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For a journalist, Special Operations are problematic. They work insecret and tend to consider the press, at best, an annoyance and,at worst, a hindrance and a danger. In January, TIME photographerDominic Nahr and I visited Obo , the town in southeastern Central African Republic (CAR) where30 U.S. special forces soldiers hunting Lord's ResistanceArmy (LRA) leader Joseph Kony have built a grass-walled base. TheAmericans made their disdain clear. One peered over the base fence,told us we weren't welcome and to contact a press officer in Uganda . When we tried to interview staff at an Italian NGO working inObo, and then the Ugandan army, it became clear the U.S. soldiershad requested they also tell us nothing. Then a former Britishdiplomat to CAR who was living and working with the Americans as alocal liaison tried to sneak photographs of us by pretending totake memento snapshots of his employers next to a large tree andshooting pictures of us over their shoulders. It was galling, butit was also routine. In 11 years of covering war, the only timeI've had a conversation of substance with a U.S. SpecialForces soldier was in northern Afghanistan in 2001 when I accidentally found myself hiding on a rooftop witha group of US and British Special Operations bomb spotters callingin air strikes 100 yards away and my immediate neighbor discoveredI lived in Hong Kong. The guy really knew a lot aboutWanchai's strip clubs. ( PHOTOS: On the ground, safe from #Kony? ) So, call me a cynic and a spoiler, but I can't help wonderabout the sudden access the press are getting to the manhunt forKony. Could it be that U.S. Special Operations and their Ugandancounterparts are wondering whether, six months into an operation inwhich barely a shot has been fired, they need to head off someawkward questions about results with the kind of positive pressthat a rare, on-the-ground look at a Special Operation in actionmight be expected to generate? Last month, the US Africa command, Africom, arranged a well-attended press trip to SouthSudan for journalists to meet the Special Forces and their Ugandancounterparts. My colleagues relished the remote adventure of theassignment in their copy, as any decent journalist would. But theyretained a sense of skepticism. Several wrote about thedifficulties of a manhunt in a vast area of jungle that has fewroads. Some reported a rising frustration at the operation'slack of results among residents who live in fear of the LRA'smurderous record of massacres and pillage, and the group'shabit of abducting children as fighters or sex slaves. ( READ: The Warlord vs. the Hipsters ) Over the weekend, however, when more reporters were invited to CARto see a captured LRA officer, Caesar Acellam, that skepticismevaporated. Caesar Acellam was a big deal, the journalists said.Kony's detention would likely soon follow. A conflict thathas lasted more than two decades, killed tens of thousands anddisplaced hundreds of thousands more, would soon be over. Andthe source for this stirring analysis? Caesar Acellam. "Mycoming out will have a big impact for the people still in the bushto come out and end this war soon," Acellam told reporters.Almost all the reporters also quoted, without challenge, thecharming and ebullient Ugandan army spokesman, Col. FelixKulayigye, who described Acellam as a "big fish" andhis capture as "a major step for us toward ending therebellion." In this breathless copy, Acellam was said to be with just a hint of desperation the "fourth mostimportant" commander of the LRA. In its headline, the Sydney Morning Herald concluded: "Endgame Nears for Kony." One can only hope. But if the finale really is approaching forKony, it seems unlikely to have much to do with Acellam'scapture. Acellam is not one of the four LRA commanders indicted bythe International Criminal Court in The Hague. Also, according to aWestern intelligence report dated last October and seen byTIME, "Major General" Caesar Acellam was commanderof a group of perhaps 20 LRA soldiers, making his group merely theninth largest inside the LRA, which is itself just 200 fightersstrong. Even that paltry numerical assessment of Acellam'scommand, though, was apparently out of date. When he wasapprehended, Acellam was being accompanied by a Ugandan woman, ateenage girl from CAR and her baby. He surrendered the moment theUgandan soldiers tracking him fired a few warning shots. He had, sothe reports said, just eight bullets on him. In a group of just 200 fighters, one that is run by Kony as amurderous autocracy and when Kony keeps 80 of those fighters forhimself there is, really, only one big fish. Kony'srebellion ends with Kony. ( MORE: Why you should feel awkward about Kony2012. ). We are high quality suppliers, our products such as GPS GSM Tracker , GPS Vehicle Tracking System Manufacturer for oversee buyer. To know more, please visits 8 Port GSM Modem.
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