KAMPALA, Uganda -- Rumors abound about Joseph Kony, the leader of the Lord's Resistance Army, a group that has terrorized northern Uganda for the past 20 years and now is thought to be active in Congo, Sudan and Chad. Some of them are stock rumors regularly applied to rebel leaders: that he's bullet proof, for instance, or that he speaks with spirits for guidance. And then there are a few more unusual ones: that among his rumored several dozen children with more than several dozen wives, one son is named George Bush, while another is named Salim Saleh, after the famously corrupt half brother of Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni. He's also rumored to have some kind of shield that hides his GPS coordinates when he uses satellite phones, preventing armed forces from locating and nabbing him in the jungle where he operates. One reason so many rumors persist is to fill the void left by a paucity of verifiable information. Another reason is to fill the void left by the paucity of the LRA's agenda.
LRA: Everyone’s Problem, No One’s Responsibility
