Who is Joseph Kony?

[doolally]

knoy2012.com "you say ya want a revolution yea!" Lennon/McCartney knoy2012.com

[Drowned Out]

http://www.kony2012.com/watch

kony2012 is a fraud:

http://thedailywh.at/2012/03/07/on-kony-2012-2/

What's the credibility of the daily what?

Amazing how viral this has gone. It's been posted in my fb newsfeed I bet 40 times today....mostly by people with zero history of social justice advocacy or any political activism at all....the people with the history of advocacy/activism are all posting this same dailywhat article in reply, and a few others ....it's easy to feel paranoid even about social networking, knowing that the CIA has increased funding and developed software to utilize it as a tool...(ie: using large numbers of accounts to push their agendas and get them 'trending')

I admit I'm predisposed to look for western involvement in ANY kind of campaign with geopolitical ramifications (justified by the last few hundred years of history)...So...Cui bono? First: peoples affected by Kony's actions. Good. Second: Invisible Children, an organization that has received some pretty harsh criticism (much of which appears deserved)...and Third:....who?? I have no idea...but if history serves, and what Idris suggests about Kony being staunchly anti-western imperialism....I have to wonder if there are other interests set to benefit from his elimination in West Africa. What I'm curious about is how heavily to weigh a possible third benefactors' bounty against that of the first...or: if there is a third interest at work, will the ways Kony's elimination benefits them, be detrimental to the people supporters of this campaign aim to help?

I don't like that so many people are calling for people to 'get him'.....when he's surrounded by child soldiers. And then I read that the army (UPDF) Invisible Children supports employing to 'get him' has 13 yr olds fighting for it?

Rushing to support any kind of violent policy, in a far-off nation that we don't know much about, no matter how vile the villain, can have dire consequences. Which may not be intended by supporters....but may be intended by the initiators. This is a lesson you'd think we'd have learned over the last decade. Libya proved we haven't.



Anyway.....Invisible Children has posted a response to the criticisms.....personaly, I'll take them with a grain of salt until I see how this all shakes out.

http://s3.amazonaws.com/www.invisiblech ... iques.html

Critiques

Thank you for reading this and doing further research about Invisible Children and Kony 2012. In response to this explosion of interest about the Kony 2012 film, there have been hundreds of thousands of comments in support of the arrest of Joseph Kony and the work of Invisible Children. However, there have also been a few pieces written that are putting out false or mis-leading information about these efforts. This statement is our official response to some of these articles and is a source for accurate information about Invisible Children’s mission, financials and approach to stopping LRA violence.

Invisible Children’s mission is to stop LRA violence and support the war affected communities in Central Africa. These are the three ways we achieve that mission. Each is essential: 1) Document and make the world aware of the LRA. This includes making documentary films and touring these films around the world so that they are seen for free by millions of people. 2) Channeling the energy and awareness from informed viewers of IC films into large scale advocacy campaigns that have mobilized the international community to stop the LRA and protect civilians. 3) Operate programs on the ground in the LRA-affected areas to provide protection, rehabilitation and development assistance.

All of our organizational efforts and resources go to accomplishing those 3 goals. We have always split our energies and resources between international awareness & advocacy and programs on the ground. The allocation of our finances should be judged within that publicly-stated mission.
Re: Financials

Invisible Children’s financial statements are online for everyone to see. Financial statements from the last 5 years, including our 990, are available at http://www.invisiblechildren.com/financials. The organization spent 80.46% on our programs that further our three fold mission, 16.24% on administration and management costs and 3.22% on direct fundraising in FY2011. Invisible Children is independently audited every year and in full compliance with our 501 c 3 status.

Below is a screen shot from pages 35 and 36 of the 2011 Invisible Children annual report that detail our total expenses for FY2011. An expense statement by class is the way non-profits present their expenses to the public because it’s the clearest way to show the purpose of different organizational expenses vs. a line item expense statement such as the one on Page 6 of our Audited Financial Report. For instance, in the “travel and transportation” expense line item on page 6 is a relatively ambiguous figure until all of the expenses in that line item are allocated to their “class” or function. The make up of the travel and transportation lines include domestic and international airfare, gas for national tours, vehicle maintenance for our touring vans, roadie and intern stipends, visa fees and vaccinations for travel in Central Africa. All of those specific expenses are then allocated to the function in which they support including awareness programs, media and film creation, fundraising, management and general, and Central Africa Programs, as represented in the data below.


