What is the main message of To Stop a Warlord?

To Stop a Warlord explores the power of one person to make a difference in the face of conflict and injustice.

How long does it take to read To Stop a Warlord?

The reading time for To Stop a Warlord varies depending on the reader, but it typically takes several hours. The Blinkist summary can be read in just 15 minutes.

Is To Stop a Warlord a good book? Is it worth reading?

To Stop a Warlord is a powerful and impactful read. It sheds light on the challenges and triumphs of fighting against war and brings attention to important global issues.

Who is the author of To Stop a Warlord?

To Stop a Warlord is written by Shannon Sedgwick Davis.

To Stop a Warlord Summary of Key Ideas and Review | Shannon Sedgwick Davis

Name: To Stop a Warlord
Rating: 4.2 (13 reviews)
Author: Shannon Sedgwick Davis

Introduction

What’s in it for me? A compelling true-life account of one woman’s search for justice.

At the height of its power, the Lord’s Resistance Army or LRA was one of the most fearsome guerilla groups in the world. Founded in Uganda in the 1980s, it terrorized communities in four East and Central African countries for 25 years. Its bloody record speaks for itself: two million displaced, hundreds of thousands dead and countless abducted children forced to serve in its ranks.

Neither the Ugandan army nor the international community could put a stop to the carnage. Both efforts by the United Nations peacekeepers to protect civilians, and the International Criminal Court’s bid to bring the group’s leader – the warlord Joseph Kony – to justice failed. When the LRA went on a horrific killing spree in the Congo and Sudan in 2009, one woman in Texas decided it was time to get involved.

In these blinks, veteran human-rights activist Shannon Sedgwick Davis tells the story of what happened next. Rooted in a deep understanding of the LRA as well as the local historical and political context, Davis’ account charts how she and her team embraced direct action and eventually came to the conclusion that the conflict could only be resolved by military means.

Along the way, you’ll learn

why Kony and his fighters were so hard to track down;
how a stall selling fancy Italian shoes helped Congolese villages protect themselves; and
why the mission to defeat the LRA succeeded despite its inability to capture Kony.

Key idea 1 of 9

Joseph Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army became the most notorious group in a long-running conflict in East-Central Africa.

In early 2013, human-rights activist Shannon Sedgwick Davis received a call in her San Antonio, Texas home. It was Laren Poole, her friend and collaborator in a lengthy campaign to capture Joseph Kony, the leader of a Ugandan guerilla movement called the Lord’s Resistance Army or LRA. Poole had exciting news: Kony had been located.

But before we get to that, let’s rewind a little. Why were two Americans set on tracking down an indicted war criminal in East-Central Africa? Well, they both believed apprehending Kony was the key to ending a brutal war which had broken out in the 1980s.

To understand that conflict, however, we need to go even further back. When British colonizers made their way down the Nile in the 1890s, they established a series of states. “Uganda” was named after the old kingdom of the Baganda, a powerful southern ethnic group who now became the new country’s elite. That was bad news for the Acholi, a pastoral northern minority whose role in Uganda would be restricted to exploitative labor and army service.

Tensions between the two groups outlasted the end of colonial rule in 1962. Kony, an Acholi Christian born a year earlier, grew up in the middle of a guerilla war that pitted northern rebels against the government.

In 1986, the short-lived government of an Acholi general was overthrown by Yoweri Museveni, Uganda’s current president. In the ensuing civil war, a new force emerged – the Holy Spirit Movement or HSM, a religious movement to “purify” the Acholi people. Kony quickly rose through its ranks. By the time the HSM was defeated in 1987, he was a trusted general. That allowed him to recruit fighters and create his own army to protect the Acholi against expected reprisals. This army was the LRA.

Sporadic fighting continued until 1994. Exhausted by decades of war, northern Ugandans were ready to embrace peace, and support for the LRA declined. Faced with a collapsing army, Kony turned to the practice for which he’d become notorious: abducting civilians, including children, to fill his ranks.

Over the next decade, the LRA waged a war of terror in northern Uganda. As the conflict spilled over Uganda’s borders into neighboring Sudan, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, the atrocities mounted. All in all, the LRA forcibly recruited some 300,000 children as soldiers and sex slaves, killed hundreds of thousands of people and displaced two million civilians.

