To Stop a Warlord

by Shannon Sedgwick Davis

  I want your group to have what is called “esprit de corps.” Have strong regard for your unit, and feel proud to be a member of your group. I want everybody to be inspired to belong to your unit. May you serve as an example so that others may emulate you. Are we together?

  “Yes, sir,” the graduates chorused.

  General Wamala switched to English to thank the trainers. “The skills that STTEP has imparted are not theoretical things,” he said. “They are practical things, because you’ve been at it yourselves.” Then he turned and spoke directly to me. “Shannon, please give our regards to your family. Those small kids, tell them somebody somewhere appreciates what you do. Because you care, because you feel for others—that’s why you’re out here. That is why I want to thank you.”

  The reservations I’d had about the training mission and my role in it felt transformed by this moment of connection.

  At the end of the ceremony the soldiers broke into song, voices interlocking in harmony, whistles and ululations threading through the melody. General Wamala clapped and sang along. When they raised their arms to the sky I could see the black, yellow, and red stripes of the Ugandan flags on the sleeves of their uniforms. The strength and jubilation—their sheer joy—made my heart pound.

  As we filed toward the tent to share a meal, Laren and I shook the soldiers’ hands. “Apwoyo,” they said in Acholi. Thank you. “Apwoyo, bene,” we replied. Thank you, too.

  Before we sat down to eat, Laren pulled me aside. “I’ve had this pinnacle feeling before,” he said. “After the years of peace talks, that day in Garamba when Kony was supposed to sign the peace agreement, the hope that it could all come to an end. It didn’t. But today, seeing these troops—there hasn’t been a single day for me that’s contained so much hope that the war could be over soon.”

  I felt it, too. It had been a challenge to find hope in the journey so far. We’d hit so many roadblocks. Every roadblock meant more months of inaction—and the consequences that came from that inaction. But today was a point of hope.

  After the meal the soldiers returned to their barracks. They didn’t walk. They danced. I got up and danced with them. Strained by the heat and all the joyful dancing, the charm bracelet I’d worn every day of the training burst—the beads, the chain, and Saint Jude went flying. Lieutenant Charles found Saint Jude in the grass and restored the charm to me. I put it on a string around my neck.

  28

  NOT IN OUR INTERESTS

  AFTER GRADUATION, THE Special Operations Group deployed to the field, working out of forward counter-LRA bases established in Nzara (South Sudan), Dungu (Democratic Republic of Congo), Djemah (Central African Republic), and Obo (Central African Republic). The South Africans stayed on in the region to prepare for the next SOG training and wait for proof of concept—for a glimmer of a sign that the training they had provided might bring the world closer to capturing Kony.

  Despite the highly motivated and well-trained troops, all that was proved in the first month of deployment was the extreme difficulty of the work. On top of the geographic isolation, the SOG was operating in an intelligence vacuum. The large-scale reconnaissance patrols and former human intelligence assets the Ugandan military had used in the past were no longer sustainable given counter-LRA troop drawdowns and the LRA’s expansion into more and more remote areas of operation. The Ugandan military could intercept radio calls between LRA groups, but they didn’t know who was communicating or how to decode the content of the messages. The LRA communicated in a complex brevity code in which common words were coded to represent people, places, and events. The codes changed frequently. The SOG had no idea where exactly the LRA groups were operating or who was in them, no clue if they were getting any closer to ensuring freedom for Kony’s hostages or justice for the perpetrators.

  In fact, it would take years of institutional knowledge and creative intelligence gathering to understand where and how and why the LRA moved—to learn their sources for food and water, their river crossing points, and the routes they traveled to engage in illegal ivory trading. Eventually the Ugandan military would recruit informants—sometimes community leaders in areas suffering from LRA raids, or hunters and fishermen who would occasionally encounter the LRA in the bush, or nomadic cattle herders enduring LRA thefts of livestock or food. This intelligence would help us learn the LRA travel routes. But in the first weeks after deployment, the intelligence picture was extremely poor, the Darth Vader sticker still unplaceable on the map I’d made the boys.

