Compassionate about the poor                                 Bill  Mulcahy  (Brisbane)                                  Bill's previous articles

 March 16, 2012                                         Kony 2012…. So what’s it all about?                      www.spiritofthebush.net

Last Tuesday 6th March 2012 the International community became electronically aware of the now reclusive rebel leader named Joseph Kony. http://youtu.be/Y4MnpzG5Sqc I watched it with apparently some 77,384,697 others according to updated YouTube statistics. Huge-named actors and singers added support for this Kony 2012 campaign. What is the campaign about? The campaign is attempting to galvanise world support (particularly from USA) to bring this rebel leader to justice.  

I only learnt about Joseph Kony when I was in Uganda in 2009. But the Ugandans living in the north of the country had already known him for some 25 years. Joseph Kony is a horrible man. He has caused much horror and terror to good people in villages; his atrocities included abductions, killings, mutilations and rape. Yet these atrocities barely made many news headlines during the 25 years, just like atrocities that occurred in Rwanda (800,000 killed in 100 days); Cambodia (1.7million); Sudan or Zimbabwe. This rebel leader and the guerilla warfare is deemed responsible for 30,000 deaths over the two and a half decades, and perpetuated a huge humanitarian crisis using and abducting child soldiers. These have been largely invisible and unknown to us, the average Westerner.  

This Kony 2012 awareness campaign and call for direct military intervention to locate Kony raises some concern with me. Joseph Kony, by Ugandan reports, fled Uganda in 2006 and appears to have been in hiding somewhere in the Central African Republic with about 300 supporters. Kony had no power to commit mass genocide, and was no further threat to Uganda. Yet the USA signed a law Lord's Resistance Army Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act in May 2010, and deployed 100 troops in October 2011. Why would a world power get involved now on the back of a genuine awareness campaign, yet have no interest during the height of this humanitarian crisis anytime in the 25 years that it lingered on? The West Australian    

Don’t get me wrong! I do not agree with the child soldiers, mutilations, etc., that have happened to the wonderful people of Uganda. But I think that this is all a little too late. The Kony 2012 campaign is generating some huge funding which finances filmmaking and merchandising. Only about 1/3 of the donated funds get to Central Africa. The main aspect is awareness. Is awareness good? Yes, but the problems surrounding this issue and almost all African issues are highly complex, not one-dimensional or simplistic as getting Kony. This issue cannot be solved by millions of dollars being spent on speaking tours, making films or running a Facebook campaign. Yes, let’s talk about Joseph Kony, not just Kony 2012, but in a way that genuine help may be extended to the tens of thousands in Uganda who have been affected by Kony. As Jesus said: there will always be the poor with us. We need to make them then the focal point, not Kony.