Re: Charity Navigator Rating

Charity Navigator gives our Programs its highest rating of 4 stars. Our Accountability and Transparency score is currently at 2 stars due primarily to the single fact that Invisible Children does not have 5 independent voting members on our board of directors--we currently have 4. We are in the process of interviewing potential board members, and we will add an additional independent member this year in order to regain our 4-star rating by 2013. We have been independently audited by Considine and Considine, since the fiscal year end of June 30, 2006 and all of our audits have resulted in unqualified opinions on the audit reports.

Re: Better Business Bureau (BBB)

Participation in BBB's program is voluntary-- we are choosing to wait until we have expanded our Board of Directors, as some questions hinge on the size of our Board. The current Board is small in size and reflects Invisible Children’s grassroots foundation. Invisible Children has now reached a juncture of success that has astonished even its greatest supporters. While it is important to retain a presence on the Board that reflects Invisible Children's early beginnings, we also are working to realign the structure this year.

The best researched paper supporting the policy position of the KONY 2012 campaign can be found here, drafted by Paul Ronan of Resolve: http://www.theresolve.org/peace-can-be--3

But here are a few quick responses to some of the most common questions we’re seeing online:

Re: Ugandan government human rights record

We do not defend any of the human rights abuses perpetrated by the Ugandan government or the Ugandan army (UPDF). None of the money donated through Invisible Children ever goes to the government of Uganda. Yet the only feasible and proper way to stop Kony and protect the civilians he targets is to coordinate efforts with regional governments.

Re: Stopping Kony

We are advocating for the arrest of Joseph Kony so that he can be tried by the International Criminal Court (ICC) as a precedent for future war criminals. The goal of Kony 2012 is for the world to unite to see him arrested and prosecuted for his crimes against humanity.

Re: Why work with the UPDF if the LRA is no longer in northern Uganda

The LRA left northern Uganda in 2006. The LRA is currently active in Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic, and South Sudan. Invisible Children’s mission is to stop Joseph Kony and the LRA wherever they are and help rehabilitate LRA-affected communities. The Ugandan government’s army, the UPDF, is more organized and better equipped than that of any of the other affected countries (DRC, South Sudan, CAR) to track down Joseph Kony. Part of the US strategy to stop Kony is to encourage cooperation between the governments and armies of the 4 LRA-affected countries. The LRA was active in Uganda for nearly 20 years, displacing 1.7 million people and abducting at least 30,000 children. The people and government of Uganda have a vested interested in seeing him stopped.

Re: Programs on the Ground

While the vast majority of the recent exposure and commentary about Invisible Children has been towards the awareness portion of our mission, below is an up-to-date explanation of our direct work in Central Africa, an equally important element to the mission of Invisible Children.

[peacefrompaul]

Amazing how viral this has gone. It's been posted in my fb newsfeed I bet 40 times today....mostly by people with zero history of social justice advocacy or any political activism at all....the people with the history of advocacy/activism are all posting this same dailywhat article in reply, and a few others ....it's easy to feel paranoid even about social networking, knowing that the CIA has increased funding and developed software to utilize it as a tool...(ie: using large numbers of accounts to push their agendas and get them 'trending')

I admit I'm predisposed to look for western involvement in ANY kind of campaign with geopolitical ramifications (justified by the last few hundred years of history)...So...Cui bono? First: peoples affected by Kony's actions. Good. Second: Invisible Children, an organization that has received some pretty harsh criticism (much of which appears deserved)...and Third:....who?? I have no idea...but if history serves, and what Idris suggests about Kony being staunchly anti-western imperialism....I have to wonder if there are other interests set to benefit from his elimination in West Africa. What I'm curious about is how heavily to weigh a possible third benefactors' bounty against that of the first...or: if there is a third interest at work, will the ways Kony's elimination benefits them, be detrimental to the people supporters of this campaign aim to help?

I don't like that so many people are calling for people to 'get him'.....when he's surrounded by child soldiers. And then I read that the army (UPDF) Invisible Children supports employing to 'get him' has 13 yr olds fighting for it?

Rushing to support any kind of violent policy, in a far-off nation that we don't know much about, no matter how vile the villain, can have dire consequences. Which may not be intended by supporters....but may be intended by the initiators. This is a lesson you'd think we'd have learned over the last decade. Libya proved we haven't.