  The SOG soldiers split into small teams of four or five men, and walked for days and weeks on end, tirelessly tracking in the jungle, looking for any subtle sign—grass bent down where someone had slept, the remnants of a cooking fire—that might suggest the LRA had passed there. If they found a possible trail, then came the challenge of following it, navigating the zigzags, splits, and numerous countertracking strategies the LRA employed, constantly trying to gauge how far ahead the enemy was traveling so they could call on another SOG group to try to box in the LRA. It was slow, tedious work, and even though one SOG group in particular—the one led by Lieutenant Charles—had hit the ground running, impressing the Ugandan military leadership with its drive and capability, there was no indication that the SOG’s skills and ambition would actually work to stop the LRA.

  There was also inadequate air support for the mission. There weren’t enough helicopters and planes to get the troops in position to capture LRA leadership, gain real-time intelligence, deliver food supplies, medevac wounded victims, or transport defectors if they emerged from the bush.

  The entire mission was under-resourced for air support, and only a handful of aircraft were available for troop transport. For a number of years, the US Department of State had been supplying two Mi-8 helos to the counter-LRA mission, and they were often flown using contracted eastern European pilots—but the contract was severely limited. Negotiated years in advance, the contract had predetermined limits on the number of flight hours, fuel amounts, and areas where the helicopters were allowed to fly, so the air support was unable to adapt to operational needs as they arose. The State Department helos were stationed in South Sudan, far away from the major tracking work in the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of Congo. They could fly one run if they left early enough in the morning, but they had to fly back to South Sudan by the end of the day. On top of that, the pilots would only use landing zones that were secured by the Ugandan military, making the helos unsuited for remote tactical missions. The Mi-8s were also highly fuel inefficient, consuming more than 200 gallons of fuel per hour.

  If Bridgeway could contract a helo, we could choose a more fuel-efficient aircraft and arrange for it to be stationed closer to the action where it could accomplish more with fewer—and less expensive—air hours. The Ugandan military could mobilize Bridgeway’s assets immediately and use them to quickly adapt to new requirements such as entering denied areas or overnighting in the jungle.

  During our conversations with General Aronda the previous summer, he had insisted on the need for more air support. And I had balked. Now we were facing the reality that General Aronda had been trying to make us face, that the mission wasn’t going to succeed without more air platforms. For the soldiers who had worked so hard to train to be effective, the mission needed helicopters. In our eagerness to get the training going, we had failed to take seriously the Ugandans’ top need.

  * * *

  —

  Muneer and I spoke about the need for more air support—how we had to fill the gap if we were going to end the LRA conflict. He suggested we talk to the US government about lending more support to the mission. He was hosting an event at his home the following week and many of the country’s most powerful legislators would be present. He invited me to attend and urged me to come early so he could schedule hour-long meetings with a few senators and congressmen, including Senator Mark Kirk from Illinois.
“If you can explain to them what you’re doing and why, maybe they can convince the US government to back the mission in a more significant way,” he advised.

  This was an incredible opportunity to brief some members of Congress on the project and shore up the kind of support that could make or break the mission. But I had to think hard before I could accept. Every time we widened the circle of people who knew about the mission, we took a risk. Word could break to the media, and I feared that a story would get things wrong and sensationalize what we were doing. A story like that would only be a distraction, something that could greatly hinder our ability to push forward, so I hesitated to bring too many people into the picture. I also recognized Muneer’s amazing generosity. To help fund the mission was one kind of gift. But to expend his political capital was even more extraordinary—and risky, a sign of his deep-seated trust. He was willing to risk his reputation and influence to stop a warlord. If he was willing, others might be, too.

