Third World Quarterly, 2014

Vol. 35, No. 4, 686–704, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01436597.2014.924068

Framing Kony: Uganda’s war,

Obama’s advisers and the nature of
‘influence’ in Western foreign policy
making
Jonathan Fisher*
International Development Department, University of Birmingham, UK

This article explores the influence of actors and organisations outside

the corridors of power in Washington, DC on US ‘crisis foreign
policy making’ in Africa. Focusing on the case of US policy towards
the LRA/northern Uganda crisis – particularly the Obama administra-
tion’s 2011 decision to send ‘combat-equipped US forces’ to pursue
the rebel group across central Africa – it is argued that the role of
African governments themselves merits greater consideration. The
decision to send in these ‘military advisers’ was arguably strongly
influenced by campaigns run by Western policy institutes, notably
the International Crisis Group, and US advocacy groups since around
2007. The Ugandan regime of Yoweri Museveni has – it is suggested
– nevertheless itself fundamentally shaped the nature and direction of
the debate into which such groups have entered. This raises crucial
questions about the agency of African governments in Western
‘crisis’ decision-making fora.
Keywords: Uganda; LRA; agency; Africa; foreign policy analysis;
International Crisis Group (ICG); Enough Project

Introduction
The influence of think-tanks and advocacy coalitions in determining Western
policy responses to crises in the developing world has perhaps been no better
demonstrated in recent years than in the evolution of US responses to the Joseph
Kony/Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) insurgency in central Africa. Described by
a senior UN official as ‘the biggest neglected humanitarian emergency in the
world’ in 2004 (Guardian, October 22, 2004), the LRA rebellion, and its conse-
quences, had become a major concern for US policy makers less than five years
later at the prompting of a range of policy institutes – including the International
Crisis Group (ICG) – and US advocacy groups, many of which were founded as
recently as 2006–07.

*Email: j.fisher@bham.ac.uk

© 2014 Southseries Inc., www.thirdworldquarterly.com

 Third World Quarterly 687

These efforts culminated, in October 2011, in Barack Obama’s dispatching

of 100 ‘combat-equipped US forces’ to the region to apprehend Kony, a strategy
recommended by the ICG 18 months earlier, following the passage of a 2010 Act
of Congress strongly lobbied for by US advocacy groups.1 Representatives of
some of these organisations had earlier stood over the US president’s shoulder
as he signed the bill into law, with one later noting that ‘the bill made it to
Obama’s desk because of the untiring work of activists all over the US’.2 For
many, therefore, the transformation of US policy on the LRA from studied indif-
ference to military deployment within 4–5 years had come about in large part
through the actions of Western analysts, advocacy coalitions and concerned
activists.
This narrative, though accurate to some degree, nevertheless fails to tell the
whole story and ignores a major actor whose attempts to influence US policy on
the LRA pre-date those of US activists and others by nearly two decades: the
Ugandan government. This overlooking of the role played by foreign govern-
ments, African or otherwise, in influencing Western foreign policy-making pro-
cesses constitutes a common feature of much scholarly research in this field.
For, while a growing literature seeks to understand how Western policy makers
are influenced by think-tanks, media houses and academics themselves, there is
little exploration of the influence of foreign states therein.
This article contends that scholarly explorations of the myriad external influ-
ences on crisis policy making in the West would benefit greatly from a deeper
reflection on the role of foreign governments in this dynamic. A more compre-
hensive review of evolving US policy on the LRA crisis reveals a much more
significant level of influence by the Ugandan government of Yoweri Museveni
(in power since 1986) over developments than might otherwise be discernable.
Indeed, the article argues that the Museveni regime played a central role in
framing the conflict, and possible international solutions, in the eyes of Western
policy makers through a range of strategies and actions during the 1990s and
2000s. This rendered certain US responses more viable in the minds of policy
makers than others and the voices of groups like the ICG and others more influ-
ential in Washington when they conformed to such assumptions. These findings
have important implications for wider considerations of the political economy of
knowledge in crisis policy-making dispensations.
In delineating this argument, the article first briefly situates the discussion
within existing literature on the role of external actors and ideas in influencing
Western policy making. The evolution of the LRA conflict is then set out, fol-
lowed by an outline of the changing preferences of Western donors, and think-
tanks and advocacy groups with regard to ending the crisis – in contrast to the
Ugandan government which has consistently favoured a military solution.
Noting the emphatic subscription of Western actors to this idea since 2008, the
article concludes by exploring how the Ugandan regime itself has – in
part – consciously brought this situation about through a range of actions and
strategies.
In doing so, the article draws upon a range of interviews undertaken with
current and former US, UK and Ugandan policy makers, as well as with current
and former staffers and analysts of key think-tanks and advocacy groups high-
lighted in the discussion. These interviews were undertaken between 2009 and
688 J. Fisher

2013 in Kampala, London and Washington, DC. The analysis is also informed
by insights garnered during the author’s undertaking of a research fellowship in
the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office between 2013 and 2014.

Mapping influence in Western foreign policy making: the role of think-tanks

and foreign governments
What leads Western foreign policy makers to approach key issues in the ways
that they do has been the focus of sustained and extensive analysis among
scholars, many specialists in foreign policy analysis and/or public policy, for
several decades. Different strains of literature have tackled these questions from
a range of perspectives but almost all have ultimately come to do so in terms of
the longstanding ‘structure–agency debate’ within the social sciences, either
explicitly or – more often – implicitly.
Early contributions to this debate, for example, focused on the relationship
between policy makers’ personality types, their immediate environment and
foreign policy decisions.3 More recent commentary in this area has tended to
emphasise the structural contributions to policy decisions – ‘windows’ and
barriers to particular policy avenues determined by different aspects of the polit-
ical economy of policy-making institutions and processes.4 A more promising
field of research – for our purposes – however, lies in recent explorations of the
role of ideas in foreign policy making – particularly those that look at how
groups outside governments can, and have, influenced core ideas and approaches
adopted by policy makers. Paris, for example, has recently revealed the degree
to which academic debates on the concept of ‘fragile states’ have ‘informed the
development of operational frameworks for responding’ to this category of
countries in policy making circles.5 Other scholars, including Haas, and
Lemay-Hébert and Mathieu, have begun to unpack the range of ‘epistemic com-
munities’ and ‘scholar-practitioners’ whose research and analysis on key issues
– produced both in the academy and in policy institutes – informs and influ-
ences much foreign policy behaviour in Western ministries and embassies.6 This
is a welcome development, particularly in its acknowledgement of the many
types and layers of agency exercised within it, both directly and indirectly.
Contemporary discussions around these themes, however, focus largely on
the influence of Western actors – particularly those within think-tanks and
universities.7 Little attention is paid to the role of national actors within foreign
states. This is an especially significant omission when exploring crisis policy
making in relation to the developing world, given the growing reluctance of
Western officials and practitioners to directly access and collect information on
developments in many states outside of the capital or even demarcated areas of
the capital.8
It is becoming increasingly clear, for example, that many governments in the
developing world do – and have – actively sought to control what information
external actors can access on events and developments in their countries and
what options on potential interventions they view as feasible or desirable.9 This
raises important and – as yet – largely unaddressed questions both about what
impact such behaviour has on the decisions of Western policy makers and about
the nature of analysis and advocacy strategies produced and employed by
 Third World Quarterly 689

