This is a great opportunity to spread the word about Joseph Kony’s war, and gather some much-needed money to support Invisible Children’s many on-the-ground development programs and advocacy operations. Thirty seconds of your time can go a long way for many of the war-affected children in our Visible Child Scholarship Program or the women of our MEND Initiative.

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Remarks of U.S. Senator Russ Feingold (Democrat – Wisconsin) at “How It Ends” Advocacy Days for Peace in Northern Uganda June 23, 2009:

Thank you, Michael, for that kind introduction. And I want to thank you and Resolve Uganda for the important work you have done over the years to connect Americans who care about this conflict with the political process. I also want to thank the other organizations that helped organize this event: the Enough Project and Invisible Children.

We have come a long way from just a few years ago when 1,000 people were dying each week in squalid displacement camps and the situation in northern Uganda was called the “worst neglected humanitarian crisis in the world.” All of you here today are testament that those dark days of neglect are behind us, and for that I thank you. I especially want to recognize the delegation that is here from my home state of Wisconsin. We have a proud tradition of social justice in our state, and you are continuing that tradition by being here today.

Your advocacy has already made a difference. Over the last few years, we have seen the United States significantly scale up our efforts to help end this – one of Africa’s most gruesome and longest running conflicts. Our humanitarian and development assistance to northern Uganda has drastically increased.

Furthermore, in 2007, because of your activism and at the urging of Congress, the State Department appointed a senior diplomat to support the peace negotiations between the Ugandan government and LRA – negotiations that were not perfect, but did offer, for quite some time, a path forward and provided a framework to address the grievances of northern Ugandans. Unfortunately, as we all know, Kony repeatedly refused to sign the agreement and the LRA launched new attacks in Congo and Sudan.

Then, last December, regional militaries launched a joint offensive against the LRA’s primary bases in northeastern Congo. The U.S. provided some non-operational support for the offensive at the request of those regional governments, but that effort failed to apprehend Kony and I think we all know what has happened since. It is tragically clear that not enough attention or resources were devoted to ensuring the protection of civilians.

Now the twin failure of the peace talks and military operations does not mean we should give up. It does mean, however, that we need a strategic and comprehensive approach to guide our efforts going forward. We need an approach that coordinates all elements of U.S. policy – economic, political, intelligence and military – and coordinates it across the four countries now affected by this situation.

This is why I authored the LRA Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act. As you know, this legislation charges the Obama administration to develop such a strategy to deal with the LRA. It leaves it up to the administration to determine the most effective way forward, but it helps ensure that this conflict will not get put on the back burner and that we will not continue to wait for others to lead.

The legislation also attempts to bring about a more strategic approach to our humanitarian and development assistance to northern Uganda. This bill encourages the United States to increase that assistance with the condition that the Ugandan government demonstrates leadership and takes measures to prevent corruption. Our assistance to help survivors rebuild their lives has been critical and will continue to be so over the coming years. But we must make sure the Ugandan government is taking responsibility for this process, especially to establish mechanisms that can address the original causes of the war and promote reconciliation and justice.

I was pleased to join with another great champion on this issue, Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas, to introduce this bill. This issue has never suffered because of partisanship; it has suffered because of low prioritization. The challenge now will be seeing this bill through to passage and getting the administration to take it seriously. We have many major foreign policy issues facing our country and some that must take higher priority, but it is unacceptable that this rebel war and the mass abduction of children by the LRA have continued – and even expanded – after 23 years. We have a moral responsibility to do what we can to help end it.

That is the message you take with you as you come to the Hill today and I know that there is no more determined group to deliver that message. Your presence here – traveling from different parts of the country and taking time off from work and school – sends a loud and clear signal that the American people want this to be a priority.

In closing, I want to thank you again. I also want to challenge you, especially the young people here. When the guns finally fall silent and the LRA is no more – and that day will come as it did for Liberia and Sierra Leone and Mozambique – I challenge you to consider it a beginning, not an end. We need your help to prevent future LRA-like situations of mass atrocities from emerging. We need your help to study and understand how these situations emerge, what drives them and what stops them. We need your help and your support for the development of mechanisms within our government to better anticipate mass atrocities and take action to stop the bloodshed before it happens.

None of this will be easy or quick, but nothing could give greater honor to the millions who have died over the years at the hands of the LRA and in other mass killings. And nothing could give greater promise for future generations. So I ask you to join me in this work and together we can make a real difference.

Copyright © 2009 United States Senate. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com).