Anyway.....Invisible Children has posted a response to the criticisms.....personaly, I'll take them with a grain of salt until I see how this all shakes out.

http://s3.amazonaws.com/www.invisiblech ... iques.html

Critiques

Thank you for reading this and doing further research about Invisible Children and Kony 2012. In response to this explosion of interest about the Kony 2012 film, there have been hundreds of thousands of comments in support of the arrest of Joseph Kony and the work of Invisible Children. However, there have also been a few pieces written that are putting out false or mis-leading information about these efforts. This statement is our official response to some of these articles and is a source for accurate information about Invisible Children’s mission, financials and approach to stopping LRA violence.

Invisible Children’s mission is to stop LRA violence and support the war affected communities in Central Africa. These are the three ways we achieve that mission. Each is essential: 1) Document and make the world aware of the LRA. This includes making documentary films and touring these films around the world so that they are seen for free by millions of people. 2) Channeling the energy and awareness from informed viewers of IC films into large scale advocacy campaigns that have mobilized the international community to stop the LRA and protect civilians. 3) Operate programs on the ground in the LRA-affected areas to provide protection, rehabilitation and development assistance.

All of our organizational efforts and resources go to accomplishing those 3 goals. We have always split our energies and resources between international awareness & advocacy and programs on the ground. The allocation of our finances should be judged within that publicly-stated mission.
Re: Financials

Invisible Children’s financial statements are online for everyone to see. Financial statements from the last 5 years, including our 990, are available at http://www.invisiblechildren.com/financials. The organization spent 80.46% on our programs that further our three fold mission, 16.24% on administration and management costs and 3.22% on direct fundraising in FY2011. Invisible Children is independently audited every year and in full compliance with our 501 c 3 status.

Below is a screen shot from pages 35 and 36 of the 2011 Invisible Children annual report that detail our total expenses for FY2011. An expense statement by class is the way non-profits present their expenses to the public because it’s the clearest way to show the purpose of different organizational expenses vs. a line item expense statement such as the one on Page 6 of our Audited Financial Report. For instance, in the “travel and transportation” expense line item on page 6 is a relatively ambiguous figure until all of the expenses in that line item are allocated to their “class” or function. The make up of the travel and transportation lines include domestic and international airfare, gas for national tours, vehicle maintenance for our touring vans, roadie and intern stipends, visa fees and vaccinations for travel in Central Africa. All of those specific expenses are then allocated to the function in which they support including awareness programs, media and film creation, fundraising, management and general, and Central Africa Programs, as represented in the data below.


Re: Charity Navigator Rating

Charity Navigator gives our Programs its highest rating of 4 stars. Our Accountability and Transparency score is currently at 2 stars due primarily to the single fact that Invisible Children does not have 5 independent voting members on our board of directors--we currently have 4. We are in the process of interviewing potential board members, and we will add an additional independent member this year in order to regain our 4-star rating by 2013. We have been independently audited by Considine and Considine, since the fiscal year end of June 30, 2006 and all of our audits have resulted in unqualified opinions on the audit reports.
Re: Better Business Bureau (BBB)

Participation in BBB's program is voluntary-- we are choosing to wait until we have expanded our Board of Directors, as some questions hinge on the size of our Board. The current Board is small in size and reflects Invisible Children’s grassroots foundation. Invisible Children has now reached a juncture of success that has astonished even its greatest supporters. While it is important to retain a presence on the Board that reflects Invisible Children's early beginnings, we also are working to realign the structure this year.

The best researched paper supporting the policy position of the KONY 2012 campaign can be found here, drafted by Paul Ronan of Resolve: http://www.theresolve.org/peace-can-be--3

But here are a few quick responses to some of the most common questions we’re seeing online:
Re: Ugandan government human rights record

We do not defend any of the human rights abuses perpetrated by the Ugandan government or the Ugandan army (UPDF). None of the money donated through Invisible Children ever goes to the government of Uganda. Yet the only feasible and proper way to stop Kony and protect the civilians he targets is to coordinate efforts with regional governments.
Re: Stopping Kony

We are advocating for the arrest of Joseph Kony so that he can be tried by the International Criminal Court (ICC) as a precedent for future war criminals. The goal of Kony 2012 is for the world to unite to see him arrested and prosecuted for his crimes against humanity.
Re: Why work with the UPDF if the LRA is no longer in northern Uganda

The LRA left northern Uganda in 2006. The LRA is currently active in Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic, and South Sudan. Invisible Children’s mission is to stop Joseph Kony and the LRA wherever they are and help rehabilitate LRA-affected communities. The Ugandan government’s army, the UPDF, is more organized and better equipped than that of any of the other affected countries (DRC, South Sudan, CAR) to track down Joseph Kony. Part of the US strategy to stop Kony is to encourage cooperation between the governments and armies of the 4 LRA-affected countries. The LRA was active in Uganda for nearly 20 years, displacing 1.7 million people and abducting at least 30,000 children. The people and government of Uganda have a vested interested in seeing him stopped.
Re: Programs on the Ground

While the vast majority of the recent exposure and commentary about Invisible Children has been towards the awareness portion of our mission, below is an up-to-date explanation of our direct work in Central Africa, an equally important element to the mission of Invisible Children.