groups such as the ICG, whose reputation is founded upon the richness of reports
produced on crises. More broadly it suggests an even greater range of ‘agencies’
to take into account when reflecting on those who influence Western foreign
policy decisions.
The remainder of this article will seek to make an empirical contribution to
these discussions by exploring the role played by the Ugandan regime in the
evolution of US approaches to the LRA crisis. In assessing the range of factors
leading to Obama’s dispatching of military advisors in 2011, it will ultimately
be argued that the Ugandan regime played an important and decisive role in ren-
dering such a policy both necessary and feasible in the minds of Washington
policy makers. It is first necessary, however, to outline the evolution of the
conflict itself – and of national and international responses to it.

The LRA conflict and the international community: from ‘neglected

emergency’ to ‘Kony2012’
The evolution of the conflict
The LRA rebellion, itself an offshoot of an earlier insurgency, is one of the
longest-running conflicts in contemporary Africa. Launched in 1987 by Joseph
Kony, the movement was formed in response to alleged abuses against the
Acholi people of northern Uganda by the National Resistance Army (later
renamed the Ugandan People’s Defence Forces, UPDF) and in opposition to the
new Yoweri Museveni/National Resistance Movement (NRM) government in
Kampala – an administration dominated by western Ugandans which had
deposed the Acholi-led regime of Tito Okello. The nature of the insurgency’s
agenda since this time, however, has been heavily contested. Perhaps the most
common claim, made mainly by Western journalists, analysts and some academ-
ics (as well as by Ugandan officials10), has been that the rebel group lacks any
clear political programme or objective.11 Instead, the group has often been por-
trayed as a ‘bizarre’ association of ruthless and barbaric criminals motivated by
religious fervour and ‘millenarian’ spiritualism.12
Other scholars have rejected this apparent de-politicisation of the LRA with
varying degrees of ambivalence, while Branch, among others, emphasises the
importance of ‘taking seriously’ the politics of the LRA.13 Finnstrom, in this
regard, has been particularly unequivocal and has argued that the LRA has long
been driven by a far broader and comprehensive political agenda.14 Space does
not allow for a more extended evaluation of these and other perspectives.15 A
critical reading of the work of those scholars and analysts most familiar with the
LRA and northern Uganda nevertheless leads this author to draw two key conclu-
sions, which inform the analysis of this article.16 First, that the LRA insurgency
cannot be understood without reference to the political economy of northern
Uganda under the UPDF and Museveni regime.17 It is also clear, however, that
the LRA’s brutal military tactics – which have included massacres, child abduc-
tions and mutilation of civilians – differentiate it from many more traditional
African rebel groups and have made it particularly notorious nationally and
internationally.
The progression of the rebellion has been broken down into different phases
by different scholars, with the categorisations by Dolan and Atkinson
690 J. Fisher

representing perhaps the most comprehensive.18 Here, however, the conflict’s

development is perhaps most easily viewed through parallel military and human-
itarian lenses. In the military sphere the conflict has been punctuated by a set of
clashes between the UPDF and LRA of varying intensity between 1987 and 2006,
when the LRA largely withdrew from Ugandan territory. During this period failed
peace talks were formally initiated and then abandoned in Amuru, northern
Uganda, between 1993 and 1994 and in Juba, southern Sudan, between 2006
and 2008. Since 2008 the UPDF has – together with a range of neighbouring
armies – pursued the increasingly depleted rebel group across southern Sudan,
Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Central African Republic (CAR),
facilitated through a number of bilateral and multilateral agreements. Finally, in
2012, this arrangement was formalised into a joint UN–African Union (AU) mis-
sion using troops from these four states (UN News Centre, April 11, 2012).
At the humanitarian level the conflict has seen significant hardship visited
upon the people of northern Uganda. Thousands of civilians, including over
10,000 children, have been abducted by the LRA or killed in bloody massacres
carried out by the group across the region in the later 1990s and early 2000s.19
The worst violence has generally coincided with periods when the LRA has been
in receipt of military and logistical support from the Omar al-Bashir government
in Sudan (c 1994–2004) as part of its proxy war against the Museveni regime.20
Since the rebel group’s flight from Uganda in the mid-2000s civilians in south-
ern Sudan, DRC and CAR have also fallen victim to remorseless LRA vio-
lence.21
Crucially, however, the actions of the UPDF and Ugandan government have
also contributed significantly to the suffering of northern Ugandans. Allegations
of human rights abuses and other atrocities committed against civilians by the
UPDF during its campaigns against the LRA were rife during the 1990s, as have
been accusations levelled more recently by a range of domestic and international
actors and commentators that Kampala has purposefully and consistently failed
to put an end to the conflict for a variety of political, strategic and foreign
policy reasons.22
The forcible relocation of millions of mainly Acholi civilians into poorly
guarded and cramped internally displaced persons (IDP) camps by the UPDF dur-
ing the mid-1990s, however, represents perhaps the most systematic form of
abuse perpetrated by Kampala,23 what Dolan has called ‘social torture’. Largely
sealed off from the outside world, civilians in these camps (which were gradu-
ally closed from the mid-2000s) were largely left to fend for themselves with
regard to finding food and shelter, with many suffering significant abuse includ-
ing rape, beatings and torture at the hands of their supposed protectors.24 For
many northern Ugandans, therefore, the greatest threat to security faced during
this period came from life in one of the region’s 242 IDP camps rather than from
the LRA.

