The US through the War Crimes Rewards Program has issued a USD5 million (Ksh609 million) bounty on any information that will lead to the arrest of Ugandan warlord Joseph Kony.
In a statement through their Twitter account, US said that the fugitive was wanted for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
“Joseph Kony is wanted for war crimes and crimes against humanity. No information is too small- help get him arrested!” the War Crimes Rewards Program said in the tweet.
He is the founder of Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), a Christian fundamentalist organization, designated as a terrorist group by the United Nations Peacekeepers, the European Union and various other governments.
Considered as one of the most wanted warlords in Africa, he is accused of ordering for the abduction of children to become child soldiers and sex slaves.
It is estimated that through LRA, 66,000 children were abducted to become soldiers, and 2 million people were displaced internally from 1986 to 2009 by his forces.
The end of Joseph Kony’s LRA in Uganda
Since the Juba peace talks in 2006, LRA stopped operating in Uganda and the rebel army is said to have reduced in size to around 100 soldiers, from a high of 3,000.
Uganda and the US had stopped the hunt for Kony since he was no longer a security threat to Uganda. However, the US seems to have revived the hunt for Kony, who is believed to be hiding either in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the Central African Republic (CAR), or South Sudan.
Kony’s primary aim was to overthrow President Yoweri Museveni’s Ugandan government and establish a theocratic state based on the dominion theology.