Okay thanks, I may have spoken to soon myself. It's kind of an I don't know thing for me right now I guess. I don't like it and I want people to know about it... Not necessarily support the Invisible Children organization. I want him stopped and IF we were to do it, Spec-Ops would be my choice. I wish the Uganda Military could handle it themselves with the advisors we've given them to use.

Edit: So the Military does some nasty things too, eh? Oh boy... What a mess.

[Drowned Out]

Okay thanks, I may have spoken to soon myself. It's kind of an I don't know thing for me right now I guess. I don't like it and I want people to know about it... Not necessarily support the Invisible Children organization. I want him stopped and IF we were to do it, Spec-Ops would be my choice. I wish the Uganda Military could handle it themselves with the advisors we've given them to use.

Edit: So the Military does some nasty things too, eh? Oh boy... What a mess.

I didn't mean to single you out with my post, I only quoted you in order to mention how many times I've seen that dailywhat article....nearly as many as the kony vid....
Yes, it's a mess...and it's a good thing that we're talking about it.

[haffajappa]

interesting ... i have never heard of this guy until now ...

Same here, only found out thru reddit.
I'm so out of the loop lately.


The movie was quite touching, I found

[haffajappa]

Okay thanks, I may have spoken to soon myself. It's kind of an I don't know thing for me right now I guess. I don't like it and I want people to know about it... Not necessarily support the Invisible Children organization. I want him stopped and IF we were to do it, Spec-Ops would be my choice. I wish the Uganda Military could handle it themselves with the advisors we've given them to use.

Edit: So the Military does some nasty things too, eh? Oh boy... What a mess.

I didn't mean to single you out with my post, I only quoted you in order to mention how many times I've seen that dailywhat article....nearly as many as the kony vid....
Yes, it's a mess...and it's a good thing that we're talking about it.

Yeah before I buy any bracelets (jesus, its 20 bucks shipping to Canada!) I will want to look into the whole thing... It's easy to get wrapped up in it though, or in anything, with all the hype.

[Idris]

To get involved

The US is using Kony as a distraction/cover from it's real goals, to gain a stronger foothold in Africa, which they need to do in order to counter growing Chinese influence, the US wants to fully establish 'AFRICOM' as that will also help with the fight against 'al shabaab' and any other group or resistance/rebel movement that springs up. Unless of course that group or movement is subservient to the Imperialists.

The 'Western Power Structure' has wanted Africa for a long time. Now they are making major plays to get it. They got Gadaffi in Libya, Egypt is a mess and South Africa will (probably) be last on the list. The countries in the middle will just get even more messy. Just look at where US troops/"advisers" are placed right now. You have South Sudan, Dungu, Uganda, Djibouti and the Central African Republic.

Uganda right now has US special operations forces working in the country already. Something that mainstream media seems to not talk about too much.

Mr peacefrompaul, 2 my mind, I feel that as long as we back away, Africa and Uganda will survive, they will be alright. Why should any foreign power get involved? Us or anyone else? When we know that these powers (our countries) tend to and do have ulterior motives. We are not really going around helping people. Hardly ever. From WW2-Vietnam.

Sure if we were some great warm empire doing good around the world, Then maybe we could go and take him out right, then go and capture all the the other bad guys. But of course when we actually look at the history, we see that we are not necessarily the good guys to begin with. So what position are we in to go around or support others going around taking out these 'bad guys'? Especially When 'bad' for us is so relative, relative to the amount of submission they are willing to give to us. 'Bad' for us is not a person who kills, rather a person who kills without our consent/support etc.

I mean our countries are made up of many good people. But our countries are not good. (Then again we allow our countries to do what they do, so what does that make us?)

We are secure at the expense of others, the Africans dig the resources and we (in the west) will use them. 'Kony 2012'

So who is Joseph Kony? He's a pawn in the game and it seems like a large portion of the North American public has fallen for the propaganda. Kony 2012 campaign is being passed around quickly and probably by many people who can not even spot Uganda on a map. But show them some pictures of a child with a gun, some tears and wild africans wielding a machete and people go nuts. "we must help them!"

