Uganda Rebel Leaders Named As World's Most Wanted Men

Five commanders of a vicious rebel army of kidnapped child soldiers led by a brutal self-proclaimed mystic are officially the world's most wanted men, according to the International Criminal Court.

The court, based in The Hague, has issued its first arrest warrants for the five members of the Lord's Resistance Army, a shadowy cult responsible for a two-decade campaign of terror in northern Uganda.

The wanted men are the LRA's elusive leader, Joseph Kony, a 44-year-old former altar boy, Vincent Otti, his number two, Okot Odiambo, Raska Lukwiya and Dominic Ongwen.

Kony and his henchmen took up arms against the civilian population of northern Uganda 19 years ago, launching an ill-defined campaign to cow them and oust the Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni from power.

Kony has fostered an aura of invincibility around himself after several escapes from Ugandan armed forces, fuelling a belief among villagers that he is semi-divine.

In a rare interview with a Sudanese magazine last year, he spoke of talking with angels and wanting to rule Uganda according to the Ten Commandments.

Kony's forces have kidnapped 20,000 children, forcing them to become sex slaves, porters or soldiers.

To avoid being abducted, tens of thousands of northern Uganda's children trek miles from their families' villages each dusk to the safety of nearby towns to sleep.

More than 1.6 million people were uprooted from their homes as the Ugandan Army and the LRA waged war, leaving uncounted thousands dead.

Collaborators or those opposing Kony's troops routinely had their lips, noses, ears or breasts sliced off.

Kony and his forces fled northern Uganda early in the conflict to set up base in southern Sudan, taking advantage of the chaos there to launch deadly cross-border raids.

Despite an agreement between Uganda and Sudan allowing the Ugandan Army to track suspected LRA rebels 60 miles into Sudan, few rebel leaders have been caught.

By issuing the five arrest warrants, the ICC has sent a clear message that a stumbling peace process has failed.

"They are only after justice and vengeance now," said one Western aid official working in northern Uganda.

Yes, wouldn't do to lend any credence to murdered Americans or bombed Israeli children, or blown up Iraqi civilians or Spanish train riders in any way blame any Muslim or Osama himself, but if the guy mentions the Ten Commandments - Ring Him Up! ---Konaice

They may call themselves the 'Lord's Resistance Army,' but do not for one moment think these guys are Christian in any way manner or form. The stuff they have done would make any Taliban kook squeal with unabated glee. This has nothing to do with the 10 commandments, and the LRA may claim to be Christian but that would be tantamount to Osama claiming he is Mother Teressa.

I once saw what the LRA did ....and let me just say some of the things they do to children have to come from the very maw of hell. Don't think for one moment that the LRA has anything to do with Christianity, no matter what they call themselves.

This reminds me of those 2 children in Burma who were the head of some rebel group. They were leading a group of rebels (I'd say terrorists), mainly from the Burmese minority called the Karen, and they would regularly raid Thai towns on the border. Like the Ugandan Lord's Resistance Army, these kids also gave their group a Christian sounding name ....in this case simply 'God's Army.' And like the LRA they did their fair share of atrocities, although nowhere near the sheer magnitude of horror that the LRA has done ....for example the LRA forces the children it abducts to kill one of their relatives, usually parents, or else see the entire family slaughtered. Most of these kidnapped Ugandan kids are around the ages of 12-14, and the ones who are not forced into being soldiers (I'd say cannon fodder) are turned into sex slaves. Most of the girls who are brought into sexual slavery are younger than 15 (actually very few of the kids are older than 15).

The LRA has kidnapped 20,000 children since it started its reign of terror, and every single night 40,000 Ugandan children have to commute from the rural areas to the bigger towns to avoid being captured by the LRA. Every single night. The following is a picture of a hospital that basically opens up room for people to send their kids every night so they can spend the night hours in relative safety. These kids are sleeping out in the open (no space inside), but at least they know that they will be there in the morning (as opposed to being forced to make a decision, at the age of 12 or 13 or 14, on whether to kill one member of their family or watch the entire family get hacked to pieces).

Anyways, going back to Burma and the 2 kids who led God's Army. Like the LRA, GA was a cult. The Karen minority in Burma believed the 2 kids (twins BTW) to be some sort of saint-cum-charismatic leader-cum-miracle worked-cum-blessed ones. They would have bibles in one hand and M-16s in the other, and they used to chain-smoke like crazy (they would literally chug away like 2 little smokestacks). And they were only 12 yrs old.

Anyways, the twins were finally captured after surrendering to Thai authorities (I guess God was not on their side after all), and it is quite hard to understand what was so charismatic about them. They had lice literally falling from their hair (more like matted dreadlocks), and were emaciated (they seemed younger than 12 yrs of age). I don't know what happened to the twins though ....once arrested they just disappeared.

Here is a pic of the twins who headed 'God's Army:'

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