The government is offering money to anyone with information about Kony or other leaders of the Lord's Resistance Army.
Joseph Kony (Photo: Adam Pletts/Getty Images)
The move comes as part of Secretary of State John Kerry’s expansion of the State Department’s War Crimes Rewards Program. Kerry authored and passed the legislation surrounding the program last year as a senator and chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee. Now, Kerry plans to sharpen the program’s teeth by targeting Africa’s most well-known war crimes fugitive.
“Today, I am announcing a new weapon in our fight. Through the expansion of the War Crimes Rewards Program, the Department of State is offering up to $5 million for information that leads to the arrest, transfer, and conviction of the top three leaders of the LRA: Joseph Kony, Okot Odhiambo and Dominic Ongwen. All three are charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity,” Kerry wrote in an op-ed featured in the Huffington Post.
Operating out of unknown locations in Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, Joseph Kony and several members of the LRA are wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes and crimes against humanity, stemming from the use of child soldiers and making children into sex slaves in his army.
In addition to the LRA, Kerry also announced a $5 million reward for information about Sylvestre Mudacumura, a Rwandan who allegedly committed and ordered brutal attacks on civilians as the military commander the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR).