Evolving responses to the conflict: from Kampala, through Juba, to

Washington, DC
Although it has formally participated in peace talks with the LRA on two occa-
sions, the Museveni regime’s preferred response to the conflict has remained lar-
gely military-focused since 1987. Founded in a guerrilla movement itself,
 Third World Quarterly 691

Museveni’s NRM has consistently approached perceived domestic and

international threats to Uganda and/or regime security through a zero-sum, mili-
taristic lens, which has meant, in the case of the LRA, either defeating the group
on the battlefield or insisting on its unconditional surrender. During initially
promising peace talks with the rebel movement between 1993 and 1994, for
example, Museveni frequently undermined the work of mediator Betty Bigombe
by pressing for humiliating terms to be imposed on the LRA, whereas Bigombe
sought a more comprehensive and realistic negotiation of a settlement.25 Indeed,
in February 1994 the Ugandan leader attempted to force the group’s hand by
threatening a return to hostilities if it did not surrender unconditionally; an
action which ended the peace talks.26
Persuaded to join another round of peace talks in Juba in 2006, the
Museveni regime again approached the negotiations with deep ambivalence –
dismissing them as a vehicle for Kony and his commanders to seek ‘soft land-
ings’ and eventually launching a massive anti-LRA military operation (‘Operation
Lightning Thunder’), with token assistance from other regional forces, within
months of the talks’ collapse.27 Kampala’s limited commitment to the negotia-
tions on this occasion were matched by the LRA’s own equivocations; the
group’s delegation to the discussions fell victim to a range of splits during the
course of negotiations and became increasingly unable to speak for the LRA lead-
ership authoritatively.28 Similarly Kony failed to turn up to sign the peace agree-
ment negotiated in April 2008, fearing arrest and transferal to the International
Criminal Court (ICC). As Tripp and Schomerus have shown, however, the
Museveni regime’s approach to the Juba talks falls into a longstanding pattern
of opting for ultimatums, brinkmanship, demonisation of Kony and military
campaigning as the favoured method for resolving the LRA crisis.29
Western donor preferences in this regard, however, have been far less consis-
tent. Until the mid-2000s Uganda’s major international partners – primarily the
USA and UK – elected to remain largely disengaged from the question of the
northern conflict, adopting what one analyst has described as a ‘Museveni
knows best’ approach and focusing instead – ultimately to little effect – on the
issue of Kampala’s ballooning defence budget.30
The approach of Washington and London to the crisis during these years
was largely ad hoc and transitory, with diplomats and ministers periodically
engaging Museveni on the issue of peace talks or military strategies to defeat
Kony but always deferring to the Ugandan leader’s ‘better judgement’ in the
process.31 US and UK policy makers also played a fairly minimal role in discus-
sions between Kampala and the ICC, which led to the indictment of Kony and
four other LRA commanders on charges of war crimes and crimes against human-
ity in 2005.32 This is in spite of fears (later vindicated) on the British side that
the indictments would significantly reduce LRA incentives to surrender or
negotiate a cessation of hostilities.33
A range of factors, however, led US policy makers to show more systematic
interest in the conflict for the first time during the 2006–08 Juba peace talks.
One such factor was the successful conclusion of peace talks between Khartoum
and the rebel Southern People’s Liberation Army in Sudan in 2005, the Bush
administration’s leading priority in Africa since taking office.34 The retreat of
the remaining LRA forces in Uganda into southern Sudan between 2005 and
692 J. Fisher

2006 represented a significant threat to the newly autonomous region’s stability

and a potential barrier to continued peace. US officials therefore came to see a
negotiated end to the LRA conflict as an important element of their overall
regional strategy.
In parallel a range of US-based civil society organisations and advocacy
groups came into being between 2004 and 2007, focused – in whole or in
part – on raising awareness of the LRA /northern Uganda issue in Washington
and on lobbying US officials to provide more comprehensive support to the
peace talks and to the people of northern Uganda. The most significant of
these were Invisible Children (founded in 2004), the Uganda Conflict Action
Network – later Resolve (2005) and the Enough Project, an advocacy organi-
sation co-founded in 2007 by John Prendergast and Gayle Smith, a former
Clinton White House official. The highest profile of these three outfits to this
day, Enough was originally a joint project of the ICG (to whose president on
Africa Prendergast had served as special adviser) and the Center for American
Progress (a left-leaning policy institute), although its links with the former
have steadily declined since this time.35
The creation of an advocacy-driven organisation such as Enough by the ICG
represents an unusual act by the latter – which is primarily an analysis-led body.
A range of commentators, including former Enough and ICG staff, suggest that
this development came about following concerns in the ICG leadership that
Prendergast’s advocacy-heavy approach was incongruous within the ICG proper
and that sponsorship of an alternative outfit for him to lead represented a fitting
means to ‘make use of his talents’.36 Regardless of its origins, Enough – as an
offshoot of the ICG – is a particularly appropriate subject of study in this special
issue.
Other, more longstanding, organisations with broader concerns (both geo-
graphic and thematic) – most notably the ICG itself and Human Rights Watch –
also continued to produce analysis on the conflict during these years and engaged,
particularly US, policy makers on the subject. Their level of engagement, how-
ever, has been far less consistent than that of Enough, Invisible Children and
Resolve and has largely depended on the interests and availability of individual
researchers. Human Rights Watch, for example, did not produce any reports on
the LRA/northern Uganda between October 2005 and January 2009, while the ICG
produced eight between 2005 and 2008 but only two in the years since.
The savvy engagement of many of these groups with media outlets and col-
lege students and youth organisations, however, combined with a more tradi-
tional lobbying of senators, congressmen and US policy makers, raised their
profile – and that of the LRA issue – considerably in a short time.37 Embassy
cables leaked from the USA’s Kampala mission by the WikiLeaks organisation
reveal a number of meetings between US officials and ICG and Enough staff,
and contain several discussions of ICG/Enough briefings in 2007 alone. These or-
ganisations’ campaigns therefore worked in tandem with changing regional
dynamics on the ground (the LRA retreat from Uganda) to persuade Washington
to offer more formal support, both diplomatic and financial, to the Juba talks. In
doing so, US policy makers joined a range of other Western donor governments
and organisations in actively pushing for peace between the rebel group and the
Ugandan government.
 Third World Quarterly 693

