LRA Vows to Protect Endangered Animals

The LRA waits to hear what will develop from the Juba peace talks and have extended their ceasefire to include the park rangers and endangered species of Garamba Park

The Garamba National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is home to four large mammals - the elephant, the hippo, the giraffe and the northern white rhino, the world's most endangered large mammal. This forlorn quartet are the only white rhinos remaining in a natural habitat. Another rare breed that will soon be extinct, and currently using Garamba's natural splendour as their return address, is the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA). Fearful that he will be arrested and delivered to the International Criminal Court if he attends the peace talks in Juba, Joseph Kony is hiding here in the DRC with a number of loyal LRA henchmen, awaiting the outcome of the proceedings. While some violence between the LRA and the Ugandan People's Defense Forces has continued throughout discussions, the LRA has promised to protect the endangered species of Garamba, as well as its park rangers.

Prior to this declaration, the LRA had killed 12 park rangers and 8 U.N. peacekeepers in Garamba. But it is the poachers who have taken advantage of civil unrest to take care of the white rhino. According to conservation groups, the population of the wild white rhino has taken a nosedive from 30 to 4 in the last 22 months. What makes their looming annihilation even more depressing is that this is a harmless animal so its mild temperament has made it easy prey for the poachers who can fetch high prices for rhino horns that are used in Chinese medicine and Yemeni dagger handles. But this huge mammal is not the only threatened animal that the LRA will be protecting in Garamba. Amongst others are about 40 rare pygmy giraffes and an unknown number of recently rediscovered okapi.

The LRA has now put forward a Disarmament, Demobilisation, Reintegration and Resettlement programme expressing their position on a truce. After they have laid down their weapons and disbanded, the government will have to think of creative ways to incorporate these former killers and rapists into society. One idea might to be use the experience they have gained in Garamba, not to mention their years of living in the wild. It might not be such a bad plan to relocate them to Uganda's Bwindi Impenetrable National Park where they can continue to protect rare species. Bwindi is only accessible by foot so the LRA can put to good use their instincts and the skills they acquired from years in the bush. About 300 Mountain Gorillas live in Bwindi, which is half of the world's critically endangered population. The gorillas have faced a high risk of extinction in the wild due to poaching, habitat loss and war. Since the LRA has lived a life devoted to inflicting the same horrors on their fellow humans, the least they can do is protect these needy primates, since their help will not be desired in civil society.