Joseph Kony is known for being one of the world’s worst criminals. In Uganda he abducts children and forces them to become soldiers and sex slaves. As if it isn’t already bad enough, he forces the children to also kill their parents and mutilate other children’s faces. Kony calls his army the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) and Kony proclaims himself as a spokesperson of God.
Since 1986 there has been an estimated 66,000 children that have become soldiers and around two-million people have been internally displaced. In 2005, the International Criminal Court (ICC) announced the warrant for Kony’s arrest for war crimes. Kony has avoided capture since then.
Back in 2003, film maker Jason Russell travelled to Uganda with an original intent to film a documentary about the war in Darfur. Oblivious to the crimes going on in Uganda, Russell soon met a boy named Jacob and found out he was on the run for his life. Jacob witnessed what Kony has done to the people of Uganda, including his brother. He watched Kony’s army take his life away from him and so far all of the children in Uganda agree they would rather be dead than captured.
“It was really inspiring,” sophomore Elaine Shimmons said. “It makes you want to help out and makes you realize other things are going on in the world besides high gas prices.”
In early March, Russell posted a 30 minute documentary on the internet titled ‘Kony 2012’ and it brought in a surge of attention towards Kony, which was exactly its purpose. The video was made for the campaign group Invisible Children Inc, which Russell is the cofounder of. It successfully raised awareness and involvement from the U.S. towards the issue in Uganda. The films purpose is to help promote the charity’s ‘Stop Kony’ movement. The main intent of the video is to make Kony famous. The term ‘famous’ may sound a bit absurd, but the point is if we make him famous like the celebrities we all know and love, the more the people will know about Kony.
“I thought the video was a bit lengthy,” sophomore Alyssa Lyons said. “But informative and everyone should take a half hour out of their day to watch it.”
The day the video came out is the same day Twitter had several worldwide trending topics related to Kony and people were repeatedly seeing the documentary all over their Facebook newsfeeds.
“I first found out about it on Twitter,” senior Connor Wiig said. “The video was deep, I was impacted and I started donating.”
The documentary will be deleted on December 31, 2012 because 2012 is the year the Invisible Children believe Kony will finally be captured after all of these years. As of March 17, the video has been viewed more than 80 million times on Youtube.
On April 20, 2012, supporters will hang posters all over their hometowns in support of ‘Kony 2012.’ Posters and Kony 2012 related products are available online at the Invisible Children website. Numerous celebrities have begun to endorse the campaign, including Taylor Swift, Rihanna, and Nicki Minaj.
In May 2010, President Obama signed into law a legislature aimed at stopping Kony and the LRA. The bill was passed unanimously in the United States Senate on May 11, 2010. On May 12, 2010 a motion to suspend the bill was passed by the House of Representatives. Then in October 2011, President Obama authorized the deployment of approximately 100 U.S. troops to Central Africa.