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Posts tagged congo
What's Troubling About KONY 2012?

“The group [Invisible Children] is in favour of direct military intervention, and their money supports the Ugandan government’s army and various other military forces. Here’s a photo of the founders of Invisible Children posing with weapons and personnel of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army. Both the Ugandan army and Sudan People’s Liberation Army are riddled with accusations of rape and looting, but Invisible Children defends them, arguing that the Ugandan army is “better equipped than that of any of the other affected countries”, although Kony is no longer active in Uganda and hasn’t been since 2006 by their own admission. These books each refer to the rape and sexual assault that are perennial issues with the UPDF, the military group Invisible Children is defending…
…Military intervention may or may not be the right idea, but people supporting KONY 2012 probably don’t realize they’re supporting the Ugandan military who are themselves raping and looting away. If people know this and still support Invisible Children because they feel it’s the best solution based on their knowledge and research, I have no issue with that. But I don’t think most people are in that position, and that’s a problem.”
- Grant Oysten, Visible Children
“While calling KONY 2012 ‘one of the most pervasive and successful human rights based viral campaigns in recent memory,’ the conflict blogger Mark Kersten argues the documentary is ‘obfuscating, simplified and wildly erroneous.’ Kersten takes it to task for ignoring the complexities of the U.S. military deployment, such as the demonstrated failures of earlier missions aimed at stopping Kony, and for neglecting to interview northern Ugandans who want peace at the cost of living with a free Kony.
‘Kony 2012, quite dubiously, avoids stepping into the ‘peace-justice’ question in northern Uganda,’ Kersten writes, ‘precisely because it is a world of contesting and plural views, eloquently expressed by the northern Ugandans themselves.’”
- WIRED
TL;DR: Good cause, questionable methodology.
