WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama will send about 100 U.S. troops to Uganda and nearby countries to combat the Lord’s Resistance Army and kill or capture its leader, Joseph Kony, who has been charged with war crimes for a decades-long campaign against civilians in Central Africa.
In a letter to Congress on Friday, Obama outlined a strictly advisory role for U.S. forces, whom he said would engage in combat only in self-defense. The initial military contingent numbering about a dozen troops arrived in Uganda on Wednesday and will grow to full strength in the coming weeks.
The decision follows more than a year of study within the White House on how to support the intent of a bill passed by Congress to help several Central African nations defeat a destabilizing guerrilla movement.
Human-rights officials have urged Obama to deploy troops against the Lord’s Resistance Army, arguing that it would be a justified use of force to resolve a humanitarian crisis. The International Criminal Court indicted Kony and four other commanders in 2005 on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
But the deployment comes as the Obama administration is withdrawing from the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan, where long wars have tested the patience of the American public and consumed resources the president has argued are needed at home.
White House officials said that this troop deployment, the most substantial to an African conflict zone since Marines landed in Liberia in 2003, is modest in number and in scope.
“This is an advise and assist mission,” said Tommy Vietor, spokesman for the National Security Council. “It’s an indication of our support for the ongoing regional effort to confront this threat.”
The Lord’s Resistance Army has been operating in the border regions of northern Uganda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and other Central African nations for more than two decades. Led by Kony, a former altar boy with a messiah complex, the army has been fighting to install what it says would be a Christian government in Uganda based on the Ten Commandments.
Although numbering only about 250 armed members, the movement is notorious for its civilian killings and kidnappings, particularly of children. The White House estimates that roughly 385,000 people have been displaced from villages in the region as a result of those tactics.
Obama notified Congress of the deployment Friday as part of his legal obligation under the War Powers Act. In his letter to Congress, Obama wrote that the “combat-equipped U.S. forces” will help “regional forces that are working toward the removal of Joseph Kony from the battlefield.” That could mean killing or capturing the warlord.
Since 2008, the U.S. government has provided $40 million to Central African governments to be used against the LRA, as the movement is known.
U.S. troops to go to Central Africa
Who is going?100 U.S. service members, primarily special operations, will go to Uganda, South Sudan, the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. They will provide security and combat training to African units fighting the Lord’s Resistance Army.
What is the Lord’s Resistance Army?
It is a militia whose atrocities have left thousands dead and have put about 385,000 Africans to flight. The group has been charged with seizing children to bolster its ranks of soldiers and sometimes forcing them to become sex slaves. Leader Joseph Kony is wanted by the International Criminal Court under a 2005 warrant for crimes against humanity.
