What do grassroots advocacy groups hope to accomplish?

Posted on May 15, 2012 by africacanada

The third in a series of reports from Tanja Bergen about her time in northern Uganda.

“We want to change our lives to a new level. We want to see a brighter future for our children.”

Why do the grassroots bother forming advocacy groups? Even well-resourced advocates from wealthy countries get frustrated with the too-often tenuous connection between advocacy and results – and they’re not the ones who have to worry that their efforts will detract from their ability to pay for their food for the day.

Yet the host of active, locally-led groups across Africa (and the world!) show the depth of investment that thousands of conflict or poverty-affected people have in advocacy. Some examples include the Association des femmes des médias in the eastern DR Congo that makes women’s issues visible in Congolese media, the Green Belt Movement that fights poverty by bringing local communities into the process of protecting Kenya’s biodiversity, and the Women in Peacebuilding Network in West Africa that played a lead role in ending civil war in Liberia.

In northern Uganda, the emerging Women’s Advocacy Network (WAN) is yet another example of a group of under-resourced and conflict-affected people who have come together against the odds in the hopes of seeing their circumstances changed:

“We want to change our lives to a new level. We want to see a brighter future for our children.”

“In 5-10 years, we hope to get education or technical/life skills. We want our children to go to school and get educated too.”

“In time we want to be self-reliant. We do not want to ask others for school fees and support.”

“We want our group to be a good example to other groups because people think that staying in a group isn’t important [and we can show them otherwise].”

The members of WAN dream big. They are also pragmatic about what it will take to realize their futures. Most members of WAN live off of a few dollars a day and barely have the resources to cover their family’s basic necessities. In an attempt to overcome this, many WAN groups have adopted a strategy to increase their access to funds:

“We came together to identify what we could do to generate income.”

“We created a rotating group savings circle. Each member of our group contributes 1,000 UGX (approximately 40 cents CAD) each Sunday. Every week we disperse the lump sum to a different group member.”

These loan circles are sustained by the many income-generating that the groups have attempted: jewelry making, crop growing, and tailoring. They have enabled some individuals to pay for a year of school fees or to rent more land for crops.

Unfortunately, the investment possibilities made available by a loan of $5-10 a few times a year are finite. The members of WAN know that if they are to significantly improve their families’ quality of life, they will need help. Many of these women cope with debilitating injuries from their captivity with the LRA and struggle to keep pace with physical demands of subsistence agriculture:

“All of our members are Formerly Abducted Persons (FAPs). We have had lots of difficulties since we returned. But we have to provide for our children. So we borrow from each other so that we can send our children to school.”

“Many of us still have pains up today in our hands, legs, heads, chests, and elsewhere.”

“During the time of the insurgency, many of us had narrow escapes (during battles etc.). As such, our health is not great.”

“As our injuries were often from battles, it is hard for many of us to farm or plow.”

Some of the support that members of WAN need is significant. Access to affordable and competent medical care is scarce, there is an immense need for more clinics that are staffed by personnel who are trained to be responsive to the specific needs of survivors. Many of the women are also single mothers – even when funds are made available for their children to go to school, a lack of child-care options often makes this impossible. Yet, in the face of these obstacles, when I asked the group what they would do if they had access to move funds they answered back thoughtfully and firmly:

“We hope to get access to a small mill or to oxen for plowing. We would use the profits to pay for our children to go to school and to generate capital to put into further business opportunities.”

“We would want to boost our savings and loan circle so that we could loan more money to a group member and receive it back with interest.”

“We would buy produce at the market and sell it off to earn profit for the group. With the accumulating profit we would buy oxen. This will make ploughing the land easier which will change the lives of each of the group members (especially as some members of the group were injured in the bush and are not healthy and strong enough to dig).”

As Canadians, our experiences typically don’t encourage us to see the connection between an oxen and a path out of poverty for a survivor of war. Even though an enormous body of research overwhelmingly demonstrates that development only works if local ideas lead projects, it is tremendously difficult to partner with grassroots organizations when our common experiences and assumptions differ so greatly.