We need to leave Africa alone and fix the problems we have around here.

[he still stands]

To get involved

The US is using Kony as a distraction/cover from it's real goals, to gain a stronger foothold in Africa, which they need to do in order to counter growing Chinese influence, the US wants to fully establish 'AFRICOM' as that will also help with the fight against 'al shabaab' and any other group or resistance/rebel movement that springs up. Unless of course that group or movement is subservient to the Imperialists.

The 'Western Power Structure' has wanted Africa for a long time. Now they are making major plays to get it. They got Gadaffi in Libya, Egypt is a mess and South Africa will (probably) be last on the list. The countries in the middle will just get even more messy. Just look at where US troops/"advisers" are placed right now. You have South Sudan, Dungu, Uganda, Djibouti and the Central African Republic.

Uganda right now has US special operations forces working in the country already. Something that mainstream media seems to not talk about too much.

Mr peacefrompaul, 2 my mind, I feel that as long as we back away, Africa and Uganda will survive, they will be alright. Why should any foreign power get involved? Us or anyone else? When we know that these powers (our countries) tend to and do have ulterior motives. We are not really going around helping people. Hardly ever. From WW2-Vietnam.

Sure if we were some great warm empire doing good around the world, Then maybe we could go and take him out right, then go and capture all the the other bad guys. But of course when we actually look at the history, we see that we are not necessarily the good guys to begin with. So what position are we in to go around or support others going around taking out these 'bad guys'? Especially When 'bad' for us is so relative, relative to the amount of submission they are willing to give to us. 'Bad' for us is not a person who kills, rather a person who kills without our consent/support etc.

I mean our countries are made up of many good people. But our countries are not good. (Then again we allow our countries to do what they do, so what does that make us?)

We are secure at the expense of others, the Africans dig the resources and we (in the west) will use them. 'Kony 2012'

So who is Joseph Kony? He's a pawn in the game and it seems like a large portion of the North American public has fallen for the propaganda. Kony 2012 campaign is being passed around quickly and probably by many people who can not even spot Uganda on a map. But show them some pictures of a child with a gun, some tears and wild africans wielding a machete and people go nuts. "we must help them!"

We need to leave Africa alone and fix the problems we have around here.

excellent post. although I slightly disagree with your sentiment regarding "leaving Africa alone." I think there is a third option which is a non-military operation that focuses on rebuilding, education, and health services.

no doubt that this whole Kony trending thing on social media is disconcerting. I'd say we should not be lemmings and look into more traditional networks like Amnesty International, and we can do our part - however small.

[polaris_x]

africa is fucked up because of western imperialism ... leaving it alone will not fix it - in fact, it will only make it worse ... having said that - continuing it's exploitation under the guise of moralistic grounds isn't the solution either ...

[Eliot Rosewater]

But why is that Dimi? Are we just not interested? It's not 'our world'? We are all well versed in the issues in other western countries and even in the middle east. Why would Africa be any different?

Thanks for posting this Kat. Need to open our eyes to the whole world.

cos people need to be in the dark....
cos big countries dont have any interest of Africa cos no oil,or water...
dont u see that all big sickness comes from Africa?
they want them sick,poor ,dead..Africa is a big power and need to be down ...
its so sad..

Africa= no oil? Wow, news to me. Libya? Angola? Nigeria? Egypt?

"Thirty percent of the world's newly discovered oil reserves come from Africa's west coast (alone)." - Boston Globe

"The continent is believed to hold 90% of the world’s cobalt, 90% of its platinum, 50% of its gold, 98% of its chromium, 70% of its tantalite, 64% of its manganese and one-third of its uranium."- Wikipedia


Africans live on top of gold, diamonds, oil, and most of the worlds precious metals and minerals... Its a shame so many starve and live in poverty... Maybe getting rid of this guy will fix all of that. Lets HOPE.

Got Oil? Uganda sure does. http://allafrica.com/stories/201107182071.html

[josevolution]

Got home last night and my 15yr old daughter was all over this she and friends are all phyched for an April rally .....of Awareness

[goldrush]

"SBS reporter Jeanette Francis spent three months filming and travelling in Uganda. Here's her perspective on the troubled, yet fiercely proud, African country, the legacy of Joseph Kony and the 'Kony 2012' video:"

http://www.sbs.com.au/news//article/1632821/Blog-Kony-2012-Hype-over-substance

I just got back from almost three months in Uganda. The trip was a mix of work and pleasure. After two-and-a-half months travelling the country, I can safely say I still know next to nothing about Uganda. I don’t understand its complicated politics, I don’t know much about its economy or its tumultuous history, I am almost clueless about the intricacies of its tribes and languages, and regional etiquette escapes me.