Following the collapse of the talks in 2008 most Western donors have shown
decreasing levels of interest in helping end the LRA rebellion directly, focusing
instead on funding programmes intended to aid recovery in northern Uganda.
The USA has been a major financier of many of these initiatives, although,
unlike its counterparts, it has not shifted its focus away from the LRA. Indeed,
since 2008 the Bush and Obama administrations have come to adopt a firm
position on the crisis – that it can only end through the military defeat of the
rebel group and, particularly, through the killing or neutralisation of Kony. To
this end, Washington has frequently sought to persuade the DRC government to
allow the UPDF to operate against the LRA in its territory, even after Kinshasa
expelled the Ugandan army in 2011.38 Obama officials were also heavily sup-
portive of what eventually became the 2010 LRA Disarmament and Northern
Uganda Recovery Act, legislation which commits the USA to assist in the
‘apprehen[sion] or remov[al of] Joseph Kony … from the battlefield’.39
Washington’s support for this approach has not abated in more recent years
(Washington Post, March 24, 2014; Daily Monitor, April 3, 2014).
Solving the LRA crisis by removing Kony has been a major solution promoted
by Invisible Children, Enough and, to a lesser extent, Resolve since 2008 also.40
The ICG and Human Rights Watch have also either pushed for a similar approach
(see above) or commended policy decisions leading in that direction.41 Senior
staff at all three organisations played a pivotal role in persuading a range of
legislators to introduce a bill in 2009 which eventually became the 2010 Act.42
A number of these individuals now work within the administration itself on the
implementation of the Obama LRA policy, while their former colleagues continue
to place a heavy emphasis on the centrality of the military effort to end the crisis,
as the Kony2012 viral campaign so effectively demonstrated.43 Indeed, a consis-
tent concern expressed by all three organisations during 2013 has been that US
policy makers might lose enthusiasm for the military option as Kony continues
to remain at large.44

A coming together of interests? The militarisation of the LRA conflict

This emphasis on a military solution represents an interesting shift of focus for
Resolve and, to a lesser extent, Enough, particularly given their earlier perspec-
tives on the LRA crisis. Both were founded on the basis of a deep and genuine
concern for the suffering of civilians in northern Uganda and Resolve, in partic-
ular, viewed the UPDF and Ugandan government as key authors of this suffering
alongside the LRA. Resolve had previously expressed deep misgivings about the
role of the UPDF in the region – and its commitment to defeating the LRA and,
indeed, the movement was partly created – according to its founder – to chal-
lenge the perceived acceptance among Uganda’s donors that ‘Museveni knows
best’ on how to end the conflict.45 Since around 2009, however, Resolve has,
alongside Enough, Invisible Children, the ICG, Human Rights Watch and others,
argued strongly for continued US support for Ugandan soldiers pursuing the
rebel group.46 Indeed, Human Rights Watch made privately clear to US officials
as early as January 2008 that it was ‘supportive’ of the US-assisted regional
operation against the LRA in the aftermath of the Juba talks’ collapse.47
Likewise, where ICG analysts have attempted to downplay the centrality of a
Kony-based solution in previous years, pushing for a peace ‘with or without
694 J. Fisher

Kony’ in 2008 and for a ‘regional strategy [on the LRA] beyond killing Kony’ in
2010, their engagement with media houses and US officials on the issue has
nonetheless focused largely on discussing Kony’s whereabouts and the logistics
of the US-backed Ugandan regional operation against the group (AFP, October
13, 2010).48 In the case of Invisible Children, this organisation has long been
the least vocal in its condemnation of the UPDF role in the northern Ugandan cri-
sis. Indeed, one of its early films – Invisible Children: Rough Cut – made little
mention of the Ugandan government or its encampment policies in Acholi.49
Since around 2009, however, its advocacy efforts have focused increasingly on
promoting US intervention in central Africa in pursuit of Kony where previously
the emphasis was on addressing the humanitarian consequences of the conflict.
The high-profile Kony2012 campaign is undoubtedly the most influential exam-
ple of this trend.50
It would be deeply unfair and misleading, of course, to suggest that recent
US policy towards the LRA crisis, or lobbying by any of the groups discussed
above, has neglected or ignored the humanitarian dimension of the conflict. The
2010 Act, for example, authorises a range of funds to be made available for
‘reconstruction, reconciliation and transitional justice’, while Resolve in
particular remains heavily engaged in dialogue and work among and on behalf
of those in northern Uganda.51 It should be noted, however, that the Obama
White House’s first significant response to the passage of the 2010 Act was
a military one: the dispatching of the 100 advisers.52
In terms of broad focus, therefore, the three main categories of actors dis-
cussed above – US policy makers, Ugandan policy makers and the US think-
tank and advocacy community – have come to share a similar perspective on
the LRA crisis since 2009–10. This perspective, which emphasises the importance
of ending the ICG threat on the battlefield and killing or capturing its leadership,
particularly Kony, is also that held by the Ugandan regime fairly consistently
since the launch of the LRA rebellion in 1987. It would be unrealistic to suggest
that this coming together of interests had been wholly engineered by Kampala.
The remainder of this article will nevertheless delineate a range of strategies
consciously employed by the Ugandan regime in its relations with US policy
makers and policy institutes and advocacy groups with the intention of bringing
about this state of affairs. This draws upon interviews with Ugandan officials
themselves in some cases but also relies on the perspectives and experiences of
those US officials and activists who have engaged with Kampala, and with the
LRA issue, on a daily basis since the early 2000s.

Explaining the militarisation of the conflict: shifting realities on the ground

Before exploring the Museveni regime’s strategies in this regard, it is important
to first acknowledge the changing context of the LRA crisis between 2006 and
2009 as a key determinant of shifts in US policy and in think tank and advo-
cacy group approaches. As noted, the Juba talks between Kampala and the rebel
group collapsed in 2008. Although US officials and policy institute/advocacy
group personnel generally acknowledge that neither side had entered into the
negotiations ‘in good faith’, they largely agree that ‘on balance it had been the
LRA and not the Government of Uganda who had caused the process to break
down’.53 While this perspective is open to challenge and can be partly
 Third World Quarterly 695

