Uganda and the United States have ended a six-year hunt for elusive warlord Joseph Kony and his notorious Lord's Resistance Army. But calling off the mission, focused on Central African Republic, has left the commander of Ugandan forces in the country frustrated and advocacy groups concerned that the failure to "kill or capture" Kony could see the insurgency rebound.

Start the conversation, or Read more at IRIN. </s> Joseph Kony speaks during a meeting with a delegation of 160 officials and lawmakers from northern Uganda in July 2006. KAMPALA - This week, the international manhunt for Joseph Kony came to an undistinguished end.

Start the conversation, or Read more at The Washington Post. </s> Libreville — On Wednesday, US special forces begin pulling out of the Central African Republic (CAR) where they were deployed in 2011 to help hunt the brutal Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) warlord, Joseph Kony. The move, which was announced last month, will see US troops pulling out of the country’s east where they have been helping Ugandan forces track down the feared LRA’s rebels.

"The time has come to move forward because the organisation itself is really in a survival mode," general Thomas Waldhauser, head of the US military’s Africa Command (Africom) said in a telephone briefing last week.

One of Africa’s longest-surviving rebel groups, the LRA has terrorised parts of central Africa for 30 years. Several years ago it counted several thousand fighters but today has fewer than 100, with the rebels dispersed across parts of CAR, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan and South Sudan.

Since it was set up by Kony in 1987, the LRA has slaughtered more than 100,000 people and abducted 60,000 children who were forced to become sex slaves and soldiers, UN figures show.

In 2011, Washington sent in about 100 US troops to eastern CAR to help regional forces hunt down Kony, adding another 150 special forces airmen three years later. But last month, Africom said it would be wrapping up the operation which has cost between $600m and $800m, even though Kony remains at large. "This operation was a significant success," Jeffrey Hawkins, the US envoy to CAR, told France’s RFI radio in early April.

Ugandan troops, who have been in eastern CAR since 2009, are also withdrawing from the area. Last week, the army said the mission to neutralise the LRA had been "successfully achieved" and that Kony "no longer poses any significant threat" to Uganda’s national security.

Although his power is much diminished, Kony — who combines religious mysticism with guerrilla tactics and a grim reputation for kidnapping and mutilation — remains at large. According to Paul Ronan of the US-based advocacy group Invisible Children, which was behind an explosive 2012 video highlighting Kony’s atrocities and calling for his capture, the warlord is believed to be either in Sudan or CAR.

A self-styled prophet, Kony launched his bloody rebellion in a bid to overthrow the Ugandan government and impose a regime based on his own version of the Ten Commandments. He is wanted by the International Criminal Court in The Hague for war crimes and crimes against humanity, where one of his commanders, Dominic Ongwen, is currently on trial. </s> US special forces on Wednesday begin pulling out of Central African Republic where they deployed in 2011 to help hunt the brutal LRA warlord Joseph Kony.

The move, which was announced last month, will see US troops pulling out of the country's east where they have been helping Ugandan forces track down rebels from the feared Lord's Resistance Army (LRA).

"The time has come to move forward because the organisation itself is really in a survival mode," General Thomas Waldhauser, head of the US military's Africa Command (AFRICOM) said in a telephone briefing last week.

One of Africa's longest-surviving rebel groups, the LRA has terrorised parts of central Africa for 30 years.

Several years ago it counted several thousand fighters but today has fewer than 100, with the rebels dispersed across parts of CAR, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan and South Sudan.

Since it was set up by Kony in 1987, the LRA has slaughtered more than 100,000 people and abducted 60,000 children who were forced to become sex slaves and soldiers, UN figures show.

In 2011, Washington sent in around 100 US troops to eastern CAR to help regional forces hunt down Kony, adding another 150 special forces airmen three years later.

But last month, AFRICOM said it would be wrapping up the operation, which has cost between $600 and $800 million, even though Kony remains at large.

"This operation was a significant success," Jeffrey Hawkins, the US envoy to CAR, told France's RFI radio in early April.

Ugandan troops, who have been in eastern CAR since 2009, are also withdrawing from the area.

Last week, the army said the mission to neutralise the LRA had been "successfully achieved" and that Kony "no longer poses any significant threat" to Uganda's national security.

