"Kony 2012" gone viral

Since march the 5th a film made by the organization Invisible Children has gotton nearly 50 million views on You Tube. This film "Kony 2012" aims at raising awareness worldwide and stopping Joseph Kony the leader of the LRA, a rebel group in Africa by the end of this year. The film want's to do this by making Kony famous, giving him celebrity status and making him a household name which in turn will force governments, mainly America to capture him. The film certainly has achieved it's virality but also has put the organization under scrutiny. People argue that what they state in the film is untrue and that stopping Kony will not stop the LRA.

Although it is bringing the situation to light and using social media's power to do so, The video has been viewed nearly 50 million times on youtube in 4 days, #Kony2012, #Kony, #Uganda, #LRA have become worldwide trends on Twitter, the campaign has been the talk of newstations/papers/articles since.

Here is the film..

What Kony 2012 does right:

- Uses social media to gain a worldwide audience fast

- Created an immersive film

- Involves people in the campaign, by allowing them to sign up for the pledge, get an action kit and so on.

- Using and making Kony a celebrity to make him known and aid in his capture.

- Used huge worldwide celebrities and politicians to back the campaign, spread the word and get their fans involved for example Lady Gaga, Rihanna, Bono, George Clooney.

- Using creative, artistic methods and peoples talents throughout the campaign

- Being Inspired and doing what they believe is right, the founders went to Uganda found a story and were shocked and promised friends they made their that they would help. They also were inspired by the arab spring and how Facebook fueled it.

- Hard work, The organization have been preparing for this campaign for years.

What Kony 2012 does wrong:

- Not intirely true statements. The LRA are not in Uganda anymore, they are in CAR, DR of Congo and South Sudan.

- Catching Kony does not mean an end to the LRA, poverty and inequality are major problems at the root of the conflict.

- Aimed mainly at an American audience

- Putting American 'advisors' on the ground in Uganda. The LRA are not in Uganda, the people may not want them there and they may have alternate motives such as oil and being near somalia.

- An aim of the film overlooked was getting america to join the International Criminal Court

- Local people are just as scared of their army as they are of the LRA.

How this effects our project and what we could take from it:

- Have correct and accurate information

- The power of social media and it's advantages and disadvantages

- Catching Kony may not be the solution

- Kony 2012 is mainly targeted at an american audience and getting the american government or army to stop Kony, we can raise awareness in Ireland and Europe and maybe see what European governments can do.

- America should join the International Criminal Court

- Kony 2012's creative methods and using peoples talents was sucessful

- Getting existing celebrities and politicians to back the campaign

- immersive and engaging content

- user/audience involvement

Links, references and more information:

http://kony2012.s3-website-us-east-1.amazonaws.com/

http://www.warchild.org.uk/news/kony-2012-our-response

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news

http://www.channel4.com/news/kony-2012

Twitter: #Kony2012, #Uganda , #LRA, #Kony, #stopKony, #invisiblechildren

Lord's Resistance Army --- UGANDA

The LRA's effect on Sudan, Democratic republic of Congo and the republic of Central Africa

SUDAN

The above video gives a good account and history of the LRA in Uganda its effects on the people and former LRA soldiers, it goes on to explain the current situation of the LRA and its effect on Sudan.

Besides the obvious problem of the havoc, murders and abductions the LRA are carrying out in south Sudan, there are other underlying problems. They could possibly be kept hidden from their hunters in northern Sudan by the Sudan government and military. The Sudan government have previously funded the LRA and have close ties. The president of Kartoum, Bashir also is wanted by the international criminal court, could this be a commonality that will link Bashir with Kony? A civil war could also occur due to increased tension and history between north and south of Sudan as they are on the verge of seperation.

CONGO

CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC

RAISE AWARENESS STOP THE LRA, "LET THE WORLD KNOW".

LRA Today (continued)

The Protection Plan from INVISIBLE CHILDREN on Vimeo. This video shows how The LRA have spread to Uganda's surrounding countries of Sudan,DR Congo and Central Africa.

Lord's Resistance Army Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery

The "Lord's Resistance Army Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery" bill addresses the humanitarian need to intercept the LRA, a Ugandan rebel group led by Joseph Kony that have infamously abducted over 30,000 children, forcing them to become LRA soldiers. The group is additionally identified by their reign of attacks in Iganda, the DR Congo, South Sudan and the Central African Republic. The bill gives the Obama administration 180 days to produce a comprehensive strategy that coalesces multilateral and regional partners to capture top LRA leaders, demobilize child soldiers and protect civilians from rebel attacks; and invest in sustainable peace efforts.