This blog attempts to show the human side to the research that shows how important it is for ‘us’ to check our assumptions about what ‘they’ need and to reframe our interactions and relationships with grassroots organizations around the concepts of partnership and mutual learning. At the end of the day, we must recognize that ideas and solutions must start with those at the grassroots who have the most to gain and lose from efforts to help.

The Women’s Advocacy Network: Voice, strength, unity and community

Posted on April 20, 2012 by africacanada

The second in a series of reports from Tanja Bergen.

“As individuals, our voices won’t be heard. So, we come together as advocates to amplify our voices”

Why is it that those who are most impacted by human rights abuses are so often absent from the advocacy and media campaigns that are supposed to help them?

In Northern Uganda there are hundreds of individuals and communities who are impacted by the conflict between the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) and the Ugandan People’s Defence Force (national armed forces) and who have mobilized to see their circumstances improved.

One glowing example is the Women’s Advocacy Network that is active throughout Northern Uganda. In January I visited each of the nine affiliate groups that compose the network. Each group has a specific mandate and reason for forming. Several have welcomed male members. Despite their differences, some common threads unite these groups and explain why they formed – here is just a sampling of what they had to say:*

“Each one of us experienced some sort of problems during the war so we came together as a group to forget our problems.”

“It is important to form a group because when we are together we can forget our past problems and help each other.”

Each of WAN’s affiliate groups are composed of members who are struggling to overcome the legacies of the conflict between the LRA and UPDF.

“Our group initially joined together while we were together in the campus. While we were in the camps or while others in our group were returning from the bush, many of us were raped and became pregnant. Some of us contracted HIV/AIDS.”

Many of the women were abducted and forced to stay ‘in the bush’ (captivity). During this time, they were forced to marry and bear children to commanders of the LRA. When they escaped captivity, were captured by the UPDF, or were released by the LRA they returned home with battle-scars: literal and emotional. They returned to communities and families that were reeling from the suffering they experienced at the hands of the LRA – often with children that they bore with LRA commanders. Other women avoided abduction but were forced by the Ugandan government to live in squalid and insecure Internally Displaced Person camps. During this time, societal safety nets disintegrated and many women were raped (exposing them to unwanted pregnancies and HIV/AIDS). The members of WAN cope with the legacies of conflict like trauma, stigma from their communities, and limited livelihood options that are caused in part by the education that they were prevented from accessing.

“Each member of our group faced challenges during the war and now that we are in town, we have new challenges. Without God’s mercy, we would not survive.”

“Our group came together because the majority of us have survived battles. We stay together, share our troubles and look forward to see how our lives can change.”

“Our group started because we suffered in the bush and felt that we should unite to work as a team.”

“Our group came together for solidarity: to come together and share our problems. We also want to teach and help each other to bring our children up in the best way.”

“As a group we want to strengthen ourselves so that we can stay comfortably with others in our community.”

“If we lived alone it would be harder to fend for ourselves. When we are together we can seek support as a group.”

“By uniting we hope to encourage each other to stay strong. We feel okay and relieved when we are together.”

“As a result of the war we had problems. Now that we have peace, we sat down together as women to organize ourselves and advocate to see if we could get help with our problems.”

Themes of voice, strength, unity and community echo throughout these responses. What’s more, the statements above illustrate just who the WAN and its members hope to reach: the members of their communities who stigmatize them and shun their children. Throughout my discussions with the different groups, other audiences and issues also emerged, particularly in relation to international NGOs working in the region:

“Our local leaders do not support us because of their corruption. This prevents us from developing and from paying our children’s school fees. Many NGOs come to offer support by our officials are corrupt and swindle them.”

“The members of our group hate how the NGOs hate us. Some of the smaller NGOs that started out small with our group have been picked to be supported by donors and they have grown. When this happened, these organizations ran away from us at the grassroots and stopped partnering with us. They see us as stupid and ignorant and write about us as such. However, we survived the bush! We are not dumb!”

These quotes offer deeper perspectives into the question of why women and men across Northern Uganda have come together to advocate. They want to be heard by all the players who shape the process of conflict-recovery in Northern Uganda: communities, government officials, and NGOs. They want their perspectives on the issues that matter to them to be heard.