Key idea 2 of 9

Davis decided to take on Kony after the 2009 “Christmas Massacres” in the Congo.

By 2006, the LRA seemed to be on its last legs. The Ugandan army had driven the organization out of the country, and the government had forced Kony to the negotiating table. The international community breathed a sigh of relief. Peace talks were underway, and a resolution was in sight.

But it wasn’t to be. Negotiations dragged on for two years without reaching a conclusion. Kony, now safely beyond the reach of Ugandan troops in north-eastern Congo, exploited the lull in fighting to regroup and prepare for the coming struggle – a bid to overthrow Museveni, a goal he’d never abandoned.

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Key idea 3 of 9

Poor communications and the mobility of Kony’s soldiers aided the LRA.

On paper, dealing with the LRA looked simple. This was, after all, an organization condemned by the entire world. More importantly, Kony wasn’t a state actor. Unlike the – now-deposed – Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir, another regional leader responsible for war crimes, bringing him to justice didn’t require a formal declaration of war.

But in reality, it wasn’t that easy.

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Key idea 4 of 9

The Bridgeway Foundation helped roll out a system of “Early Warning Networks.”

The presence of international peacekeepers in Congo wasn’t just ineffectual – it was counterproductive. UN forces didn’t do much to protect civilians, but they did lull locals into a false sense of security. It was a broken system.

So what was Davis’ NGO Bridgeway going to do to help people?

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Key idea 5 of 9

Bridgeway’s campaign became a military mission with the blessing of a top Ugandan general.

The early warning system proved to be an effective data-gathering resource, but it wasn’t enough. In June 2010, for example, Kony’s soldiers killed 23 civilians and abducted another 65 in north-eastern Congo. Davis and Poole didn’t want to simply collect information – they wanted to halt the attacks.

As they considered their options, a new idea began to take shape: supporting a military campaign. That would take Bridgeway far beyond the bounds of traditional philanthropy, but Davis and Poole couldn’t see any other way to stop the killings.

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Key idea 6 of 9

Davis and Poole settled on a South African mercenary to lead their military training program.

Davis and Poole didn’t hang about after General Aronda agreed to their plan. Within weeks, they’d drawn up a shortlist of the best bush fighters in the world. Most proved to be dead ends. One UK-based contractor they met in a restaurant, for example, was more interested in complaining about his overcooked pasta than about Joseph Kony.

That left just one candidate – a South African mercenary called Eeben Barlow.

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Key idea 7 of 9

The Special Operations Group pioneered a new approach to convincing LRA fighters to surrender.

Barlow’s training regimen was grueling. The pace was set on the first day as recruits completed three seven-mile runs with 100-pound backpacks. Of the 280 soldiers who’d been selected from the 1,200 applicants, only 136 graduated in mid-June, 2011.

The Special Operations Group, or SOG, was ready for action. In July, SOG troops engaged the LRA as they crossed a river on the Congolese-Ugandan border. The firefight was inconclusive, but it was good news – if they could find Kony’s fighters, it followed that they could also find him.

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Key idea 8 of 9

One defector gave the SOG a lead that almost resulted in Kony’s capture.

The biggest fish swimming in the stream of LRA defectors was a man called Okello, one of Kony’s most trusted aides, who surrendered in December 2012. Debriefing him gave the SOG its most valuable lead so far: the location of Lieutenant Colonel Binany, the man behind the 2009 Christmas Massacres. Binany was killed in the subsequent raid on his hideout, and his backpack contained a vital clue.

Remember that phone call Davis received from her partner Poole in early 2013?

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Key idea 9 of 9

Kony remains at large but the LRA is a severely weakened force and civilian casualties are at an all-time low.

Kony’s escape was a bitter blow. Operation Merlin should have been the SOG soldiers’ crowning achievement after two years of sacrifice and service. They wouldn’t have another chance: the Ugandan army had reassigned them to Somalia, a comparatively cushy gig after all that time living and fighting in the bush. There they’d receive regular hot meals, better pay and sleep in barracks.

The US forces who’d provided the SOG with intelligence were also moving on. A 2013 coup in the Central African Republic meant they had to abandon their bases in the country.

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