Stop kony what is it

Many of the so-called bush commanders who led the insurgency that brought President Yoweri Museveni to power in are still in charge, presiding over an army that has been accused of corruption, indiscipline, and human rights abuses. Underestimating the LRA would prove a costly error.

After an early and abortive attempt at peace, Kony secured the backing of the Sudanese government, which was battling Ugandan-backed rebels in its southern regions and happy to train and equip his army of abducted child soldiers — so long as they carried out the occasional attack against the southern Sudanese rebels.

The Ugandans launched operation after operation against the LRA, but were thwarted by poor equipment and lack of contingency planning. Operation Iron Fist , launched in , for example, pushed the LRA from southern Sudan back into northern Uganda, where they wreaked havoc on the civilian population. After yet another failed attempt at negotiating peace, the Bush administration began aiding the Ugandan military effort.

In December , it provided intelligence for a massive air and ground assault on LRA bases in Garamba. But poor coordination and planning once again hampered the Ugandan Army, with Kony and most of his or so fighters escaping unharmed. In retaliation for the strike, Kony ordered the killings of close to 1, Congolese civilians, whom he faulted for allowing the Ugandan Army inside Congo.

There, Kony established a new base of operations, sending small groups of fighters to poach elephants in Garamba so that their tusks could be exchanged for food and ammunition. When American soldiers entered the fray in late , the LRA numbered just people, including women and children, divided into at least seven groups operating in three countries.

All of the groups had settled into survival patterns that included poaching and raiding villages. None were carrying out offensive operations against military targets. The Americans provided vital air assets that carried food, materiel, and troops from Uganda to South Sudan and the Central African Republic. They're also a charity and that means all of their financials are online for donors' perusal. Well, that's up to you.

The biggest criticism here isn't unlike what faced the Komen foundation earlier this year. It's a charity, it wants to do good things, but people are upset where the money is going and in this case, not knowing where all of the money is going. They also question if filmmaking is the best way to go about getting this done. On the other hand, so many more people know about Kony than they did before, which is what they wanted and completely accomplished right? It's up to you, but if you want to donate to Invisible Children, head over here.

Visible Children has their own list of charities, here. Skip to content Site Navigation The Atlantic. Popular Latest. The Atlantic Crossword. Sign In Subscribe. This article is from the archive of our partner. Wait, who are these guys? This article is from the archive of our partner The Wire. Did I ask you to sell my story for an action kit to make uninformed college students feel good? He wore tattered trousers, muddy wellington boots, a grubby anorak and avoided eye contact.

The voice was soft. You have to make sure the skull is crushed and the brains come out. He was 17, still dressed in what passed for his Lord's Resistance Army uniform and still getting used to the idea he was no longer Ambush, his nom-de-guerre, but Patrick Ocaya. For five years he had served as a corporal in Joseph Kony's ranks, tasked with leading groups of year-olds in attacks on vehicles and, on occasion, clubbing prisoners to death.

Asked if he had felt sorry for those he abducted and killed Ocaya's eyes flicked from the azure sky to the red, baked earth of a ramshackle rehabilitation centre. He shrugged. They were my orders. It was June and I was reporting for the Guardian from Kitgum, a beleagured town of dirt roads and one-storey buildings in northern Uganda in the midst of a new LRA offensive. Lots of comment about this picture of the founders of Invisible Children, including on the left Jason Russell who features in the film.

We've only just got the rights to use it. We wanted to talk to them and film them and get their perspective. And because Bobby, Laren and I are friends and had been doing this for 5 years, we thought it would be funny to bring back to our friends and family a joke photo.

You know, "Haha - they have bazookas in their hands but they're actually fighting for peace. I always have. Back in I wanted this war to end, like we all did, peacefully, through peace talks. But Kony was not interested in that; he kept killing. And we still don't want war. We don't want him killed and we don't want bombs dropped. We want him alive and captured and brought to justice. 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.

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

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

The invisible Children's video Kony, its producers said it was an attempt to get the world to become more aware of Kony's war. A video, which features the producer and his son, his trips to northern Uganda and the need for an urgent action, however has not received the applause that it saw in western countries. In Uganda many have seen it as a misrepresentation of conflict and attempt to bring down the conflict just to American action, ignoring other actors. Victor Ochen, the Director of African Youth Initiative Network AYInet based in Lira which was the site of one Kony's worst massacres in Uganda said that though the campaigners have good intentions they don't seem to seek a lasting solution.

They are advocating for a mechanism to end war with more attention to a perpetrator not victims. Campaigning on killing one man and that's the end is not enough. Javie Ssozi a digital media consultant in Kampala commented on his facebook wall "They are responding to the right cause with a wrong approach!

It's a good thing to raise awareness and let the world know what is happening but its a bad thing to start fromvery far away from where "what" is happening!

He added this video is very fit for the Western world but we must not forget that there is another side of the story. Action cannot be based on one-sided-facts or thoughts. The people of this country can speak for themselves. Can we at least hear from the victims? Barbara Among, a Ugandan journalist at the independent Daily Monitor said the video simplifies the war against Kony and downplays realities on the ground. Among who also hails from the north says there's a lot of ego in the video and he ignores the past initiatives of people like Betty Bigombe, the Jub peace process which is wrong.

Among also points out that it is not first time that celebrities have been brought on board for the cause of ending war in northern Uganda. In after Kony's rebels attacked Aboke girl's school and abducted many girls, the then deputy head rallied around the world and made calls for peace. In fact the late Pope John Paul sent a message to Kony which is inscribed on a stone in the school in northern Uganda. Among says the whole approach doesn't respect victims of this war.

