Beyond “Kony 2012”. What is Happening in Uganda? America's "Invisible"
Military Agenda
by Daniele Scalea
Video-
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va
<
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=29871> &aid=29871
http://www.globalresearch.ca/coverStoryPictures2/29871.jpg
<
http://www.globalresearch.ca> Global Research, March 21, 2012
Kony 2012 is the title of a campaign launched by the organization Invisible
Children Inc., focused for now on the half hour video of the same name,
which has had a viral diffusion on the internet reaching in a few days
almost one hundred million views (it was published only on the 5th March).
The campaign aims at supporting the arrest of Joseph Kony, an Ugandan
guerrilla leader accused of “crimes against humanity” by the International
Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague.
The campaign’s stated purpose is to encourage international efforts to
arrest Kony, by making his case as widely known as possible. Nothing
original here, but it’s interesting that Invisible Children Inc. is trying
to rally volunteers on the one hand to lobby dozens of famous people
(politicians and show business personalities) to convince them to be
spokespeople for the campaign, and on the other hand to buy a kit complete
with posters, bracelets and other propaganda material.
In that sense something leaps immediately out. Kony’s story is told hastily
and in a trenchant way as that of a brutal man without ideals and
supporters, who kidnaps children to make them fight at his service. The
reason why many people (who presumably would not have even been able to find
Uganda on the map before having watched the video) should rally around the
campaign occupies only a relatively short part of the video. A large part of
it, on the contrary, is dedicated to extolling the potential of the internet
and grassroots mobilization and to showing young photogenic activists
spreading the cause and its gadgets, decorated with logos and symbols
graphically very well crafted. The messages and images recall the happenings
of the “Arabic Spring” and its interpretation – in my opinion strained
<
http://www.geopolitica-rivista.org/13704/capire-le-rivolte-arabe-alle-origi
ni-del-fenomeno-rivoluzionario/> as I’ve argued elsewhere – as the revolt of
“Facebook and Twitter users”. And that of the so called “coloured revolts”
orchestrated in different countries (Serbia, Georgia, Ukraine) during the
last years by the widespread and professional network of US “NGOs”.
Another noteworthy element is that in Kony 2012 the sending of US troops by
Obama to Uganda is supported. Indeed the continuation of military support to
the Ugandan armed forces is the main goal of the whole campaign: a decision
by Congress to disengage from the African country must be prevented.
President Obama’s choice is portrayed as the result of grassroots pressure
exerted by Invisible Children Inc. during the past years, and as a military
mission decided upon “simply because it is the right thing to do”. This
interpretation is simplistic just like the superficial and Manichean
description of Ugandan situation. Before giving reason for these opinions, a
digression on the inventors of Kony 2012 campaign must be made.
Invisible Children Inc. was founded in 2004 with the specific purpose of
opposing Joseph Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army activity. Its founders, Jason
Russel, Bobby Bailey and Laren Poole, university students at that time, had
been affected by what they had seen in Uganda during a journey in 2003.
Today Invisible Children Inc.
<
http://c2052482.r82.cf0.rackcdn.com/images/830/original/AR11_small_final.pd
f?1323127778> collects almost 14 million dollars a year, with a net profit
of almost 5 millions. In 2011, 16.24% of expenditure went on “Management &
General”. On the 30th June 2011 the organization declared
<
http://c2052482.r82.cf0.rackcdn.com/images/737/original/FY11-Audited%20Fina
ncial%20Statements.pdf?1320205055> assets amounting to a little less than 7
million dollars. Jason Russel, director and narrative voice of Kony 2012,
<
http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary&orgid=12429>
receive a salary of 1% of all organization spending, that is 89,669 dollars
a year. Similar wages are received also by the co-founder Laren Poole and
the executive director Ben Kessey. But these numbers are meant to be
outclassed this year.
<
http://visiblechildren.tumblr.com/post/19134664367/show-me-the-money>
According to what Jason Russel has just declared, Invisible Children Inc.
should have already sold 500,000 kits, each one costing $30, in only a week
for a total income of 15 million dollars.
<
http://interventionism.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/uganda.gif>
http://interventionism.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/uganda.gif?w=223&h=176
The organization, as it also boasts in the video, was one of the supporters
of the
<
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/statement-president-signing-lord
s-resistance-army-disarmament-and-northern-uganda-r> Lord’s Resistance Army
Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act signed by president Barack
Obama in May 2010, with which one hundred US military advisers were sent to
the African country to support the national army against LRA rebels.
Nevertheless, the White House decision, as it’s easy to imagine and in
contrast to what seems to be suggested in Kony 2012, was not solely or even
principally dictated by humanitarian reasons. But to understand this a
digression on the Ugandan situation must be made.
