How do you explain over 30,000 missing children? That’s what filmmaker Jason Russell attempted to do when he released the video KONY 2012 under the name of his what has now become an international campaign, Invisible Children Inc.
Russell has been fighting to stop Kony over the past nine years through his invisible children campaign. The aim of the video was to explain to people the horrible crimes that the Ugandan militant rebel group Lord’s Resistance Army, also known as the LRA, have committed over the past 25 years.
Their leader, Joseph Kony, was born and raised in Uganda and became the leader shortly after the group was formed.
The main objective of the LRA is to abduct young boys and girls from their African villages, turning the boys into child soldiers and the girls into sex slaves, and in the process killing their parents and neighbors, leaving the children with no other choice but to go with him.
To say these acts Joseph Kony is committing and has been committing for over two decades is horrible is an understatement. Kony does not fight for any cause but only to maintain his power and is not supported by any group or government. In Russell’s video he shows images of the children sleeping together in over crowded and crammed situations.
He chose to follow the life of one boy named Jacob who said he would rather be killed at the age of 12 than have to keep living as Kony’s soldier. However, Jacob did escape and come to America with the help of Russell and now speaks to groups on behalf of the children still suffering in Africa under Kony’s rule in order to raise awareness.
In addition to kidnapping the children and turning them into soldiers and sex slaves, he makes them fear for their lives every day if they choose to attempt to escape and forces them to participate in terrible acts such as mutilating the faces of others.
Since discovering this information through Russell’s 2012 video and other news organizations, people have been joining forces to raise awareness in an attempt to stop Kony from continuing the damage he is doing.
In addition, Russell’s efforts to attain the attention of the government finally proved successful on October 14th 2011 when President Barack Obama agreed to deploy approximately 100 combat-equipped U.S. troops to central Africa. Unfortunately Kony has become aware of our nation’s efforts to find and arrest him, and as a result has changed his tactics by frequently moving around Africa, making it more difficult for troops to find him.
“In 2002, when the International Criminal Court first started their job was to find and demand the arrest of the worlds worst criminals. Although there are a lot of warlords, dictators, and murderers in the world the perversity of Kony’s crimes made him first on the courts list,” said Russell in the video.
Luis Moreno Ocampo, head prosecutor for the International Criminal Court said Kony’s crimes are basically crimes against humanity, and war crimes committed against the civilian population including murder, sexual slavery, rapes and abductions and while the ICC did indict Kony in July of 2005, they have yet to formally arrest him.
In the mean time, Jason Russell plans to continue his efforts by spreading the word and hopes to gain all of the attention possible. The next big step in the campaign will be on the night of April 20
For what people are calling Cover the Night, they will go out covering the streets and put up all of the posters and stickers they can in an attempt to gain more awareness because as Russell states in the video, unless he can get people to become more active in efforts to stop Kony, Obama is going to pull the troops from Africa if Kony can’t be found, stopped, and arrested by December 31, 2012 since he was initially hesitant to have the government get involved in the first place.
Ocampo even said himself, “The only way to stop Kony is to show him we’re going to arrest [him].”
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