AU military operation - the AU-led Regional Cooperation Initiative Against the Lord’s Resistance Army

I have now finalised the report on LRA in Central Africa. Unfortunately it is in Swedish but I’ll try to summarise the report and the main findings below.

During the autumn of 2011 the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) once again appeared on the international agenda as the AU, USA, and the UN decided to halt the rebels’ progress. During many years the LRA has had a negative impact on the security situation in Central Africa. The Ugandan rebel group has remained a threat against the security of the civilian population in the region over the last years, and has contributed to instability in the Central African region. The group operates in the Central African Republic (CAR), the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and South Sudan, an unstable area with weak infrastructure. Regional and international actors have to a large extent failed to protect civilians against LRA atrocities, which has contributed to an emerging humanitarian disaster in the region.

The study provides a short description of the origins, motives and structure of the LRA, as well as an overview of how regional and international actors have responded to the group’s presence in the region. The aim is to increase the understanding of the rebel’s incentives with the objective to identify potential solutions to the problems they cause in Central Africa. 

Among other things the study shows how the African Union (AU) is in need of external support to enhance its capacity to act in in such a context. Furthermore, the study highlights what challenges international and regional actors face when operating in areas where state capacity is low or non-existing. The study concludes that one crucial factor is to develop the infrastructure in the region. In the short term, improved infrastructure could facilitate the distribution of humanitarian aid. In the long term it can have a positive impact on political and socio-economic developments and improved infrastructure might threaten the existence of the rebel group. Equally important is for international actors to support the AU regional initiative to integrate planning of how to protect civilians in all military operations. The state security forces in the region face severe challenges due to weak capacity, insufficient training and lack of mechanisms for accountability and are therefore in need of support to be able to fulfill their task. The report also highlights the importance of better coordination between the state security forces, ongoing UN missions and other involved actors. Finally potential political solutions to the problem with LRA are discussed.

    
What I think is particularly puzzling is the planned AU military operation which is a part of the AU-led Regional Cooperation Initiative Against the Lord’s Resistance Army (RCI-LRA). The headquarters and troops are meant to be operational as of March this year. South Sudan has already pledged 5000 troops to the AU military operation. There is already some 2000 Ugandan soldiers in the region  and a Congolese US trained battalion was deployed to LRA affected areas in the DRC by the end of 2011. As for the Forces Armées Centrafricaines (FACA) only some 200 soldiers are in the Obo area where LRA has been spotted

I wonder how these troops will be able to protect civilians from LRA attacks and also avoid committing atrocities against the population themselves, which is not rare. The EU has been reluctant to support the AU regional initiative due to lack of accountability measures and legal mandate. The operation still has no UN mandate and would probably operate under AU flag as the decision comes from the AU heads of states and the AU Peace and Security Council

The AU Peace and Security Council’s decision on how to implement RCI-LRA is based on a report from the Chairman of the AU Commission. In the report  you can read that: “The RCI-LRA pursues the following objectives:

1.     strengthen the response capacity of the countries affected by the atrocities of the LRA, in order to create inherent capabilities;

2.    create an environment conducive to the stabilization of the region free of LRA atrocities and inclusive of a political process within the framework of the Juba Agreement, if and when duly signed; and

3.    facilitate the delivery of humanitarian assistance to the affected areas”

Furthermore the structure for command and control is described as follows: “[…] the command and control structure of the regional cooperation initiative against the LRA shall comprise the following components in order to execute the roles and tasks identified above:

1.     The Joint Coordination Mechanism - Chaired by the AU Commissioner for Peace and Security, the JCM shall be composed of the Ministers of Defense of the affected countries. The JCM will act as an ad hoc structure at strategic level to coordinate the efforts of the AU and the countries affected, with the support of the international partners. More specifically, the JCM shall coordinate all political and strategic activities with the affected countries and other stakeholders, enhance political and military cohesion, demonstrate firm intent and regional ability to achieve the end state of the operation, and coordinate capacity-building for the operational units, with a view to enhancing inter-operability and cooperation. The Secretariat of the JCM will be located in Bangui and will be coordinated by the AU Special Envoy for LRA, whose task is to provide the overall political and strategic coordination for the operation;

2.    The Regional Task Force -The RTF shall comprise national contingents from the affected countries, with both tactical combat and support units deployed under the operational command of the RTF Commander. 'The RTF shall have three sector Headquarters (HQs) located in Dungu (DRC), Nzara (South Sudan), and Obo (CAR). The RTF HQs shall comprise thirty officers and shall be located in Yambio, South Sudan. The key appointments for the RTF HQs have been agreed upon. The RTF HQs shall have appropriate civilian expertise. It shall also designate four liaison officers in the Joint Intelligenceand Operations Centre (JIOC), based in Dungu;

3.    The Joint Operations Centre - The JOC shall be a component of the RTF, and be co-located with the RTF HQs, in Yambio, with a total staff complement of 30 officers. Under the authority of the RTF Commander, it shall perform integrated planning and monitoring of the operation.”

