In an article published by Gawker this week, a former U.S. Marine named Jason Constantine claims to have established recent communication with Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) leader, Joseph Kony, with the help of a Ugandan former LRA commander, who has been living in Uganda for several years.
According to Gawker, Mr. Constantine also claims that through these connections, he was able to secure possession of a recently-taken photo of Joseph Kony (below), as well as a handwritten letter from Kony, with language that seems to indicate an interest in engaging in peace negotiations. The article also says that Mr. Constantine made attempts to share this information with representatives from the U.S. State Department, both in Uganda and in Washington D.C., but according to him, the U.S. officials ultimately dismissed his claims and on one occasion told him, “Don’t waste your time.”
This story is certainly interesting and, quite understandably, raises a lot of questions. Did Mr. Constantine actually establish contact with Joseph Kony? Were the letter and photo that he obtained real, or fabricated by someone else? And if the letter allegedly from Kony is real, are his claims of being open to peaceful negotiations sincere? It is very important to note that, at the moment, Mr. Constantine’s claims have not been verified by Gawker, by the U.S. government, or anyone else. So no one seems to be in a position to prove that his claims are true.
So what do we know? While we at Invisible Children are not in a position to deem any or all of Mr. Constantine’s claims as true or false (or somewhere in between), below are some things that we do know, that can help us better evaluate his story. We’ll keep you posted on any new information that we gather from Washington and from our teams in central Africa, working on the front lines of the LRA conflict. More importantly, we will continue to work hard, in partnership with courageous community leaders in central Africa, to support those affected by Kony’s violence, and we will continue to magnify their voices (and yours!) before policymakers in Washington and around the world to, to ensure that our leaders stay committed to seeing this conflict finally ended and Kony finally brought to justice.
WHAT WE KNOW:
Kony’s safe haven in Sudan-controlled territory. For many years, Invisible Children and our partners at The Resolve and The Enough Project have publicly highlighted Joseph Kony’s regular presence in Sudan-controlled territory, including the Kafia Kingi enclave and South Darfur. The geographic locations referenced by Mr. Constantine as Kony’s hideout in the Gawker do generally align with the area where we’ve known Kony to be enjoying safe haven. However, evidence of Kony’s presence in this area has been publicly available for several years.
Kony’s history of exploiting peace talks. Invisible Children is strongly supportive of peaceful means of ending the LRA conflict, and we have invested significant resources over the years into programs that encourage and facilitate the peaceful surrender of LRA combatants. However, Kony’s history (including evidence that he was ordering his fighters to attack and abduct children from Central African Republic in 2008, during the Juba Peace Negotiations) raises strong skepticism that he is sincere about the desire to engage in peace negotiations and relinquish control of the forces that he has commanded for more than 25 years. That said, we encourage regional and international actors working to address the LRA conflict to always take seriously and explore any truly viable options for a peaceful resolution to the LRA conflict.
History of false claims about being “in communication with Kony”. Over the last several years, there have been many unsubstantiated claims from former LRA combatants and some others, saying that they are in regular communication with Kony. Even during the Juba Peace process from 2006-2008, serious questions were raised as to whether those who claimed to be speaking on behalf of Kony and the LRA were actually in communication with him at all. This doesn’t have to mean that Mr. Constantine and/or his contacts are being intentionally dishonest, but the history of unsubstantiated claims of contact with Kony should encourage close scrutiny.
Photos of Kony. Without a timestamp, it is impossible for us to know with certainty when and where this photo was taken. However, the person in the photo does closely resemble Joseph Kony. LRA members are known to be in possession of cameras and camera phones, as evidenced by Caesar Achellam, a former LRA commander, who had taken pictures of life within the LRA before his surrender to African Union forces in 2012. Perhaps surprisingly, the LRA has not seemed to be camera-shy, allowing community members, and even members of other armed groups in the Central African Republic, to take photos of them. It is not impossible that recent photos of Kony have been taken, potentially by fellow LRA combatants or non-LRA actors with whom the group interacts with opportunistically.
Authenticity of the letter from Kony: Mr. Constantine claims that he received a handwritten letter from Kony, that was retrieved and delivered to him by a former LRA commander who allegedly traveled recently from Uganda to Kony’s camp in the Kafia Kingi area, through South Sudan, and then back to Uganda. The logistics and dangers of retrieving and transporting a letter from Kafia Kingi, or even from northern CAR, in less than one month’s time raises questions about the authenticity of the letter and the story. Kafia Kingi and the surrounding area are saturated with myriad armed groups, and the passage of anyone, let alone a Ugandan citizen, through a disputed border region between South Sudan and Sudan is both highly dangerous and logistically very difficult.
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