  * * *

  —

  A few days later, I sat in a room in Muneer’s home on Lake Michigan. It was a muggy July day in Chicago, the air as thick as porridge, but near the water it was cooler. I watched the waves rolling over the sand and took deep breaths. For the next three hours I would tell and retell the story of Kony’s atrocities and our efforts to stop them, speaking to every legislator one at a time.

  Each conversation unspooled in a similar way. The men already knew about Joseph Kony and the LRA—most had signed the disarmament bill the year before. They expressed their disgust at the horrors waged on Central and East Africans for the past two and a half decades, their desire for something to be done. Senator Kirk was especially vehement. Before he knew anything about our intervention he said, coincidentally, “Someone needs to go hire Executive Outcomes”—Eeben’s former company!—“and get those guys.” Muneer and I exchanged surprised glances.

  By the end of my presentation, each man was pleased to learn of our training mission, and applauded our efforts. But no one saw a scenario for the US government to fund additional helicopters for the mission. Senator Kirk said, “What you’re doing is important. But you’re not going to get helicopters from us for something that isn’t in our national security interest.”

  Just before he left the room he turned to me and added, “When you fail, be ready to go after Kony again. It’s going to take three tries.”

  Senator Kirk’s advice was hard to swallow, but sounded accurate. Without helos, I had to concede that it didn’t seem realistic we’d succeed. I had spent the day in the company of elite wealth and political power, but the status quo hadn’t changed. The US would not be able to deploy additional air assets to the mission, at least not anytime soon.

  The lack of helos was another blocked path that would only prolong Kony’s ability to do harm, and another frustrating recognition that even when people had the will and the means to support a cause, they weren’t always able to help. And yet I felt encouraged. Everywhere we’d turned for help we hadn’t faced resistance. From humanitarians, the State Department, and now the halls of Congress we’d heard again and again: “What you’re doing makes sense. It’s the right thing.” I hadn’t solved our air support deficit, and we had likely committed ourselves to many more months on the ground than we’d anticipated. But I could move forward with continued reassurance and conviction that we were doing what had to be done. I would have to trust that it wasn’t just necessary—that it was possible, too. Muneer, disappointed in the outcome of the meetings, wondered if we should try to fund the helos ourselves.

  29

  CONTACT

  A FEW WEEKS later, we had encouraging news from the mission: in the first month of the Special Operations Group (SOG) deployment, there had been a sharp decrease in the number of LRA attacks and civilians killed.

  “We can’t assume it’s because of the SOG,” Laren cautioned. “The LRA could be less active due to seasonal changes, or a change in their strategy.”

  But then, while Laren was spending some weeks at home before the launch of the second training, we heard some news we’d been anticipating: the SOG had made their first contact with the LRA.

  Soon after deployment, a SOG team had tracked the LRA in the Democratic Republic of Congo, moving in the direction of a large river. There were only a few points shallow enough to cross, so the SOG troops laid an ambush on the opposite side of the river, across from the expected crossing point. The LRA sent a security party across the river that night. On their return crossing, they tripped the ambush, igniting a firefight. The confrontation ended when the LRA members scattered into the dense terrain and the SOG lost their trail. No one was captured or freed. In their hasty flight the LRA had left behind only a few pots and pans and some minor equipment, no intelligence of value. But it was contact early in the game. And it proved that as time-intensive and arduous as it was to travel the immense jungle day and night in small teams searching for signs of the LRA, the very hardest thing was possible. It was possible to track them. If the SOG could find his army, it seemed to follow that they could find Kony.

  The Ugandan military already knew that Dominic Ongwen, aka White Ant—one of Kony’s top three commanders and one of the International Criminal Court indictees—operated with the LRA’s group in Congo. They presumed he’d been with the group that was tracked and ambushed by the SOG. Ongwen had been abducted by the LRA when he was walking to primary school one day, around twenty years ago. He’d been placed with Vincent Otti, one of Kony’s senior commanders, and as Otti was promoted up the ranks of the LRA, so was Ongwen. To have already made contact with his group in particular gave me hope that we could bring Kony and his fellow war criminals to justice.

