Maybe you can get there if you cut through the African bush.
"New radios to help track brutal militia in Africa; Isolated villagers can alert wider world to attacks" November 13, 2011|By Jason Straziuso, Associated Press
NAIROBI, Kenya - In Africa’s remotest jungle, where paved roads and telephones do not exist, a US aid group is installing new high frequency radios to help track the Lord’s Resistance Army, a brutal militia that 100 US special forces troops are now helping hunt.
The Ugandan rebel group is blamed for tens of thousands of rapes, mutilations, and killings over the last 26 years. The militia abducts children, forcing them to serve as soldiers or sex slaves and even to kill their parents or each other to survive.
I'm sorry, but I'm starting to get that "lies which justify war" feeling.
Maybe it is all true; however, if you cut through the bush you see it is the same corporate interests backed by the same governments that is backing the murderous thugs and is allegedly sworn to stop this, so WTF? Must have double-crossed 'em for some reason.
Aid workers hope the initiative by Invisible Children will help villagers quickly raise the alarm when the militia attacks in remote corners of the neighboring Democratic Republic of the Congo, Central African Republic, and South Sudan.
A four-day Lord’s Resistance Army massacre that killed more than 300 people in December 2009 underscored exactly how isolated places like the northern DRC can be. The majority of those killed were tied up before being hacked to death with machetes or having their skulls crushed with axes, a human rights group said. The world did not learn about the atrocities until three months later.
Now people in these remote areas without phones can report attacks using the new radios, which are in some cases strapped only to a very long stick or tree branch. The information that communities provide is given to people who put it up on a website called the LRA Crisis Tracker. Anyone from US military officials to aid workers can see where the resistance army has concentrated its most recent attacks.
Wouldn't they just cut down the tree?
“The goal of the site is to get timely information on LRA activities, including abductions and killings. It previously wasn’t possible,’’ Adam Finck, Invisible Children’s director of programs in Central Africa, said by phone.
The group launched the site in September and has mapped about 40 incidents, mostly in the northern DRC.
Twenty-five communities now have radios and 12 more are scheduled to be put up by Invisible Children at a cost of about $18,000 each. iPhone and iPad users can download a Crisis Tracker app that shows the attack locations.
President Obama announced in October that he was sending 100 US troops to help advise in the fight against the resistance army and its leader, Joseph Kony, a fugitive militant wanted by the International Criminal Court.
Oh, I see. Not one of their war criminals so he doesn't get a pass; must be making it hard to extract raw minerals and resources from the area.
As Ugandan troops track the resistance army, assisted by US intelligence and special forces advisers, the Crisis Tracker is garnering praise from the US government. Obama, in announcing the US deployments, congratulated Americans who have “mobilized to respond to this unique crisis of conscience.’’
In reading that one can only conclude it is a CIA front. Of course, my CIA paper isn't going to tell me that.
“The Crisis Tracker is a really innovative tool, and will be useful as we seek to enhance information-sharing among all protection actors in the LRA-affected area,’’ the State Department’s Bureau of African Affairs said in a statement.
It's another piece of the global control grid.
A spokesman for the US military’s Africa command, Ken Fidler, said the military is aware of the Crisis Tracker website, but he could not reveal whether or how the military is using the information, other than saying the military gathers information from a variety of sources.
Invisible Children supports the US troop deployment and appears, at the very least, not to mind if the US or Ugandan militaries use its information. Finck notes that the information is publicly available....
The DRC is a vast land of triple canopy forest the size of all US states east of the Mississippi River. Roads are skinny lanes of packed dirt overrun by foliage. Cellphone coverage is limited to a few large towns. The villages where the resistance army attacks are off the power grid, and there is no running water.
That isolation and simplicity has allowed the resistance army to move in, attack communities, and move back into the jungle for years. But with the arrival of the radios, verified reports of violence can be up on the Crisis Tracker website within hours, said Chuck Phillips, the chief technology officer for Digitaria, which created the website.
“Our primary goal was to provide that accurate, authoritative source for LRA activities, and the second is to continue to fight the LRA by raising awareness and enabling people to understand what it is they are doing and how they are killing, raping, and destroying families,’’ Phillips said.
It's called liberation when the empire invades and occupies a country.
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"Obama orders 100 troops into Uganda as advisers" October 15, 2011|By Mark S. Smith, Associated Press
WASHINGTON - President Obama said yesterday he is dispatching about 100 US troops to Africa to help battle the Lord’s Resistance Army, which the administration accuses of a campaign of killing, rape, and kidnapping children over two decades.
In a letter to Congress, Obama said the troops will act as advisers in efforts to search for rebel leader Joseph Kony but will not engage in combat except in self-defense.
It's the same script for every war.
Pentagon officials said the bulk of the contingent will be special operations troops, who will provide security and combat training to African units.
Yup, kill-and-capture "advisers" like in Afghanistan.
The White House said the first troops arrived in Uganda on Wednesday. Ultimately, they will also deploy in South Sudan, the Central African Republic, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Oh, so THAT IS WHY the U.S. BROKERED a DEAL for SOUTH SUDANESE INDEPENDENCE!! It was getting a MILITARY BASE out of the DEAL!!!!!
The deployment to central Africa is the latest sign of an increasing administration focus on the continent, amid increasing concern about shaky governments, civil strife, and sprawling regions that have become both havens for terrorists.
Translation: ANY EXCUSE WILL DO to GET us to OCCUPY AFRICA!
Man, this World War III is gonna be good!!!
Long considered one of Africa’s most brutal rebel groups, the Lord’s Resistance Army began attacks in Uganda more than 20 years ago but has been pushing westward.
The administration and human rights groups said the group’s atrocities have left thousands dead and have prompted as many as 300,000 Africans to flee.
It's a forgotten refugee crisis like so many across the planet.
Hey, when the status quo is responsible for such upheaval that is not something upon which the status quo mouthpiece wants to focus.
They have charged the group with seizing children to bolster its ranks of soldiers and sometimes forcing them to become sex slaves.
Ever notice that wherever the U.N. shows up soon a sex ring is started?
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And yet the U.N. is haranguing them about this?
"Uganda reconsiders anti-homosexuality bill" October 26, 2011|Bloomberg News
KAMPALA, Uganda - Uganda’s Parliament voted to reopen debate on a bill that seeks to outlaw homosexuality and may be expanded to include the death penalty for gay people.
OK, look, that is way too extreme; however, what you find if you investigate it is that radical, right-wing Christian missionaries are also behind the push for some of these bills. It's sometimes the price for aid.
(Blog editor then sits for a minute and ponders why this is even an issue in the 21st century when there are so many other, more important items that need attention)
The legislation will be sent to the relevant session committee for consideration, Speaker Rebecca Kadaga told lawmakers yesterday in a televised debate from the capital, Kampala.
In October 2009, Ugandan lawmaker David Bahati proposed the Anti-Homosexuality Bill that sought the death penalty or life imprisonment for gay people in the East African nation. The proposal drew criticism from international and domestic civil- society groups for infringing on human rights and equating homosexuality with terrorism or treason.
Even if you don't approve of the lifestyle it is about love and not those other things.
Legislators on Uganda’s Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee in the previous Parliament suggested adding a clause that would make it a criminal offense to perform same-sex marriages, Human Rights Watch said in a statement on May 12.
The committee said in its report that the penalty of “aggravated homosexuality’’ should be the same as defilement, a crime that is punishable by death under the Penal Code Act.
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Have mercy and nullify the thing.