I filmed several news stories while I was there; one on women rebuilding their lives after the brutal conflict that had devastated the country’s north for two decades. Northern Uganda is now a relatively peaceful place. During the dry season the temperature hits 35 degrees every day.

Between towns the region’s bumpy, red roads snake through arid grasslands, littered with women carrying babies whose tiny, fuzzy heads poke out from underneath the shawls and blankets their mothers use to strap them to their backs. At night, the only way you can tell the land is inhabited is by the small fires flickering in the distance, illuminating the round mud brick huts so many families call home.

I spent time in various parts of northern Uganda and never felt as though there was any threat to my personal safety. Why should there have been, the area is safe and aside from a stray comment here or a new NGO there, you would never know that only years ago it was the heartland of a very violent conflict.

#STOP KONY

So imagine my surprise when I woke up yesterday morning to what seemed like everyone I have ever friended on Facebook posting about Joseph Kony – the self-styled leader of the Ugandan Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), the rebel group that had wreaked havoc on its own people for two decades. Not only had everybody suddenly realised that there had been a long and brutal conflict in northern Uganda but suddenly everyone seemed to care.

"Make a difference", "it’s time to matter. Make Kony famous", proclaimed status updates and tweets from all over the world. People and rent-a-celebrities became technological activists taking part in a mass campaign to save the lives of children in a country they had probably never even heard of. Joseph Kony and the LRA had suddenly become all the rage. Strange, given that their atrocities in Uganda started more than 20 years ago and ceased in 2006.

We have certain ways of understanding countries and people who aren’t us. We like to package them into neat little boxes so we can better relate to them. There are those in Northern Uganda who know more about Joseph Kony than you or I or even Invisible Children, or the United Nations or the International Criminal Court or any NGO. They are the people of northern Uganda, people who apparently desperately need our help and our intervention – military or otherwise – to bring about justice.

In Gulu - Kony heartland - I met a young girl named Coincy. She’s 20 years old. At 13, she was returning home from a neighbouring village with her cousin when she was abducted by LRA rebels. After a week in captivity carrying heavy loads of weapons and goods for the rebels around the Ugandan bushland, she was forced to strip naked. The rebels discovered she was already three months pregnant so to punish her they cut of parts of her lips, nose and ears and dumped her by the roadside.

I’m only telling you this story because when I spoke to this girl or rather when she spoke to a translator who spoke to me, I could only think of my sister, who is also 20. My sister has boy problems and fake nails. She’s just started a new university degree, she fights with my father over curfew, she works in a café, she’s saving up for a trip to Europe and the Middle East later this year. That’s what we know being 20 to be all about. It’s not about being abducted by LRA rebels. It’s not about having part of your face sliced off because you were already pregnant by 13.
I know – or at least I thought I knew – about the alternate lives that some people in this world lead.

Surely, it doesn’t take much know about and understand the situations of those less fortunate than ourselves, to understand their reality especially given that we’re so saturated with information in this digital age. But it does! It takes a lot. It takes more than three weeks in an area or two months in a country and it sure as hell takes more than a click on a website.

I didn’t understand Coincy or her reality, I still don’t. The most I understood was part of the story she chose to tell me and the most I could relay on television was 30 seconds of that. It’s the nature of the beast that is TV news. Now there’s another beast that’s already made its way from the horizon to the foreshore of news consumption. It’s 140 characters long and can spread like a disease around the world in a matter of seconds, infecting the unsuspecting with a potentially false message.

Of the millions who have seen and liked and shared the Kony 2012 campaign video, I’m going to wager a guess that a significant proportion know almost nothing about Africa, about Uganda, about Gulu, about the Acholi, and my feeling is that after watching it they still don’t know because apart from Jacob there were no other Acholi voices in the story. There was nothing from the people at the heart of this conflict.

One of my friends who posted the video as a Facebook status update told me it was good thing because it drew our attention to what was going on in Uganda. But that’s the whole point: it did anything but! It drew attention precisely to what was going on outside of Uganda, namely in the offices of high ranking officials in the United States.

