The Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) and its leader, Joseph Kony, have been added to Switzerland’s list of sanctions concerning the Central African Republic (CAR), the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs announced on Tuesday. According to the United Nations, the Ugandan LRA has killed more than 100,000 people, and abducted more than 60,000 children in Uganda as well as neighbouring countries since its inception in the late 1980s. Kony, a self-proclaimed prophet, combines religious mysticism, proven guerrilla tactics, and bloody brutality The cabinet decided on March 14, 2014 to take coercive measures against the CAR, and applied UN Security Council resolutions 2127 (2013) and 2134 (2014), which include asset freezing and travel ban sanctions. Switzerland’s list of sanctions also includes former CAR president François Bozizé, who was deposed in 2013, as well as two leaders of militia group leaders responsible for violence in the CAR.
