The KONY 2012 Campaign: A Tool to Advance the Call from “Civil Society” NGOs Who Have Urged Obama to Send “Military Advisors” to Uganda
updated March 11, 2012+++
+++“Mark Kersten from Justice in Conflict says Uganda’s recently-discovered oil reserves, “may produce between 2.5 billion to 6 billion barrels of oil. This oil is suddenly directly linked to the country’s security”, (cited by RT). Of course we understand that the US has never intervened in a country where there is no economic or military benefit.”
+++Check this out: Top left corner:
Mar 09, 2012
U.S. AFRICOM Public Affairs
FACT SHEET:
U.S. Military Support to African Efforts to Counter the Lord’s Resistance Army
PDF:
“This KONY 2012 youtube frenzy is US State Department propaganda. This is ALL about expanding AFRICOM. YOU ARE BEING MANIPULATED. 2012 scramble for Africa.“
“This “KONY 2012” campaign is asking for MORE US troops to be sent into Africa. Look up AFRICOM and understand what this is part of. Your consent is being manufactured. Wake up!“
“When people are posting groups on this page calling for US troops to be moved from Afghanistan to Africa, then you know consent is being manufactured. This has more to do with attempting to combat the rise of China than arresting anybody. NO TO AFRICOM.“
“[KONY 2012 is] Essentially putting forward a military fist but covering it up with the velvet glove of humanitarianism and development” KONY 2012 = AFRICOM”
KONY2012 AND THE IMPERIALIST SCRAMBLE FOR AFRICA
March 7, 2012
Samira Musa
Tweet what you will, but I find the sudden interest which sparked the #KONY2012 and #STOPKONY trends on Twitter both extremely suspicious and slightly patronising. The former, because of what this ‘discovery’ of child soldiers implicates for Africa in the long run, in particular, East Africa which has become a region of political importance with Britain planning to intervene in Somalia and the latter because this is not the first case of its kind. It is also rather distressing for me, as an African, to see my continent suddenly become a bandwagon and finally be of relevance after centuries of injustices being born there. Africa has been raped, murdered and pillaged by the West since the slave trade and has continued to be right up until this Kony malarkey so it begs the question – why do the West care? Did they care about Africans when they dragged us on bloody feet and chains and made our ancestors their slaves? Did they care when their companies illegally dumped nuclear waste on Somali shores? Or perhaps they cared deeply about the Coltan rush in the Congo?
I understand that to some, this video may be a shock, but to many it isn’t. It does not make it any less disheartening and disgusting but the message we should be sending is that ALL injustices are wrong, not the few that have the potential of justifying another Scramble for Africa because of its geographical or political relevance in a world that is slowly but surely being knocked down by the West in their plan to destabilise the Global South. And even if they are wrong, it gives no moral justification to any Western involvement because we all know what the outcome of such a mission will be. It will be Iraq, Libya and Syria. And civilians’ blood will be on the hands of all of those who called for this. I also find it astonishing that there is a genuine consensus in this country and in the West in general that *we* are somehow superiorly able to impose *our* military presence and our values on another people. This Western supremacist idea is not only foundationally ignorant and patronising but used as a tool to manufacture the consent of such adventures of governments and this should be challenged constantly.
Of course Kony is a dodgy and evil character, but surely we should have been able to a) know this before it became a trending topic on Twitter and b) been able to accept this WHILST also challenging the stance of groups such as Invisible Children who have been involved in very dubious business from the start. An organisation that has ‘direct military intervention’ as one of its aims is certainly one that should not be fronting this campaign or any other which involves Africa. Awareness is always a positive thing but this issue is way too complex and complicated than simply watching a thirty minute video or using a hashtag on social media. However, it is also simply not enough to sit on a fence and say that raising awareness for THIS particular campaign is your sole purpose without acknowledging the implications of your approval for “just anything to be done to save the poor African children!” (suggesting therefore assenting to Western involvement.) If you really care about Africa I suggest you rewire your brain into understanding how Europe and America actually underdeveloped Africa instead of jumping on bandwagons with no real comprehension of historical relations between the West and Africa. Unfortunately, there are no cleverly put together emotional videos on that which have worldwide attention as of yet.
Again, if you cannot see this timely campaign as a ploy and tactic to further destabilise Africa in order to pursue and maintain their interests as an imperial and colonial entity as well as to excuse and defend another Scramble for Africa then you, my friend, are very silly and probably shouldn’t be reading this. We never seem to learn from history and are constantly looking to the future for questions that have already been answered. The ‘poor little black kids’ don’t really need you to save them, as without you, they probably could have saved themselves.