It’s based on the assumption that Kony is not "famous" enough, which is absurd because he’s one of the most sought after criminals in the world and has been for years. Just because you may not have heard of him it doesn’t make him any less notorious, it doesn’t lessen his crimes. Ask anyone in East Africa who Joseph Kony is and they’ll tell you, but this campaign is clearly not about the people of East Africa, it’s about us in the west and it's about Invisible Children, whose team managed to achieve unprecedented success with their campaign going viral in days. It’s about their efforts, about the creator explaining it to his young son, about the team’s advocacy and the response they got or hoped to get. It’s about the university students, the mothers, the teenagers, the business people, the store owners, the public servants, the journalists, the pensioners around the world who get to take one minute out of their day to get outraged, share a link and sleep better at night for it. So we can feel like we mattered.

This certainly doesn’t mean people shouldn’t watch the video, like it and share it and it doesn’t mean they shouldn’t feel passionate about making a difference. But before you like and share you need to question. Question the organisation and its motives and funding, question the timing and more importantly question what you now know about northern Uganda that you didn’t before watching the video.

Kony 2012 peddles a simplistic narrative, devoid of nuance. It offers no concrete plan other than to "stop Kony." It doesn’t explain what will happen if he is caught (nor the means by which he will be caught), whether the child-soldiers he recruited should be punished along with him or whether government troops, who were also responsible for countless atrocities, should too be brought to justice.

Its disempowering narrative takes agency away from so many of the people who are working on the ground to help rebuild northern Uganda and its communities; people who understand the complexities and politics behind this conflict because they lived it. This campaign fashions itself the lone wolf stopping at nothing to seek justice for the hapless people of northern Uganda yet it avoids complex questions such as: what if they don’t want justice? This may sound absurd but many northern Ugandan families have children who were abducted by the LRA and subsequently became the LRA. They want to see them return home and if that happens who is responsible for their reintegration? Not Invisible Children I suppose.

The truth is Kony 2012 is not about the conflict in northern Uganda. It's a story of victims, villains and more importantly heroes - foreign, white people like us with power and money and influence, sitting before our keyboards, on our proverbial white horses striding into the country to save those whose voices and faces tell us they need saving, voices and faces that almost can’t say anything else because – like me with Coincy – we fail to understand them when they do. They no longer fall perfectly into that neat little "victim" box we’ve spent so long fashioning for them.

Coincy, like any human being anywhere in the world is many things. She may be a victim but she’s also a fighter, a mother, a farmer, a woman, an Acholi and like much of the district she lives in she’s rebuilding and moving on from her shattered past. Gulu has grown considerably in the past five years and its residents live in a peace they haven’t seen since the mid 1980s, thanks in part to their efforts and resilience.

Uganda is a proud country and believe it or not, its people are not waiting for a saviour from abroad to rescue them from themselves and even if they were, that saviour is not you, with your Kony 2012 wristband, your win-a-prize t-shirt, your shiny MacBook Pro and your Twitter account.

[Byrnzie]

By all accounts, it sounds like this campaign is ten years too late:


http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/real ... -the-story


• The LRA is not in Uganda but now operates in the DRC, South Sudan and the Central African Republic

• In October last year, Obama authorised the deployment of 100 US army advisers to help the Ugandan military track down Kony, with no results disclosed to date.

• The LRA is much smaller than previously thought. It does not have have 30,000 or 60,000 child soldiers. The figure of 30,000 refers to the total number of children abducted by the LRA over nearly 30 years.

It also makes the point that there is currently no threat to remove the US advisers who are working with the Uganda government to track down the army – Invisible Children's key aim is to force the US government to keep them there.


Arthur Larok, Action Aid's director in Uganda, previously the director of programmes at the Uganda National NGO Forum for nine years:

'...Six or 10 years ago, this would have been a really effective campaign strategy to get international campaigning. But today, years after Kony has moved away from Uganda, I think campaigning that appeals to these emotions … I'm not sure that's effective for now. The circumstances in the north have changed.

Many NGOs and the government, especially local government in the north, are about rebuilding and securing lives for children, in education, sanitation, health and livelihoods. International campaigning that doesn't support this agenda is not so useful at this point. We have moved beyond that.

There are conflicts in the north – several small conflicts over natural resources. Land is the major issue: after many years of displacement, there is quite a bit of land-related conflict.

But many organisations and governments are focusing on this. We need to secure social stability, health and education. These are the priorities. This is what we're trying to focus on. Poverty is high compared to the rest of the country. That's the practical issue that needs to be addressed.

I don't think this is the best way. It might be an appeal that makes sense in America. But there are more fundamental challenges. Kony has been around for 25 years and over. I don't think in the north at the moment that is really what is most important. It might be best on the internet and the like but, at the end of the day, there are more pressing things to deal with. If the Americans had wanted to arrest him, they would have done that a long time ago...'