What can we take away from the thoughts that WAN shared? We can start by acknowledging that the women and men who are impacted by the conflict in Northern Uganda as legitimate stakeholders in the conflict-recovery process. We will need to be open to hearing their ideas when they don’t align with ours. It will take patience to learn how to share our capacities and knowledge in an accessible manner and it will also take patience to learn how to hear experiences that are radically different from ours and to connect these experiences to the insights and perspectives that they offer on ways of moving forward.

Advocacy is often discussed in terms being a voice for the voiceless. Yet as a member of one of WAN’s affiliate organizations pointed out:

“As individuals, our voices won’t be heard. So, we come together as advocates to amplify our voices”

What would happen if we altered our advocacy paradigm to include a responsibility for ensuring that ALL voices are heard – especially those that are the easiest to silence or exclude? Members of WAN join together to amplify their individual voices. What possibilities would open for sustainable and meaningful partnerships with local-led initiatives if we committed ourselves as advocates to listening, echoing and amplifying rather than speaking, directing, and leading?

For more thoughts from the Women’s Advocacy Network, see this recent piece in the Daily Monitor, a Ugandan publication.

*For security reasons, individuals’ names and the names of their specific member groups have been removed.

Invisible Children’s Kony Sequel: New voices, same story

Posted on April 14, 2012 by africacanada

KONY 2012: Part II - Beyond Famous, is Invisible Children’s sequel to the first viral video that took the media world by storm. Uploaded last week, the video opens with a montage of media voices, at turns commenting on and criticizing the video’s predecessor, KONY 2012.

After the montage, former Ugandan presidential candidate, Norbert Mao, proclaims:

“Let those who are professors write their books and create academic awareness. But this one grabs you by your gut, and shakes you, until you are forced to pay attention. That is the essence of awareness. People are now paying attention.”

But are they? And what are they paying attention to?

With a little over 1.6 million views, the sequel to KONY 2012 has far fewer views than the original, which is likely a result of the adverse reactions Invisible Children received for the original video, the organization and its leadership – particularly one the group’s founders, Jason Russell.

The sequel also lacks the immediate qualities that made the original so easily accessible. By presenting the complex issue through a child’s eyes, the world paid attention, despite the video’s dangerous foray into oversimplification.

That said, there are efforts to improve upon the original’s mistakes. Most notably, the sequel seems to address the criticism the original received for not being representative of countries currently affected by the Lord’s Resistance Army. Part II picks up on this and includes many voices from current LRA affected areas such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Central African Republic and South Sudan.

As a response to the criticism of KONY2012’s tones of neocolonialism and depictions of the ‘white savior complex’, Part II is mindful of including activists and volunteers from different racial groups.

Invisible Children CEO Ben Keesey, the new voice of the movement, partially side-steps the original video’s sole emphasis on military intervention. He emphasizes the fact that both reconstruction and development have to be part of any solution in the areas affected by the LRA. Along with rehabilitation and reconstruction, the video includes civilian protection, peaceful surrender and arrest of LRA leadership as part of the comprehensive solution. How these ideals are to be achieved however, is still not fully explained, leading the public to believe that it will all be deceptively simple. A quote from the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court illustrates this:

“I am dealing with the state parties and the international community. There is no legal obstacle. Go and arrest Kony tomorrow. It’s perfect.” – Luis Moreno Ocampo, Chief Prosecutor of the ICC

In the interest of sustaining this implication of a simple solution, many aspects of the conflict are carefully avoided. The risk that military intervention might further aggravate more violence, the details behind the Ugandan government and military’s human rights violations, the backlash in Uganda caused by the original video, and further context into the LRA’s history in the currently affected countries are not mentioned at all.

Instead, the video’s focus is mostly on the organization’s worldwide advocacy event, aimed in engaging the social media savvy youth in April 20th’s “Cover the Night.”

