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Kony

This Charming Man

By This Charming Man
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This Charming Man

This Charming Man

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Some African rebel army leader who kidnaps children and forces them to fight for him on a mass scale. I thought all African warlords did this so not sure why this guy is currently receiving the wrath of Facebook.

Saintandy666

Saintandy666

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The cause is a great one and Joseph Kony is obviously a dispicable and evil man.

 

But the not for profit behind this, Invisible Children Inc are slightly dogey and I don't think most people who are supporting 'Kony 2012' know much about them and their methods and accounting.

 

Awareness can only be a good thing though.

manji

manji

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Typical American simplistic ********. Kony is clearly a bad man but so is the Ugandan Army he is fighting against. Very little of the money donated to the charity gets used for charitable purposes 80% goes on "administration" fees . Its also supported by idiots like Bono and Rhianna...................

Saintandy666

Saintandy666

Posted
Posted
Typical American simplistic ********. Kony is clearly a bad man but so is the Ugandan Army he is fighting against. Very little of the money donated to the charity gets used for charitable purposes 80% goes on "administration" fees . Its also supported by idiots like Bono and Rhianna...................

 

In fairness, it isn't that bad. 32% went on stuff on the ground, the rest salaries and video production... but yes, they are overly simplistic and support the Ugandan army who are hardly better and seem to also support full a scale invasion which won't help much. The campaign is also based on the pretence that American military advisers are in danger of being withdrawn, which they aren't. But the awareness is good.

SuperMikey

SuperMikey

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At least it's raising awareness of some of the atrocities that are carried out in developing nations. I'm in favour of the push for awareness even if the issue is more complicated than it's being made out. I shall be attending the Cover The Night event in Southampton on April 20th because it'll be interesting as well as obviously helping to promote the profile of this absolute monster.

manji

manji

Posted
Posted
At least it's raising awareness of some of the atrocities that are carried out in developing nations. I'm in favour of the push for awareness even if the issue is more complicated than it's being made out. I shall be attending the Cover The Night event in Southampton on April 20th because it'll be interesting as well as obviously helping to promote the profile of this absolute monster.

Jeez Ive just researched Cover The Night its like politics for people with the attention span of a gnat. Political reality TV. "here is a bad man, he does bad things, lets get rid of him" . Hang on its sounds like American Foreign Policy to me hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Saintandy666

Saintandy666

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I do think whether you have heard of him or not is an erroneous argument against action though, whatever your opinion on the 'Kony 2012' campaign, because Kony is very real and has done a lot of incredibly evil stuff. The capture and enslavement of 30,000 children over 30 years. He forces the girls to become sex slaves and the boys to fight for him.

JackFrost

JackFrost

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I haven't seen any of the video but I knew about Kony and the LRA way before the video came about.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lords_Resistance_Army

 

One of the most wanted men of the world, one of the most brutal and despicable Christian Militants around who claims to receive messages from God. TBH any way that awareness can be raised is a good thing. Here are 2 examples of what they've almost certainly been responsible for, with all the disturbing details

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Christmas_massacres

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Makombo_massacre

dune

dune

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Posted

Equatorial Guinea is well f/cked up. I was listening to a BBC world service report about it a few weeks ago. Since oil was discovered they should be affluent but all the money goes to the ruling family and their henchmen.

 

Equatorial Guinea gained independence in 1968. Ever since this small African country has suffered under authoritarian rule.

 

The first president was Francisco Macías Nguema. After his election in September 1968 he installed a single-party system and assumed all powers, including the legislature and the judiciary. During his bloody rule approximately one third of the population was either exiled or murdered, targeting in particular the Bubi people. President Macías Nguema was notorious for his arbitrary executions of entire villages and families. He held mass executions in football stadiums while loudspeakers blared "Those were the days my friend. We thought they'd never end." In 1979 he was overthrown by his nephew, Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo. The former president was put on trial and executed. The charges included the crime of genocide.

 

The change of power did not improve the situation for the population of Equatorial Guinea. Its human rights record is abominable and characterized by torture, arbitrary executions, lack of freedom of expression and association and corruption. Freedom House identifies Equatorial Guinea as one of the nine least free countries in the world.

 

Since oil reserves have been discovered in Equatorial Guinea its GDP has increased enormously to $14 billion (2010) annually. However, due to kleptocracy and nepotism this oil wealth has not reached the majority of the population.