The Ugandan journalist Angelo Opi-aiya Izama has written this blog, which makes a similar point to that of Larok about the Invisible Children campaign being outdated. He's been talking to our foreign desk and has just sent this as an addition:

'One salient issue the film totally misses is that the actual geography of today's LRA operations is related to a potentially troubling "resource war".

Since 2006, Uganda discovered world class oil fields along its border with DRC. The location of the oil fields has raised the stakes for the Ugandan military and its regional partners, including the US.

While LRA is seen as a mindless evil force, its deceased deputy leader, Vincent Otii, told me once that their fight with President Yoweri Museveni was about "money and oil". This context is relevant because it allows for outsiders to view the LRA issue more objectively within the recent history of violence in the wider region that includes the great Central Africa wars of the 90s, in which groups like LRA were pawns for proxy wars between countries.

In LRA's case, its main support came from the Sudanese government in Khartoum and many suspect it still maintains the patronage of Omar el-Bashir, the country's president, himself indicted for war crimes by the ICC.'

[Byrnzie]

Though on the flip side, this is interesting:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/real ... -the-story

Ryan Devereaux [...]managed to speak to Ida Sawyer, a Congo researcher with Human Rights Watch currently based in Goma. Sawyer has studied the Lord's Resistance Army for several years. She made a number of positive comments regarding Invisible Children's work in the region outside of Uganda.

"From out perspective at Human Rights Watch, we definitely support the message of the film and we think it's great that they're bringing so much attention to the film with Kony's crimes and the phenomena of the LRA," Sawyer said.

"Hopefully this will create a movement for more pressure so that real action, effective action is taken to end the LRA, and arresting, capturing Kony is a key component of addressing the LRA problem," she added.

Sawyer commented on the Ugandan military forces that the United States is cooperating with in its efforts to eliminate Kony.

"We have always had concerns about the Ugandan army and they have tried to go after the LRA for 25 years and have not succeeded in ending the problem. They pushed him out of Uganda but didn't effectively weaken the actual strength of the group. We've had concerns about Uganda's human rights record domestically, within Uganda," Sawyer pointed out.

"We think that if the US is supporting them, they need to make sure that the Ugandan troops that they are supporting are not committing any abuses," she said.

While reports of abuses committed by regional military forces pursuing Kony have surfaced, Sawyer said Human Rights Watch has not documented any committed by the Ugandan troops working with the United States.

"We have not, so far on the LRA operation, we haven't documented any serious abuses committed by the Ugandan troops," she noted. "They are probably the most capable force in the region now compared with Congo and Central African Republic armies."

"And hopefully, the idea of having these American military advisers working closely with them, they can help insure that protections of civilians is prioritized and intelligence is acted on effectively and that any potential threats to civilians, or possible retaliation attacks are avoided."

Sawyer praised Invisible Children's work in north eastern Congo–an area impacted by LRA activity–in setting up an early warning system.

"I think Invisible Children is starting some of the best work there, in terms of setting up the early warning mechanism."

The system relies on a two-way radio network, "They're training these two-way radio monitors who can report immediately when there's LRA presence or there's an attack."

Sawyer described the network as "crucial" in terms of circulating information in effected areas. "These are areas that don't have phone networks and the roads are really bad."

"That's been one of the key programs on the ground addressing that issue," Sawyer added.

She also praised Invisible Children's rehabilitation program–a partnership with the Catholic Justice and Peace Commission–for former child soldiers abducted by the LRA in Congo. While such programs have taken hold in Uganda, Sawyer noted "a gap" in similar support networks for Congolese victims.

In Congo and Central African Republic, Sawyer said Invisible Children has been "some of the quickest organizations to respond to the needs on the ground, very flexible and willing to work with and listen to the local communities."

"I think they recognize that they are people from California coming in, they don't understand the Congo context immediately and all the facts, but I think since they've come into Congo and CAR they've worked to make sure they don't move too quickly."

[Idris]

I slightly disagree with your sentiment regarding "leaving Africa alone." I think there is a third option which is a non-military operation that focuses on rebuilding, education, and health services.

we can do our part - however small.

Yea for sure! I'm all for rebuilding efforts, water purification systems, buying solar powered machines(fans,cooling devices), doctors to train locals (in some areas), education etc, Those are very real things we can get going around parts of Africa. In that way, we can help many people.
-
(a good write up on AFRICOM and Competition for Resources)

Re-packaged AFRICOM still not good for Motherland

http://www.fpif.org/articles/africom_wrong_for_liberia_disastrous_for_africa