interpreted as the result of framing by the Museveni regime (see below), the
reality of the talks’ breakdown rendered peace negotiations unviable as an
option for ending the crisis in the minds of these international actors, making
the alternative – military action – more credible.
Likewise, following the LRA’s flight from Uganda in 2006, the crisis was no
longer a Uganda-specific one and was now a concern of both the southern
Sudanese and Congolese administrations. This, according to several current
and former advocacy group officials, ‘severed the LRA from the political econ-
omy of northern Uganda … making a military solution more possible’.54 This,
of course, overlooks the continued role of the UPDF in the political economies of
southern Sudan and Congo but does acknowledge the changing composition of
the LRA from a wholly Acholi-constituted force.55 Where previously policy mak-
ing and lobbying on the LRA crisis had represented a complex mix of messages
on neutralising the rebel group but also protecting and defending Ugandan civil-
ians, therefore, from 2006 these two agendas separated from one another.
It remains an open question, however, why the White House decided, in the
aftermath of Juba, to focus so heavily on emphasising the military option and
on strengthening and supporting the UPDF – whose territory was no longer
stalked by the LRA – in this regard. Of the many Western donors who had
invested time, energy and resources in the Juba talks, the USA was the only one
to adopt this approach upon their collapse. This question is a particularly salient
one given the assessment of a range of commentators that the US focus in this
regard has actually been deleterious to the ending of the LRA conflict – as well
as a factor in the breakdown of the Juba talks themselves.56 Clearly Obama
administration officials and US legislators have been strongly influenced by
Enough, Resolve, Invisible Children, the ICG and others since 2009 in this
regard, to varying degrees. Individuals from these organisations in particular
played a leading role in influencing the development and language of the 2010
Act, and their contemporary analyses remain a key resource for policy makers
overseeing the 100 advisors’ operations against the rebel group.57
It is clear, however, that several of these groups have aligned themselves
with Kampala’s own prior agenda in doing so. In recent years, for example,
Enough has placed a decreasing amount of emphasis on building or maintaining
networks on the ground in northern Uganda and the region and instead on pro-
moting and defending the counter-LRA mission to policy makers in Washington
as a clear strategic priority.58 Moreover, in a May 2010 advocacy trip to Wash-
ington, DC, ICG representatives used discussions with State Department staff as
an opportunity to persuade them to lobby Kinshasa on the importance of allow-
ing the UPDF freer rein to operate in their territory in pursuit of the LRA.59 Unfet-
tered military access to eastern Congo has been a longstanding security
objective of the Museveni regime, whose troops have invaded the country twice
between 1996 and 1998.
In reflecting on the evolution of their analyses and advocacy activities on the
LRA issue, many individuals from these groups recognise that the policies they
have promoted in recent years are perceived as ‘feeding into the Ugandan mili-
tary approach’.60 Many of these individuals nevertheless insist that earlier advo-
cacy efforts on the crisis had presented highly critical views of the UPDF’s role
and its ‘failure to protect civilians in IDP camps’ but that US policy makers were
696 J. Fisher

reluctant to hear such perspectives. When these efforts were adjusted to better
reflect Kampala’s views (de facto), the same officials are perceived to have been
far more amenable.61
Current and former advocacy staff interviewed for this study cite a range of
examples of this phenomenon occurring in the later 2000s, including in their
lobbying efforts on congressional legislation (where they faced considerable
opposition to suggestions that critiques of UPDF activities in the north be incorpo-
rated alongside those of the LRA by many policy makers) and on broadening the
scope of US approaches to the north to engage with local political grievances.
(Most policy makers reportedly showed limited enthusiasm for this argument
but maintained a clear dialogue with advocacy personnel on questions of secu-
rity and military assistance.)62
This pragmatic set of recalibrations by many of these groups speaks, to some
extent, to their ultimate purpose as organisations. The ICG, Enough and other
such groups state explicitly on their websites that their mission is to ‘influence
political leaders to adopt our proposals’ and most bookend their reports with
‘recommendations’ and ‘strategic advice’ as précis for busy policy makers. A
line of analysis and advocacy that gains little purchase with decision makers
over an extended period of time is not a profitable or effective one. Indeed,
Enough has viewed its changing LRA advocacy efforts as a strategic response to
what it perceives as a failed earlier attempt at influencing US policy on Darfur –
where its activities ‘didn’t move the [policy] needle one bit’.63
This strategic shift of focus in response to policy makers’ intransigence also
raises the issue of agency and structure within the policy-making process high-
lighted above. For, while Enough and others doubtless influenced the evolving
content of specific US policy (the 2010 Act and dispatching of military advisers,
for example) it did so within a context where policy makers’ minds were open
to such pro-Kampala, military options and closed to others more critical of the
Ugandan role. To interpret US policy makers as unconstrained by broader struc-
tures within this dynamic, however, would be to overlook the process by which
their own perspectives on the LRA crisis had come to be formed. The final part
of this article will explore the role of the Ugandan regime in moulding these
perspectives.

Explaining the militarisation of the conflict: the role of the Ugandan

government
The governments of many developing countries operate in an international
system, which constrains their space for agency very considerably. Many rely
substantially upon international assistance to fund their budgets and to police
their territories and have little to no permanent voice in major economic and
political forums where key decisions relating to them are often made, including
the UN Security Council. A range of these governments also lack the resources,
inclination and/or skillset to actively attempt to manage how Western donor
governments view them and how they view crises and conflicts in their
countries.64 This is not universal, however, and a number of regimes in Africa
and southeast Asia have long adopted strategies aimed at restricting information
available to Western diplomats and analysts on developments in their
 Third World Quarterly 697

states, and at managing how these individuals view them as a means to

influence Western policy.65
In Uganda’s case the Museveni regime has adopted a range of strategies
since 1987 – outlined below – aimed at managing international access to, and
understandings of, the LRA crisis. These have invariably sought to emphasise the
centrality of Kony as the sole cause of the conflict and the necessity of
Ugandan-led military operations against the rebel group as the only viable solu-
tion to the crisis. Although this has not been a formal, comprehensive informa-
tion management scheme, these different strategies have strongly complemented
one another and brought about a situation whereby analysts and policy makers
in Washington by 2009 broadly viewed the crisis through the same lens as the
Ugandan government.
Until the early-to-mid 2000s the Ugandan government strictly controlled
access to northern Uganda – particularly the IDP camps and areas affected by
LRA or UPDF military activity – to international actors, including diplomats and
analysts. A number of media ‘blackouts’ took place during UPDF operations in
the 1990s, while official requests by US and other donor officials to visit the
region were frequently refused by the foreign ministry for ‘security reasons’.66
Access to the area was also heavily restricted for Western analysts and NGO
activists, with security services monitoring and attempting to control even the
movements of Western research students.67
By contrast, trips to the north initiated by the regime itself were common-
place, with stage-managed visits to LRA-affected areas frequently organised by
Kampala often at short notice. Diplomats would often be escorted around the
region during such trips by the UPDF and provided with extensive ‘briefings’
from senior officers or, on occasion, Museveni himself on the latest LRA
atrocity.68 This practice has continued, to some extent, in recent years with the
regional travel of researchers for Enough and other organisations frequently
being facilitated by the UPDF.69 This latter practice cannot, of course, be auto-
matically cited as a determinant of Enough’s increasingly sympathetic approach
to Kampala in its advocacy efforts. When asked about the LRA’s approach to the
issue, however, a senior Ugandan military official wryly remarked that ‘we help
those who help Uganda’.70
Although most Western donor officials, both in local embassies and in capi-
tals back home, have relied on a much wider range of information to inform
their views on the LRA crisis than visits, or reports of visits, the impact of these
information management policies on donor perceptions of the conflict should
not be underestimated. Clinton, Bush and Obama administration officials
interviewed for this article invariably reflected on the conflict by referring to
their own personal encounters with it and often dismissed or qualified critiques
of the UPDF’s activities in the region promoted by NGOs and others as not con-
forming to what ‘I saw for myself’.71 Even diplomats more conscious of
Kampala’s malign neglect of the north appear to have been persuaded of the
merits of a ‘get Kony’ response after touring the region.72 A former senior
Ugandan military official involved in organising some of these trips has since
reflected on their ‘theatrical’ nature.73
Lack of access to IDP camps and other sites of alleged UPDF brutality also
limited the amount and nature of data organisations such as the ICG,
698 J. Fisher