Although his power is much diminished, Kony -- who combines religious mysticism with guerrilla tactics and a grim reputation for kidnapping and mutilation -- remains at large.

According to Paul Ronan of the US-based advocacy group Invisible Children, which was behind an explosive 2012 video highlighting Kony's atrocities and calling for his capture, the warlord is believed to be either in Sudan or CAR.

A self-styled prophet, Kony launched his bloody rebellion in a bid to overthrow the Ugandan government and impose a regime based on his own version of the Ten Commandments.

He is wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague for war crimes and crimes against humanity, where one of his commanders, Dominic Ongwen, is currently on trial.

- 'Why do we care?' -

Earlier this year, questions appeared to arise over the level of US commitment to its various operations in Africa in the form of a set of questions posed by the transition team of incoming president Donald Trump to the State Department.

"The LRA has never attacked US interests, why do we care? Is it worth the huge cash outlays? I hear that even the Ugandans are looking to stop searching for him, since they no longer view him as a threat, so why do we?" said the document, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times.

And last month, AFRICOM's Waldhauser confirmed the operations were drawing to a close, saying there were only about 100 LRA rebels and that the mission had "essentially taken that group off the battlefield."

"Everywhere, in cafes, people are talking about the departure of the Ugandan and American troops," a resident of Obo, a town in CAR's southwest, told AFP by phone.

On April 17, around 6,000 people in the town took to the streets to demand that both sets of troops stay in place until they can be replaced by Central African forces.

Although there are UN peacekeeping forces from its MINUSCA mission in Central Africa, very few of them are present in the east of the country.

"This withdrawal will lead to a renewal of LRA attacks in the southeast," warned Thierry Vircoulon, a specialist on central Africa at IFRI, the French institute for international relations.

"Nobody is under any illusion that the Central African troops which are to be sent there to avoid a security vacuum will be able to neutralise the LRA."

As well as the threat from Kony's militia, the eastern region is also struggling with attacks by other "armed groups", regional police chief Ghislain Dieu-Benit Kolengo told AFP.

He was referring to rebels from the mainly Muslim ex-Seleka militia and from the Union for Peace in the Central African Republic (UPC), a splinter group from a rebel force in neighbouring Chad which rights groups say executed 32 civilians and captive fighters late last year.

"Even though we are officially ending the so-called counter-LRA mission, we are certainly aware of the fact that we don't want to leave a void there," said Waldhauser.

And he said Washington would continue to offer support to African troops in the form of both "training" and "intelligence". </s> US special forces on Wednesday begin pulling out of Central African Republic where they deployed in 2011 to help hunt the brutal LRA warlord Joseph Kony.

The move, which was announced last month, will see US troops pulling out of the country's east where they have been helping Ugandan forces track down rebels from the feared Lord's Resistance Army (LRA).

"The time has come to move forward because the organisation itself is really in a survival mode,"General Thomas Waldhauser, head of the US military's Africa Command (AFRICOM) said in a telephone briefing last week.

Several years ago it counted several thousand fighters but today has fewer than 100, with the rebels dispersed across parts of CAR, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan and South Sudan.

Since it was set up by Kony in 1987, the LRA has slaughtered more than 100,000 people and abducted 60,000 children who were forced to become sex slaves and soldiers, UN figures show.

In 2011, Washington sent in around 100 US troops to eastern CAR to help regional forces hunt down Kony, adding another 150 special forces airmen three years later.

But last month, AFRICOM said it would be wrapping up the operation, which has cost between $600 and $800 million, even though Kony remains at large.

'Significant success'

"This operation was a significant success," Jeffrey Hawkins, the US envoy to CAR, told France's RFI radio in early April.

Ugandan troops, who have been in eastern CAR since 2009, are also withdrawing from the area.

Last week, the army said the mission to neutralise the LRA had been "successfully achieved" and that Kony "no longer poses any significant threat" to Uganda's national security.

Although his power is much diminished, Kony -- who combines religious mysticism with guerrilla tactics and a grim reputation for kidnapping and mutilation -- remains at large.

According to Paul Ronan of the US-based advocacy group Invisible Children, which was behind an explosive 2012 video highlighting Kony's atrocities and calling for his capture, the warlord is believed to be either in Sudan or CAR.

A self-styled prophet, Kony launched his bloody rebellion in a bid to overthrow the Ugandan government and impose a regime based on his own version of the Ten Commandments.

