Editing Lord's Resistance Army (section)

==History==
In 1986, the armed rebellion led by [[Yoweri Museveni]]'s National Resistance Army (NRA) won the Ugandan Bush War and took control of the country. The victors sought vengeance against ethnic groups in the North of Uganda. Their activities included Operation Simsim, which engaged in burning, [[looting]], and killings of locals.

Such acts of violence led to the formation of rebel groups from the ranks of the previous Ugandan army, UNLA. Many of those groups made peace with Museveni. However, the southern-dominated army did not stop attacking civilians in the north of the country. Therefore, by late 1987 to early 1988, a civilian resistance movement led by Alice Lakwena was formed.

Lakwena did not pick up arms against the central government; her members carried sticks and stones. She believed she was inspired by the Holy Spirit of God. Lakwena portrayed herself as a prophet who received messages from the Holy Spirit and expressed the belief that the Acholi could defeat the Museveni government. She preached that her followers should cover their bodies with shea nut oil as protection from bullets, never take cover or retreat in battle, and never kill snakes or bees.

Joseph Kony would later preach a similar superstition, encouraging soldiers to use oil to draw a cross on their chest as protection from bullets. During a later interview, however, Alice Lakwena distanced herself from Kony, claiming that the Spirit does not want soldiers to kill civilians or prisoners of war.

Kony sought to align himself with Lakwena and in turn garner support from her constituents, even going so far as to claim they were cousins. Meanwhile, Kony gained a reputation as having been possessed by spirits and became a spiritual figure or a medium. He and a small group of followers first moved beyond his home village of Odek on 1 April 1987. A few days later, he met a group of former Uganda National Liberation Front soldiers from the Black Battalion whom he managed to recruit. They then launched a raid on the city of Gulu.

By August 1987, Lakwena's Holy Spirit Mobile Force scored several victories on the battlefield and began a march towards the capital Kampala. In 1988, after the Holy Spirit Movement was decisively defeated in the Jinja District and Lakwena fled to Kenya, Kony seized this opportunity to recruit the Holy Spirit remnants. The LRA occasionally carried out local attacks to underline the inability of the government to protect the population. 

The fact that most National Resistance Army (NRA) government forces, in particular former members of the Federal Democratic Movement (FEDEMO), were known for their lack of discipline and brutal actions meant that the civilian population were accused of supporting the rebel LRA; likewise, the rebels accused the population of supporting the government army.

Starting in the mid-1990s, the LRA was strengthened by military support from the government of Sudan, which was retaliating against Ugandan government support for rebels in what would become South Sudan. The LRA fought with the NRA army which led to mass atrocities such as the killing or abduction of several hundred villagers in Atiak in 1995 and the kidnapping of 139 schoolgirls in Aboke in 1996. The government created the so-called "protected camps" beginning in 1996. The LRA declared a short-lived ceasefire for the duration of 1996 Ugandan presidential election, possibly in the hope that Yoweri Museveni would be defeated.

In March 2002, the NRA, under the new name of the Uganda People's Defence Force (UPDF), launched a massive military offensive code-named Operation Iron Fist against the LRA bases in southern Sudan, with agreement from the National Islamic Front. In retaliation, the LRA attacked the refugee camps in northern Uganda and the Eastern Equatoria in southern Sudan, brutally killing hundreds of civilians.

By 2004, according to the UPDF spokesman Shaban Bantariza, mediation efforts by the Carter Center and the Pope John Paul II had been spurned by Kony. In February 2004, the LRA unit led by Okot Odhiambo attacked Barlonyo IDP camp, killing over 300 people and abducting many others.

In 2006, UNICEF estimated that the LRA had abducted at least 25,000 children since the conflict began. In January 2006, eight Guatemalan Kaibiles commandos and at least 15 rebels were killed in a botched UN special forces raid targeting the LRA deputy leader Vincent Otti in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

As of 2014, the LRA has largely collapsed. Their numbers have reportedly dwindled to just over 100 fighters, and they no longer have any presence in Uganda. Their forces are currently concentrated in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Their leader, Kony, is currently in hiding, allegedly somewhere in the Central African Republic or South Sudan.



[[Category:Destroyer]]
[[Category:Sadists]]
[[Category:Kidnapper]]
[[Category:Murderer]]
[[Category:Mongers]]
[[Category:Organizations]]
[[Category:Cults]]
[[Category:Military]]
[[Category:War Criminal]]
[[Category:Criminals]]
[[Category:Terrorists]]
[[Category:Fanatics]]
[[Category:Modern Villains]]
[[Category:Abusers]]
[[Category:Karma Houdini]]
[[Category:Destroyer of Innocence]]
[[Category:Misopedists]]
[[Category:Fugitives]]
[[Category:God Wannabe]]
[[Category:Extremists]]
[[Category:Delusional]]
[[Category:Power Hungry]]
[[Category:Hegemony]]
[[Category:Slaver]]
[[Category:Perverts]]
[[Category:Rapists]]
[[Category:Evil vs. Evil]]
[[Category:Anarchist]]
[[Category:Mass Murderers]]
[[Category:Dark Priest]]
[[Category:Important]]
[[Category:Paranoid]]
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[[Category:Hypocrites]]
[[Category:Mutilators]]
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[[Category:African Villains]]
[[Category:Barbarians]]
[[Category:Christianity]]
[[Category:Villains of the Congo Wars]]
[[Category:Animal Cruelty]]
[[Category:Uganda]]