On the 20th, many eyes will be turned to hundreds of thousand of posters of Joseph Kony’s face. The hope is that people continue to dig even deeper than sequels and continue to engage in advocating for an end to a conflict that continues to affect many lives. The hope is that the momentary world-wide attention on April 21st (and 22nd, and 23rd…) does not flutter away faster than the posters on the streets and the red chalk on the walls.

The Lubanga Trial: A Historic Landmark for the International Criminal Court

Posted on April 3, 2012 by africacanada

At the height of Konymania last month, the International Criminal Court (ICC), war criminals and child soldiers become uncharacteristic talkings points. On March 14, the Netherlands-based court made headlines in its own right when it passed a landmark verdict – its very first – by convicting the Congolese warlord, Thomas Lubanga Dyilo. He was found guilty on three counts for the abduction of children in the eastern Ituri region in 2002-03, of forcing them to serve as soldiers, and of using them during the war in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s from 1998- 2003.

Lubanga served as the alleged head of the Union of Congolese Patriots (UCP) and its former military wing, the Patriotic Forces for the Liberation of Congo, during the Second Congolese war. The ICC decision was unanimous, and now Lubanga faces a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.

The Lubanga verdict is exemplary because it was the first one passed by the ICC since its establishment about a decade ago. Lubanga’s trial was due to be held in 2008, but was halted when it was discovered that the Office of Prosecution had failed to disclose evidence. It was restarted on January 26, 2009. Many critics have questioned why it took about six years to convict Lubanga after his arrest, bringing into light the weaknesses and
frailties of the International Criminal Court to administer timely justice.

Some have also questioned ICC’s equity when it comes to convictions of war criminals. All 28 people who have been charged by the ICC so far have been from Africa. The ICC is comprised of 120 countries currently party to the Rome Statute, with 33 African states. “By the numbers alone, assuming that conflicts occur with similar frequency in each inhabited continent, a national of a member state found to be in violation of the provisions of the statute is statistically more likely to be from Africa than from any other continent,” Nanjana Nyabola told Al Jazeera.

Neverthless, the ICC has only ever intervened, with the exception of Kenya (read more about that here), where the countries have asked for intervention or there has been a UN Security Council Resolution.

Another question that has been raised is how much impact the vilification of Lubanga will have on the communities who were affected by his crimes. Many members of the Ituri region, which was ravaged by Lubanga’s forces in 2003, are reported as feeling satisfied by the verdict, but not expressing their opinions publicly due to fear of potential supporters of Lubanga and the UPC.

The verdict has also come after a significant amount of time and the communities have already made progress towards reconciliation, despite ICC’s delay in court proceedings. There is also the issue of others who had been indicted alongside Lubanga, but are still at large in the DRC. A prime example is Bosco Ntganda, who was charged along with Lubanga, but still operates openly in the Eastern Congo region.

It is evident that ICC’s conviction of Lubanga is a historic milestone for international justice, but it also serves to highlight the court’s limitations and weaknesses when it comes to conducting international trials. The Lubanga trial serves as an important step in holding those who commit war crimes accountable by the international community.

Reports from the Field – Connecting with the Women’s Advocacy Network (WAN)

Posted on March 26, 2012 by africacanada

Photo credit: Tanja Bergen. Taken at Palero, prior to the meeting with Rubanga Matwero.

For the next few weeks, the ACAC blog will feature several reports from one of our members, Tanja Bergen, who recently returned from a 25-day trip to Gulu, Uganda. Her visit was supported by the Justice and Reconciliation Project.

Since 2008, Tanja has worked with ACAC researching ways for Canada to constructively engage with grassroots advocates and community organizers in the Great Lakes Region of Africa. Her recent visit to Gulu was comprised largely of consultations with a variety of community-based groups that make up the Women’s Advocacy Network (WAN) in Northern Uganda.

Tanja’s experiences speaking with the women from WAN largely reinforce ACAC’s key recommendation that actors involved in international development in the Great Lakes region Invest Locally. The details of ACAC’s position on this matter will soon be released in a policy paper, published later this month. Stay tuned for the paper launch – in the meantime, follow Tanja as she reflects on the significance of local investment in a place like Gulu, and what such a strategy means for the women of WAN. Take it away, Tanja….

