is that the US is rewarding Uganda for its actions in Somalia.  Uganda has been one of the primary military participants in AMISOM, the multilateral effort to fight al Shabaab. Uganda has also suffered from this engagement at home with the World Cup bombings in 2010 being linked to al Shabaab. The US hasn’t been publicly involved in fighting in Somalia since the debacle almost two decades ago, but it has been a longtime supporter of the mission. Indeed, several members of Congress at the House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on the deployment in Uganda made mention of Uganda’s work in Somalia.  But I wonder if this really makes sense, but that stems mostly from my skepticism that Museveni cares that much about the LRA since he never really cared in the past unless it helped his image during election season.

One thing that I haven’t heard many say, and I think it’s worth addressing, is the state of US-ICC relations.  The Bush administration was staunchly opposed to the International Criminal Court, and even undertook a campaign of isolating the Court in hopes of destroying it. That is, until Colin Powell called the crisis in Darfur genocide.  That began a slow and gradual detente as the US abstained in the Security Council vote to send the Sudan situation to the ICC and then provided logistical support to the Ugandan military in catching Kony.  The Obama administration has been more involved with the ICC than its predecessor, and even voted in the Security Council to refer the Libyan situation to the ICC.  It seems like assisting in the apprehension of the ICC’s first indicted criminals falls neatly into this trend of easing the tensions between the United States and the International Criminal Court.

It’s Rebel Leader-Hunting Season

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On Friday, the press began to run numerous stories about the announcement that President Obama had authorized the deployment of about 100 combat-ready troops to Uganda to take an advising role in order to help capture or kill LRA leaders. Obama wrote a letter to John Boehner about the deployment two days after the first troops had landed in Uganda, placing the statement square on a Friday afternoon. This was a scrolling headline for some, but for me it was all over the internets. Stuff like this happens when you’re Facebook is filled with Invisible Children activists and your Twitter is dotted with development wonks and academics that are experts in the region. Let’s look at what exactly is happening here.

Let’s start with why this is happening. In the letter, (which can be found here) Obama references that the LRA are impacting regional security, the passage last year of the LRA Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act, and national security interests in the region. The troops are destined for Uganda, but will be going to the DRC, CAR and South Sudan as long as each of those countries agree to host them. The troops will be combat-ready, but will only be serving in an advisory role.

Full disclaimer to the few readers that don’t already know, I volunteered with Resolve to help advocate for passage of the aforementioned bill. I’ve continued to work with them to advocate for more action from the Obama administration on this issue. That said, I’m not sure where exactly I stand on this decision. Over the years, I have had at least a few conversations with fellow activists about the possibility of deploying American forces – advising or combating – to remove LRA leader Joseph Kony. Let’s take a look at some of that, shall we?

Why don’t we send some U.S. troops to just go snipe Kony?

Well, for starters, that’s a really bad idea and it probably wouldn’t work.  First we’ll be needing permission to run the operation (well, I guess we don’t need permission if we decide to just fly in on a stealth helicopter and shoot him in the face, but still. We should). Kony could be in one of a few places: northeastern DRC, southern CAR, South Sudan, or Darfur. The DRC has a history of being used as a training ground for atrocities, place to push a rebel group you don’t like or place to start your own rebel group if you want. It’s not fond of having more armed forces in the area. The DRC has already asked the Ugandan military, currently hunting for Kony, to get out. Twice. And it tried to kick out MONUC despite never really solving the 20-rebel-groups-hide-here problem. Supposedly Kabila is “pleased” with the recent U.S. decision, but I can’t read French and he’s changed his mind after the fact before.

Anyways, if we were to send U.S. troops in to do the job, they would face quite a few setbacks. The terrain is densely forested and rural, and there are very few chances to use surveillance such as cell phones and satellite tracking. Kony has historically established wide networks of soldiers around him so that he knows when trouble is afoot. That’s how he’s survived for 25 years, outlasting the Holy Spirit Movement and the UPDA and evading the UPDF, SPLA, and even Guatemalan special forces (killing 6 when the UN tried to catch him a few years ago). He will know what’s up. Not knowing the terrain or the language puts the forces at a disadvantage against a guy who has literally lived in the bush for twenty years.