Co-sponsored by Republican and Democrat representatives, the "LRA Disarmament and Northern Ugandan Recovery Act" is the most widely supported legislation focused on sub-Saharan Africa in modern American history. The $20 million bill, awaiting President Barack Obama's signature, was passed with a unanimous vote, a rare and momentous victory for human rights activists.

Stopping Joseph Kony and the LRA

This problem of the LRA has been going on for years and needs to be stopped. Raising awareness and providing information to the world is a method of achieving this. Like with the arab spring information can no long be censored or hidden from the world, exposing these problems in Africa to the world and telling the story is the first step in bringing the situation to an end.

Kony 2012 Teaser from INVISIBLE CHILDREN on Vimeo.

Child Soldiers

Facts on Child Soldiers

•There are an estimated 250,000 child soldiers in the world today.
•It is estimated that 40% of all child soldiers are girls. They are often used as 'wives' (i.e. sex slaves) of the male combatants.
•Many rebel groups use child soldiers to fight the government, but some governments also use child soldiers in armed conflict.
•Not all children take part in active combat. Some are also used as porters, cooks and spies.
•As part of their recruitment, children are sometimes forced to kill or maim a family member - thus breaking the bonds with their community and making it difficult for them to return home.

Why are children used as soldiers?

Children are used as soldiers because they are easier to condition and brainwash. They don't eat much food, don't need paying much and have an underdeveloped sense of danger so are easier to send into the line of fire.

As children make up the majority demographic in many conflict-affected countries, there's a constant supply of potential recruits. Due to their size and 'expendability', children are often sent into battle as scouts or decoys, or sent in the first wave to draw the enemy's fire.



What are the effects on children?

The effects on children are felt long after their physical scars have healed and their drug dependencies overcome. Many child soldiers are desensitised to violence - often at a very formative time in their development and this can psychologically damage them for life.

Even when they're set free or escape, many children can't go back home to their families and communities because they've been ostracised from them. They may have been forced to kill a family member or neighbour just so they can never go back. Many girls have babies from their time in the rebel groups and their communities/families don't accept them home.

Most have missed out on school - sometimes for many years. Without an education they have very little future prospects and sometimes return to the rebel groups as they have simply no other way of feeding themselves.


How do child soldiers get recruited?

Some are abducted from their homes and forced to become soldiers
a tactic notoriously used by the Lords Resistance Army.)

A village may be forced to provide a certain number of children as soldiers in exchange for staying safe from attack.

Some children are volunteered by their parents due to extreme poverty and hunger at home.

In some rare cases children volunteer to join the fight because of ideological reasons or to avenge the death of their family.

www.warchild.org.uk

Uganda's Faces of Evil!!

The key players in the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA)




Joseph Kony - founder and leader of the (LRA)

His top commanders:



Okot Odhiambo



Dominic Ongwen



Raska Lukwiya



Vincent Otti - deputy of Joseph Kony was was executed on Kony’s command in 2007 for his role in peace talks



Bok Abudema - another high profile commander was killed in battle in 2010

How they operate:

The rebels often masquerade as military soldiers, or pounce as villagers gather together for occasions such as church services. They launch vicious attacks, killing the weak and the old with machetes, swords or stones, and cutting off people’s ears, lips and noses to serve as a warning to others. The rebels capture those who can be useful to them, including children strong enough to carry weapons. The captives are tied together and marched to camps where they are violently indoctrinated and turned into soldiers, porters, cooks, or sex slaves. Captives are often forced to kill or rape family members, making it impossible for them to think about returning home. Those who do resist or try to escape are tortured and killed..

By attacking villages and carrying out its notorious vicious attacks, the LRA defies claims that the group is weakening. Rebels also loot villages for food and supplies, and abduct adults and children to fight for them. The attacks also serve to divert military resources towards defending civilians instead of pursuing the rebels.