He is wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague for war crimes and crimes against humanity, where one of his commanders, Dominic Ongwen, is currently on trial.

'Why do we care?'

Earlier this year, questions appeared to arise over the level of US commitment to its various operations in Africa in the form of a set of questions posed by the transition team of incoming president Donald Trump to the State Department.

"The LRA has never attacked US interests, why do we care? Is it worth the huge cash outlays? I hear that even the Ugandans are looking to stop searching for him, since they no longer view him as a threat, so why do we?" said the document, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times.

And last month, AFRICOM's Waldhauser confirmed the operations were drawing to a close, saying there were only about 100 LRA rebels and that the mission had "essentially taken that group off the battlefield."

Fears in the east

"Everywhere, in cafes, people are talking about the departure of the Ugandan and American troops," a resident of Obo, a town in CAR's southwest, told AFP by phone.

On April 17, around 6,000 people in the town took to the streets to demand that both sets of troops stay in place until they can be replaced by Central African forces.

Although there are UN peacekeeping forces from its MINUSCA mission in Central Africa, very few of them are present in the east of the country.

"This withdrawal will lead to a renewal of LRA attacks in the southeast," warned Thierry Vircoulon, a specialist on central Africa at IFRI, the French institute for international relations.

"Nobody is under any illusion that the Central African troops which are to be sent there to avoid a security vacuum will be able to neutralise the LRA."

As well as the threat from Kony's militia, the eastern region is also struggling with attacks by other "armed groups", regional police chief Ghislain Dieu-Benit Kolengo told AFP.

He was referring to rebels from the mainly Muslim ex-Seleka militia and from the Union for Peace in the Central African Republic (UPC), a splinter group from a rebel force in neighbouring Chad which rights groups say executed 32 civilians and captive fighters late last year.

"Even though we are officially ending the so-called counter-LRA mission, we are certainly aware of the fact that we don't want to leave a void there," said Waldhauser.

And he said Washington would continue to offer support to African troops in the form of both "training" and "intelligence". </s> Congolese authorities have arrested two people suspected of involvement in the murder of two U.N. workers in central Democratic Republic of Congo, but one of the prisoners has escaped, a senior prosecutor said Friday.

The announcement was the first reported sign of progress in an inquiry into the deaths of American Michael Sharp and Swede Zaida Catalan, investigators monitoring U.N. Security Council sanctions against individuals and armed groups in Congo.

Their bodies were discovered in a shallow grave on March 27, two weeks after they disappeared in the remote and sparsely populated Kasai-Central province.

Their Congolese interpreter and three Congolese motorbike drivers who accompanied them have not been found, according to the United Nations.

General Joseph Ponde, the army's top prosecutor, did not say when the two suspects were arrested, but said the remaining one had been transferred between facilities on April 4 — meaning the operation must have happened more than a week ago.

He referred to the one suspect in custody, Daniel Mbayi Kabasele, as an "insurgent," without offering further detail or suggesting a motive.

Four police officers responsible for guarding the suspects had been arrested following the escape, he told journalists.

The U.N. mission in Congo had no immediate comment.

Millions died in regional conflicts in eastern Congo between 1996-2003, most from hunger and disease, and dozens of armed groups continue to fight over natural resources and prey on the civilian population.

Hundreds of civilians have been killed and more than one million displaced since last August in central Congo's Kasai region due to fighting between a local militia and security forces. The United Nations has identified at least 23 mass graves.

Meanwhile, Congo has suspended its military cooperation with former colonial power Belgium in protest against criticism last week by Belgium's foreign minister of President Joseph Kabila's selection of a new prime minister, defense minister Crispin Atama Tabe told Reuters on Friday.

The move underlines growing tensions between Congo and international powers, who are pushing for an election by the end of the year to replace Kabila after he refused to step down when his constitutional mandate expired in December.

Belgian foreign minister Didier Reynders said the nomination of Bruno Tshibala violated the spirit of a December deal with the opposition to form an interim power-sharing government.

Belgian defense ministry spokeswoman Laurence Mortier confirmed that Congo had informed Belgium of its intention to end the cooperation, which included around 30 Belgian military trainers in Congo who may be withdrawn as a result. </s> The bodies of an American and a Swedish investigator for the United Nations were found in a shallow grave in the Democratic Republic of Congo, more than two weeks after they disappeared, the U.N. confirmed Tuesday.