* * *

The Women’s Advocacy Network is a coalition of grassroots organizations that have emerged in post-conflict Uganda. In many ways it can be seen as a microcosm for the entire Great Lakes Region. Although each group has its own unique challenges and specific strategies for overcoming their hardships, there are also commonalities that run between them: individuals in the network face stigma from the rest of their community for their involvement (forced or otherwise) in armed groups; they consistently have access to fewer resources than their male counterparts (this is compounded by the fact that, too often, they are the sole care-givers to both their biological and adoptive children); and they have frustratingly few options to finish their education and find employment that offers sufficient wages and dignified working conditions.

I visited each of WAN’s affiliate organizations to learn about their history as well as the challenges they currently face. As a collective, ACAC was curious to know if our approach to advocacy resonated with that of the WAN members, so I asked them the following questions:

Why did your group form and what are your goals?

What have your successes been as a group?

What are the biggest challenges that you face in realizing your goals?

If Museveni (the president of Uganda) or his representative was here, what would you tell him?

What would you want Canadians to know about your group?

As with any collective, each individual group’s level of engagement with the questions and discussion differed, as did the level of support and time each WAN member organization had to develop their advocacy capacities. Despite the individual and group differences, a clear and over-arching theme emerged: women and men in the WAN have strong ideas about what needs to happen for justice to be done for the wrongs that they experienced as well as what meaningful support looks like from international supporters. They want their ideas to be heard and they want to be active decision makers in the processes that will decide what their communities’ development path will look like. They want opportunities to provide a dignified life for their children and kin.

During the course of the Reports from the Field series, I will aim to capture how the members of WAN answered these questions, and what ACAC’s prime policy recommendation – invest locally – means to them.

Finding the Good in Kony 2012

Posted on March 19, 2012 by africacanada

~~Now that the dust has settled from the social media phenomenon that was Kony, we thought we’d take a moment to parse out the positives.~~

This is how this post was supposed to start. Obviously, there have been a few minor developments.

Nevertheless, our intentions for this post remain the same. We are not going to comment on Jason Russell and his personal life. For ACAC, there are a few points to be made about the original media firestorm that was Kony, and it would be a shame not to share them, especially since these points pertain the positive aspects of the campaign and the incredible amount of attention it garnered. This, we feel, is more important. So please, allow us to proceed as scheduled….

When we posted last week Kony 2012 had over 72 million views on YouTube. Today it tops 82 million. There is no denying that in terms of sheer reach, this campaign was an incredible success. For a North American NGO involved in work in Central Africa, this kind of recognition is almost unfathomable. And Invisible Children achieved it. There are likely a variety of factors that led to the astonishing extent to which this video went viral – everything from the production values (sexy graphics, well-crafted montages, music, etc.) and the ‘cute factor’ (Gavin) to the day of the week and time it was released, when audiences weren’t as distracted by other things (also known as a “slow news day”). We may never know for sure exactly why it was this video. But for many who viewed it, it was the first time they had heard about the Lord’s Resistance Army and any kind of history, no matter how over-simplified, of Uganda.

Friends and family members of the ACAC team support our research and advocacy interests in Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda and Burundi, but may not necessarily engage with these issues in the same way. For this reason, when Kony 2012 went viral, many of us were pulled into the conversation, sometimes by people with which we had never engaged in such conversations before. “Did you see this?” some friends asked, when they posted the link on our Facebook walls. “Thought you might be into this,” said others, in tweets with the video and the hashtag #stopkony.

These exchanges provided opportunities for all of us to discuss something that is at the heart of ACAC’s mandate: ethical advocacy. This commitment drives much of our work, whether it’s planning an event, writing policy, or even designing a poster. We don’t always get it right. In no means is Invisible Children a “failure” to measure against our “success.” Ethical advocacy is a process, and those who aim to engage in it must constantly re-evaluate their decisions, question norms and interrogate assumptions (and this includes us). There is no one, “right” way to fully represent an issue, let alone a decades-long conflict involving things as complex as child soldiers and the LRA. Representations are inevitably partial, but as we argued in our last post, some are better than others.

