How long has joseph kony been active

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A park ranger finds a mosquito net from an LRA campsite in His fighters abducted tens of thousands of children and adults and killing large numbers of people in the conflict with the Ugandan government. Today, however, a different story is emerging. Testimony from more recently defected combatants suggests Kony has lost command over many of his officers.

Kony himself is said to be healthy but is now almost years-old. Other LRA commanders, with little or no direction from their leader, continue to roam remote regions of eastern CAR and northern Democratic Republic of Congo DRC , where they loot and abduct from small farming communities in order to survive.

How did this happen? What is still left of the rebel movement? The LRA came to notoriety in the s through its large-scale abductions and violence targeting civilians in its conflict with the Ugandan government. Its last acts of major violence were in and when it committed large-scale massacres against the Congolese population.

Here, it avoided attacking civilians and, for several years, continued to receive some basic supplies from the Sudanese Armed Forces SAF , which had given it substantial support in the s and earlys. Kony did indeed give orders in early to forcibly recruit new members, leading to the abduction of more than 40 children and youth in the following months.

It seems the rebel leader gave up trying to maintain command and control of the LRA outside of his own faction. Ali Kony, as a toddler, in Rather, it suggests a change in strategy. The LRA today appears far less interested in violent intimidation and more inclined towards acts of survival such as looting basic food supplies.

Hundreds of thousands of people were forced to flee their homes, tens of thousands were killed and thousands of others were abducted for fighting and sexual slavery. Mr Kony himself is thought to have taken many of the captured women as wives. He also has an unknown number of children, two of whom, Salim and Ali, have been sanctioned by the US for their alleged role in LRA activities.

Born in the early s into an Acholi peasant family in Odek, a village in northern Uganda, Mr Kony is remembered as an amiable boy. He became a traditional healer after leaving primary school, but in the s was drawn to the Holy Spirit Movement led by charismatic figure Alice Auma, better known as Alice Lakwena.

She said she was fighting for the rights of the Acholi people who were feeling marginalised in the turbulent politics of s Uganda. They felt excluded from power after President Milton Obote, who was from the north, was overthrown in a military rebellion, and eventually replaced by current President Yoweri Museveni in Despite promising her followers protection from bullets, Ms Auma's movement was defeated in and she fled to Kenya.

The LRA was founded in the aftermath of that defeat saying it continued to support the people of the north and wanted to install a government based on the biblical 10 commandments. At one time the LRA was popular in the north, but that waned as the group's brutality increased. Mr Kony has used religion and traditional beliefs to inspire his followers but some question his sincere commitment to those ideas.

They say, 'You, Mr Joseph, tell your people that the enemy is planning to come and attack,'" he has explained. In a film broadcast on the BBC, one of his close allies, Captain Sunday, said that through the help of spirits the LRA leader could see the future. He was also immortal, the captain added. He has created an aura of mysticism around himself and his rebels follow strict rules and rituals.

They say that the oil is the power of the Holy Spirit. He has also used terror to maintain control, beating and killing followers who were caught trying to flee. Some former fighters have said they complied with the leader's orders out of fear. Ex-commander Kenneth Banya told the BBC in that he had sex with a minor because he was threatened with death if he left her alone.

Mr Kony has described himself as a "freedom fighter" but has been accused of being responsible for the deaths of thousands of people in the north of Uganda.

He has used biblical references to explain why it was necessary to kill his own people, since they had, in his view, failed to support his cause. In his first interview in , filmed at his jungle base at the time in DR Congo , he insisted he was not the monster he was portrayed to be.