American Michael Sharp and Swede Zaida Catalan were members of a U.N. Group of Experts investigating violence and alleged human rights violations by the Congolese army and local militia groups in the Central Kasai province. Sharp, Zaida, their Congolese interpreter Bete Tshintela, and their three local drivers all went missing March 12 while working in the region.

Congo's police inspector general, Charles Bisengimana, said the bodies were found Monday between the cities of Tshimbulu and Kananga, the provincial capital.

The U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres confirmed their deaths in a statement released Tuesday evening, offering his condolences to their families. In the statement, Guterres promised an inquiry into the cause of their deaths and asked the Congolese authorities to "conduct a full investigation into this incident." He urged the local authorities to continue searching for the four Congolese nationals who are still missing.

"Michael and Zaida lost their lives seeking to understand the causes of conflict and insecurity in the DRC in order to help bring peace to the country and its people," Guterres said in the statement. "We will honor their memory by continuing to support the invaluable work of the Group of Experts and the whole UN family in the DRC."

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley also praised Sharp's professionalism.

"Michael was working on the front lines of what we try to do at the United Nations every day: find problems and fix them," Haley said in a statement. "He selflessly put himself in harm's way to try to make a difference in the lives of the Congolese people."

Sharp, 34, was the middle child of two sisters from Kansas. His father, John Sharp, told NBC News that an "unidentified militia group" was responsible for his kidnapping when he first learned his son went missing.

His father said his son was dedicated to doing humanitarian work in eastern Congo even before he joined the United Nations.

"It's really odd that some people think that violence is the answer to the problem, it's illogical," Sharp told NBC News. </s> JOHANNESBURG (AP) — A peace deal has been reached between the Central African Republic government and 14 armed groups after their first-ever direct dialogue aimed at ending years of conflict, the United Nations and African…

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — A peace deal has been reached between the Central African Republic government and 14 armed groups after their first-ever direct dialogue aimed at ending years of conflict, the United Nations and African Union announced on Saturday.

The peace deal represents rare hope for the impoverished, landlocked nation where interreligious and intercommunal fighting has continued since 2013. Thousands of people have been killed and hundreds of thousands displaced in a conflict that has sent two people to the International Criminal Court.

“I am determined to work with the president and his government to address the concerns of our brothers who took up arms,” said Central African Republic’s Cabinet director Firmin Ngrebada, according to the U.N.

The parties on Sunday will sign a draft of the agreement, which focuses on power-sharing and transitional justice, Sudan’s state media reported, citing Sudan’s chief negotiator Atta al-Manan. The final deal is expected to be signed on Wednesday. Talks began Jan. 24 in Khartoum.

“This is a great day for Central African Republic and all its people,” said the AU commissioner for peace and security, Smail Chergui.

The fighting has carried the high risk of genocide, the U.N. has warned. The conflict began in 2013 when predominantly Muslim Seleka rebels seized power in the capital, Bangui. Largely Christian anti-Balaka militias fought back. Scores of mosques were burned. Priests and other religious leaders were killed. Many Muslims fled the country after mobs decapitated and dismembered some in the streets.

The vicious fighting in a country known more for coups than interreligious violence was so alarming that Pope Francis made a bold visit in 2015, removing his shoes and bowing his head at the Central Mosque in the last remaining Muslim neighborhood of the capital, Bangui.

“Together we say ‘no’ to hatred,” the pope said.

The violence has never disappeared, intensifying and spreading last year after a period of relative peace as armed groups battled over lands rich in gold, diamonds and uranium.

After more than 40 people were killed in a rebel attack on a displaced persons camp in November, both the leader of the 13,000-strong U.N. peacekeeping mission and the country’s prime minister both acknowledged shortcomings in the response. “I knew that we did not have all the necessary means to protect our people,” the prime minister said.

In a grim report last year marking five years of the conflict, the U.N. children’s agency said fighters often target civilians rather than each other, attacking health facilities and schools, mosques and churches and camps for displaced people. At least half of the more than 640,000 people displaced are children, it said, and thousands are thought to have joined the armed groups, often under pressure.