Flashback to November 11, 2011 | Via Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch was integral in opening the door to the Imperialist, NATO-led invasion on Libya. Watch:”LIBYA Humanitarian War: The Role Of NED-Linked NGOs Using Fake Evidence For War Now Targeting Syria”: Video
Letter to President Barack Obama From Civil Society Representatives in LRA-affected areas of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic and South Sudan
We fear that the goodwill shown by the American government will only be effective if our own governments recognize the ongoing LRA threat in our countries and fully commit to meaningful and active cooperation in efforts to protect civilians and end the LRA threat.We feel that our own governments have abandoned and forgotten us, and it only discourages us further when we hear statements from our elected leaders that the LRA is no longer a threat. In Congo, senior government and military commanders deny the existence of the LRA and have made calls for the Ugandan army to end operations against the LRA in Congo; some Ugandan army units have already been pushed out of Congo. In Central African Republic, our government has other priorities and has failed to support or protect the population of the eastern Mbomou region as we continue to live with the LRA scourge. In South Sudan, the local government of Western Equatoria State has shown an interest in supporting efforts to end the LRA threat, yet we have seen no commitment from our new national government to address the problem and support populations in the affected areas.We urge you to use all available channels of diplomacy to pressure our governments to recognize the LRA threat and to make addressing the problem one of their top priorities.Greater Civilian ProtectionYour administration’s action should also include a practical solution for civilian protection, in order to avoid a repeat of what happened following the launch of Operation Lightning Thunder, when nearly 1,000 people were brutally massacred during the Christmas period in 2008, just after the failed assault on the LRA’s main base in Garamba National Park. Since those attacks, thousands of our brothers, sisters, parents, and children have been abducted, killed, raped, and maimed by Joseph Kony’s LRA.We would like to call your attention, in particular, to the continued lack of protection in Bas Uele district, northern Congo, and in most parts of eastern Central African Republic, where we continue to suffer some of the worst LRA attacks and where, to date, there is no international peacekeeping presence. Because of the poor roads and lack of communication in these areas, it often takes weeks or months before attacks are reported, and some attacks have never been reported at all.
On September 29, for example, about 15 LRA combatants suspected to be in the same group as LRA leader Joseph Kony attacked the village of Lingou, near Derbissaka, in CAR, killing the village chief and abducting three men. Four nearby villages were abandoned after the attack, as people fled in fear. Civilians in this remote region have no protection from LRA attacks, and often no means of communicating with others to call for help.
Improved collaboration and information sharing among the different actors and the local communities in the affected region is critical. Early warning systems have been put in place in many of our communities. We ask you to ensure they are everywhere they need to be. In particular, we ask you to help ensure that telephone networks are set up in the areas affected by the LRA and that efforts are made to improve the road infrastructure in our regions.
Supporting Well-Disciplined, Responsible National Armies
Our national armies are also in need of support. We would like to recognize the positive impact of the training the US has already provided to one Congolese army battalion operating in the LRA-affected area, and we hope you can provide training for additional units, and commanding officers, of the regional armies that will take part in counter-LRA operations, as well as additional logistical support.
Too often, the soldiers of our national armies have resorted to killing, raping, and looting civilians, making them a threat to the populations they’re supposed to be protecting. Lacking communications, transport, and ammunition, our soldiers are often forced to flee with the population when the LRA attacks. We hope you can help ensure that our national armies send only well-trained, well-equipped, and disciplined forces and commanding officers to protect civilians in the LRA-affected areas. Those responsible for abuses should be held to account.
Demobilization and Rehabilitation
We also urge you to support efforts to expand LRA sensitization and demobilization efforts throughout the affected region, especially in CAR, and long-term rehabilitation assistance to returnees and ex-combatants.
Please help regional governments and communities ensure that recovery programs similar to those instituted in northern Uganda are also introduced in the three currently affected countries.Existing rehabilitation centers in Yambio, South Sudan, and a new pilot center in Dungu, Congo, should be strengthened, and a similar rehabilitation center should be established in CAR. Local associations in more remote villages should be trained and supported to conduct long-term follow-up with returnees after they return to their homes, including psychosocial support, family mediation, education support, and economic reinsertion into their communities.
We also urge you to work with other actors to help ensure that children who escape from the LRA make it back to their home communities as quickly as possible. Lastly, we hope you can support community funds to rebuild towns or villages attacked by the LRA, such as repairing schools, hospitals and other infrastructure which may have been destroyed.
Of all that we ask of you, what we want the most is an end to these LRA atrocities. Our communities are traumatized, and we have never before in our region experienced such levels of fear, loss, and suffering. We want to end the LRA problem so we can finally return to our normal lives.
Your Excellency, we know that your intervention can help to bring an end to the LRA insurgency, since Joseph Kony and his brutalities, especially against children, are an affront to all of humanity. We thank you again for the support you have already shown us, and we urge you to remain with us until the LRA threat and its devastating consequences are resolved once and for all.
