The Primate of the Sudan, Archbishop Daniel Deng of Juba (pictured), has called upon Britain and the United States to intervene in the conflict in East Africa and end the depredations of the Lord’s Resistance Army.
Speaking to the BBC last week, Archbishop Deng said the governments of South Sudan, Uganda, the Congo and the Central African Republic appeared unable to end the 20-year reign of terror of the LRA. International support from the West was needed to capture LRA leader Joseph Kony and “bring him to book.”
On Dec 14 elements of the Ugandan, Congolese and South Sudan armies, supported by Ugandan jet aircraft, launched operation ‘Lightning Thunder’, attacking LRA base camps in the Garamba forest of the Bas Uélé district of the Congo. The strikes came after Kony failed to appear at a Nov 29 meeting to sign a final peace agreement.
The US Army’s African Command seconded 17 military advisers to the Ugandan People’s Defence Force for ‘Lightning Thunder’ according to a report in the New York Times, and also provided equipment, satellite intelligence and the jet fuel for the Ugandan air force. Last month Israel’s Ambassador Jacob Keidar told the Kampala Monitor that his government also would offer military or intelligence support to defeat the LRA.
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