Monday 19 March 2012

Kony


Kony 2012 campaign to capture warlord goes viral, but also draws some critics

Published On Wed Mar 7 2012


On April 20 you might just wake up to find Joseph Kony all over Toronto.

Screen grab/Toronto Star

Liam Casey Staff Reporter

Joseph Kony has been terrorizing Uganda and other African countries for 25 years, killing thousands and kidnapping 30,000 children to use as soldiers in the Lord’s Resistance Army.

A film about Kony’s atrocities in Uganda, along with a social media campaign to stop him, blew up on the Internet Wednesday. The Kony 2012 campaign by a group called Invisible Children “aims to make Joseph Kony famous, not to celebrate him, but to raise support for his arrest and set a precedent for international justice.”

But some are questioning why the campaign is happening now.

“It’s not really news — we know what Kony’s been doing for decades,” Kampala resident Jeff Anguyo told the
Star.

Filmmaker Jason Russell said there was no reason for the timing, except that they decided last summer to push the brand Kony 2012.

“It took us nine years to make this movie and we just needed to finish it,” Russell told the Star. “We decided 2012 was the last year for Joseph Kony to continue his crimes against humanity.”

Kony has been indicted for war crimes and human rights atrocities by the International Criminal Court, yet he still roams free. The Ugandan army has been searching for Kony throughout Central Africa for years without luck. The United States recently sent 100 Special Forces advisers to help out.

The Ugandan warlord’s shadowy army now finds refuge in South Sudan, Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of Congo, always on the move and only seen when it attacks villages for food and supplies. It no longer has any ideological purpose for fighting, according to Human Rights Watch — it simply fights its own survival, and continues to kidnap children, some as young as 10, to serve as soldiers.

After a lull in violence in 2011, there has been upsurge in attacks in early 2012. Since January, the group has killed at least 35 people, abducted 104 others and displaced more than 17,000 in Orientale province in northeastern Congo, the UN refugee agency said last week.

“If Kony was kidnapping children in the United States, giving them guns and killing dozens in towns across the country just to steal food and supplies, this would have ended a long time ago,” said Anneke Van Woudenberg, a researcher with Human Rights Watch who specializes in the Lord’s Resistance Army.

But it was Russell’s 30-minute film about Kony that made news Wednesday. It begins with the story of Jacob, a north Ugandan boy whose brother was killed by Kony’s army and who fears abduction. “We are also going to do everything that we can to stop them. Do you hear my words?” Russell tells him.

Invisible Children hopes its awareness campaign will help track down Kony. Among its initiatives, it has planned an international poster plastering event on April 20.

But Mark Kersten, a Canadian at the London School of Economics who is working on his doctoral thesis about the International Criminal Court, questioned the group’s focus on Kony.

“(To say) all that is needed to end this conflict is to cut off the head of the army, which the film suggests, and everything will be resolved, is narrow-minded,” he said.

Human Rights Watch also points out that Kony’s army is down to several hundred and hasn’t been in Uganda for years, which the documentary left out.

A blog set up to criticize the campaign, called Visible Children, said money from Russell’s group “supports the Ugandan government’s army and various other military forces” according to GlobalPost. “Both the Ugandan army and Sudan People’s Liberation Army are riddled with accusations of rape and looting.”

Russell emphatically denied that any money from his organization is in the hands of any army.

“I’m for peace, not war,” Russell said. “Why would we ever fund an army?”

Critics also say raising awareness through campaigns like this isn’t enough. Only 31 per cent of Invisible Children’s charity dollars go to helping Ugandans, according to an audit of the organization by Considine and Considine.

“That is the old way of thinking,” Russell said in response to the criticism. “We stand by our use of a third of our money going to our film budget so we can build a real-time website of sightings of Kony’s army.”

Anguyo, who noted few people in Uganda have seen the documentary, said victims of Kony and the LRA need attention, too.

“A whole generation of kids got destroyed because they did not go to school and were used as soldiers,” Anguyo said. “Now those people are back in the north and need help.

“If (Kony) was caught, it would be cause for a celebration in Uganda, but that would only be the start of change.”
My Reflections 

1.    What is the link to Crisis Management?

Now that “Invisible Children’s video named Kony has gone viral all over the internet and has had over 55 Million views on YouTube to date, the non-government organization has also attracted some negative attention is under close scrutiny by said critics. A blog has already been set up called Visible Children which is for the sole purpose of criticizing the Kony 2012 campaign and Invisible Children as an organization. It is criticizing the campaign, the organization’s tactics, intent and their finances. This is an issue for Invisible Children and possibly a risk if they have something to hide. They need to keep a close watch on their internal environment, being the company’s employees, how they are achieving their mission, and how they are allocating resources. They also need to do continual environmental scans to see if there is anything going on it their external environment that could cause their company to go into a crisis.



2.    What stage of Crisis Management does the system appear to be at?

The stage of crisis the organization seems to be at is pre-crisis. This could also be categorized as a para-crisis because it resembles a crisis in that it is threatening the organization’s reputation and financial assets if an external audit is ordered to be conducted at the organization. Furthermore, this negative attention on the organization is not disrupting the organization’s day-to-day activities but it does warrant the attention of Invisible Children’s leadership as mismanagement of this criticism could result in an actual crisis.

3.    How well does the system appear to be handling the situation?

Currently, the Invisible Children not-for-profit organization seems to be handling the situation very well. They have posted a response to their critics on their website and have addressed specific issues that have been raised. They are being transparent about their finances and have even addressed a picture that has surfaced of the founders posing with the army holding guns. Not only have they addressed the picture, they have posted it as the banner on the page that they posted their response on. This will give them credibility in the eyes of their primary and secondary stakeholders such as bloggers, their donors and the media.



4.    What level of crisis preparedness does the system appear to have?



The system seems to be well prepared for crisis in that they are scanning their environment and detecting signals that could lead to crisis and are proactively responding to these signals before they get to the crisis phase. They also have a blog that addresses issues and criticism that come up in social media as soon as they become aware of them. Since the video was primarily shared on social media, the organization is responding through social media and their own blog on their website. This is advantageous as they “are where the action is”. (Coombs)

5.    What personal reactions/feelings does the description trigger in you?

This article addressed some of the concerns that I felt as soon as I watched the movie. It made me question what the organization is actually doing to improve the lives of Ugandans that have suffered at the hands of Kony. I was also curious about how they allocate the donation money and how much of it went into making such a high quality video. I was happy to see that I wasn’t the only one with these questions and am impressed by the Invisible Children’s timely response and the level of communication they are maintaining with their stakeholders. This shows that the organization is aware of the importance of crisis management, especially in the pre-crisis phase.



6.    What advice would you offer to those involved?

I would tell the organization to continue to monitor the social media world and to be transparent about their organization and to address criticisms as they come up. I would tell their supporters to do more than just “like” or “share” the video. That is one of the criticisms that the Kony video faced; people may end up being complacent and feel that they have made a difference by just sharing the video on their facebook. I would tell them to do all their research on the organization and the cause before supporting it and reflecting on what actions they could take to actually make a difference.  


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