Ok. Allow me to begin by stating how evil Joseph Kony and his Lord's Resistance Army are.
The Lord's Resistance Army is a millitant rebel group. They were initially funded and armed by the Sudanese government, as a way to attempt to punish Uganda for supporting an uprising in Southern Sudan. You may have heard of this. What you may not have heard of, is the fact that the United States and French governments armed both the governments of Chad and Sudan, as they saw this as a way of stopping the progress of Col. Gaddafi. This is really a whole other debate, but I'll give you the wiki of the former Chadian president Hissene Habre as it makes for interesting reading: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiss%C3%A8ne_Habr%C3%A9). The whole history of the US, the UK, the former USSR and France in Africa is terrible. Most of these horrible groups such as the LRA, the Janjaweed, Gaddafi and more were armed during the Cold War. The United States armed Sudan and Chad because the Soviet Union had armed Gaddafi and so on and so forth.
So, Kony. It is estimated that he has abducted over 65,000 children to fight in his LRA. He and his army stand accused of murder, abduction, forcing women into the sex trade and even cannibalism. (http://www.royalafricansociety.org/articles-by-richard-dowden/261.html)
This is where Invisible Children and their Kony 2012 campaign come in. The group uploaded an undeniably affecting video on March 5th, highlighting the atrocities commited by Kony. Invisible Children has been involved in many important and worthy projects in Uganda, such as the building of schools and the Protection Plan, a service designed to provide rehabilitation and family reunification for victims of Kony and the LRA. However, it is when it comes to the apprehension of Kony that I think Invisible Children should be put under more scrutiny. Is the video which is currently being shared all over Facebook and Twitter really to be taken at face value?
Last year, Invisible Children spent $8.8 million. I know this because as a not-for-profit organisation, IC's accounts can easily be found online (Google it. If you can't find it, I'll send you the pdf). Of this, only $2.8 million went to direct services, such as the ones I mentioned previously. $2.2 million was spent on travel costs and film making. Each of the 3 co-founders took home $90,000 in pay. Admittedly, this is only 3% of the total costs of the charity but it seems to me like disproportionate amount of money is being spent on films and awareness rather than directly helping in Uganda. Of course awareness is important, but aren't they over-spending on this? Just my opinion. In addition, the website Charity Navigator.org only gives Invisible Children 2 stars out of 4 for "transparency and accountability", as the accounts it provides have not been independently audited.
This brings me onto my next problem with IC. Their relationship with the Ugandan government. If not financially (I am willing to give IC the benefit of the doubt despite their lack of transparency), Invisible Children publically lends its support the Ugandan government army the UPDF. Given that (as IC admits in the previous link) Kony left Uganda in 2006, this seems odd. Odder still, the fact that the UPDF has itself been accused of atrocities, such as rape and looting.
Can is really be justified, supporting an army like that, just to capture an even worse man? Is THIS what we want from our charities? Even more shockingly, the Ugandan government has actually granted amnesty to thousands of LRA soldiers for the crimes they commited while the group was operational in Uganda. And it's not me saying this - ask Amnesty International. Remember, this is the Ugandan government whose army Invisible Children supports.
You may have noticed this blog is rather link-heavy. This is because I think it's important to show where you are getting your information from. This is my third problem with IC. Some of the information contained in the Kony 2012 video is just not true. After 14 minutes they state that everyone they spoke to in Washington said that there was "no way" the US government would get involved. "The government said it was impossible". Well, that's simply not true. US Africa Command has been trying to take out Kony for years. The reason you probably haven't heard about this is they haven't been very good at it. Nicknamed Operation Lightning Thunder, an attempt to destroy the LRA once and for all was made, with US troops commanding an alliance of Ugandan, Sudanese and Congolese forces. Sadly, Kony had in fact left Garamba National Park prior to the offensive, and the LRA massacred over 900 people in reprisal attacks. I'm not defending the US government, but are IC unaware of this, and other similar operations? Or are they lying? After all, Invisible Children supports millitary intervention. However, when Kony surrounds himself with women and children, and such action will result in the loss of many of those women and children, as we have seen.
Joseph Kony is an evil man. He should be brought to justice and put on trial in the Hague for his crimes. But supporting the apprehension of Kony, shouldn't mean putting blind faith in the Kony 2012 campaign.
