Another awesome article by Mr. Gettleman. This is great news and I wonder if the Ugandan military is reading FJ? Because if they are, then they more than likely got this idea about turning the enemy from all the stuff I have posted on pseudo operations and the Selous Scouts. Whomever gave them the idea, good job.
With that said, I would highly recommend to the Ugandan military to also give these former rebels as much support and training as possible. They have a unique knowledge base about the prey they are going after, and if they have the right tools and support, they could easily gain the edge on any LRA troopers they come across.
Each of these hunter killer teams should also have Ugandan special forces attached with them. That way, any kind of CAS that Uganda can bring to the fight, could be called up by trusted SF guys. Or SF handlers could help to coordinate blocking forces, so they could actually entrap LRA groups. Even AFRICOM could provide assistance with a UAV or two. At the least, Uganda should be studying exactly how the Selous Scouts in Rhodesia conducted their programs. Very cool, and I hope they get that bastard Joseph Kony. –Matt
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Uganda Enlists Former Rebels to End a War
April 10, 2010
By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN
OBO, Central African Republic — The night is inky, the helicopters are late and Cmdr. Patrick Opiyo Makasi sits near a dying cooking fire on a remote army base, spinning his thoughts into the darkness.
“It was either them or me,” Commander Makasi said of the countless people he has killed. “Them or me.”
The Lord’s Resistance Army, a notoriously brutal rebel group, snatched him from a riverbank when he was 12 years old, more than 20 years ago, and trained him to burn, pillage and slaughter. His name, Makasi, means scissors in Kiswahili, and fellow soldiers said he earned it by shearing off ears and lips.
But now he has a new mission: hunting down his former boss.
In an unorthodox strategy that could help end this seemingly pointless war, the Ugandan Army is deploying special squads of experienced killers to track down the L.R.A.’s leader, Joseph Kony, one of the most wanted men in Africa, who has been on the run for two decades.
These soldiers, like Commander Makasi, are former L.R.A. fighters themselves, and just about all of them were abducted as children. They recently surrendered and are now wading through black rivers and head-high elephant grass across three of the most troubled countries in the world — the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Sudan — where the last remnants of the L.R.A. are believed to be hiding. They say they know all of Mr. Kony’s tricks.
Some critics may not think this wise, putting so much trust in men whose moral compass had been turned upside down for so long.