Movements like the LRA have articulated demands that include President Museveni's immediate resignation, the dissolution of the National Resistance Army (NRA) and Uganda People's Defence Force (UPDF), and the establishment of an independent government reflecting ethnic diversity and democratic principles.

[17] This struggle has exacted a heavy humanitarian toll, with widespread displacement, loss of life, and atrocities against civilians devastating northern Uganda, particularly Acholiland.

[21][22] The conflict has also profoundly impacted Acholi society, disrupting education, fracturing traditional family structures, and precipitating forced migration, contributing to a cultural erosion.

Amid complex geopolitical dynamics and international scrutiny, they wish to move toward a future marked by stability and autonomy within a multi-party democracy in a new Ugandan state bound by the Ten Commandments.

While the agricultural Baganda people worked closely with the British, the Acholi and other northern ethnic groups supplied much of the national manual labor and came to comprise a majority of the military.

[38] In March 1991, the Ugandan governments NRA started Operation North, which combined efforts to destroy the LRA, while cutting away its roots of support among the population through heavy-handed tactics.

After the failure of Operation North, Betty Oyella Bigombe initiated the first face-to-face meeting between representatives of the rebel LRA and NRA government.

The rebels asked for a general amnesty for their combatants and to "return home", but the government stance was hampered by disagreement over the credibility of the LRA negotiators and political infighting.

[43] In March 2002, the NRA, now the UPDF, launched a massive military offensive code-named Operation Iron Fist against the LRA bases in southern Sudan, with agreement from the National Islamic Front.

[47] In February 2004, the LRA unit led by Okot Odhiambo attacked Barlonyo internally displaced person (IDP) camp, killing over 300 people and abducting many others.

[49] In January 2006, eight Guatemalan Kaibiles commandos and at least 15 rebels were killed in a botched United Nations special forces raid targeting the LRA deputy leader Vincent Otti in DR Congo.

[50] According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the LRA attacks and the government's counterinsurgency measures resulted in the displacement of nearly 95 percent of the Acholi population in three districts of northern Uganda.

In 2006–2008, a series of meetings were held in Juba, Sudan, between the government of Uganda and the LRA, mediated by the south Sudanese separatist leader Riek Machar.

[52]Between December 2008 – March 2009, the armed forces of Uganda, DR Congo, and South Sudan launched aerial attacks and raids on the LRA camps in Garamba, destroying them.

[55][56][57] By August 2009, the LRA attacks in DR Congo resulted in displacing as many as 320,000 Congolese, exposing them to famine and disease, according to UNICEF director Ann Veneman.

[58] Also in August 2009, the LRA attacked a Catholic church in Ezo, South Sudan, on the Feast of the Assumption, with reports of victims being crucified, causing Ugandan Archbishop John Baptist Odama to call upon the international community for help in finding a peaceful solution to the crisis.

[59][60][61] In December 2009, the LRA forces under Dominic Ongwen killed at least 321 civilians and abducted 250 others during a four-day attack in the village and region of Makombo in DR Congo.

[63] Small-scale attacks continued daily, displacing large numbers of people and worsening an ongoing humanitarian crisis, which the UN described as one of the worst in the world.

[65] Between September 2008 and July 2011, the group, despite being down to only a few hundred fighters, had killed more than 2,300 people, abducted more than 3,000, and displaced over 400,000 across DR Congo, South Sudan, and the Central African Republic.

A former Cabinet minister who was a key figure in the Presidential Peace Team while addressing elders in Lango on the atrocities committed by the NRA in the northern districts of Gulu, Kitgum, Lira, Apac, and Teso, warned them that "they did not matter as long as the south was stable".

This cynical strategy, some argue, was deeply rooted and employed in Luwero triangle by the National Resistance Movement (NRM)/NRA rebels during their five-year bush war in order to garner popular support, with an underlying drive of "unique greed for absolute political power" in total abhorrence of democratic means.

Robert Gersony, in a report funded by the U.S. embassy in Kampala in 1997, concluded that "the LRA has no political program or ideology, at least none that the local population has heard or can understand".

[93] In the course of peace talks in 2006, LRA commander Vincent Otti sketched the official LRA coat of arms, providing it to academic Mareike Schomerus: The emblem consisted of Uganda's national animal, the crane, standing atop two palm fronds forming a circle; within the circle there is a star, a crescent moon, and a heart containing the Ten Commandments; over and below the palm fronds the group's name can be found on two small banners.

At the time, Otti stated that crane signified pride in Uganda, the palm fronds stood for peace, the Ten Commandments for the group's commitment to Christianity, and the crescent for the oneness of God regardless of religion.

[100][101] According to Matthew Green, author of The Wizard of the Nile: The Hunt for Africa's Most Wanted, the LRA was highly organised and equipped with crew-operated weapons, VHF radios, and satellite phones.

The LRA leadership has long stated that they would never surrender unless they were granted immunity from prosecution; so the ICC order to arrest them raised concerns that the insurgency would not have a negotiated end.

[115] In November 2008, U.S. President George W. Bush personally signed a directive to the US Africa Command to provide assistance financially and logistically to the Ugandan government during the unsuccessful Garamba Offensive, code-named Operation Lightning Thunder.

[116] In May 2010, U.S. President Barack Obama signed into law the Lord's Resistance Army Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act,[117] legislation aimed at stopping Kony and the LRA.

[118] On 14 October 2011, Obama announced that he had ordered the deployment of 100 U.S. military advisors with a mandate to train, assist, and provide intelligence to help combat the LRA,[119] reportedly from the Army Special Forces,[119][120] at a cost of approximately $4.5 million per month.

The goal of the project was to coordinate efforts against the group by the ongoing operations conducted by the states of Uganda, South Sudan, DR Congo and the Central African Republic.