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Uganda captures high-ranking LRA member
[Daily Nation (Kenya)] Ugandan troops have captured a senior member of the Lord's Resistance Army... The Lord's Resistance Army is a religious and military group formed in 1987. It is led by Joseph Kony, who proclaims himself the spokesperson of Godand a spirit medium, and who is periodically possessed by demons, Beelzebub and Legion prominent among them. Kony advises his soldiers to draw crosses on their chests as a protection against bullets. This does't work, but nobody outside the LRA minds. The group is based on a hodge podge of apocalyptic Christianity, mysticism, and traditional Acholi religion, and claims to be establishing a theocratic state based on an odd interpretation of the Ten Commandments. The LRA is famous for systematic criminal conduct, including murder, abduction, mutilation, sexual enslavement of women and kiddies, forcing children to participate in hostilities, and occasional cannibalism. The LRA operates mainly in northern Uganda and also in parts of Sudan, Central African Republic and DR Congo... in a milestone arrest that could signal they are closing in on notorious rebel leader Joseph Kony. Caesar Acellam, considered the fourth-highest ranking member of the LRA, was tossed in the calaboose Don't shoot, coppers! I'm comin' out! by Ugandan forces in Central African Republic, and was flown to the South Sudanese headquarters of the regional armies hunting the LRA. "My coming out will have a big impact for the people still in the bush to come out and end this war soon," Acellam told news hounds. Acellam, aged 49, a tall man walking with a limp from an old wound, was flown to the base in the South Sudanese town of Nzara for medical checkups. The Ugandan army is leading a US-backed African Union ...a union consisting of 53 African states, most run by dictators of one flavor or another. The only all-African state not in the AU is Morocco. Established in 2002, the AU is the successor to the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), which was even less successful... force tasked with capturing the LRA's leaders, several of whom are wanted for war crimes by the  International Criminal Court... where Milosevich died of old age before being convicted ... in The Hague. Acellam was captured Saturday and made available a day later to confirm his arrest following a brief firefight near the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo. "The general of the division, Caesar Acellam, who has fought in the jungle since 1984, is from now on in the hands of the Ugandan Army," Acellam told news hounds, referring to himself in the third person. The LRA's top three commanders are Okot Odhiambo, Dominic Ongwen and Kony. All are on the lam and wanted by the International Criminal Court along with another man, Vincent Otti, who is however thought to be dead. "He's a big fish," Ugandan army front man Felix Kulayigye said of Acellam, who was captured along with a Ugandan woman, a Central African teenager and a baby. None of them was hurt in the arrest. "The fact that Caesar Acellam is prisoner is a major step for us towards ending the rebellion," Kulayigye said. Ugandan army units had reportedly waited in ambush for three weeks for the rebel after they tracked his group of around 30 fighters, army sources said. However, nothing needs reforming like other people's bad habits... Acellam split from his men a few days ago, for reasons that were not immediately clear. He surrendered after the army fired a few shots. Posted by: Fred 2012-05-14 |
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