first, newspaper headlines to stories are not necessarily written by the authors of those pieces. secondly, she doesn't say the US should solve the problem. she says, " If America backed an ambitious regional political solution instead of a military one, it is quite possible that the L.R.A. and other militant groups would cease to exist. But without such a bargain, the violence won’t end."
lastly, while i agree with ikhide that the lra should be stopped, that kony should be stopped, ideally put on trial and punished, and that his abuses ended, i also read her analysis as saying that he is a small part of a larger set of military confrontations. frankly, the causes of these wars are a compound of nations vying to get their hands on the resources, and local militias doing the same. the deaths caused by the lra, compare with ANY of those militias in east congo, everywhere from the fdlr to cndd to mai mai to the ugandan backed militias, the hima and lendu etc etc, the hutu and congolese tutsis and rwandan hutu and tutsi militias__ALL of the THEM were responsible for deaths whose numbers dwarfed those caused by the lra, and they are still part of the regional configuration of power. the configuration has altered; the groups are regrouped into different configurations, with the CNDD part of the FARDC, and the rwandans an ugandans still playing their games. nkunda is under house arrest in rwanda, but the conditions that drove him and the fdlr to fight are still there--the minerals are still the major incitement for conflict; the guns still flow into the hands of whoever has enough diamonds and gold and tin to pay; they still go out through rwanda, uganda, and elsewhere.
so, by all means, ignore all of that, focus just on the lra, let's see one more horrible figure (remind me, is it kony or bemba we are talking about this time).
ikhide, you are right. he is bad. the kids matter. but he aint alone.
you ask us to stop analyzing, and start acting. i get that point. but don't you need to know what actions are needed, and against whom?? for instance, you chide us for not paying enough attention to the children. i ask, who is still profiting from those shipments of guns, without which this conflict would not have attained such proportions as to account for 6 million deaths.
ken
On 3/22/12 10:06 AM, Ayo Obe wrote:
Ken, I guess the writer chose her title deliberately, when if Kony is A problem, then she could have left him out of her title or posited that he is not the REAL problem. She wants US attention, and wants the US to solve the problem in the region. Not that I blame her, but the reference to Kony is because Kony 2012 put the issue on the US news agenda.
AyoI invite you to follow me on Twitter @naijama--dear ayo,
the editorial is well written, and has the sophistication we rarely see in u.s. news reporting on africa, that is, it actually explains what political power struggles accounted for the lra, whom it served, whose services it rendered, and who profited from it. it doesn't detail how other groups also used child soldiers. and above it, it certainly says kony is a problem, but not the problem alone. i don't think you could have read the piece if you can ask that question.
it was written by a ugandan who comes from n uganda.
ken
On 3/22/12 4:08 AM, Ayo Obe wrote:If Kony is not THE problem, is he not A problem?
AyoI invite you to follow me on Twitter @naijama--E-Mail This --
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editorial in today's ny times
OPINION | March 21, 2012
Op-Ed Contributor: Kony Is Not the Problem
By ANGELO IZAMA
Long before Joseph Kony, people in northern Uganda were preyed upon.
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