 

There is deep ethnic division in Equatorial Guinea, and also clan division within ethnicities. The majority of the population belong to the Fang group. Within this group there are clans. President Obiang Nguema favors his own clan, the Esangui.

 

The Bubi people represent the minority ethnicity and are indigenous to Bioko Island. They are subject to systematic discrimination and persecution by the government, and were the main victims of the genocide carried out by president Macías Nguema from 1978 - 1979.

 

Genocide Watch closely monitors the situation of repression in Equatorial Guinea. Early warning signs of potential genocidal massacres are the following:

 

There have been previous genocidal massacres of the Bubi minority under former president Macías Nguema (1968-1979), but he was the only person tried for them.

The Bubi minority is discriminated against and persecuted. This practice has increased during recent years. In 2006, president Obiang Nguema denounced the tradition of appointing a prime minister from the Bubi group.

Nepotism and kleptocracy mean that the nation's oil wealth has mostly benefited the president's family and the Esangui clan of the Fang group. This has created an ethnically polarized elite. The resulting income inequality is enormous.

Genocide Watch considers Equatorial Guinea to be at early warning stage 6: Preparation for potential massacres.

 

http://www.genocidewatch.org/equatorialguinea.html

SNSUN

SNSUN

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I watched the video this morning. I haven't been sucked in, I must say, but I know a few of my friends have decided to join up and on April 20th (I think it is) plaster posters overnight everywhere in the Windsor area to raise awareness.

 

As for me,I know there are problems like this in other countries, but we have problems in this country that need sorting first, and as such my support is with those charities instead.

Baj

Baj

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Posted

I'm not trying to be funny, but when I first read what this was all about I thought it said "Kidnaps children and forces them to fight him on a mass scale". I just pictured this war lord standing in the middle of a field with 300 rabid children trying to kill him as he fends them off with swords and shotguns.

Wurzel

Wurzel

Posted
Posted
I haven't seen any of the video but I knew about Kony and the LRA way before the video came about.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lords_Resistance_Army

 

One of the most wanted men of the world, one of the most brutal and despicable Christian Militants around who claims to receive messages from God. TBH any way that awareness can be raised is a good thing. Here are 2 examples of what they've almost certainly been responsible for, with all the disturbing details

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Christmas_massacres

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Makombo_massacre

 

Neither article mentions Kony at all

 

How about hearing his side of the story.

Not defending him in any way, I don't know enough to judge, but I know that there's two sides to every story.

Wes Tender

Wes Tender

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There are some bad people in the World. This is not something new. What is new is the use of modern electronic communication networks to spread information about it. However, that doesn't mean that information spread over the internet is accurate as compared against the more traditional methods of reporting via the TV, Radio and Newspapers.

 

So what can we do about it all? Invade them and impose order? Pay money to some charity and then hear rumours that it has been misapropriated? Or just tut-tut and get on with our lives?

 

I'm for the latter. I'm past caring about all the problems in Africa, as if you fix problems in one area, it won't be long before they crop up somewhere else. I'm plenty old enough to remember Idi Amin in Uganda, who was also a bad man. I don't recall the West doing much to prevent the genocide in Rwanda. Mind you, had there been the internet, Facebook and Twitter in those days, would it have been prevented? I very much doubt it, but there would have been much wailing and gnashing of teeth on the Internet.

Saintandy666

Saintandy666

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Are you still joining the cult of the invisible children then?

 

If you look at my posts, I have actually been very critical of Kony 2012 from the beginning of this thread. My comment was not in relation to the Kony 2012 campaign or Invisible Children Inc. Read my posts and the thread before criticising me.

Saintandy666

Saintandy666

Posted
Posted
They certainly aren't a "not for profit"

 

Indeed, I was being sort of sarcastic and it didn't really come across in my post, but if you read the rest of my post I clearly state their accounting is dogey. Most of their money goes on production for videos, travel and salaries. Scam.

Mao Cap

Mao Cap

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Course I'd first heard of Kony and the LRA before the video started appearing on Facebook...I watched Machine Gun Preacher at the cinema back in December (mediocre film, but one of those where the subject matter alone makes it reasonably powerful) which was about exactly the same stuff but caused no stir at all.

 

Odd, how people never try and look into stuff more deeply or check out the validity of sources. Google generation and all that, I suppose.

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