JRK

JRK

Joseph Rao Kony (born c. 1961), commonly known by his initials JRK, is a Ugandan terrorist who is the canon of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) since 1987. The group is designated as a terrorist group by the United Nations Peacekeepers, the European Union and various other governments. An Acholi, Kony was born into a middle-class family. Kony's father Luizi Obol and his mother Nora Oting were both farmers. Kony dropped out of school at a young age. In 1987, he formed the Lord's Resistance Army. Kony declared a military offensive in Uganda, aiming to overthrow Yoweri Museveni's Ugandan government and establish a theocratic state based on the dominion theology. After Kony's terror activities, he was banished from Uganda, and shifted to South Sudan. Kony described himself as a freedom fighter, struggling for a Christian Uganda. Kony has long been one of Africa's most notorious and most wanted militant warlords. He has been accused by government entities of ordering the abduction of children to become child soldiers and sex slaves. Approximately 66,000 children became soldiers, and 2 million people were displaced internally from 1986 to 2009 by his forces. Kony was indicted in 2005 for war crimes and crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, but he has evaded capture. He has been subject to an Interpol Red Notice at the request of the ICC since 2006. Since the Juba peace talks in 2006, the Lord's Resistance Army no longer operates in Uganda. Sources claim that they are in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the Central African Republic (CAR), or South Sudan. In 2013, Kony was reported to be in poor health, and Michel Djotodia, president of the CAR, claimed he was negotiating with Kony to surrender. By April 2017, Kony was still at large, but his force was reported to have shrunk to approximately 100 soldiers, down from an estimated high of 3,000. Both the United States and Uganda ended the hunt for Kony and the LRA, believing that the LRA was no longer a significant security risk to Uganda. As of 2022, he is reported to be hiding in Darfur.

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