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch could collect in putting

together reports during the 1990s and 2000s.74 More broadly, however, the
Museveni regime has used the politics of access to strengthen the credibility of
US diplomats and analysts more persuaded of Kampala’s military approach to
the LRA and to undermine that of those who are not. Thus, during the 1990s and
2000s, the Ugandan leader would ‘freeze out’ diplomats more critical in this
area, refusing them access to his person – a significant problem for many whose
purpose in the country was to influence government policy. A senior State
House official has privately referred to this policy as ‘waiting until they
leave’.75
Conversely, those donor officials more favourable towards the military
option – and the UPDF’s control of it – have been treated to lengthy and ‘very
open’ meetings with the Ugandan president and his key advisers on frequent
occasions.76 The same dynamic has continued since the dispatching of the
military advisers, with Enough’s John Prendergast invited to meetings with
Museveni whenever he travels to the country.77
Moreover, regime officials have formally separated the policy-making arenas
on the LRA and reconstruction of the north from one another since 2006. The for-
mer, dominated by Museveni and his security advisers, includes the key decision
makers in the country, while the latter, at least until the dismissal of Prime Minis-
ter Apolo Nsibambi in May 2011, was overseen by a peripheral tier of officials
with limited influence in State House; Museveni delegated little authority to the
latter. The consequence of this has been that US officials engaging the Ugandan
regime on the north between 2006 and 2011 were referred to an outfit with lim-
ited ability to enact any policies. Frustrated at the apparently ‘feckless’ and
‘incompetent’ prime minister’s office, they have more often bypassed it and gone
straight to the president’s office on matters relating to the north, where they have
instead been forced to discuss this through the lens of counter-LRA policy.78
In its engagement with senior US policy makers the Museveni regime has
also sought to ensure that such discussions remain security- and military-
focused. The Ugandan leader, together with other senior officials, has focused
his diplomatic interactions with senior US counterparts around discussing secu-
rity matters and regional military activities and not humanitarian or governance
affairs. Kampala’s strongest relationships in Washington under both Clinton and
Bush were with both presidents’ national security teams, whom the regime
frequently solicited to advise on the ‘terrorist threat’ posed by Sudan’s Omar
al-Bashir government and the LRA (linked to al-Qaeda by Museveni weeks after
9/11).79
In the midst of the Juba talks, for example, Museveni emphasised in his
encounters with senior US officials that ‘behind everything is Sudan, Sudan,
Sudan, Sudan’ and that the ‘Arab fundamentalist’ Khartoum regime was keeping
the LRA ‘in reserve’ to undermine the fragile peace in that country and to under-
mine Uganda’s own security.80 The extent to which Uganda sought to ‘reach
out’ to these US actors on security issues during the 1990s and 2000s (including
on tactics in the 2003 Iraq war and on tackling Al-Shabaab in Somalia) made
its leader an oft-contacted, trusted confidante of George W Bush himself on
regional security matters; Museveni was just ‘one of a handful’ of African lead-
ers reportedly telephoned regularly for these purposes by the US president.81
 Third World Quarterly 699

By contrast, the Museveni regime has placed less emphasis on building

relationships with US non-security officials. It has been fortunate, however, in fos-
tering close ties to several White House security officials, notably Susan Rice and
Jendayi Frazer, who have gone on to major positions in the State Department. This
has meant that discussion primarily of security issues – including considering the
LRA crisis as a security problem to be dealt with by military means – has been a
natural part of Kampala’s dialogue with Washington since the mid-1990s. Frazer,
who began the Bush administration as senior adviser on African affairs at the
White House and ended it as assistant secretary of state for African affairs has
since noted that tackling the LRA issue was ‘on her desk at the start and end’ of her
time in government.82 This is in part a consequence of the Museveni regime putt-
ing it there through its courting of, and investment in, relationships with key US
security officials over and above others. Certainly several Ugandan diplomats have
privately maintained that ‘raising the matter of Kony’ has been a leading and long-
standing priority for the country’s diplomatic corps in its engagement with US
officials.83
The Museveni government has also laid the foundations for US officials to
view the optimum solution to the LRA crisis through military, Kony-focused
lenses via two final strategies. The first has focused on presenting the group as
one which will never genuinely commit to peace negotiations. This has
involved the setting of structural barriers around peace talks – including making
ultimatums that the LRA lay down arms immediately and setting frequent
deadlines with the knowledge that these will be difficult to meet – which force
the insurgents to either negotiate on Kampala’s terms or refuse, thereby seem-
ingly wrecking the process.84 This has been coupled with the private depiction
of the group to US officials as factious, unpredictable and disingenuous negotia-
tors – Ugandan officials highlighted the importance of preparing military contin-
gency plans during the Juba talks in their encounters with US personnel to
compensate for the LRA’s (they alleged) use of the peace talks as windows in
which to rearm and plan their next military campaign.85 The success of these
actions is clear in the acceptance by most international observers that the Juba
talks collapsed primarily because of the LRA (an interpretation contested by
many scholars – see above).
Another strategy has involved Kampala’s frequent positioning of a military
approach as mutually beneficial. Thus, during the mid-2000s, the Ugandan
leadership held a range of discussions with senior US and UK officials about
the possibility of a joint US/UK–Ugandan operation against the group aimed
at ‘taking Kony out’ and presented by regime officials as an opportunity to
swiftly ‘deal a blow’ to al-Qaeda, to whom, Kampala alleged, the LRA were
linked.86
Likewise, in the final months of the Bush administration, the Ugandan leader
became aware of a desire among senior Washington officials for a ‘quick foreign
policy win’ to shore up the departing president’s legacy. On the sidelines of the
September 2008 UN General Assembly, therefore, Museveni approached US
officials to suggest a joint US–Ugandan offensive against the LRA to this end.87
This resulted in ‘Operation Lightning Thunder’, a mission supported logistically
and financially by Washington, launched only weeks before Bush’s term
ended.88 Ultimately, however, the mission was a not a success.89
700 J. Fisher