Yours sincerely,
1. Association africaine de défense des droits de l’homme (ASADHO), Kinshasa, RDC
2. Association des victimes de la LRA, Obo, RCA
3. Association Zereda, Obo, RCA
4. Commission Diocésaine pour la Justice et la Paix (CDJP), Dungu, Haut Uélé, RDC
5. Commission Diocésaine pour la Justice et la Paix (CDJP), Duru, Haut Uélé, RDC
6. Commission Diocésaine pour la Justice et la Paix (CDJP), Ngilima, Haut Uélé, RDC
7. Commission Paroissiale pour la Justice et la Paix (CPJP), Bangadi, RDC
8. Communauté des Églises Évangéliques en Centrafrique (CEEC), Zemio, RCA
9. ECS Nzara Diocese, Yambio, South Sudan
10. Justice and Peace Commission, Catholic Diocese of Tombura-Yambio, South Sudan
11. Société civile d’Ango (SOCIDA), Bas Uélé, RDC
12. Société civile de Doruma, Haut Uélé, RDC
13. Société civile de Faradje, Haut Uélé, RDC
14. Société civile de la Chefferie Mopoy (SOCICOMO), Banda, Bas Uélé, RDC
15. Société civile de Poko (SOCIPO), Bas Uélé, RDC
16. Solidarité et Assistance Intégrale aux Personnes Démunies (SAIPED), Dungu, RDC
17. Traumatisme blessure du Cœur, Zemio, RCA
18. Union des Jeunes de Doruma pour le Loisirs (UJDL), Doruma, Haut Uélé, RDC
19. Union of Journalists of South Sudan, Yambio, South Sudan
20. Unity Is Strength, Yambio, South Sudan
FLASHBACK TO OCTOBER 20, 2011: The Son of Africa claims a continent’s crown jewels
On 20 October, 2011 award winning journalist Jon Pilger published the article titled “The Son of Africa claims a continent’s crown jewels”. Excerpts:
On 14 October, President Barack Obama announced he was sending United States special forces troops to Uganda to join the civil war there. In the next few months, US combat troops will be sent to South Sudan, Congo and Central African Republic. They will only “engage” for “self-defence”, says Obama, satirically. With Libya secured, an American invasion of the African continent is under way. …
In Africa, says Obama, the “humanitarian mission” is to assist the government of Uganda defeat the Lord’s resistance Army (LRA), which “has murdered, raped and kidnapped tens of thousands of men, women and children in central Africa”. This is an accurate description of the LRA, evoking multiple atrocities administered by the United States, such as the bloodbath in the 1960s following the CIA-arranged murder of Patrice Lumumba, the Congolese independence leader and first legally elected prime minister, and the CIA coup that installed Mobutu Sese Seko, regarded as Africa’s most venal tyrant.
Obama’s other justification also invites satire. This is the “national security of the United States”. The LRA has been doing its nasty work for 24 years, of minimal interest to the United States. Today, it has few than 400 fighters and has never been weaker. However, US “national security” usually means buying a corrupt and thuggish regime that has something Washington wants. Uganda’s “president-for-life” Yoweri Museveni already receives the larger part of $45 million in US military “aid” – including Obama’s favourite drones. This is his bribe to fight a proxy war against America’s latest phantom Islamic enemy, the rag-tag al Shabaab group based in Somalia. The RTA will play a public relations role, distracting western journalists with its perennial horror stories. …
The de facto conquest of Libya by the US and its imperial partners heralds a modern version of the “scramble for Africa” at the end of the 19th century.
Like the “victory” in Iraq, journalists have played a critical role in dividing Libyans into worthy and unworthy victims. A recent Guardian front page carried a photograph of a terrified “pro-Gaddafi” fighter and his wild-eyed captors who, says the caption, “celebrate”. According to General Petraeus, there is now a war “of perception… conducted continuously through the news media”.
For more than a decade the US has tried to establish a command on the continent of Africa, AFRICOM, but has been rebuffed by governments, fearful of the regional tensions this would cause. Libya, and now Uganda, South Sudan and Congo, provide the main chance. As WikiLeaks cables and the US National Strategy for Counter-terrorism reveal, American plans for Africa are part of a global design in which 60,000 special forces, including death squads, already operate in 75 countries, soon to be 120. As Dick Cheney pointed out in his 1990s “defence strategy” plan, America simply wishes to rule the world.
That this is now the gift of Barack Obama, the “Son of Africa”, is supremely ironic. Or is it? As Frantz Fanon explained in ‘Black Skin, White Masks’, what matters is not so much the colour of your skin as the power you serve and the millions you betray.
Read the full article here.
For more information on the Kony 2012 campaign, Libya and Syria, and the scramble for Africa, follow Libya360
LIBYA Humanitarian War: The Role Of NED-Linked NGOs Using Fake Evidence For War Now Targeting Syria:
Background Information on Kony 2012
RESIST AFRICOM