Children have been affected the most acutely by this conflict, with thousands abducted, used as soldiers and sex slaves, beaten and forced to torture and kill friends, family and innocent people. Those lucky enough to escape the clutches of the LRA deal with ongoing psychological trauma from their experiences, and face huge problems reintegrating back into their communities. Hundreds of thousands have been displaced from their homes and are forced to live in camps with poor sanitation and health facilities. Even those not directly in contact with the LRA suffer the consequences of poor education due to schools being destroyed by rebels and not being able to afford fees.

The LRA today

"The war in northern Uganda has been called the most neglected humanitarian emergency in the world today. For the past 23 years, the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) and the Government of Uganda (GoU) have been waging a war that has left nearly two million innocent civilians caught in the middle. The GoU's attempt to protect its citizens from this rebel militia has largely failed, resulting in an entire generation of youth that has never known peace."

http://www.invisiblechildren.com/history-of-the-war

Joseph Kony leads the LRA. The LRA rebels abduct children and indoctrinate them into their ranks. It is estimated that more than 90% of the LRA’s troops were abducted as children.

The LRA left Uganda in June 2006 when the Juba Peace Talks began. Ever since the peace talks fell apart in 2008, the LRA has been active in the border regions of the Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan, and the Central African Republic.

There is a website that gives near real-time updates on LRA location and activity LRACrisisTracker.com

At the moment Uganda's border regions of South Sudan, the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of Congo are experiencing ongoing LRA attacks and abductions. Not only have the LRA been terrorizing Uganda for the past 23 years it is now spreading to bordering countries.

Lord's Resistance Army (LRA)

The Lord's Resistance Army is a militant and cannibalistic group with a syncretic Christian extreme religious ideology. The group operates in northern Uganda, South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Central Africa. The group used to operate mainly in northern Uganda and also in parts of South Sudan, the Central African Republic, and the DRC.

The LRA was formed in 1987 and until about 2007 it was engaged in an armed rebellion against the Ugandan government. It is led by Joseph Kony, who proclaims himself the "spokesperson" of God and a spirit medium, primarily of the Holy Spirit, which the group believes can represent itself in many manifestations.

The group is based on a number of different beliefs including local religious rituals, mysticism, traditional religion, Acholi nationalism and Christianity and claims to be establishing a theocratic state based on the Ten Commandments and local Acholi tradition. The LRA is accused of widespread human rights violations, including murder, abduction, mutilation, sexual enslavement of women and children and forcing children to participate in hostilities.

Ideology

The LRA's ideology is disputed amongst academics. Although the LRA has been regarded primarily as a Christian militia, the LRA reportedly evokes Acholi nationalism on occasion.

Robert Gersony, in a report funded by United States Embassy in Kampala in 1997, concluded that "the LRA has no political program or ideology, at least none that the local population has heard or can understand." The International Crisis Group has stated that "the LRA is not motivated by any identifiable political agenda, and its military strategy and tactics reflect this."

IRIN comments that "the LRA remains one of the least understood rebel movements in the world, and its ideology, as far as it has one, is difficult to understand."UPDF Lt. Col. Shaban Bantariza has said that "you can't tell whether they want political power. Its only aim is to terrorize and brutalize the civilian population and to loot their homes."

During an interview with IRIN, Vincent Otti was asked about the LRA's vision of an ideal government, to which he responded,

"Lord’s Resistance Army is just the name of the movement, because we are fighting in the name of God. God is the one helping us in the bush. That’s why we created this name, Lord’s Resistance Army. And people always ask us, are we fighting for the [biblical] Ten Commandments of God. That is true – because the Ten Commandments of God is the constitution that God has given to the people of the world. All people. If you go to the constitution, nobody will accept people who steal, nobody could accept to go and take somebody’s wife, nobody could accept to innocently kill, or whatever. The Ten Commandments carries all this."

In a speech delivered by James Alfred Obita, former Secretary For External Affairs And Mobilisation, and Leader of Delegation of the Lord's Resistance Army, he adamantly denied that the LRA was "just an Acholi thing" and stated that claims made by the media and Museveni administration asserting that the LRA is a "group of Christian fundamentalists with bizarre beliefs whose aim is to topple the Museveni regime and replace it with governance based on the Bible's ten commandments" were false.

In the same speech, Obita also stated that the LRA's objectives are:

1-To fight for the immediate restoration of competitive multi-party democracy in Uganda.

2-To see an end to gross violation of human rights and dignity of Ugandans.

3-To ensure the restoration of peace and security in Uganda.