Even if you are trying to help just imagine parents whose children have been killed, mutilated or abducted and the emotional pain the name brings to them. The other criticism has been that the video heavily relies on images shot in Uganda more than 6 years ago and presents it as the current situation. Yet northern Uganda is dealing a whole lot of fresh challenges of resettlement and dealing with broken systems.

Ochen adds that "To me even a bullet alone isn't good enough for Kony, killing him alone will not be enough. There are many people who are caught up in this war. Invisible Children has good access to international media but they have no connection with the community they claim to represent. Many thanks for all your contributions today. Wolfgang Zeller of the Centre of African Studies in Edinburgh refers us to a report his colleagues published on northern Uganda in Foreign Affairs that has been widely cited in the current debate.

Here's an excerpt of his email:. I am a researcher based at the Centre of African Studies, Edinburgh University and have been working on northern Uganda since Your blog already cites other experts pointing out that the LRA has been outside Uganda for several years, is far smaller than Invisible Children try to make believe, and that the Ugandan government and army are a deeply problematic ally in their campaign.

I second all these points, based on my own research and that of my colleagues. The Guardian has widely reported recent electoral violence and the persecution of opposition leader, homosexuals and journalists in Uganda. This is clearly sanctioned, even driven by the country's leadership. The persecution of homosexuals is also strongly driven and funded by American-based Christian fundamentalist groups, who also see Uganda as a frontline in the cultural war against Islam, thanks to the Museveni regimie's outspoken and military-strategis support of the US 'War on Terror'.

While the extreme atrocities committed by the LRA cannot be justified by any 'political cause', the LRA did originally emerge as a direct reaction to extreme atrocities committed since the late s by the government and armed forces of Uganda against the Acholi people in northern Uganda.

The person in charge since until today is Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni, who is himself a former rebel army leader and came to power by force. The Ugandan army and military, including members of the family of the president, are known to have cashed in on the country's sending of troops to participate in the civil war of Congo DRC in the s.

The enrichment schemes involve the plundering of timber and high-value minerals like gold, diamonds and coltan in eastern DRC and the creation of false payment and pension schemes for army sections that do not exist 'ghost soldiers'. The DRC case led to a high-profile investigation by the UN and in the final report from Uganda was singled out for its involvement.

She criticizes the Invisible Children video as propagating sterotypes about Africa. Izama writes: "For many in the conflict prevention community including those who worry about the militarization of it in Central Africa, [the KONY] campaign is just another nightmare that will end soon. If six years ago children in Uganda would have feared the hell of being part of the LRA, a well documented reality already, today the real invisible children are those suffering from "Nodding Disease".

Over children are victims of this incurable debilitating condition. It's a neurological disease that has baffled world scientists and attacks mainly children from the most war affected districts of Kitgum, Pader and Gulu. Jacob Acaye, the Ugandan former child abductee at the heart of the film Kony , has defended the video and its makers.

He rejected widespread criticism in Uganda and abroad that the American-made film calling for Kony's arrest is out-of-date or irrelevant, my colleague Julian Borger writes.

People did not really know about it. What about the people who are suffering over there? They are going through what we went through. You can read the full interview here. Surely any exposure of such a man is positive, no matter how much money is spent on the medium in which the message is contained? The fact that the Invisible Children group is doing anything is better than doing nothing. I believe that, living in an age where media and social-media are engrained from the youngest to the oldest, the best way in getting a message across is by using them as a tool to do good.

This is nothing new in political circles - why should it be any different when it comes to charities? He is currently based in Goma. Van Damme said his organization is concerned about potentially violent consequences for the local population from the Kony campaign. Here is Ryan's report:. According to Van Damme, military operations targeting Kony would present a host of risks.

There is very limited infrastructure, very limited amount of roads, schools, hospitals, very limited communications. The state authority is very weak and is absent. He also has an unknown number of children, two of whom, Salim and Ali, have been sanctioned by the US for their alleged role in LRA activities. Born in the early s into an Acholi peasant family in Odek, a village in northern Uganda, Mr Kony is remembered as an amiable boy. He became a traditional healer after leaving primary school, but in the s was drawn to the Holy Spirit Movement led by charismatic figure Alice Auma, better known as Alice Lakwena.

She said she was fighting for the rights of the Acholi people who were feeling marginalised in the turbulent politics of s Uganda. They felt excluded from power after President Milton Obote, who was from the north, was overthrown in a military rebellion, and eventually replaced by current President Yoweri Museveni in Despite promising her followers protection from bullets, Ms Auma's movement was defeated in and she fled to Kenya.

The LRA was founded in the aftermath of that defeat saying it continued to support the people of the north and wanted to install a government based on the biblical 10 commandments.

At one time the LRA was popular in the north, but that waned as the group's brutality increased. Mr Kony has used religion and traditional beliefs to inspire his followers but some question his sincere commitment to those ideas.

They say, 'You, Mr Joseph, tell your people that the enemy is planning to come and attack,'" he has explained. In a film broadcast on the BBC, one of his close allies, Captain Sunday, said that through the help of spirits the LRA leader could see the future.

He was also immortal, the captain added. He has created an aura of mysticism around himself and his rebels follow strict rules and rituals. They say that the oil is the power of the Holy Spirit.

He has also used terror to maintain control, beating and killing followers who were caught trying to flee. Some former fighters have said they complied with the leader's orders out of fear. Ex-commander Kenneth Banya told the BBC in that he had sex with a minor because he was threatened with death if he left her alone.