[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 20]
[Senate]
[Page 27780]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                                 UGANDA

  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I understand my colleagues are getting 
very close. I want a couple more minutes and that is to mention 
something that is happening today in the Foreign Relations Committee. 
Senator Feingold has an amendment with which I wholeheartedly agree. It 
is actually not an amendment. It is a bill having to do with the LRA. 
Let me explain quickly what that is.
  The LRA, the Lord's Resistance Army, has for about 25 years, led by a 
guy named Joseph Kony in the northern part of Uganda, been mutilating 
kids. We have heard of the Child's Army. They go into the villages and 
kidnap these kids, take them out, teach them how to be warriors, and 
once they join up, they send them back to the village to murder their 
own parents, their own family.
  This has been going on for a long period of time. This bill is 
something about which I am very excited. Finally, we have the attention 
of the people in the United States, and that is to join in and go after 
this animal named Joseph Kony.
  In the last 18 years, the LRA has captured over 20,000 kids. I have 
been to northern Uganda. I have been up Guru. I have watched these kids 
after they have been dismembered, after they cut their lips off, cut 
their ears off, and all of this.
  When this bill first came out, I was opposed to it because Senator 
Feingold had to pay for this bill with a reduction in some of the funds 
that would otherwise go to the U.S. Air Force. That has been taken out. 
So I join him now in saying this is something that has to take place. 
This is the first time we have actually had the opportunity to bring up 
this issue, to let it surface.
  I personally talked with President Museveni in Uganda, President 
Kagame of Rwanda, and President of the eastern part of Congo. I have 
been to Goma where Joseph Kony has kidnaped these kids, murdered these 
kids, mutilated these kids. I can tell from personal experience this is 
something we need to get involved in, and we are doing it by virtue of 
this bill.
  I have gone 1 minute past. I apologize to the managers of the bill. I 
yield the floor.

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