NCJ Number
218210
Journal
Studies in Conflict & Terrorism Volume: 30 Issue: 4 Dated: April 2007 Pages: 337-352
Date Published
April 2007
Length
16 pages
Annotation
This article examines the motivations of the Lord's Resistance Army's (LRA's) two-decade war in northern Uganda, southern Sudan, and most recently the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Abstract
The article begins with a brief review of the history of the LRA, explaining both how it evolved and how its historic roots have contributed to its motivations in continuing violent conflict. The dynamics of the evolution of the LRA has implications for terrorist groups like al Qaeda, whose unrealistic religiously based goals have little hope of being realized. This suggests the perpetuation of an organizational, societal, and religio-cultural identity perpetuated through a lifestyle of sacrifice, conflict, and martyrdom. Preventing the growth of these groups should involve bringing marginalized potential recruits into normative sociopolitical societies that resolve conflicts and solve problems peacefully through tolerance and compromise. The author then examines the various motives proposed in attempting to explain the LRA's reluctance to stop fighting. These include political and economic motives as well as Sudanese influence. The author proposes "existential" motivations for the LRA's continuation of the conflict. Existential motivations are not concerned with achieving a set goal, after which combatants commit to a peaceful, normative life. Instead, motivations are to perpetuate the conflict-oriented, violence-oriented identity and structure of the organization as an end in itself. Groups that are existentially motivated continue to fight in order to affirm a way of life based in the indefinite continuation of war as essential to its identity as a society. One analysis of the LRA is that it is a millenarian organization, since the LRA leadership refers to the end of the world and the need for cleansing. The religious ideology of millenarianism is a means toward continuing the organization as a socioeconomic and cultural entity. 61 notes