President Obama urged to help arrest Joseph Kony

Joseph Kony. Source: Voices [Education Project].

This weekend's THE WEEK IN RIGHTS, a weekly email from Human Rights Watch to all its supporters, contained many human rights-related articles including a compelling article by Kenneth Roth, Executive Director of Human Rights Watch, urging President Obama to "get tough on human rights" and help arrest Joseph Kony.

Joseph Kony is the rebel leader and commander of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), a ruthless rebel group that has committed well-documented carnage and untold atrocities in the DR Congo, Uganda, Sudan and Central African Republic.

In Congo, the LRA perpetrates atrocities such as mass rape and rape as a weapon of war - making the country arguably the worst place to be a woman. For decades, the rebels, under the leadership of Joseph Kony, have mutilated, slaughtered, kidnapped and raped civilians with impunity.

In 2005, arrest warrants were issued by the International Criminal Court for Joseph  Kony and four other LRA commanders. They are wanted at the Hague on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Efforts have been made to bring the rebels to justice but they remain at large either due to inadequate resources or lack of political will to track them down.

Over the years, the United States has used force on "humanitarian grounds" in countries like Iraq and Afghanistan, but it remains to be seen whether the super power will intervene and take action against the LRA -  a rebel group that is responsible for one of the world's greatest humanitarian crisis. An intervention to help arrest Kony and protect civilians in the region would be justifiable on humanitarian grounds.

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DR Congo: Worst Place to be a Woman

The Democratic Republic of Congo is arguably the worst place to be a woman. An armed conflict in the West African country has been described in the most harsh terms:

• The deadliest conflict since World War II
• Africa's First World War
• The great war of Africa
• The greatest humanitarian crisis on the planet

Words cannot aptly describe the conflict in DR Congo; words cannot aptly describe the suffering of the Congolese people who have faced unspeakable human rights violations - including rampant rape, forced labour and the worst forms of child labour - for more than a decade.

In DR Congo, both government troops and rebel groups use rape as a weapon of war. The casualties of the war are numerous and women and girls are the most vulnerable. More than 200,000 women and girls have been raped in DR Congo since 1998 and there is a growing need to protect civilians.

A video by Human Rights Watch paints a grim picture of DR Congo - the worst place to be a woman. WATCH...



Systematic mass rape and other forms of violence against women and girls in DR Congo have been documented and reported by Human Rights Watch and other rights groups and individuals for more than a decade, and the largest UN peacekeeping force - United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUSCO), formerly known as United Nations Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUC) - is on the ground in Congo, but it remains to be seen whether civilians would be protected from violence in a country that is so rich, yet so poor and unstable.

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