Apparently the US has already put up operational bases in Djemah and Obo in CAR where the Ugandan People’s Defence Forces (UPDF) already operates. American military personnel is also deployed in Nzara, South Sudan.  A few days ago  I spoke to a friend who currently is in the Obo area in CAR and he told me that US drones are scanning the area for suspected rebels.

I really hope that a military operation will not result in LRA retaliation attacks as was the case after Operation Lightning Thunder in 2008 which resulted in more than 900 deaths in what has been labeled "The Christmas Massacre". Operation Lightning Thunder was a joint military operation with troops from Uganda, DRC and (then) South Sudan supported by the US. The objective was to bomb the LRA base in DRC and get rid of the leadership. It failed and had no plan what so ever of how to protect civilians. I hope that the actors involved now have learned from that mistake. 

It would be a shame if the civilian population once again was caught between the rebels and state security forces. Sometimes it’s hard to say what’s worse, the LRA or the regular forces that are meant to protect the population but fails to do so and instead  become yet another security threat...

Price tag?

I used to dance to this song at the nightclubs in Bangui. The crowd mainly consisted of white men, black men, some white women and loads of women and girls from the Central African Republic and elsewhere in Africa.  We would all dance, me in front of the mirror a narcissist, and then all the other women who danced for other reasons than just vanity. Them, and me, would all dance throwing fake bills in the air, them singing “we just want money”. How ironic. And then about price tags, can you put a price tag on a person? In the Central African Republic very much yes… and elsewhere.

It is a damn shame.

Report on LRA in Central Africa

On Friday I held a presentation of my report on LRA in Central Africa at the Swedish Defence Research Agency. It went well, we'll see what happens to the report and hopefully it will get published. I'll post a summary of the main findings shortly.

Good news! I'll write y Master's thesis at the Swedish Defence Research Agency this spring, albeit still affiliated with the Department of Peace and Conflict Research at Uppsala University. This means I'll be able to work in an inspiring and creative environment with an extra supervisor who has experience from the field. Furthermore I'll write a report for the Agency based on the thesis.

I hope to be able to post more often and as I said I'll start with a summary of the findings from the report on the LRA. 

To get a grasp of the underlying reasons behind the US' support for an AU-led  military operation have a look at an article by Mareike Schomerus, Tim Allen and Koen Vlassenroot  published in Foreign Affairs in mid-November 2011.

Tous avec Bozizé - some pics

Conflict incentives in Central Africa

Last week I attended a seminar arranged by NAI and  FOI  as a part of the Lecture Series on African Security . Invited for this particular seminar was the well-known researcher Koen Vlassenroot who was talking about the Ugandan People’s Defence Force (UPDF) and its hunt for LRA in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

One of the main subjects was how during its intervention in DRC the UPDF, contrary to common believes, became an integral part of Uganda’s governance regime rather than weakening the center of power in Kampala. High ranking politicians in Rwanda and Uganda were allegedly involved in the illegal exploitation of natural resources and the continuation of conflict in the DRC although they did not control every aspect of their troops’ behaviour.

Theories on shadow military networks and military entrepreneurs is not really one of my areas of expertise but for a better understanding of how these kind of illegal shadow networks, involving states, mafias, private armies, ‘businessmen’ and assorted state elites from both within and outside Africa, contribute to a clandestine regionalism in the Central African region have a look at this article by Ian Taylor. Another interesting piece on military commercialism and how entrepreneurial considerations serve as a key component of foreign military deployment is Christian Dietrich's publication . A bit of a side track but these concepts and theories are very interesting and highly topical for the region.

The second part of the seminar focused on the LRA in DRC. The question whether LRA still has a political agenda was lifted and some people commented that the picture given of LRA often is too simplistic. The group still has a political agenda and although Kony would be killed or arrested the grievances of the Acholi population in Northern Uganda will remain unresolved. One of the conclusions of the seminar was that we still should talk about LRA as a group with a political agenda. This is to a certain extent confirmed by the LRA statement reproduced in  Sudan Tribune  end of October, although it is impossible to determine if it is a tactical move from LRA as they try to align with other anti-american movements in the global south.  

