Joseph Kony Makes Idi Amin Look Like an Altar Boy

Kony is Amin’s demon spawn 

Joseph Kony is a former altar boy. But it’s a testament to his venality that his name now symbolizes pure evil. That’s because he’s unleashing a reign of terror not seen on the African continent since the despotic rule of Idi Amin.

Except that Amin had a noble cause. He wanted to liberate Ugandans from colonial oppression. By contrast, Kony wants to impose Taliban-style rule over them. However, instead of Sharia law, he wants to rule based on strict adherence to the Ten Commandments. Overlook, if you can, the glaring hypocrisy that he brazenly violates each of these commandments every day.

Lord’s Resistance Army

Kony leads the Lord’s Resistance Army. It has been waging a rebellion against the government of Uganda for 20 years.

Of course, there’s nothing unique about rebellion across the Dark Continent. The difference is that children make up most of Kony’s army. Which puts a perverse spin on the Lord’s entreaty to “suffer the little children…to come unto me.”

More to the point, Kony’s army has co-opted every facet of life in the town of Lira. In this sense, Lira is to Uganda what Medellin is to Colombia. And Kony is to Lira what Pablo Escobar was to Medellin.

Drug lords intimidate, bribe and kill government officials to get their way. Kony kidnaps, enslaves, and murders children (often as young as 10). And these “children become soldiers in his army and then go on to torture, rape and kill other children.”

This cycle of unspeakable depravity has plagued Northern Uganda for almost two decades. According to the Lancet Medical Journal, Kony’s gang has “kidnapped an estimated 20,000 children to serve as fighters, porters and sex slaves.” 

But Kony is hardly the only warlord who exploits children. They are the foot soldiers in bloody battles on the frontlines across Africa. I decried this feature of the ongoing insurgency in DR Congo.

Kony and colonialism

Many blame colonialism for the problems that beset African countries. Yet kleptocracy, ethnic rivalries, and pandemic incompetence are far more to blame.

For instance, Kony is oppressing Ugandans far more than the colonists did. And Charles Taylor oppressed Liberians far more too. Africans oppressing Africans in post-colonial Africa has been the rule, not the exception.

Arresting Kony

Systemic violence and insidious corruption explain why Africans rely on “international justice.” They also explain why international arrest warrants target so many Africans. Both Kony and Taylor are fleeing warrants.

I first read about Joseph Kony about ten years ago. But I did not appreciate the depth and breadth of his menace back then. I did only after reading an exposé by Christopher Hitchens in the January 2006 issue of Vanity Fair.

Regrettably, it’s painfully clear that nothing anyone writes will end Kony’s reign of terror. But if you’d like to do more than read, you can donate.

I refer you to Amnesty International’s campaign for Uganda: Child “Night Commuters.” It provides safe homes for children who flee their homes at night. That prevents Kony’s Lord Resistance Army from kidnapping and forcing them to kill or be killed.