The ICC remains committed. U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said this week that LRA leaders must be tried. Reflecting on the LRA's Congo attack, Pillay added, "The brutality employed during the attacks was consistent, deliberate and egregious."
Kony is a consistently vicious psychotic, but he is a small part of the complex mess. For years, Sudan's Islamist government (the wretches who continue to wage genocidal war in Darfur) propped up the LRA. Sudan used LRA violence to keep black African Christians and animists (in Uganda and south Sudan) "off balance." That the LRA billed itself as a messianic Christian movement must have gotten a lot of laughs in Khartoum.
Yet the Acholi tribe of northern Uganda, from which the LRA drew support, had and still has legitimate grievances with the Ugandan government, some rooted in historical issues with southern Ugandan tribes. The government has begun resettlement and economic development programs in northern Uganda, but the war has left deep scars.
Uganda's minister of defense recently said that the tactic of confining civilians to camps in north Uganda during the height of the war with the LRA was "an effective military tool for counterinsurgency." The government had argued, adamantly, that the camps were established to protect civilians.
Critics said the government forced the civilians (many of them Acholis) to enter the camps. Human rights organizations accused the government of failing to provide food and medical aid. Numerous Ugandans now, in the pursuit of justice, demand an investigation of those camps.
Tribal suspicions and historical grievances vex many corners of the world, which is why astute diplomats and generals ought to consult anthropologists. Consultation, however, won't bring peace on Earth, though it should clarify just how difficult and complex a task encouraging peace -- anywhere -- truly is.