Page 75 - Encyclopedia Of Terrorism

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48———Army of God

Congo, including much of the Rwandan Armed Forces have speculated that the ALIR may move its base of
(FAR) and the civilian militias, known as the operations to neighboring Burundi and thus enlarge
Interahamwe, that FAR had recruited to carry out the the conflict. However, the Rwandan government
genocide. seems confident that it can defeat the remaining
The Rwandan government’s desire to eliminate the ALIR forces.
remaining FAR and Interahamwe precipitated a com-
plex chain of events that included the 1997 overthrow Further Reading
of Congolese dictator Joseph Mobutu, the installation
“Army for the Liberation of Rwanda (ALIR).” Patterns of
of guerrilla leader Laurent Kabila in his place, a 1998
Global Terrorism, 2000. U.S. Department of State. http://
war in Congo involving nine African nations (in
web.nps.navy.mil/~library/tgp/alir.htm, April 2001.
which Rwanda and Uganda opposed the Kabila
“Rwanda: Observing the Rules of War?” Human Rights
regime and its allies), and finally the July 2001 assas- Watch Report. Vol. 13, No. 8(A), December 20, 2001.
sination of Laurent Kabila and his replacement by Vesperini, Helen. “Interahamwe: A Spent Force?” BBC
his son, Joseph. For most of this period, the Hutus in News. http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/africa/
Congo fought against the Rwandan forces and were newsid_1456000/1456900.stm, July 25, 2001.
supported by the Kabila regime. Under the leadership
of Joseph Kabila, the provisions of a peace accord
signed in 1999 have begun to be enforced, and the ARMY OF GOD
Hutu rebels are no longer receiving active support
from the Congolese government. In March 2001, the
Rwandan Army withdrew its forces to a position near In the early 1980s, a shadowy group calling itself
the Congo-Rwanda border. the Army of God emerged in the antiabortion move-
The ALIR was formed during these chaotic ment. Often linked to threatening or violent acts, inves-
years—apparently in an attempt to coordinate Hutu tigators believe that it does not necessarily represent an
groups’ efforts at defense. The organization issued a organized group but has become an umbrella label for
threat against U.S. interests in Rwanda in 1996, but some extremists. However, many prochoice advocates
the group did not emerge as a recognized and orga- maintain that there is a conspiracy among the more
nized forced until sometime in 2001. The ALIR lead- violent factions of the antiabortion movement, arguing
ership is mostly composed of former FAR officers, but that if the Army of God did not start as an organized
its membership as a whole includes many fighters group, certainly the vast networking capability spurred
who were not implicated in the original genocide—a by the World Wide Web has given it some cohesion.
large proportion were children in 1994—but who The group first surfaced in 1982 after the Army of
became involved in the conflict after becoming God claimed responsibility for the kidnapping of an
refugees. Papers seized at ALIR encampments Illinois doctor and his wife and for the firebombing of
suggest that a Christian evangelical movement may two Florida abortion clinics. Authorities eventually
be associated with the group, but the scant evidence arrested three men in the case. Don Benny Anderson,
available precludes speculation on the ALIR’s reli- the ringleader in the abduction and founder of the
gious character. The ALIR has set up jungle training group, told investigators he was acting on orders from
camps run by former FAR and Interahamwe members God and the Archangel Michael.
to train its new recruits. Accurately estimating the Although authorities originally believed the group
strength of the ALIR forces is difficult; however, the consisted of only these three men, subsequent anti-
number of armed and active troops appears to be abortion activity throughout the following decades,
several thousand. such as fires and explosions in several abortion clinics,
In 2001, following the Rwandan Army’s fallback, have been attributed to the group. The Army of God
the ALIR again attacked Rwandan territory, concen- has also sent threatening letters to prominent figures
trating on military targets. The Rwandan Army main- such as Supreme Court Justice Harry A. Blackmun, the
tains that its counterattacks have split the ALIR into author of Roe v. Wade, the landmark decision that
two groups, the first of which the Army claims to legalized abortion.
have nearly eliminated. Continuing upheaval in the The name Army of God became more widely known
region makes prediction difficult, but some observers in 1997, when it was signed on a letter claiming credit