Uganda Regime Reports Capture of LRA Commander Acellam: Why LRA’s Joseph Kony Must Surrender

Uganda’s parliament has been pressing without much success to prosecute several senior government ministers, including prime minister Amama Mbabazi, internal affairs minister Hilary Onek, and former foreign minister Sam Kutesa, for allegedly accepting millions in dollars in bribes from Italy’s ENI Spa oil company for illegal consideration and deals with respect to the country’s newly growing oil industry.

[Black Star News Editorial]

The Ugandan regime with great fanfare has announced the capture of Caesar Acellam Otto, a Lord’s Resistance Army commander who few people had heard of yesterday.

The country’s military spokesman referred to Acellam Otto as a “big fish” and one of the country’s major newspapers, the independent The Daily Monitor, referred to him as a “top general” notwithstanding the same reports that say the LRA comprises about 300 fighters.

Acellam Otto is not one of the LRA commanders indicted by the International Criminal Court (ICC), including Joseph Kony, the group’s leader, and the main subject of the recent viral video KONY2012, produced by the Ugandan regime’s freelance PR agency and occasional spies Invisible Children.

The Daily Monitor also notes that Acellam Otto may have actually surrendered. Curiously, he was with his 21-year-old wife and an infant child. Still, the capture or surrender of any LRA commander is a good thing if it leads to the end of the war between Gen. Museveni and Kony. The U.S. decided to back dictator General Yoweri Museveni’s military approach; both the LRA and Ugandan army reportedly continued to commit atrocities in the
Central African Republic.

The best thing that could happen to Uganda and all of East and Central Africa is if Joseph Kony was quickly captured or if he surrendered. This would allow the rest of the world to turn away from the diversion and focus on Gen. Museveni’s own record in Uganda and the struggle to end tyranny in that East African country. Here’s an update:

[] The war between Gen. Museveni and Kony could have ended many years ago. Gen. Museveni has been in office for 26 years; Kony has also been operating for 26 years.

[] Gen. Museveni is currently resisting attempts by Uganda’s legislators to re-introduce presidential term limits even though some lawmakers from his own ruling party, the National Resistance Movement (NRM) support such measures. The dictator is already looking forward to 2016 when he would have been in power for 30 years, in order to run again.

The regime manipulated the results of the 2011 elections and stole the vote. The Black Star News published the pre-determined results after it was leaked by a regime insider before the votes were even counted. On the same day of the election, The Black Star reported that Gen. Museveni would win by 67.2% of the vote; days later, the announced “result” was 68%. The general needed more than 50% of the vote to avoid a runoff in which opposition parties were expected to field one candidate.

[] After dealing with the LRA leadership, the International Criminal Court and the international community, including the United States, should then focus on the crimes committed by Uganda’s army in the Democratic Republic of Congo and in the northern part of Uganda during the LRA insurgency. In 2005, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) found Uganda liable for what amounted to war crimes in Congo, when its army occupied large parts of that neighboring country from 1997 to 2003.

Estimates of Congolese who have died during and after the occupation range in excess of six million. The ICJ also found that Uganda and allied militias looted Congo’s resources and that mass rapes and massacres occurred. When the ICC then started investigating the role of Uganda’s army and its commanders in the war crimes, Gen. Museveni himself asked then U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan to block the investigation, according to an article in The Wall Street Journal on June 8, 2006.

[] Uganda’s parliament has been pressing without much success to prosecute several senior government ministers, including prime minister Amama Mbabazi, internal affairs minister Hilary Onek, and former foreign minister Sam Kutesa, for allegedly accepting millions in dollars in bribes from Italy’s ENI Spa oil company for illegal consideration and deals with respect to the country’s newly growing oil industry. According to an article in The Wall Street Journal on December 13, 2010 the U.S. ambassador to Uganda, Jerry Lanier, had recommended that prime minister Mbabazi’s U.S. visa be barred and that he not be allowed to visit the United States because of the alleged bribes from the oil companies. 

So while the U.S. believes Uganda’s prime minister may not be fit to visit this country, the U.S., nonetheless, continues to support the corrupt dictatorship.

These are some of the issues that media and the international community may finally focus on after the demise of the LRA. The sooner the better.


“Speaking Truth To Empower.”

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