For over two decades the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebel group has terrorized communities in northern Uganda and across central Africa, abducting as many as 66,000 children along the way. But behind the brutality of LRA leader Joseph Kony and his top commanders lies a deeper story – a history of division and discord in Uganda that gave rise to their rebellion and that still casts a storm cloud over the country’s future. Though the conflict has now outlasted four US Presidents, President Obama and Congressional leaders now have a unique window of opportunity to help put a stop to the LRA’s atrocities and put northern Uganda on track towards lasting peace.

Roots of the conflict: The conflict in northern Uganda has deep roots, tracing back to British colonial policies of divide-and-rule that exacerbated ethnic tensions and set the stage for a series of post-independence dictators, including the infamous Idi Amin, who ruled the country by fear and iron fist.

The war’s most recent roots date to 1986, when a band of rebels from southern Uganda led by Yoweri Museveni, Uganda’s current president, took control of the government. Human rights abuses committed by Museveni’s army sparked a succession of northern rebellions, the most enduring of which has been that of the LRA, led by former altar boy Joseph Kony. However, the rebel group has long since lost popular support in the north, instead terrorizing the very people it claimed to represent and relying on abducted children to sustain itself.

The Ugandan government’s response to the LRA’s atrocities was equally disastrous for northern Ugandans. In the 1990s the Ugandan government forced most of northern Uganda’s population into crowded, squalid displacement camps where as many as 1,000 people died each week. The Ugandan military regularly committed sexual abuse and other crimes against northerners, while failing to protect them from frequent LRA attacks.

In 2005 the conflict took a dramatic turn, as the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Kony and top LRA commanders on charges including war crimes, and the rebels began pulling out of Uganda and establishing bases in the DR Congo. The next year the Ugandan government and LRA began peace talks, which culminated in a final agreement in April 2008. However, the peace process had failed to gain the buy-in of LRA leader Joseph Kony, who refused to sign the agreement and began consolidating his forces in the DR Congo.

A return to war: Despite continued efforts to convince Kony to sign the agreement, the LRA leader ordered his army to begin preparing for a new round of violence. In September 2008 he unleashed his fighters on communities in northeastern Congo, abducting hundreds of children and taking control of an area the size of Connecticut.

In December 2008 a Ugandan-led military offensive against the LRA’s Congolese bases caused a dramatic escalation of violence. The poorly planned offensive failed to surprise the elusive rebel leaders, who responded by ordering massive reprisal attacks on civilians in vulnerable areas of the DR Congo and Sudan. In the space of a few short months, the LRA killed over 850 innocent people and displaced hundreds of thousands more. In March of 2009, the Ugandan army ended its offensive after failing to capture top LRA commanders, who continue to order attacks against communities in the region.

US role in the conflict: The nature of US involvement in this crisis has changed considerably over the past two decades. Historically, the US has strongly supported President’s Museveni’s government despite it’s abysmal handling of the conflict in northern Uganda, providing it with military, financial and political support. This relationship caused the U.S. to turn a blind eye to the Ugandan government’s criminal neglect of the crisis and failure to credibly attempt to end it, as well as contributing to the U.S.’ own neglect of the situation. After favoring unachievable military “solutions” to ending the war for many years, the U.S. reversed its position in 2007 and sent a diplomat to the region to work in support of the then-ongoing peace talks. Despite this welcomed engagement, the negotiations failed to secure Joseph Kony’s signature on the final peace agreement.

How it ends: Kony’s refusal to sign the peace agreement and his decision to continue committing brutal atrocities throughout the region has made it clear that he remains the biggest immediate obstacle to peace. However, as regional governments and UN forces do not have the capacity to stop LRA attacks, it is essential that the US and the international community support a viable, responsible effort to arrest Kony. Any such operation must target top LRA leaders exclusively, avoid endangering captives within the LRA, and be accompanied by a strategy to protect vulnerable civilians from rebel reprisal attacks. Such pressure may even force Kony to finally take concrete, genuine steps towards a negotiated solution.

However, the arrest of Kony and the disarming of the LRA will not alone bring sustainable peace to northern Uganda. Without significant and steady progress on rebuilding war-affected communities, reconciling Uganda’s regional and ethnic divisions, and creating a more inclusive government, the possibility of renewed violence threatens the country’s future. US financial assistance for reconstruction and political pressure on the Ugandan government to get serious about recovery and reconciliation could prove to be key catalysts for a truly sustainable peace in Uganda.

For more information go to www.howitends.tv