The Lord's Resistance Army: Myth And Reality

It is to the authors' credit that The Lord's Resistance Army: Myth And Reality manages to deftly avoid the "oh dear" and the equally defeatist "this is Africa" shrugging dismissal.

The book deals with the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) - an armed force operating around Northern Uganda, Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The LRA grew to infamy for its use of child soldiers, brutality and religious fervour as weapons of terror.

The book is a collection of essays by specialists closely involved with the subject, with topics such as "Exploring the roots of LRA violence: political crisis and ethnic politics in Acholiland," "Uganda's politics of foreign aid and violent conflict: the political uses of the LRA rebellion," and the "director's cut" of a real interview with LRA leader Joseph Kony with the latter being as telling about the way the Western media reports the news as anything else.

If you have a personal interest in the LRA or that region of Africa you will find the book informative, professional and competent. However, if your interest is less personal you may still find the book to be an insightful political analysis of significant issues.

The child soldiers and stories of lips and eyelids being sliced off are placed in the context of how leaders can literally come from out of the jungle, having used a mixture of charisma and religion to garner thousands of followers and turn them into an army.

It is ironic then that Kony, like a modern Colnel Kurtz, puts a human face on part of the world many of us have come to ignore with a shrugging "Oh dear."