<
http://interventionism.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/uganda-etnie.jpg>
http://interventionism.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/uganda-etnie.jpg?w=222&h=
247
Like many African countries, whose borders were arbitrarily drawn by
colonial European states, Uganda is strewn with ethnic conflicts. The most
important is that between the Baganda (or Ganda), the inhabitants of the
south and east of the country, and the Acholi who live in the north and also
beyond the Ugandan border into southern Sudan. Uganda’s history after
independence (1962) has been marked by coups d’état and civil wars often
fought along ethnic fault lines. The first president of independent Uganda,
Edward Mutesa, was also Mutesa II the Buganda’s king, even though the main
powers were held by government chief Milton Obote (belonging to Lango ethnic
group, similar to Acholi). In 1966 Obote became president with a coup d’état
in response to the parliament’s attempt to incriminate him, but in 1979 he,
in turn, was overthrown and replaced by his ex-ally, the army commander Idi
Amin. In 1978 a war broke out with Tanzania and in 1979, supported with
foreign arms, the exiles (mainly Lango and Acholi) succeeded in bringing
Obote back to office. Obote’s comeback was legitimized by a popular vote,
considered lacking in transparency by his opponents however. Yoweri Museveni
from the southern Bantu region founded the National Resistance Army (NRA).
In fact the conflict was between the NRA, supported by the Buganda, and the
government’s National Liberation Army (UNLA) of Lango and Acholi. In 1985
Obote was overthrown by a new military coup d’état organized by the Acholi,
but in January 1986, despite the intervention of Mubutu’s Zaire, the NRA won
the war and Museveni became president. He still holds power in a regime
where all political parties are banned, and so he has given a certain
stability to the troubled country.
<
http://interventionism.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/uganda-lra.png>
http://interventionism.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/uganda-lra.png?w=300&h=22
4
Nevertheless, Museveni’s long presidency was not all a bed of roses. His
neoliberal agenda has inflicted heavy social costs in exchange for economic
growth, which in addition has been concentrated mainly in the Bantu regions
where its support is rooted, while the Nilotic north has been neglected.
Museveni has shown a certain aggressiveness towards neighbouring countries,
culminating in Ugandan intervention in the Somali civil war; an intervention
strongly wanted by the United States and that could make one think that the
military aid ordered by Obama is granted more to help a military ally which
in Somalia has already lost hundreds of soldiers, rather than for
humanitarian reasons.
Since its installation, Musenevi’s government has faced a series of ethnic
insurrections and resistance movements. In fact the northern region of the
country has been subjected to military occupation by the NRA, noted (also by
Amnesty International) for its
<
http://www.observer.ug/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=17456:u
pdf-in-kony-hunt-accused-of-rape-looting&catid=78:topstories&Itemid=116>
commission of war crimes. The Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) of Joseph Kony,
an Acholi Christian soldier, emerged in this atmosphere. The fight between
LRA and NRA has been a no holds barred contest: government soldiers have
been accused more or less of the same vileness blamed on the LRA, including
the exploitation of children, the Kony 2012 Leitmotif. But in 2005 the
International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants only for LRA
leaders. It is worthwhile remembering that the ICC was established in 2002
and at the moment is recognized by 120 countries. Among those states which
do not recognize its authority on themselves are the United States, China,
India and Russia.
<
http://interventionism.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/lra.jpg>
http://interventionism.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/lra.jpg?w=300&h=249
Uganda’s domestic struggle soon captured the non-disinterested attention of
other countries. The LRA has been supported by Sudan, which wanted revenge
for Musaveni’s support to the nationalists of the Sudan People’s Liberation
Army (SPLA). Thanks to the SPLA South Sudan has recently gained its
independence but great tension with Khartoum remains. In the meantime the
LRA has been strongly cut down, and moreover it moved towards South Sudan.
The Ugandan government, on the contrary, as already said, has the support of
the United States (while Sudan has been and still is close to China). Even
before the already mentioned order from Obama, t
<
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/136673/mareike-schomerus-tim-allen-a
nd-koen-vlassenroot/obama-takes-on-the-lra?page=2> he United States had sent
soldiers and weapons to support Musenevi in AFRICOM operations, NATO’s
Africa command instituted a few years ago as a reaction to the political and
trading penetration of China in Africa. In 2008-2009 the United States
supported the so called Garamba Offensive in Congo, made by Ugandan and
Congolese government armies and the Sudanese SPLA against Kony’s LRA. The
LRA seems, in fact, to have almost disappeared from Uganda. In recent years
it showed signs of activity only in neighbouring countries.
