In the past week a YouTube video has been making the social media rounds, posted by everyone from your next-door neighbor to celebrities. Not your normal viral sensation featuring puppies, toddlers, or sloths, this video, called “Kony 2012,” was put out by an organization known as Invisible Children (IC).
IC’s stated purpose is to raise awareness and work to eradicate child soldiers in Uganda, the Congo, and Sudan. Joseph Kony, the target of the video, is the leader of a rebel group known as the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). In its 26 years, IC says, the LRA has abducted more than 30,000 children to serve as child soldiers, and they put together the video to raise awareness of these war crimes and support the effort to bring Kony to justice.
The Lord’s Resistance Army
The LRA is deeply rooted in the military uprising in Uganda in the mid 1980s. Dictator Milton Obote was removed from power in a military coup, and the National Resistance Army, led by Yoweri Museveni, came into power. Museveni became president of Uganda, a post he still holds. Many of Obote’s government officials and soldiers came from Acholi, an area that stretches across northern Uganda and southern Sudan.
Musevei’s government carried out a wave of attacks in the Acholi area, and some began mobilizing to defend themselves. What was first the Uganda People’s Democratic Army eventually became the Lord’s Resistance Army, led by with Joseph Kony. He is a self-proclaimed prophet with a mission to free the Acholi people by overthrowing the government and installing a democracy based on the Ten Commandments. He began targeting civilians to increase his numbers and subdue the locals, and soon added kidnapping children and young teenagers to serve as soldiers or forced into sexual slavery. Eventually pursuit forced Kony and his forces to abandon their bases in southern Sudan and move deeper into the Congo and Central African Republic.
International Focus on the LRA
The LRA’s actions eventually drew international attention. The International Criminal Court classified the LRA as a terrorist group and issued arrest warrants against Joseph Kony and several other senior LRA commanders for crimes against humanity.While Uganda is beginning to recover from the LRA’s reign of terror, Kony and his forces continue to terrorize, kidnap, and murder elsewhere. In October 2011, President Obama sent 100 Special Forces soldiers to help the Ugandans hunt down Kony.
The terrible acts of the LRA struck a chord with America’s youth and celebrities, who posted the video to Facebook pages and Twitter feeds. As of this writing, it has been viewed on YouTube more than 84 million times. Within a day or two of Kony 2012 going viral, however, other links started popping up in response to the posts. While no one has denied the horror of Kony’s actions, people began questioning the legitimacy and motives of Invisible Children itself, and whether their actions could do more harm than good.
Who Are the Founders of “Invisible Children?”
Critics say “Kony 2012” oversimplifies the conflict, ignoring the Ugandan government’s own human rights abuses and exaggerating the LRA’s human toll for maximum effect. The filmmakers have also been criticized for a 2008 photo showing IC’s founders holding weapons and posing with members of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army, which has also been accused of widespread violence and human rights abuses during its long conflict with the government of Sudan. And on March 15, one of the founders of IC, Jason Russell, was detained and later taken to a mental health facility in San Diego after police said they found him in his underwear, masturbating and vandalizing cars.
Calls for scrutiny of IC’s practices and people are not unfounded. However, the Kony 2012 video, and even the surrounding backlash and criticism, has placed the focus exactly where IC wanted it: on the horrible crimes of the Lord’s Resistance Army and Joseph Kony himself. What happens next remains to be seen; time will tell if this sort of social media engagement manifests into any kind of action. The fact remains, however, that millions of people who last week had never heard Joseph Kony’s name are now engaged in the horrors of a conflict half a world away. In a nation whose young people are often accused being self-centered and unaware, that’s a remarkable accomplishment.