Splitting into small units could be a strategic choice and not a sign of an internal division within the movement. It seems like Kony still has some leverage and reserachers present at the seminar had met with abductees who  witnessed that Kony ordered LRA to gather in CAR for a “Christmas Party” this year. This is worrying taking into consideration how the LRA massacred people during Christmas in 2008 in areas of Haut-Uele district of northern Congo and in southern Sudan. Another abductee who managed to escape said that the LRA keeps a low profile due to the elections in the DRC. Based on this LRA is clearly not a ghost organisation but still very much alive even though it can sometimes be difficult to determine whether attacks have been conducted by them or any of the other numerous armed groups operating in the same area. No one knows how many they are, I’ve heard numbers between 100 and 1000 from my sources but around 400 seems to be the average estimation.  

One of the objectives of the report I am writing is to try to understand the motivations and incentives that drive LRA. This means that I need to be careful not to just reproduce some of the clichés about the movement. In one of the chapters of, ‘The Lord's Resistance Army: myth and reality’ edited by Allen Tim & Vlassenroot Koen one of the author criticizes the stereotypes that are often evoked in descriptions of LRA. I will do my best to avoid that but in war information is always biased which makes it very hard to do a good analysis. However that type of challenge is one you have to learn to deal with in peace and conflict studies no matter how hard it is... 

There are so  many different conflict incentives and here I have highlighted just a few of them. I believe that we often tend to try to reduce conflict incentives to either economic, or political, or social but in reality there is always a mix of these factors that are at play. Let's not forget that when we try to analyse the causes of conflict. Reality is so complex that science often fails to grasp it by reducing it to variables and numbers although it might be necessary to be able to understand anything at all. 

LRA Crisis Tracker

This website gives updated information on LRA activities with the aim to turn the world's attention to the atrocities and crimes committed against civilians by this armed movement

The Lord's Resistance Army in CAR

I have been back in Sweden for a little more than a week now. Although it is nice to be back I really miss Bangui. Sweden is freezing.

As it turns out I'll spend the coming nine weeks writing a report about the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) hence I'll take a little pause from SSR but not from CAR as LRA is operating on the territory.

The US recently decided to send 100 military advisers  to support the countries in the region in their fight against the LRA. Furthermore the US is equipping the Forces Armées Centrafricaine (FACA) with uniforms and other necessities to fight this armed group that is known for its brutality and atrocities in CAR and elsewhere.

The question is high on the agenda as the African Union (AU) has also decided  to improve its efforts to fight this,  nowadays labeled terrorist group. France, which is the most influential foreign actor in CAR also urges the AU to coordinate their efforts in the fight against LRA.

This regional security threat is obviously highly relevant also in relation to SSR and in particular DDR which at least I believe is a prerequisite for succesful SSR. I am really happy that I have been given the opportunity to work with this for the coming weeks and I'll keep you updated on any progress.

For current updates from CAR in French and Sango listen to Radio Ndeke Luka  sending from Bangui. I do it daily and it makes me feel closer to the heart of Africa while staring out the window in the office as the sun sets at 4 p.m.

Two weeks from now

Now it is less than two weeks left here in Bangui. Time goes by so fast, it is unbelievable. It feels like I just arrived but at the same time as if I have been here forever. Exactly two weeks from now I’ll be in Nairobi waiting for my flight to Amsterdam where I’ll get on the plane that will take me to a freezing cold, rainy Stockholm. 

I’ve tried to get an overview of the material I have so far to be able to identify who I should meet up with to fill the gaps during those last weeks. I must admit that I am not as motivated as in the beginning. I feel a bit tired now after weeks of intensive research, meeting so many different people, so many impressions. On my list there are about six people I would like to meet, this far I have met with about thirty, some of them both formally and informally. I also got quite a few documents that are interesting for my research to support some of the findings from the interviews, meetings and observations. 

I have to try to schedule the meetings for next week as I will be busy Thursday, Friday, Saturday. I have been given the occasion to participate as an observer at a seminar arranged by the Ministry of Public Security and the police with the support from BINUCA. The aim is to train and inform high ranking police officers on SSR matters. It will be three very interesting days and hopefully I’ll get to talk to some people there as well apart from observing the seminar as such. I am very grateful to the person who arranged this and for everything else he has done. Without him I would never have been able to conduct this study and meet with all those people. If you read this THANK YOU!

I have very ambiguous feelings about leaving Bangui, I really would love to stay longer. I adore this town Bangui la coquette, its people and everything about it. It is so natural. There is an atmosphere here that makes me feel free and relaxed in a fantastic way. At the same time Sweden is calling, with the winter coming, the exciting internship, friends and family awaiting me. I will definitely come back to Bangui however, there is no doubt about that.  

1000 elite soldiers...

