On Thursday, May 5, Resolve’s own Michael Poffenberger will be one of two invited speakers at the Council on Foreign Relations as part of the Great Lakes Policy Forum discussion entitled, “The Lord’s Resistance Army: Implementing Policy to End an Enduring Problem.” Joining Michael as the other discussion panelist will be Karl Wycoff, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for East Africa. Alan Goulty, Former British Ambassador to Sudan, will moderate the forum.
Michael’s comments will explore what has changed in the one year since President Obama signed the LRA Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act into law, and what steps should be taken next.
As the forum’s invitation explained:
Operating without any clear political agenda for nearly 25 years, the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) may be one of the most enduring and perplexing militias in the Great Lakes region. They have used a cease-fire and peace talks to scout new territory, have consistently replenished their numbers through child abductions, and they continue to brutally attack civilians. Yet fighting them has been described as “shooting at bees.” When under attack, as in Operation Lightning Thunder (which began in 2008), they have dispersed, attacked civilians, and then regrouped in new, larger territories. Nearly a year ago, President Obama signed a law committing the United States to helping resolve this problem.
Michael and Paul have been preparing for this important discussion and see it as another opportunity to push the Obama administration to dedicate the resources needed to end the LRA crisis.
We’ll update Resolve’s Facebook page with a quick note of how it went tomorrow afternoon. And, look for more analysis of the forum in a few days.
– Amber