Similar behaviour on Kampala’s part can be discerned in its approach to the

LRA during the mid-2000s. The Ugandan leader personally lobbied the Court’s
Chief Prosecutor, Luis Moreno Ocampo, to indict Kony and the rest of the LRA
leadership for crimes against humanity, in the knowledge that the nascent institu-
tion ‘needed a case’.90 During the negotiations leading up to the 2005 indictments,
however, Kampala reportedly secured Ocampo’s agreement that any investigations
would focus solely on alleged crimes committed by the LRA and not the UPDF.91
Branch notes that the Court put together a legal justification in order to defend this
quid pro quo, best summarised by its then public affairs adviser who contended
that ‘LRA crimes are far more serious than the crimes of the UPDF’.92
Through a combination of diplomacy, the politics of access and information
management over several decades, therefore, the Ugandan regime has been
able to frame the LRA conflict in a particular way in the minds of many Wes-
tern policy makers. For many of these individuals this has rendered UPDF-led
military solutions putatively more feasible and appropriate than others. Enough
and other groups’ apparent influence over US officials on LRA policy in recent
years, therefore, should be seen in this light: influential with regard to policy
content but led, overall, by Kampala’s own framing of the crisis and how best
to tackle it.

Conclusion
This article has used evolving US policy on the northern Uganda conflict as a
lens through which to explore and unpack the nature of ‘influence’ in Washing-
ton’s foreign policy-making arenas. In focusing on the under-explored role of
African governments within this dynamic, it has been argued that the Ugandan
regime of Yoweri Museveni has played a significant and critical role in framing
the LRA issue in a way that has persuaded both Washington officials and many
of the analysts, advocates and activists who hope to influence them to ultimately
adopt its perspective on the ‘problem’, and on the best ‘solution’ to the crisis.
The ICG itself, for example, has increasingly adopted a Kony-centric perspective
on the conflict in recent years and, along with its advocacy-focused creation –
Enough – has played an important role in lobbying US officials to bolster
Kampala’s military approach to the issue.
While it is not claimed that this has been a systematic and singular ‘policy’ of
Kampala since the 1990s, the strategies and actions taken by the regime, which
have contributed to this dispensation, have nevertheless been adopted consciously
by Ugandan officials to dissuade Western actors from alternative interpretations
of the conflict and how to respond to it. The Ugandan case raises important ques-
tions about the nature of African agency in Western policy-making processes that
affect the continent, and suggests an important area for future study for those
interested in the external influences on foreign policy making in the West.

Acknowledgements
An earlier version of this article was presented at a workshop at Aberystwyth University in October 2013 and
I am grateful to the organisers of and participants in this event, as well as to two anonymous reviewers, for
their helpful and constructive feedback. The advice and support of the Special Issue editor – Berit Bliesemann
de Guevara – has also been greatly appreciated and I thank her also. Finally, I would like to acknowledge
financial assistance received from the Economic and Social Research Council (Award Numbers
 Third World Quarterly 701

PTA-031-2007-ES/F024509/1 and PTA-026-27-2861), University of Oxford (St Antony’s College and Chester
and Mellon Fund) and University of Birmingham (International Development Department and North America
Fund), which supported several of the fieldwork trips undertaken in researching this article.

Notes on Contributor
Jonathan Fisher is Lecturer in the International Development Department, Uni-
versity of Birmingham. His research focuses on Africa’s place and agency in the
international system and the political economy of international development
interventions. He has a particular interest in security in Eastern Africa and has
published in a range of journals, including African Affairs, Conflict, Security
and Development and Third World Quarterly.

Notes
1. White House, Letter from the President; and ICG, LRA, ii.
2. Enough Project, “New Law Gives President Obama Mandate to Help End LRA’s Violence and Child
Abductions in Central Africa,” Press Release, May 25, 2010.
3. Allison, Essence of Decision; George, “The ‘Operational Code’”; Axelrod, Structure of Decision; Jervis,
Perception and Misperception; and Vertzberger, The World in Their Minds.
4. Kingdon, Agendas.
5. Paris, “Ordering the World.”
6. Haas, “Introduction”; Lemay-Hébert and Mathieu, “The OECD’s Discourse on Fragile States.”
7. See also Krasner, “Government and Academia.”
8. Duffield, “Risk Management.”
9. Fisher, “When it Pays to be a ‘Fragile State’.”
10. Atkinson, The Roots of Ethnicity, 288–289, 306–307.
11. Branch, “Neither Peace nor Justice,” 4–8.
12. Prunier, “Rebel Movements,” 359; and van Acker, “Uganda and the Lord’s Resistance Army,” 348–355.
13. Doom and Vlassenroot, “Kony’s Message,” 25–28; and Branch, “Neither Peace nor Justice,” 8–9.
14. Finnstrom, Living with Bad Surroundings.
15. However, see particularly Branch, “Neither Peace nor Justice,” 4–8.
16. See particularly Allen and Vlassenroot, The Lord’s Resistance Army; Dolan, Social Torture; Doom and
Vlassenroot, “Kony’s Message”; Finnstrom, Living with Bad Surroundings; Atkinson, The Roots of Eth-
nicity; and Branch, Displacing Human Rights.
17. Atkinson, The Roots of Ethnicity, 284.
18. Dolan, Social Torture, 43–97; and Atkinson, The Roots of Ethnicity.
19. Tripp, Museveni’s Uganda, 159–163.
20. Doom and Vlassenroot, “Kony’s Message,” 25–26.
21. Schomerus, “‘They forget what they came for’”; and Titeca, “The Lord’s Resistance Army.”
22. Branch, “Neither Peace nor Justice,” 2–4; Branch, “Uganda’s Civil War,” 180–190; and Finnstrom, Liv-
ing with Bad Surroundings, 155. The author has even heard a senior Ugandan diplomat suggest in a pri-
vate – but not closed/off-the-record – meeting that the northern conflict was purposefully prolonged
(May 2013).
23. Atkinson, The Roots of Ethnicity, 283.
24. Dolan, Social Torture, 55–56; and Tripp, Museveni’s Uganda, 162–163.
25. Dolan, Social Torture, 97.
26. Tripp, Museveni’s Uganda, 165.
27. Atkinson, From Uganda to Congo, 13; and Omach, “Democratization and Conflict Resolution,” 19.
28. Schomerus, with Ogwaro, “Searching for Solutions,” 11.
29. Tripp, Museveni’s Uganda, 166–167; and Schomerus, “Even Eating You can Bite Your Tongue.”
30. Author interviews with former US and UK policy makers based in Uganda during the 1990s, London
and Washington, DC, August–October and November–December 2009, respectively.
31. Author interviews with former senior UK official, London, October 14, 2009 and with former senior US
official, Washington, DC, November 10, 2009.
32. Author interviews with former US and UK policy makers.
33. Author interview with former senior UK official, London, May 5, 2009.
34. Author interviews with former senior US officials, Washington DC, November 10, 2009 and May 8,
2012.
35. Author interviews with US-based Uganda analyst, December 6, 2013 and UK-based Uganda analyst,
January 17, 2014.
702 J. Fisher