Kony 2012 provided a litany of opportunities for people interested in engaging in meaningful, productive conversations – conversations about justice and its varying definitions, about the importance of locally-driven peace initiatives, about the complexity of conflict in the Great Lakes region of Africa, and especially, about what people outside of the area can do really do about it. We only hope this is the beginning of a dialogue that will continue well into the future, whether or not we ever see a Kony 2.0. As a conversation starter, Kony 2012 was invaluable.

Of course, while we were busy having one-on-ones with those eager to engage on the topic, hundreds of incredibly articulate people were quick to blog and vlog about the issue. Just as soon as Kony was a part of our collective consciousness, so too were the responses. Perhaps one of the best things to emerge from this situation is the knowledge that when an organization presents a picture some deem problematic, there exists a strong collection of voices unafraid to weigh in (and get noticed for doing so!). While many shared the original video and quickly moved on, others shared, saw critiques, and then posted those too. Some of us could literally track minds changing and thinking emerging on our newsfeeds. If Kony 2012 and the discussions that surrounded it represent the future – a fervency with which we will dialogue about advocacy, international development, foreign affairs and policy – then count us in.

Speaking of which, no one’s enthusiasm throughout all of this compared to that of the people who made this video viral – the collective 80 million. It is not productive to cast judgment on those who shared with good intentions. What matters is that millions of people across the globe were catalyzed into action about something they saw as unjust. This is a good thing! And if this is you, please, do not let Kony 2012 leave a sour taste in your mouth. Critiques of Kony are not judgments of your character, and they certainly are not meant to weaken your resolve. They serve only as a reminder that, no matter what the cause, we must continually ask how we situate ourselves relative to those who appear to need “helping,” and what the best way to really “help” might be. Be open to new approaches you might not have considered, or things that might not be familiar to you. Be open to lending support to solutions already in place, instead of imposing your (“our”) own. And most of all, be open to the fact that maybe what a peoples or a community really needs, isn’t your help at all.

Keep reading. Keep talking. Keep thinking.

To wrap up the Kony chapter here at the ACAC blog, we willl end with an updated round-up of responses.* Some are scathing, some satirical, some poignant. Not all are a direct critique. Read and watch and your leisure.

*Those responses previously posted in our first appear at the end of this list.

Al Jazeera English: Kony screening angers Ugandans

Rap News 12: Yes We Kony

AlterNet: Invisible Children funded by anti-gay religious right by B.E. Wilson

Canadian International Council: #Ugandans2012 by Erin Baines

Julie Okot Bitek’s interview with the F-Word radio show.

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart: “My Little Kony”

African Youth Initiative Network: African War victim’s opinion on Kony by Victor Ochen

World Peace Foundation: Don’t elevate Kony by Alex Dewaal

Acholi Times: Kony 2012 should have advocated dialogue by Sam Olara

Acholi Times: Open letter to Jason Russell by Amber Ha

The Sky is Yellow: Missing perspective – Children born into the LRA by Beth Stewart

CNN: How not the change the world by Mareike Schomerus

Invisible Children: Thank you KONY 2012 supporters

The Atlantic: Solving War Crimes with Wristbands: The Arrogance of ‘KONY 2012’ by Kate Cronin-Furman & Amanda Taub (of Wronging Rights)

The Daily What: Kony Series

The Independent: Stop Kony, yes. But don’t stop asking questions by Musa Okwonga

Free the Children: Our thoughts on Kony 2012

The Guardian: Kony 2012: what’s the real story? by Polly Curtis and Tom McCarthy

Invisible Children: Official response to criticism

Think Africa: #Kony2012: An LRA Survivor’s Tale by Charles Okwir

Salon: Uganda’s outrage over Kony 2012 by Jocelyn Edwards

The NY Times: Viral Video, Vicious Warlord by Nicholas Kristof

The Huffington Post: Westerners are not and will never be the ‘saviors’ of Africa by Ben Affleck

The Huffington Post: From Caring to Doing: The responsibility by of experts for #stopkony by Stephanie Rudat

Naked Chiefs: Kony Series by Charles Onyango-Obbo

Unmuted: You Don’t Have My Vote

From our first Kony blog post:

Julie Okot Bitek – Commercializing Children’s Suffering is Macabre. Julie Bitek examines how the voices of the Acholi people/Northern Ugandans have been excluded from Western advocacy campaigns about Northern Uganda./

Targets or Captives? Obama’s LRA Challenge – What might be some of the unintended consequences of the military solution/military advisers which Invisible Children is advocating for? Prof. Erin Baines explores this issue.

