Aid Workers See Radio as Key to US Military Victory in Uganda

Villagers Have 'No Telephones,' Officials Reason

by Jason Ditz, November 08, 2011

Since the commencement of the US invasion of northern Uganda last month, very little news has come out of the region, beyond some lobbyists expressing hopes that it is just the next step in years of escalation in the region.

Now the Associated Press has given us our first insight into how the war plan is going. Unsurprisingly its going in the same as US wars always go, no progress and an announcement that a great new idea is going to produce a quick victory. That new idea is the radio.

See the US troops have no real idea where Joseph Kony is, but they bet that if some villagers saw him they’d probably call the troops. The reason that hasn’t happened is that they don’t have phones. There but for the want of phones, the war would be won by now.

So the US aid group is installing $18,000 radios in every village around the area, a slow and surprisingly expensive process. Officials say the radio towers, which usually amount to the radio being tied to a tree, will allow the villages to provide the US military with information about the LRA’s movements.

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