Kony 2012 has also been criticised. Ugandan journalist Rosebell Kagumire
<
http://rosebellkagumire.com/2012/03/08/kony2012-my-response-to-invisible-ch
ildrens-campaign/> has noticed the great simplification of events made in
the video. This is what a source of undoubted prestige like Foreign Affairs,
journal of the Council of Foreign Relations, unanimously considered the most
influential think tank in the United States,
<
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/136673/mareike-schomerus-tim-allen-a
nd-koen-vlassenroot/obama-takes-on-the-lra?page=2> has written about
organizations like Invisible Children Inc. which supported the US
participation in the Ugandan conflict: “In their campaigns these
organizations have manipulated facts for strategic purposes, exaggerating
the extent of kidnappings and murders made by the LRA, emphasizing the use
of innocent children as soldiers and portraying Kony – without any doubt a
brutal man – as the unique personification of evil forces, a sort of Kurtz
[main character of Heart of Darkness by Conrad].
They have rarely made reference to the atrocities perpetrated by the Ugandan
government or the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army (including attacks
against civilians and plundering of homes and businesses) or the complex
regional politics behind the conflict”. Michael Deibert, a famous journalist
who studied in depth the Ugandan situation writing a book about it,
<
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-deibert/joseph-kony-2012-children_b_1
327417.html> has commented critically on the Kony 2012 campaign. Far from
defending the LRA leader, Deibert has nevertheless noticed that “the Ugandan
government now in office got to power using also kadogos (soldier children)
and by fighting together with armies which use soldier children in the
Democratic Republic of Congo; all these things seem to be deliberately
ignored by Invisible Children”. The argument of a lack of impartiality from
the organization seems to be confirmed also by a photo showing the three
founders posing with weapons in a hostile stance, together with South Sudan
rebels. Glenna Gordon, who took the photo,
<
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/blogpost/post/invisible-children-founde
rs-posing-with-guns-an-interview-with-the-photographer/2012/03/08/gIQASX68yR
_blog.html> has declared that she thinks the three are “colonialists” and
are proud of it.
<
http://interventionism.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/invisible-children-1024x
682.jpg>
http://interventionism.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/invisible-children-1024x6
82.jpg?w=300&h=199Doubt about the good faith of promoters, activists and
Invisible Children’s supporters is not to be raised. But reality is far more
complex than how it is described in the half hour video Kony 2012.
Kony, who in the video (and on propaganda posters) is expressly portrayed as
a new Hitler and a new Bin Laden, is without any doubt a censurable figure
but he is the product of the struggle of a people, the Acholi, who feel
oppressed by president Musenevi, who surely has not distinguished himself by
his liberalism, respect for popular sovereignty or human rights.
The good faith presumption does not save Kony 2012 from criticism when it
expressly supports US military intervention in Uganda. An intervention that
only out of a certain ignorance of events in Africa and with great naivety
could be considered motivated only by the desire “to do the right thing”, as
is stated in the documentary.
The United States has intervened in Uganda within the framework of increased
militarization in its relationship with the continent, made necessary by the
political and trading penetration of China in Africa. The sending of
military advisers to Museveni, possibly a prelude to military escalation
(maybe what the Kony 2012 viral campaign wants to achieve?), is to be taken
in conjunction with drone bombardments in Somalia, intervention in Libya to
overthrow Gaddafi, French intervention in Ivory Coast to depose Gbagbo.
Julien Teil’s documentary The Humanitarian War has shown the role, not too
clear, of NGOs in preparing the ground for NATO intervention in Libya.
Invisible Children emphasizes the need to send US troops to Uganda at a time
when the LRA seems weakened and, according to many people,
<
http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/03/07/guest_post_joseph_kony_is_no
t_in_uganda_and_other_complicated_things> Kony hasn’t been in the country
for years. At this point it does not seem rash to include also Kony 2012 in
the arsenal of US soft power that should support the spread – not
necessarily in a peaceful way – of Washington’s influence in Africa.
Daniele Scalea is co-editor-in-chief of the Italian
<
http://geopolitica-rivista.org/> Geopolitica review and scientific
secretary of the <
http://www.istituto-geopolitica.eu/> Institute of
Advanced Studies in Geopolitics and Auxiliary Sciences (IsAG) in Rome. He is
author of two books: La sfida totale. Equilibri e strategie nel grande gioco
delle potenze mondiali [“The Total Challenge: Balances and Strategies in the
Great Game among World Powers”] (2010) and Capire le rivolte arabe. Alle
origini del fenomeno rivoluzionario [“Understanding Arab Revolts. Origins of
Revolutionary Phenomenon”] (2011). He is currently finishing a book on the
life, works and thought of Halford John Mackinder
----[Mailing List for Eritrea Related News ]----
Received on Thu Mar 22 2012 - 10:26:53 EDT