What Does Kony Want? – A Photo Essay by Prof. Erin Baines.

Kony 2012 – Why I Love the idea but hate the campaign.

Taking Kony 2012 Down a Notch – Max Kersten from Justice in Conflict appeals for sober second thought.

Securing Rights – Let’s Talk About Kony. A valuable discussion by Daniel Solomon on the questions of morality, public narratives, and organizing narratives surrounding the Kony 2012 campaign.

Selling Old Newspapers Shouldn’t Be Profitable – Invisible Children and Kony 2012. A reminder that the LRA is largely no longer in Uganda, and focusing on Uganda as if the LRA were there now may not be entirely accurate.

Chris Blattman – What you should be reading if you want to understand the US and the Lord’s Resistance Army.

The Visible Problem with Invisible Children. A lengthy discussion on the problems with Invisible Children’s approach and their framing of the issues.

KONY 2012: Thinking beyond the campaign. A critical perspective coming from a Canadian youth magazine.

Foreign Affairs- Obama Takes on the LRA. A well thought piece from Mareike Schomerus, Tim Allen, and Kloen Vlassenroot looking at some of the political calculations behind Obama’s commitment to supporting the Ugandan army/UPDF in their hunt for Joseph Kony.

How Matters – Good guys, Bad guys, and the People in between. Another considerate piece, which has a valuable discussion about the ethics of using Jacob’s suffering in the film.

7 Days of Sober Thought after Kony 2012: Part II

Posted on March 14, 2012 by africacanada

This entry is the second installment in a series we began with this post: 7 Days of Sober Thought after Kony 2012: Part I.

These posts are meant to expand on the critiques already penned by many authors online, as well as add a few points of our own. Picking up where we left off…..

Issue: Misrepresentation

Critics say the Kony 2012 video misrepresents (or misrepresents, by omission) some key facts. These include:

- the currency of the conflict;

- the human rights record of the Ugandan army (the Ugandan People’s Defense Force or UPDF), ‘glossed over’ in the expressed support the United States’ partnership with this group in the attempt to capture Kony; and

- the claim that “no one cared” about bringing Kony and the LRA to justice and the complete omission of local peace processes that have been ongoing for years.

Sample critique: This video by Ugandan journalist Rosebell Kagumire.

Our Response

To their credit, Invisible Children lays out clearly in the video how the LRA have migrated in parts of the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of Congo. In September of last year Invisible Children and Resolve launched their LRA tracker, which records the movements and actions of the LRA throughout Central Africa. It is an incredible tool, to be sure.

All of that said, critics (such as “slubogo,” whose YouTube video you can see here) are right to point out that the message that Joseph Kony and the LRA are no longer in Uganda is largely overshadowed by the tone of the rest of the video, which insinuates a sense of urgency and conflict in northern Uganda, which in fact has been in a relative state of peace for years.

As for the misrepresentation of other armed groups: The Ugandan army, or UDPF, has been depicted in the Kony 2012 video as a reliable partner to the U.S. 100-person special forces team to help lead the search for Joseph Kony. The LRA, meanwhile is depicted as the source of all the violence in Northern Uganda – the “bad guys,” remember – and the rogue rebel army wreaking havoc in this otherwise peaceful nation. Invisible Children is by no means the first organization to engage in this kind of binary representation. The reality is far more complex. First, a variety of offshoot armed groups have historically engaged in violence in Uganda, and throughout other parts of the Great Lakes region. While some have been dismantled, the survivors of their violent crimes against are testament to the fact for a long time, the LRA wasn’t the only gang in town.

