Kampala - It was meant to be our finest hour, a lightning fast air raid followed by a thunderous blow from elements of the Special Forces. A Uganda Peoples Defense forces (UPDF) air-ground taskforce equipped with fighter planes, attack helicopters and elite forces, poised to deliver a telling blow to the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) a rebel force equipped with nothing more than assault rifles, razor sharp machetes and a potent ideological mix of traditional religion and an insane reinterpretation of the Bible and the Ten Commandments.
The LRA has proved to be resilient, while several armed groups have come and gone, the LRA has persisted. Carefully reading the geopolitical signs, it has survived by remaining relevant to one destabilizing agenda after another. And, in that time has built a gruesome reputation founded on kidnap, the venerable AK- 47 assault rifle and razor sharp machetes.
The protagonists were thus not unfamiliar with each other, having been locked in a macabre embrace for more than two decades.
Zero hour
December 14th 2008, in a tent somewhere in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Operation Lighting Thunder planning staff are only mildly anxious as they pore over maps of North Eastern Congo. Outside; mechanics obsessively check the planes and the helicopters.
Men from the newly formed Special Forces Group in full battle gear stand in groups checking and rechecking their rifles. The air is tense. They will be inserted into battle by helicopters, they are the lucky ones, somewhere in the vastness beyond several companies of men, the blocking force, are walking to the objective.
The weather has cast a deciding vote, it has been raining and there is thick fog, the Mig- 21 planes, the crucial first wave cannot deploy. In the tent, there is whispered talk about how the weather slowed down Operation Overlord the allied invasion of Europe and it turned out to be a success and how the air campaign in Gulf War One had been halted for a whole seven days because of bad weather.
The mission commander asks his signaler to reach out to the blocking force, the report is not good, the rain has turned the ground into a gelatinous mess, they may not make the objective in time. The clock winds down.
The window of opportunity is slowly closing; mission command reaches out to the blocking force again what is their status. Progress is still slow they will not make the objective in time.
The meteorologist comes in, there is good news, the weather has cleared enough for the fighter’s to be launched. The mission commander calls a meeting attendees are the air wing commander, the ground forces commander, the operation intelligence officer and lays the options on the table; the ground component will not be in place in time. The weather has cleared enough for them to launch the fighters, the new plan is air assets only.
Without the ground troops there is a real chance Kony will escape into the vastness of Garamba. An attack from the air will deprive him of food and shelter and may kill off some of his forces. Furthermore there is no telling what vindictive, retributive wrath he will unleash upon the people of north eastern Congo. Will this constitute victory?
There is silence around the table, each of these men know this is not only about killing Kony, it is one the most important auditions in their lives, it is about proving the post- Luwero generation of officers and men have what it takes. It is also about proving that the new bi service model of the UPDF can work.
After Action report.
A lot has been written about that day December 14 2008, the mission failed in its cardinal aim killing Joseph Kony and yet it was a success in the sense that it showed all and sundry that Uganda has evolving capabilities, there is no such thing as a safe haven.
Why talk about this operation three year after the fact? In 2008 the Americans offered technical and financial support, in 2011 they have offered boots on the ground, the Chinese have offered money some would say a violation of their long held tenet of non-interference and the Europeans have offered to build a base.
In 2011 the battle to end the Kony menace is a microcosm of the much wider battle between the US and China and to some extent the EU for what has been called the Post-American Era. In the second part of this is three part piece I will highlight the key failures of the initial strike in December 2008, and lastly I will address the current context in which we find ourselves.
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