Yesterday I got an email forwarded to me from a person working at my university department. A girl on undergraduate level had some questions concerning the ongoing conflict(s) here. She is going to do an analysis of the conflict between CPJC and the government. The only problem with that is that the CPJC does not in fact fight the government but is trying to get control of the diamonds which has resulted in clashes between the afore mentioned and another rebel group, UFDR. For updated info have a look at Le Confident  and Jeune Afrique

This made me think about how easy it is to get things wrong. Rebels and armed groups often evoke the image of Che Guevara and other revolutionaries but here it is difficult to say that the armed groups have a political agenda. More often than not the objective of the rebellion is simply about personal interests. As soon as the leaders get what they want, be it a position in the administration, a car, a house or the possibility to be ambassador abroad they sign the peace agreement. This is ridiculous. I mean seriously, how do you negotiate with that? I think we should call these armed movements its right name, bandits that breed on the population and have no interest whatsoever to change anything. The political opposition suffers as there is no room to negotiate if you are not armed. For more information have a look at this article.

I talked to a person who said, “with 1000 elite soldiers we could wipe them out”. Probably yes. Then again, there is no interest in doing so. Instead the LRA, Chadian rebels, the Central African armed groups and bandits are free to do as they please as the government does not control more than 30% of the country. The people have to play the game, at the same time trying to please the illegal armed groups and the state security forces. As the French say, “c’est pas evident”. Often the people find themselves caught in the cross-fire, accused from both sides of being loyal to the enemy. 

On top of the political-military groups, bandits and foreign armed groups there are ethnic conflicts in the communities, clashes between pastoralists and farmers, self-defence forces... You name it. Try to do a conflict analysis of that...

Central African Winter

In the last posts I have been given a rather dark picture of the situation here. Despite all the problems in this country its people are really something special. I just love the Central African sense of humour, how they mock me, each other and everything they can.

As I am convinced that to be able to do good research you have to understand the context I have been trying to meet as many people as possible, from as different backgrounds as possible. As for the international community here it is quite easy in the sense that we are not that many and it is easy to get to know people. When it comes to finding Central African friends I also have been quite successful, mainly thanks to my rather unconventional way of going out, get lost and then saved by people.

One night I went out with the guy who drove me home when the Medicins Sans Frontières abandoned me which I wrote about earlier. We went to a concert which was just crazy fun where this great band consisting of five men and two dancers (not sure whether or not to include the dancers in the band) performed. Performed is the right word. One of the singers was a man in his fifties dressed in a linen suit and a hat, one guy had some kind of weird tights and a top and a third one was seriously wearing a fur (!) doing the US gangsta thing. Love it. The crowd consisting of me and some sixty Central Africans was dancing like crazy as well. Normally I love to dance and consider myself being quite good at it but here I feel stiff like a dead man trying to do Michael Jackson moves. So I only dance when I am drunk here, very Swedish indeed.

After that we continued to sing karaoke. I don’t know if you have heard about “Norwegian karaoke” but it is done in the following way: you listen to music, preferably in your headphones and then you sing out loud. Hopefully you know the lyrics but if not, just do it anyway. The Central African way to sing karaoke is as follows: bring a band to a bar, preferably quite bad with untuned instruments, allow anyone who still can stand to get up on stage and sing along with whatever song the band plays, with whatever lyrics that person might deem suitable. I must admit that both the Norwegian and the Central African ways are much more amusing than conventional karaoke. 

After karaoke it was time to do the nightclubs so the guy and I went to the one where they mainly play Congolese music. Suddenly he was gone, had disappeared. As I am married and have no interest in anything else than going out and have a good time I assume he found someone who did and left. So 4 am I find myself abandoned once again, yet for another reason. No luck here. However, thanks to that I found a good friend. A Central African girl saw me and invited me to join her company. We ended up in “les quartiers”, the hoods so to say, having chicken and local beer. What a cliché, but a nice one. She is really fantastic. Saturday I joined her and her family (70 people) at her mom’s house. We ate, drank and laughed. So life here isn’t all bad.

What I do feel however is that the Central African people deserve so much better, I mean seriously, there is not even one proper road in the capital, power cuts are getting worse every day, no water, no health care, the security forces harassing the population arbitrarily. Apparently the government turned down offers from both the Chinese and the French to build a new power plant. The government wanted the money to do it themselves. One can ask why.  The Chinese and the French said no. 

The people here are abandoned by its own government and we don’t do a damn thing about it, we are accomplice. You can really feel the frustration in the air. One day the people will have had enough. The rainy season is almost over now, the temperature falling, they say it is the winter that is coming. Let it come a Central African spring...