Combating the Lord’s Resistance Army: A Humanitarian Success Story

Children displaced the LRA in northern Uganda. Photograph by an employee of the United States Agency for International Development.

Too often our responses to humanitarian crises are inadequate. Public support for action is hampered by psychic numbing and pseudoinefficacy. Policy makers undervalue human life in the decision making process due to prominence bias. For these reasons it’s worth paying attention to a recent example of a successful humanitarian intervention: the dismantling of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) in Africa.

Writing in The Register-Guard, former Department of State official Jason Lewis-Berry describes the largely successful mission to degrade the LRA. Serving as field representative to the Department of State for LRA issues, Lewis-Berry saw firsthand how activism, diplomacy and military action can work in concert to put an end to ongoing atrocities. Thousands of activists mobilized to get Congress to do something about the LRA, which according to the UN has killed more than 100,000 people and displaced millions in Central and Eastern Africa. Advocacy efforts were successful, culminating in signed legislation committing the U.S. to take action. Working with local civilians and military troops, U.S. diplomats and special forces conducted a campaign against the LRA that resulted in the capture, killing, or defection of senior LRA leaders, and the reduction in the LRA’s fighting force from 3,000 to just 130.

As Lewis-Berry argues, the mission to degrade the LRA demonstrates “that American leadership and ‘America first’ thinking are not mutually exclusive.” When humanitarians, government officials, and military personnel work together, we can end atrocities and ensure a safer world.