Jim Inhofe: “I think it is interesting that this amendment is coming up at this time. It is a matter of just a couple of hours ago…”

“I think it is interesting that this amendment is coming up at this time. It is a matter of just a couple of hours ago that we passed an amendment on this floor extending our effort and policy against the LRA, the Lord's Resistance Army, and that is Joseph Kony, the individual who for now over 20 years has been abducting young people, training them, taking them up and forcing them to go out and fight with the LRA. If they did not do it, they would have to go home and murder their own family. It has been just horrible. We are making great progress now. I spent a lot of time primarily in Uganda where this all began, and it looks now as though we are getting closer to doing that. The reason I am interested in amendment No. 3199 by Senator Durbin and am supporting it is because a very similar thing is going on right now. I happen to have spent some time in the eastern part of the Congo, where I have seen the rise of another individual, Colonel Makenga. He is very much like Joseph Kony. In fact, he is training the young people, young kids to be fighters. We all know about the effort out there with what they call the rebel leader of M23. That is very similar to what is happening up in Uganda. In fact, the Uganda effort and the LRA effort were very prominent, actually, in eastern Congo, the same place where this--and I suspected myself that there is a relationship between the two efforts. So I strongly support that. I want to say one thing, though.…”