4-To ensure unity, sovereignty and economic prosperity beneficial to all Ugandans

5-To bring to an end to the repressive policy of deliberate marginalization of groups of people who may not agree with the National Resistance Army's ideology.

The original aims of the group were more closely aligned with those of it's predecesor, the Holy Spirit Movement. Protection of the Acholi population was of great concern because of the reality of ethnic purges in the history of Uganda. This created a great deal of concern in the Acholi community as well as a strong desire for formidable leadership and protection.[47] As the conflict has progressed, fewer and fewer Acholi offered sufficient support to the rebels in the eyes of the LRA.This led to an increased amount of violence toward the non-combatant population, which in turn further alienated them from the rebels.This self-perpetuating cycle led to the creation of a strict divide between Acholis and rebels, a divide that was previously not explicitly present.

However, many would believe that the ideologies of the LRA are nothing but hypocrisy. According to the California based organization, Invisible Children, the LRA is no more than a terrorist group disguising themselves as Christian based. The LRA uses tactics of physical and emotional intimidation to seduce children into joining their forces.

Troop strength

The government of Uganda claims that the LRA has only 500 or 1,000 soldiers in total, but other sources estimate that there could be as many as 3,000 soldiers, along with about 1,500 women and children. The bulk of the soldiers fighting for the LRA are children. According to Livingstone Sewanyana, executive director of the Foundation for Human Rights Initiative, Yoweri Museveni was the first to use child soldiers in this conflict. Since the LRA first started fighting in 1987 they may have forced well over 10,000 boys and girls into combat, often killing family, neighbors and school teachers in the process.

Many of these children were put on the front lines so the casualty rate for these children has been high. They have often used children to fight because they are easy to replace by raiding schools or villages. The soldiers are organized into independent squads of 10 or 20 soldiers.Sudan has provided military assistance to the LRA, in response to Uganda lending military support to the Sudan People's Liberation Army.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord's_Resistance_Army

Joseph Kony and the Lord’s Resistance Army: a primer

By Elizabeth Flock

President Obama, in a letter to Congress, has authorized the deployment of about 100 U.S. combat forces to central Africa to assist in the fight against the notoriously savage Lord’s Resistance Army.

One of the world's most wanted rebel chiefs, Joseph Kony of the Lord's Resistance Army, seen on TV in 2006. The goal: to track down LRA’s leader, Joseph Kony.

Here’s some things to know about Kony and the group:

- Kony proclaims himself the “spokesperson” of God.

- The group claims to be Protestant, with influences of mysticism. Kony believes he is a medium of the Holy Spirit.

- Kony is on the Specially Designated Global Terrorists list.

- The LRA, a sectarian religious and military group that has operated in northern Uganda and Southern Sudan since 1987. They have since spread their operations in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Central African Republic. The U.S. Treasury has Kony on its list of “Specially Designated Global Terrorists.”

- Kony’s aunt started the predecessor to the LRA.

- The Post’s William Branigin writes Kony “formed his Lord’s Resistance Army from the remnants of the Holy Spirit Movement, an armed group led by his aunt that fought the Ugandan government in the late 1980s.”

- Responsible for mass human rights violations.

- Since its creation in 1987, the group has engaged in an armed rebellion against the Ugandan government and committed an extraordinary number of human rights violations. Most notably, his troops enter a village, killing the adults and kidnapping the children. The boys are enscripted into the army and the girls are taken as ‘bush wives.’

- Obama notes in his letter that the LRA has “murdered, raped, and kidnapped tens of thousands of men, women, and children in central Africa” and “continues to commit atrocities across the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and South Sudan that have a disproportionate impact on regional security.”

Why is the US going in there?

In May of 2010, Obama signed a bill committing the United States to help arrest Kony. Kenneth Roth, the director of Human Rights Watch wrote in October of 2010 that Obama needed to put in practice what the president said during his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech: “Force can be justified on humanitarian grounds, as it was in the Balkans.”

What does the LRA want?

The LRA wants to establish a theocratic state based on the Ten Commandments and the tradition of the Acholi people, an ethnic group in northern Uganda.

This three-minute short film was produced by the group Invisible Children, a non-profit organization working to end Kony’s rule.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/blogpost/post/obama-deploys-combat-forces-to-fight-lords-resistance-army-in-central-africa/2011/10/14/gIQAYB8KkL_blog.html