36. Author interviews with a range of US and UK-based Uganda analysts, including former Enough and ICG
staff, Washington, DC, October–November 2009, December 2014; London, May–June 2009, January
2014.
37. Author interviews with former senior US official, Washington, DC, October 28, 2009 and US-based
Uganda analyst, November 4, 2009.
38. Author interview with UK-based Uganda analyst, January 17, 2014.
39. White House, Letter from the President; and author interviews with US-based Uganda analysts, Washing-
ton, DC, December 3, 6 and 9, 2014 and with senior US official, Washington, DC, May 9, 2012.
40. See Atkinson, The Roots of Ethnicity, 327, on Resolve’s evolution in this regard.
41. Atkinson et al., “Do No Harm,” 372–375.
42. Ibid
43. Schomerus et al., “KONY 2012.
44. Agger, Counter- LRA Mission, 1.
45. Author interview with Michael Poffenberger, Washington, DC, November 2009.
46. Author interviews with US-based Uganda analysts, Washington, DC, November 4, 2009 and August 17,
2012.
47. Leaked embassy cable from US Embassy Kampala, dated January 2009. https://wikileaks.org/cable/2009/
01/09KAMPALA94.html.
48. ICG, LRA; and ICG, The Lord’s Resistance Army.
49. Invisible Children, Invisible Children: Rough Cut, documentary film directed by Bobby Bailey, Jason
Russell and Lauren Poole, released August 2006.
50. Invisible Children, KONY 2012, documentary film directed by Jason Russell, released March 2012.
51. White House, Letter from the President; and author interviews with US-based Uganda analysts, Washing-
ton, DC, December 3 and 9, 2013.
52. Atkinson et al., “Do No Harm,” 371–375.
53. Interview with US official, Washington, DC, December 3, 2013.
54. Ibid; and author interview with US official, Washington DC, December 6, 2013.
55. Titeca, “The Lord’s Resistance Army.”
56. Atkinson et al., “Do No Harm”; and Schomerus, “‘They Forget what they Came For’,” 143–146.
57. Author interview with US official, Washington, DC, December 3, 2013.
58. Author interviews with former US-based Uganda analysts and US officials, Washington, DC, December
3 and 9, 2013.
59. Author interview with UK-based Uganda analyst, London, January 17, 2014.
60. Author interview with former US-based Uganda analyst, Washington, DC, December 3, 2013.
61. Author interviews with US-based Uganda analysts, Washington, DC, November 4, 2009, August 17,
2012 and December 2013.
62. Ibid. See also Fisher, “Structure, Agency and Africa,” 548–551.
63. Author interview with former US-based Uganda analyst, Washington, DC, December 6, 2013.
64. See, for example, Fisher, “‘Some more Reliable than Others’,” 19–26.
65. Fisher, “When it Pays to be a ‘Fragile State’”; and Gready, “You’re either With Us.”
66. Fisher, “When it Pays to be a ‘Fragile State’”; and Tripp, Museveni’s Uganda, 165.
67. Dolan, “Understanding War,” 45–46.
68. Fisher, “When it Pays to be a ‘Fragile State’.”
69. Author interview with former US-based Uganda analyst, Washington, DC, December 6, 2013.
70. Author interview with senior Ugandan military official, Kampala, April 24, 2013.
71. Author interviews with current and former US officials, Kampala, June 2009 and Washington, DC,
October–November 2009 and May 2012.
72. Mullin, Decline and Fall, 81–83.
73. Author interview with former senior Ugandan military official, Kampala, April 25, 2013.
74. Fisher, “When it Pays.”
75. Author interview with senior Ugandan official, by telephone, September 2012.
76. Author interviews with five former US officials based in Kampala, Washington, DC, October–November
2009.
77. Author interview with former US-based Uganda analyst, Washington, DC, December 6, 2013.
78. Author interviews with three former US officials based in Kampala, Washington, DC, October–Novem-
ber 2009.
79. Rosenblum, “Irrational Exuberance,” 196–200.
80. Leaked embassy cable from US Embassy Kampala to Washington, October 2007, https://wikileaks.org/
cable/2007/10/07KAMPALA1595.html.
81. Author interviews with three former Bush administration officials, Washington, DC, November 5, 18 and
19, 2009.
82. Author interview with Jendayi Frazer, Washington, DC, May 8, 2012.
83. Author interviews with Ugandan diplomats, Kampala, May 26, 2009 and Washington DC, November 6,
2009.
 Third World Quarterly 703

84. Schomerus, “Even Eating You can Bite Your Tongue”; and Schomerus with Ogwaro, “Searching for
Solutions.”
85. Leaked embassy cables from US Embassy Kampala, dated July 2007, https://wikileaks.org/cable/2007/
07/07KAMPALA1236.html; September 2007, https://wikileaks.org/cable/2007/09/07KAMPALA1419.
html; and https://wikileaks.org/cable/2007/09/07KAMPALA1449.html.
86. Author interviews with former senior UK official, London, October 14, 2009 and former senior US offi-
cial, Washington, DC, November 10, 2009.
87. Author interview with former senior UN official, by telephone, June 9, 2010.
88. Atkinson, From Uganda to Congo; and Schomerus et al., “Obama takes on the LRA,” Foreign Affairs,
November 15, 2011.
89. Atkinson, From Uganda to Congo.
90. Fisher, “Structure, Agency and Africa,” 549.
91. Comments made by expert participant in a roundtable held under Chatham House Rule on “Human
Rights in Africa”, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, London, January 22, 2014.
92. Branch, “Uganda’s Civil War,” 187–188.

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