A "Good Story" for Some, a Continuing Nightmare For Many

The episode, titled "Hell" which will be broadcast on U.S. television tonight, will focus on the fictionalized story of "Elijah" a former child soldier traumatized by the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA).

Seemingly, Enough analyst John Prendergast and SVU's producers are doing a good deed in working together to highlighting the plight of child soldiers and the little-known Northern Ugandan war. However, the consistent "Hollywoodization" of the issue of child soldiers and the over-simplification of the long running war between the Ugandan government and the LRA has almost completely drowned out the voices of leaders and survivors from Northern Uganda, and assumed a half-true narrative, at its best.

So why focus on the LRA? It makes for a "good story" and diverts attention from among other things, the resource war in the Great Lakes region, U.S. involvement in the region and the Ugandan government's crimes against humanity, including the forced displacement of two million Ugandans - who today, are still not being assisted, as they begin the slow process of returning home.

Emotionally ambushing viewers and audiences with shocking and painful stories of children being used as sex slaves and forced to kill their own family members results in the creation of a mental numbness - such that people stop asking questions, and focus on the narrative being placed before them, which, at present is dominated by stories which wrongly indicate the horrors of Northern Uganda were solely due to the LRA.

This environment of shock and horror has been great for analysts like Prendergast, who have surfaced to lead policymakers in the wrong direction. Continuously advocating for a military solution to the decades long conflict has meant the deaths of thousands of innocent people, in the nebulous pursuit of "peace" in the Great Lakes region.

Prendergast is co-founder of the Enough Project, a joint project of the International Crisis Group (ICG) and the Center for American Progress (CAP) - a "progressive think-tank" which, Tom Hayden reports in a March 22, 2009 editorial, is advising the Obama administration to go to war in Afghanistan, proposing a call for a ten-year war and immediate military escalation.

Blind-siding most viewers isn't hard, as many do not have a basic understanding of the conflict's history. The visceral slash and murder crimes create a highly memorable impact, and the viewer's brain shuts down before it begins to question anything.

Among the unanswered questions are the glaring matter of the lack of protection of children - UNICEF estimates 66,000 children have been abducted - and the devastatingly inadequate protection of civilians during the decades long conflict.

While the Ugandan government claims it was unable to end the war due to its lack of military resources, its national army successfully occupied the Congo twice during the decades long war, sparking an ongoing investigation by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity committed by top Ugandan officials.

But the question of the hour would have to be why the U.S. supported "Operation Lightning Thunder," a recently concluded military offensive led by Uganda along with the armies of the DRC and South Sudan, given the fact that previous military operations against the LRA had failed devastatingly.

Despite warnings from community leaders and organizations operating in the region - and despite knowledge that the last military mission launched against the LRA in 2002 served to escalate the conflict, "Operation Lightning Thunder" was launched in December 2008, with direct authorization from President Bush and the support of the United States' AFRICOM, following LRA leader Joseph Kony's failure to show up to sign a peace agreement.

According to the New York Times, the United States provided $1 million dollars in fuel, intelligence support and a team of 17 military advisors.

Interestingly, the timing of the latest push to eradicate the LRA has arisen at the same time a major oil find has been announced in Northern Uganda, with Canada's Heritage Oil and Britain's Tullow Oil pushing for oil production to begin this year.

Seven years ago, the ICG's analysis of the last military operation against the LRA, code-named "Operation Iron Fist," indicated the action "sparked more intense and violent attacks by the LRA, dramatically increased the number of internally displaced people, and failed to end the war."

The aftermath of the U.S. sponsored "Operation Lightning Thunder" has resulted in the creation of a humanitarian crisis, with the displacement of 250,000 people in the DRC and South Sudan, hundreds more children abducted and nearly 1,000 Congolese civilians killed (aid agencies have attributed all killings to the LRA but some are calling for the UN to investigate). ICG spokesperson Louise Khabure has warned there is a growing crisis in the region, particularly in areas "inaccessible to aid and assistance" and "the security situation is bound to worsen."

On paper, a strike against the LRA seemed wholly possible, even simple. Prendergast and colleague Julia Spiegel published an Enough policy brief months before the attack, calling for military action to deal with the "regional threat" of the LRA:"It is time to send the signal that if Kony will not come in from the cold, then the international community will come after him."

Though Enough's script-like proposal read well, when "Operation Lightning Thunder" was executed, Kony escaped unscathed, with abductees and civilians bearing the brunt of the attacks.

In a joint statement issued January 16, 2009 with Washington-based advocacy group Resolve Uganda shortly after the attacks, Enough admits that: "Neither the regional militaries involved nor the international community more broadly has a coherent plan to apprehend top rebel commanders or protect civilians from LRA atrocities."

Without such a plan in place, a dangerous game of Russian roulette is being played on a mass level, and though protection of civilians is supposedly a point of advocacy, pursuing a military solution without taking even the most obvious precautions, has set up Congolese and Sudanese civilians to experience collateral damage at its worst.

The voices of war survivors, religious and political leaders, widows and orphans from the region have consistently called for a peaceful resolution to the LRA conflict, generally due to the fact that a military solution hasn't worked.

Isn't it time the world started listening?