Joseph Kony is the primary leader of the Ugandan Lord's Resistance Army (LRA). The LRA is a group that is engaged in a violent campaign to establish a theocratic government in Uganda based on the Bible and the Ten Commandments. A high-school dropout, he made his first appearance in January 1987, when he is believed to have been 26 years old. His group was one of many millenarian groups that sprang up in Acholiland in the wake of the wildly popular Holy Spirit Movement of Alice Auma. The primary spirit channeled at this time was Juma Oris, formerly a government minister under President Idi Amin who was leading the rebel West Nile Bank Front in the northwest of Uganda at the time.

Mr Kony claims that spirits guide his actions. Many of the details of his beliefs appear bizarre, such as his assertion that one of his mentors is the spirit of a Chinese general. He is also known to be a practising polygamist. Though most often viewed through the prism of the LRA's religious positions, it should not be forgotten that Kony's struggle began in the resentment among the Acholis at their relative loss of influence since the coming to power of Yoweri Museveni in 1986 through the defeat of Acholi President Tito Okello. While the initial resistance to the National Resistance Army in 1986 was by the Uganda People's Democratic Army, the UPDA collapsed in 1988 and the Lord's Resistance Army has continued to survive.

The Uganda government says Mr Kony is based in Southern Sudan. At the end of the year 2003, the Kony rebels made an incursion outside of their traditional areas of operation in Acholiland into the Teso regions. Some state that this was the beginning of their "Waterloo," though the Ugandan government has declared the Lord's Resistance Army has been defeated no less than three times since 1986. As of February 2005 the LRA lieutenants were negotiating with the government, though Kony's negotiating position was ambiguous.