FULLY BOOKED-Media Talk: Kony and the Lord’s Resistance Army – The Last Chapter?

December 14 2008 saw a botched attempt to crush Uganda’s rebel Lords Resitance Army (LRA) by the militaries of Uganda, South Sudan and Democratic Republic of Congo. The raid was designed to capture or kill the group’s elusive leader, Joseph Kony and destroy the LRA’s military capacity.

Since then an estimated 900 people have been brutally killed in LRA reprisals, hundreds of children have been abducted and over 130,000 people have fled their homes according to the UN.

Is this the last painful chapter in the LRA’s brutal twenty-year struggle as the small groups are hunted down and dealt with by the armies of Uganda’s neighbouring counties or does this represent a new phase of LRA attacks against civilians in the region.

Join us while we examine the leadup to the December 14 assault, we examine whether sufficient time was allowed for peaceful settlement, we look at the role played by the International Criminal Court, we discuss the effectiveness of the apparent military co-ordination with Uganda’s neighbours and look at the implications of the unfolding humanitarian crisis.

Barney Afako is a Ugandan human rights lawyer who was invoved in the July 2006 Juba peace talks as an advisor to the mediators

Peter Eichsteadt is the Africa Editor for the Institute for War and Peace Reporting and autor of First Kill Your Family – the story of hunting the LRA

Joseph Ochieno is the UK representative for the Uganda People’s Congress

Anneke van Woudenberg is the senior researcher on the Democratic Republic of Congo at Human Rights Watch and author of author of the Human Rights Watch report “The Christmas Massacres” about the LRA killings in northern Congo.

This event will be moderated by Patrick Smith, editor of Africa Confidential