A man named Joseph Kony believes that he is led by God to over throw the Ugandan government, and since as early as 97 and possibly earlier (17 years the documentary says this is going on), this man and his Lord's Resistance Army has been abducting children to be soldiers in his army.
He abducts them from their homes or wherever at night and very soon after they are with him, they are forced into a brutal training to become soldiers who are innured to violence, killing their fellow youth, and through fear and violence he trains them to be very effective killers. They range from 8 to 13 years old. The girls are forced into sex slavery.
Please don't turn your eyes from this as "another piece of bad news". I have heard that estimates that 50,000 children have been abducted following the genocide of 5 million south Sudanese.
Here is some more info online about this.
LA Times report
WorldVision page
The children have to walk at night to places where they can sleep and are safe and will not be abducted. The sleep in shelters, hospitals, bus stations or wherever they can be safe.
Amnesty International Report
BBC
More Amnesty Int'l info
Human Rights Watch
The documentary I watched is full of info..it starts off quirky, but goes somewhere else quickly enough. It's called Invisible Children.
Philadelphia Inquirer Four Part Series
This piece include artwork that is horrific, drawn by the children who apparently escaped. It depicts violence that is just unimaginable. These kids are killing each other, as trained, in brutal unbelievable ways.
"The war has displaced up to 1.6 million people, more than 80 percent of the population of Gulu, Kitgum and Pader districts.
They live in camps with too little food and bad sanitation. Attacks against them continue, even though the government promised northerners it would protect them there."
It goes into the complex details of the political situation, why nothing has changed...and the victims are the babies.
3 comments:
Heard about this in a poli sci class I took in college. I need to read up on it though, especially the LRA. What they want seems to make no sense, especially given the means they use to bring it about. The LRA claims to want a society based on the ten commandments, but to achieve this end they abduct children and sell many into sex slavery. Senseless.
But the thing is, the Ugandan government is little better than the rebels. Only a couple years ago, the Ugandan government attempted to forcibly disarm the pastoral people of northern Uganda. This involved burning villages, looting, rape, and murder. And these people only wanted to protect their cattle.
It's illegal for the people of Uganda to arm themselves for their protection, not only from the LRA but from their own government. So in effect, what you have are people who are totally exposed and at the mercy of the predators all around them.
I know it sounds like a simple answer to a complex question, but arm the people. Let the people have a means to defend themselves again.
But I should read more.
-Suley
And at times of happiness, I wonder why it is that I think about killing myself around 50% of days...
Makes you think doesn't it?
There's this french Program called "envoyé Spécial" which always has a doc about child issues. Anywhere in the world. The fate of Indian little girls being prostituted and to temple masters and then banished because they're not "pure" anymore when it wasn't their doing in the first place; the fate of little colombian kids handling firearms from age 5 onword and paid to kill; the fate of stolen babies to be sold to rich people who found no other mean to have a baby and to whom adoption was refused....
So many to name. We talk about it all, they show it all on the Tv, you donate money to help make things right. Yet, they do not seem to change. They seem to worsen.
I sometimes wonder at the absurdity of violence. It's unexplainable.
The Ugandan issue is just senseless. Then it isn't really when you consider what its all about finally. POWER.
Fitèna
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