Last month the chief of Central African Republic’s soccer federation appeared at the International Criminal Court for the first time since he was arrested last year in France on charges of crimes against humanity and war crimes. Patrice-Edouard Ngaissona is accused of leading the anti-Balaka for at least a year early in the fighting.

In November a Central African Republic militia leader and lawmaker, Alfred Yekatom, made his first ICC appearance, accused of crimes including murder, torture and using child soldiers. He allegedly commanded some 3,000 fighters in a predominantly Christian militia in and around the capital early in the fighting. He was arrested last year after firing gunshots in parliament.

So far no Seleka fighters have been publicly targeted by the court’s chief prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda.

As the peace talks began last month, the Norwegian Refugee Council warned of “catastrophe” if no agreement was reached, saying repeated cycles of violence in one of the world’s poorest nations had “pushed people(asterisk)s resistance to breaking point.”

A majority of Central African Republic’s 2.9 million people urgently need humanitarian support, the group said.

On Thursday, the U.N. Security Council voted unanimously to extend an arms embargo on Central African Republic for a year but raised the possibility that it could be lifted earlier as the government has long urged.

Copyright © 2019 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, written or redistributed. </s> The United States has issued a travel warning against visiting the Democratic Republic of Congo, after the bodies of two missing UN researchers and their translator were found lying in a shallow grave.

Michael Sharp, a 34-year-old from Kansas, and Zaida Catalan, 36, from Sweden, went missing on March 12, having set out to investigate mass graves in the Kasai province.

On Monday their bodies were found in a shallow grave, along with that of Bete Tshintela.

On Wednesday the state department updated its previous advice, and now recommends that all US citizens avoid unnecessary travel to the DRC. </s> ABIDJAN (Reuters) - Villagers in Democratic Republic of Congo discovered the remains of two U.N. investigators and their Congolese interpreter who went missing this month in an area engulfed in a violent uprising, a government spokesman said on Tuesday.

Michael Sharp, a U.S. citizen, and Zaida Catalan, a Swedish national, had been in a group of experts monitoring a sanctions regime imposed on Congo by the U.N. Security Council when they disappeared in Kasai Central province.

In a statement issued in New York, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres confirmed that the remains of the two investigators missing since March 12 had been found in Congo and said the world body would conduct an inquiry.

Villagers found the bodies of two Caucasians and one Congolese not far from where the experts group vanished, according to the government.

Police informed the authorities in the capital Kinshasa on Monday and a team including the provincial police commissioner was sent to the scene to identify the bodies.

“It’s now a certainty. It is the two investigators. We identified the third body in the grave with them as their Congolese interpreter,” Communications Minister Lambert Mende told Reuters.

John Sharp, the father of Michael, posted on his Facebook page that the bodies of two Caucasians had been found in a shallow grave, saying that there was a “high probability” that it was the U.N. officials.

“This is a message I hoped never to write,” he wrote, adding that DNA tests and dental records would be used to confirm the identities of the bodies.

Guterres said the United Nations would cooperate with Congolese authorities in searching for the four Congolese nationals who accompanied the U.N. officials.

“In case of criminal acts, the United Nations will do everything possible to ensure that justice is done,” the U.N. chief said.

The Swedish Foreign Ministry said it would not comment on the incident as it was being handled by the United Nations.

Congo’s Kasai Central region is the epicenter of the Kamuina Nsapu insurgency that has now spread to five provinces in the loosely governed Central African country.

The Kinshasa government said earlier this month the two U.N. officials had fallen into the hands of unidentified “negative forces” along with four Congolese who were with them near the village of Ngombe in Kasai Central.

“Going to places where few people go, asking questions that few people ask, finding out the truth, this is the work of United Nations experts,” said Emilie Serralta, a former coordinator of the U.N. Congo group. “This is how the reports and recommendations (guiding) the Security Council are written.”

Kamuina Nsapu militants pose an increasingly serious threat to President Joseph Kabila, whose decision to stay on beyond the end of his elected mandate last December has sent ripples of unrest across the vast mining powerhouse.

U.N. figures indicate that over 400 people have been killed in violence in which militants have been blamed for atrocities and government forces are accused of targeting civilians.

Local officials said on Saturday militiamen decapitated about 40 police officers in the deadliest attack on the security forces since the uprising began last year.
The United States ended a six-year Central-African hunt for Joseph Kony.