  “It’s working,” I said to Laren over the phone, my heart beating hard.

  Laren was silent on the other side of the line. “It’s working,” he finally agreed. “But the gaps are becoming painfully clear.”

  While the success of the first mission had given the SOG the invaluable confidence that they could track the LRA in the jungle, it also continued to prove the glaring deficit in air support. When Captain Kommando had called the base to request helicopter support for the ambush, he was told there was no helo available to assist for five days. It might as well have been a year for all the good it would do. With the right air support, Dominic Ongwen could already have been in custody. But he was at large again in a vast area—and now he knew he was being pursued.

  30

  COMMAND, MAN DOWN

  LAREN RETURNED TO the field in September 2011 and began living with the Ugandan SOG troops working out of the forward operations base in Djemah, Central African Republic. Of the three forward counter-LRA bases, the one in Djemah was the most remote. A speck of a red-dirt village surrounded by dense, unending forest interspersed with uninhabited savanna grassland clearings, Djemah was so tiny it didn’t appear on most maps. A few years later, a National Geographic article would describe Obo as the most inaccessible point in all of Africa, but Laren would say the writer credited Obo as most remote because you could find it on a map. “Djemah’s so far out in the sticks it makes Obo look like New York City,” he’d say.

  Laren rotated between the forward bases as needed, to help coordinate between the three Ugandan lieutenant colonels, each commanding a different counter-LRA mission zone, and to ensure that Bridgeway was able to offer the SOG timely and appropriate assistance.

  Shortly after his arrival in Djemah, Laren called to report more contact with the LRA. A SOG squad had been tracking an LRA group as it moved from the border with Congo up to northern Central African Republic. The farther north they moved, the more tracks the SOG discovered, and the Ugandan military leadership realized multiple LRA groups seemed to be converging. It had seemed likely that large, prearranged rendezvous were happening between Kony and the leaders he’d put in command of the various splinter groups. But there’d been no concrete evidence of these
meetings. Now it appeared a big meeting was about to happen, one that Kony himself might attend, and the SOG had all but stumbled into it.

  Captain Kommando directed the SOG team to set up a mobile command post, not much more than a radio placed in the dirt, SOG soldiers sitting around it, and an HF wire up in the trees so they could communicate with the forward base in Djemah.

  Captain Kommando consulted his map, and then briefed his men. “We’ll divide into three groups,” he explained. “Two will flank the target location. One will operate as a pseudo group.”

  The men in the pseudo group would pose as LRA women. They would wear long African-print dresses and scarves on their heads, and pretend they were re-entering the camp after gathering wild yams.

  “There will likely be multiple rings of security around a meeting this important,” Captain Kommando continued. “God willing, the pseudo group will advance through the outer layers of security and reach the inner encampment, where the high-value targets will be.”

  About three miles from where the suspected meeting was taking place, the pseudo group encountered the first ring of security. The LRA fired from a distance on the pseudo team, but the pseudo group maintained their disguise and didn’t return fire, confusing the LRA security who were too far away to see them clearly, and allowing the SOG to penetrate the camp. When they arrived, the meeting was already under way. Among the many gathered, the SOG team identified Okot “the Butcher” Odhiambo; Dominic Ongwen; and, against all odds, Joseph Kony.

  A firefight erupted, the LRA firing rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) and 60 mm mortars. In the deadly chaos, the LRA began to flee. Mobile command radioed back to the Djemah base—a forty-minute flight away—to call for helicopter support and ordered the two flanking forces to try to cut off and surround the LRA’s escape, dropping mortars behind the camp to block the exit. The group flanking on the left-hand side got bogged down in a marsh and couldn’t get into position. The group on the right, led by Lieutenant Charles, soon lost VHF radio communication with mobile command, but continued the assault.