Obama signs law that places cash reward for Kony arrest

By Raymond Baguma

US President Barack Obama has assented to an amended law which places a cash reward for whoever arrests the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) leader Joseph Kony and his top commanders.

The “Department of State Rewards Program Update and Technical Corrections Act of 2012,” was introduced in February last year by the representative from California Ed Royce, who chairs the foreign affairs subcommittee on terrorism, nonproliferation, and trade.

The law updates the State Department’s Rewards Program which was introduced in 1984 to offer rewards for information related to terrorists, narcotics traffickers and specific international war criminals.

Now, the amended law updates the Rewards Program to include those involved in transnational organised crime and others wanted for the most serious human rights abuses.

It will allow the use of the Rewards Program to target those indicted by international, hybrid or mixed tribunals for genocide, war crimes, or crimes against humanity.

After President Obama’s signing, Royce in a statement said, “As criminal networks and terrorists morph into something new – and killers like Joseph Kony of the LRA terrorize the innocent - this law will give us additional tools to target the world’s worst.