Kæmpelandets regeringshær, der skal beskytte landsbyerne, er ikke meget bevendt og mange soldater fordriver tiden med at drikke øl, mens de venter på de blodtørstige rebeller og deres leder.
LIMAYI, 15 March 2012 (IRIN): It is just before noon in the village of Limayi in northeastern DR Congo (former Zaire).
Half a dozen empty beer bottles lie scattered at the feet of five Congolese soldiers lounging in easy chairs beneath a mango tree. A freshly opened bottle is propped-up against an automatic assault rifle lying in the dust.
The roughly 4.500 people in Limayi, about 25 km north of Dungu in the Haut-Uélé District, are increasingly anxious.
They believe that the dry season at this time of year prompts Joseph Kony’s Lord Resistance Army (LRA) to head south from the neighbouring Central African Republic (CAR) and South Sudan to loot (plyndre) from the relative riches of isolated communities in the country’s northeast.
Villager Faustin Mihinigoyo, 56, told IRIN the soldiers of the Armed Forces of the DR Congo (FARDC) stationed in Limayi for their protection, “complain to us they only have five bullets and their radios are broken… If the LRA come, they (FARDC) will run away. We are not feeling good.”
The soldiers declined to speak to IRIN.
“We stay in our homes and pray”
The first attack by the LRA on the village was on 27 August 2008 and the most recent in July 2011. Between these dates there have been many attacks on Limayi.
“I can not even remember the number,” Christophe Eda, the district’s paramount chief, told IRIN, adding that 47 villagers had been killed and 12 abducted (bortført), eight of whom had returned.
“In the beginning when the attacks came we used to run into the fields, but it was a big mistake as more people were killed. So now we stay in our homes and pray,” villager Roger Kuyago, 32, told IRIN.
Between 1986 and 2006 the LRA fought a lengthy war with Ugandan security forces. The government established “protected villages” in Uganda’s Acholiland, which at one time formed Kony’s support base, in an attempt to isolate the LRA from the community.
But there were allegations of gross Ugandan police and military human rights violations against the Acholi, who were forced into camps. The LRA’s senior command structure remains populated by the Acholi.
Since its expulsion (fordrivelse) from Uganda, the LRA, numbering a few hundred, has roamed and looted across the DR Congo, South Sudan and CAR.
In July 2005 the International Criminal Court in the Hague issued arrest warrants for Kony and four of his lieutenants – Raska Lukwiya, Okot Odhiambo, Dominic Ongwen, and Vincent Otti – for suspected war crimes and crimes against humanity, including the routine use of child soldiers and sexual enslavement.
Subsequently Otti was executed on Kony’s orders in October 2007, apparently for his willingness to seek peace and because of his popularity among the LRA rank and file.
Lukwiya was killed during a clash with troops in northern Uganda in 2006.
Wanted – dead or alive
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http://www.irinnews.org/Report/95083/SECURITY-Fighting-Kony-with-beer-spy-planes-and-YouTube
