To Stop a Warlord

November 1, 2018

CEO of an investment firm's charitable arm, Sedgwick Davis did something unexpected to achieve a humanitarian goal: she coordinated with a South African private military contractor and a special unit of Uganda's army to combat Joseph Kony and his Lord's Resistance Army, which have rampaged through central Africa for two-plus decades.

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February 15, 2019
A hard-driving chronicle of a committed group of well-connected do-gooders determined to apprehend the long-terrorizing leader of the violent Lord's Resistance Army in Central Africa.Led by its sadistic leader, Joseph Kony, the LRA sprang up amid the civil war in Uganda in the mid-1980s, and for more than 25 years, it has preyed on vulnerable children to make up its murderous ranks. Inspired by the life of ex-LRA soldier victims like David Ocitti, whose harrowing story of murder and rape alternates between the primary narrative thread, Davis, CEO of the philanthropic organization Bridgeway Foundation, mustered the foundation's considerable missionary zeal and financial clout to try to take down the elusive Kony. Recognizing that "policy alone wasn't going to stop the LRA," especially in "a region that was not a direct national security threat to the United States," the author and her group resolved to help provide the financial resources to train Ugandan military as well as improve communications among villages in the affected areas. Enlisting the help of Laren Poole, from the Invisible Children movement, Davis corralled a host of formidable participants in her fight--e.g., a notorious Ugandan general; a former covert operative for the special forces in the South African army; and the several hundred Ugandan soldiers selected for the training program who would actually swarm the areas where Kony had last operated. Moreover, there was the financial backing of Muneer Satter, a high-level Goldman Sachs executive, and philanthropist Howard G. Buffett, who provides the foreword. Sadly, despite this incredible endeavor, by the end of the operation in 2015, Kony was still at large. Still, as the author writes, "LRA violence is still minimal compared to the deadliness of the organization pre-mission," and she succeeds in her hope that the book "will serve as an encouragement to engage more deeply in issues of injustice in the world."An uplifting story of an extraordinary effort to support human rights throughout the world.

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March 11, 2019
Attorney and human rights advocate Davis powerfully tells of her efforts to free Central Africa from the grip of violent rebel leader Joseph Kony and liberate his army of child soldiers. As CEO of a foundation established “to prevent oppression, genocide, and human rights abuses,” Sedgwick realized that funding relief programs for survivors of Kony’s massacres was “just putting Band-Aids on bullet holes.” In 2010, she traveled to Central Africa and Uganda, where Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army—kidnapped children who had been turned into soldiers—had killed thousands. Taking “a step beyond traditional philanthropy,” she hired “a private, professional military trainer to train the Ugandan army in counter-LRA tactics,” a decision backed by Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Warren Buffett’s philanthropist son Howard. When military efforts failed, Davis decided on a strategy of “taking the LRA down from the inside out” through a defection campaign aimed at Kony’s top commanders and young soldiers; this ultimately undermined his control. Indicted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court in 2005, Kony remains at large, yet the author concludes “peace is bigger than one man. It is the 90 percent reduction in LRA violence.” This is a fast-paced and intense geopolitical narrative.