That, and the specter of Somalia (despite huge differences between the situations) seem to be why Obama has gone with the advisory route, which still smells a little bit like Vietnam to many, but that is also a vastly different situation. Museveni has already given assurances that the Americans are here to advise, not to fight, simultaneously boasting about how the UPDF don’t need help to fight their wars. And so the US “personnel” have begun to arrive in Kampala, and will pretty soon begin to deploy to the other respective countries in the region.

Except for Sudan. While the LRA are currently scattered across DRC, CAR, South Sudan and Darfur, a year ago reports said that Kony was en route to Darfur. Darfur would be part of Sudan, and thus out of reach to both central African militaries and US advisers. I feel like if anybody asked Omar al Bashir if it was okay to enter Sudan to apprehend a leader indicted for war crimes, he might think you were talking about him since, you know, you could be. If Kony hasn’t made it to Darfur yet, he’s probably thinking about it.

But why send the advisers there now?

The LRA Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act passed in May of 2010, and the requisite strategy on the LRA was released in November of that year. Since those have been around for a while, some are asking, “why now?” Well, since then, all has been quiet on the LRA front until Resolve mentioned AFRICOM’s nudge-nudge that a deployment could happen soon. ABC News reported that the plans have been in the works for over a year, but that resources were not available until now. Some have speculated that the U.S. is rewarding Uganda for its contributions to Somalia’s fight against al Shabaab.

I don’t quite know if that makes sense. Uganda itself is really not concerned with the LRA anymore. The government is dealing with economic protests and its huge effort with AMISOM fighting al Shabaab. The LRA haven’t been active in northern Uganda for years, and when I was in Uganda last year many people told me they were far more concerned with the upcoming elections and Museveni’s continued rule than with a rebel group in the DRC – especially in central and southern Uganda, where civilians never really faced the threat of the LRA. This deployment is fueled by grassroots efforts, and I think that Uganda will accept it as another way for the UPDF to project power in the region.

One other piece that fits nicely that I haven’t seen reported is that it is yet another nod from the Obama administration to support the ICC. After Bush relaxed the hatred late in his term, Obama has stepped it up with a yes-vote on the Libya resolution and a heavy, heavy presence at the ICC Conference last summer. Assisting in the capture of Kony could show real U.S. support for the ICC without all the supposed worries of actually joining up and ratifying the Rome Statute. It’s an international and human rights win without any of the duke-it-out-with-Jesse-Helms bad press.

Will it work, and if not, what will?

I’ve been pushing for the Obama administration to address the crisis for a long time. The region that the LRA operate in has almost zero infrastructure and is completely ungoverned. This is why there is so much lawlessness in these corners of the DRC, CAR, and South Sudan. The key to protecting civilians and ending these types of insurgencies is to make it difficult to operate there. Whether the advisers go there or not, the thing that needs to happen is more support for infrastructure in the region.

Speaking specifically to the LRA, Kony has got to go. There have been reports about how fractured the LRA are, but they are usually followed by a former abductee mentioning that Kony is communicating with other leaders constantly. The LRA has a highly concentrated command structure, and getting rid of Kony could actually resolve the entire issue.

While training troops and assisting with intelligence to find Kony, we also need to help build up government legitimacy and accountability. Resolve indicated in a recent post that the US personnel will be able to investigate UPDF abuses “and (hopefully) hold them accountable to a higher human rights standard as they interact with civilians across the region.” I have yet to see that reported anywhere else, but if that is true it is a huge step. The Ugandan government’s handling of both the civilian population in northern Uganda and abroad has been abysmal and needs to be addressed. The UPDF itself testified that it had committed 501 human rights abuses in 2005 alone. If a handful of advisers can simultaneously help catch Kony and bring accountability into the UPDF, it will go a long ways.

In summation, the decision has little guarantee of succeeding, but there is little risk for the US. AFRICOM has said that the advisers will not be accompanying on any missions to actually capture Kony, only on training missions. This means American soldiers should not be in any real danger, although that’s really hard to say for sure. If Kony is captured, it will be an easy foreign policy win and a great step for human rights in central Africa. If it doesn’t work, the advisers can quietly return and say they did their job, which was to train the regional forces. There’s a lot to gain and not a lot to lose, so why not try it?