For those who care about Uganda, the Lord Resistance Army (LRA), Africa and the whole Kony 2012 appeal, here is a video reminding a few facts, by the movement Anonymous:
Anonymous - Kony 2012 The facts
"We are Anonymous.
we do not forgive.
we do not forget.
Expect us".
we do not forgive.
we do not forget.
Expect us".
This dates from March 2012 but can still be eye-opening.
While Invisible Children has produced a second video and launched an appeal for mobilisation against Kony on April 20, it seems useful to read and listen to as much as possible about Uganda and the LRA.
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Another useful read on the issue I came across this week is US Senator John Kerry's column in the Huffington Post:
"It's not easy or obvious and it may not sound like much, but one thing I know we can do to strengthen our hand is to take a model that's been successful in other countries and apply it to the hunt for Kony and the LRA", he write.
And therefore Kerry announces that : "Next month I'm introducing legislation to expand the War Crimes Rewards Program to target Kony -- to take what's currently a rewards program designed to secure arrests and convictions of terrorists and those trafficking in narcotics but expand it to target the war criminals of today".
He also adds this point that desserves to be underlined accoording to me: "It's always easier to watch a video and feel something in your gut about right and wrong than it is to focus even for a minute on dry legislation or countries that many have never heard about".
So can Kony 2012 generate some change for Central Africa?
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Another major concern and critic is also made against the Charity 'Invisible Children', which produced the Kony 2012 video.
Invisible Children apparently provided intelligence information to Uganda's security services leading to arrests of several suspected regime opponents, at least according to U.S. embassy cables posted by WikiLeaks.
Here is an article summarising:
"The San Diego-based group has since 2008 acted in concert with the Ugandan government in coordinating public relations campaigns to promote a military solution against the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), while keeping the U.S. administration informed", it explains.
And "Kony2012 was viewed more than 100 million times", concludes the article, "yet it now turns out that Invisible Children may have duped a global audience by hiding the fact that it's been working closely with the Museveni regime all along, to the extent that it even shared intelligence leading to arrests of perceived or alleged regime opponents".
Another major criticism...
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And last but not least the BBC World reports from Northern Uganda by my colleague based in Nairobi, Will Ross:
and
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Finally the best summary of the Kony 2012 campaign according to me is this one:
It is an eye-opening article in which BBC Africa correspondent Andrew Harding wrote in March 2012: "The outside world has a role to play, but it is patronising and above all cripplingly counter-productive to believe we have all the answers."
I'll conclude by quotiding Eric Vachon, an account executive for evolve24, a market intelligence company, who underlined that before the Kony 2012 video "there were millions of people who didn't know who Joseph Kony was, and today they do, there's value in that."
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Stay concerned!
