Uganda Captures LRA's Caesar Acellam

Ok so obviously I am against the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) in general and Joseph Kony specifically; he is a wanted ICC criminal after all, however, I am still not for Invisible Children's Kony 2012 publicity stunt (for many reasons that I won't detail here as it is off topic) or the most recent act of Ugandan troops "hiding in ambush at strategic crossings for two weeks [to capture]; Acellam...as he entered the Central African Republic."  While I agree with the general idea behind Enough Project's article, Making the Most of the Capture of  the LRA's Caesar Acellam that we should look at the arrest of a high level LRA commander and decide how best to move forward from this point; I do not agree with commending the feat.  Let's look at this from another perspective:

How is a group of Ugandan soldiers sitting in wait of a criminal to cross out of a country that they have no jurisdiction (Democratic Republic of Congo) into another country where they still have no jurisdiction (Central African Republic) and opening fire on civilians (Acellam was reportedly crossing the border with his wife, 3 year old child, and a maid in addition to rebels) a positive way to end this war? Yes, their country was terrorized for years by these madmen, but let's look at the big picture:

A) Nowhere does it say in this article that Ugandan forces had permission to be in CAR hunting LRA rebels.  Maybe the Ugandan troops were working in company with CAR but maybe they weren't.  How is this not a problem?  CAR is a sovereign nation, and yes, this is Africa; countries here dance to their own drumbeat.  But seriously people, you can't just send your troops to a neighboring country to stake out for war criminals because Its.Not.Your.Country.  Enough Project even states as much in their 3rd point: "The troops pursuing Kony must be given full access to conduct cross-border operations to close this gap. A particular impediment, the Democratic Republic of Congo is currently off limits for the Ugandan army." 

B) Ok, so supposedly the rebels fired first, maybe, or maybe that's just  the story the military that's holding Acellam captive is saying.  It has been said that Acellam might have been trying to surrender to UPDF (the Ugandan military) but again, if his plan was to surrender then why did 4 other rebels traveling with him open fire on UPDF and then escape across the river?

C) Why is it that the supposed best plan of action starts with; "The U.S., working with the Ugandan government and other partners, should take three swift steps to increase the immediate impact of the capture and to ensure that high-ranking and lower-ranking LRA fighters follow in the footsteps of Acellam."  And continues in this vein with: "The solution to this situation requires the direct involvement of the Obama administration to pressure Kinshasa to allow the Ugandan army and military advisors into the LRA-affected areas in Congo."  No.  This is not America's fight; it's Africa's; it is Uganda's and South Sudan's and CAR's and DRC's war, not ours.  Why is the US so arrogant to think that we need to stick our nose into Africa's business, did we not learn anything from the mal effects of colonialism?  Send military advisors, sure, if requested, but this operation should be headed up by the people that the war affected not the US.

So I am not an expert on peace negotiations so I won't comment in detail on Enough Project's ideas about how to make the most of this situation.  I don't necessarily agree with them on face value but I don't know enough about military operations or brokering peace to know if these strategies would actually work.  The guy did say that he isn't sorry for the atrocities he committed for the last 20 years and you want to grant him amnesty?  Maybe it works to capture the big whigs or maybe you just let a mass murderer take a walk. 

Again, I am not against this criminal's capture or Uganda's fight against the LRA but I think if we don't stop to question how the results are being achieved then we could have bigger problems.  The end does not justify the means.  We cannot justify stooping to the criminals' level; we must work to achieve these accomplishments in accordance with international standards.

Leave a comment; let me know if you know more about this situation then I've been privy to and what you think about it.