[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 70 (Tuesday, May 11, 2010)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3532-S3533]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
LRA DISARMAMENT AND NORTHERN UGANDA RECOVERY ACT
Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, for more than 20 years, a group called the
Lord's Resistance Army, or LRA, has operated in central Africa,
perpetrating some of the most horrific acts of violence one can
envision. The LRA began as a rebel group saying it drew its guidance
from the Ten Commandments, but in the two decades since it began, it
has routinely violated those commandments in the most gruesome and
unimaginable ways. Its continued campaign of violence calls out for
Congress and the United States to act.
Recently the United Nations uncovered the latest of the LRA's violent
acts, the rounding up and massacring of more than 100 innocent
villagers in a remote part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The
New York Times reported on May 1 that U.N. officials had learned of the
massacre, which occurred in February. U.N. officials interviewed
several witnesses, including one woman whose lips were cut off by LRA
rebels, who told the woman she was talking too much.
The LRA's actions were described in brutally clear terms in a recent
Human Rights Watch report entitled ``Trail of Death.'' In it Human
Rights Watch investigators describe the typical tactics, techniques,
and procedures of this terrible group of people:
The LRA used similar tactics in each village they attacked
during their four-day operation: they pretended to be
Congolese and Ugandan army soldiers on patrol, reassured
people in broken Lingala (the common language of northern
Congo) not to be afraid, and, once people had gathered,
captured their victims and tied them up. LRA combatants
specifically searched out areas where people might gather--
such as markets, churches, and water points--and repeatedly
asked those they encountered about the location of schools,
indicating that one of their objectives was to abduct
children. Those who were abducted, including many children
aged 10 to 15 years old, were tied up with ropes or metal
wire at the waist, often
[[Page S3533]]
in human chains of five to 15 people. They were made to carry
the goods the LRA had pillaged and then forced to march off
with them. Anyone who refused, walked too slowly, or who
tried to escape was killed. Children were not spared.
The LRA got its start in Uganda, where it has done and continues to
do horrific damage. At one time, about 2 million Ugandans were
displaced from their homes by LRA violence; the rebels massacred,
mutilated and abducted civilians, and forced many into sexual
servitude; and an estimated 66,000 Ugandan children were forced to
fight for the group.
Uganda is still recovering from the LRA's campaign of violence.
Having been forced out of Uganda, LRA bands have moved into neighboring
nations, including Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the
Central African Republic--countries already ravaged by man-made and
natural disasters. As the latest report shows, it is still a grave
threat. As John Holmes, the U.N. under secretary general for
humanitarian affairs, put it, ``they are still capable of wreaking
absolute havoc--and they still do.''
Because of the havoc the LRA has caused across central Africa, I am
one of more than 60 Senators who have cosponsored S. 1067, the LRA
Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act, introduced by Senators
Feingold and Brownback. The act would require that within 6 months, the
United States develop a comprehensive strategy for dealing with the
LRA, including an outline of steps to protect the civilian population
against LRA violence. The act would authorize funding to provide
humanitarian assistance in areas affected by the LRA. And it would
provide assistance for reconstruction and for promotion of justice and
reconciliation in areas of Uganda recovering from the LRA's
depredations.
This legislation would establish, as a matter of policy, a U.S.
commitment to working with regional governments to end the conflict in
Uganda and surrounding nations by providing support to multilateral
efforts to protect civilians, apprehend top LRA leaders and disarm
their followers; providing humanitarian assistance to relieve the
immense suffering the LRA has caused; and supporting efforts to promote
justice and reconciliation in the region affected by LRA violence.
We have delayed too long in enacting this legislation. The Senate
passed this important legislation in March, and the House Foreign
Affairs Committee favorably reported the bill to the full House last
week. I am hopeful that the committee's approval signals the likelihood
of approval by the full House soon. I hope our colleagues in the House
will move swiftly to pass this legislation and send it to the President
for his signature; to do anything less would be a failure to act with
the urgency, and the humanity, that the LRA's campaign of terror
demands.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a recent New York Times
article on this incident be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
[From the New York Times, May 1, 2010]
U.N. Says Congo Rebels Killed Scores in Village
(By Jeffrey Gettleman)
Kisangani, Congo--United Nations officials said Saturday
that the Lord's Resistance Army rebel force killed up to l00
people in a previously unreported massacre in the remote
northeastern corner of this country.
Details are still emerging of exactly what happened. But
according to John Holmes, the United Nation's top
humanitarian official, the L.R.A. struck a small village in
February, two months after it killed more than 300 people
from several villages in the surrounding area.
United Nations investigators have spoken with several
witnesses and victims of the massacre in February, including
two fishermen who said they saw dozens of bodies.
But the investigators have been unable to reach the exact
location because of the difficulties of traveling in one of
the most rugged and isolated corners of Africa.
Mr. Holmes said that while recent military operations may
have weakened the L.R.A., ``they are still capable of
wreaking absolute havoc--and they still do.''
He said he learned about the February attack on Saturday,
when he met with local authorities and victims in Niangara,
an old trading post hidden away in the Congolese jungle that
has recently been ringed by roving bands of L.R.A. marauders.
One of the people he met was a young woman whose lips had
been sliced off last month. She was attacked by rebels while
working in her field, she said Saturday, sitting in a
hospital bed, her face a mask of gauze and tape.
``They told me I was talking too much,'' she said.
The L.R.A. has been waging a brutal and bizarre rebellion
for more than 20 years, starting in northern Uganda in the
late 1980s.
Originally, it said it was guided by the Ten Commandments,
but soon it was breaking every one, massacring and mutilating
civilians and becoming notorious for kidnapping young
children and turning them into 4-foot-tall killing machines.
The Ugandan Army eventually drove the L.R.A. out of Uganda
but the rebels simply marched into neighboring northeastern
Congo, where they set up bases in isolated areas.
Recently, the Ugandan military has killed dozens of
fighters hiding out in Congo and the Central African
Republic, though the L.R.A.'s leader, Joseph Kony, who has
been indicted by the International Criminal Court on crimes
against humanity, is still on the loose.
In the December massacre, the L.R.A. killed more than 300
people in a brutal recruitment campaign near Niangara, in
which a few dozen rebel fighters abducted hundreds of
civilians, marching them in a human chain from village to
village. Along the way, the fighters beat to death men, women
and children they did not want to keep in their ranks.
``For anyone saying that the L.R.A. is finished, I would be
careful not to count them out,'' Mr. Holmes said. ``They have
an amazing capacity to regenerate themselves, especially by
kidnapping children.''
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