Second, the state-run army has itself committed atrocious crimes against the Ugandan people, with impunity (as one source, see Human Rights Watch’s report on Uganda – Uprooted and Forgotten).

A U.S.-run campaign in which American troops ‘partner’ with members of the UPDF to bring the LRA to justice ignores the UPDF’s own violent history and oppressive relationship with the Acholi people of Uganda. Where would justice be for them?

The October, 2011 deployment of 100 troops to Uganda is not the first time the U.S. has sponsored the LRA disarmament project. Resolve describes Operation Lightning Thunder, which took place in 2008, this way:

“On December 14, 2008, two weeks after the last meeting between Kony and peace negotiators, the Uganda military launched an offensive against the LRA’s bases in DR Congo’s Garamba National Park. Dubbed “Operation Lightning Thunder,” the poorly planned offensive failed to surprise the elusive rebel leaders, who responded by ordering massive reprisal attacks on civilians in vulnerable areas of the DR Congo and Sudan. The US provided significant financial, logistical and diplomatic support for the operation, despite the failure of the military planners to include a coordinated strategy to protect civilians from predictable LRA reprisal attacks, a tactic the LRA had used in response to past offensives by military forces.

“Just days after the launch of Operation Lightning Thunder the LRA carried out a series of coordinated massacres specifically targeting gatherings of Congolese civilians gathered at their places of worship. Over 865 civilians were killed in these attacks, one of the worst massacres of the war.”

Clearly any campaign to seize a warlord goes well beyond a simple seek-and-destroy or seek-and-capture mission. Moreover, as illustrated by history, the consequences of this ill-thought approach cannot be underestimated; what’s at risk is literally people’s lives. In 2008 almost 900 of them were taken in a massacre survivors will not soon forget. In an attempt to bring a murderer who has terrorized communities to justice we must not ourselves engaged in murder and terror.

To be fair, Invisible Children did address the human rights record of the U.S. government in their response, which they issued shortly after the backlash to their video. Here’s what they had to say:

“We do not defend any of the human rights abuses perpetrated by the Ugandan government or the Ugandan army (UPDF). None of the money donated through Invisible Children ever goes to the government of Uganda or any other government. Yet the only feasible and proper way to stop Kony and protect the civilians he targets is to coordinate efforts with regional governments.”

Good to know. What we don’t see in this statement, however, is any reference to the Ugandan army – a different body altogether than the Ugandan government. The question of Invisible Children’s support of a U.S.-Ugandan military partnership and the problems therein remained unanswered at this point.

For the majority of ACAC’s members, one of the most bothersome parts of the Kony 2012 video was hearing International Criminal Court prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo lament that “Kony was committing crimes for 20 years and no one cared.” Again, to be fair to Invisible Children, this is not their statement, but that of a key figure at the ICC. Nevertheless, it was used in the video, in a way that can only be interpreted as an endorsement of Moreno-Ocampo’s sentiments. As has been expressed in several incredibly articulate blog and vlog posts responding to Kony 2012, this claim dismisses outright the work of Ugandan people who have been actively engaged in peace and justice processes for decades.

The Acholi Religious Leaders Peace Initiative (ARLPI) is but one example. This group is an interfaith peace building and conflict transformation organization formed in 1997 as a proactive response to the conflict in Northern Uganda. This group aims to heal communities touched by conflict through mediation and dialogue, training in peacebuilding, community peace prayers, and cross border healing workshops.

The Justice and Reconciliation Project is another. Based in Gulu, northern Uganda, this project has played a key role in transitional justice in Uganda since 2005 through seeking to understand and explain the interests, needs, concerns and views of communities affected by conflict. It aims to promote sustainable peace through the active involvement of war-affected communities in research and advocacy. In addition, this group seeks to provide tools to empower other victims and survivors of conflict in Africa’s Great Lakes region also in situations of conflict.

These are just two examples of local projects that have long been committed – and remain committed – to restoring peace and facilitating healing in Northern Uganda. It is integral to recognize, as these two examples illustrate, the extent to which faith and spirituality factor into some Ugandan’s conceptualization of peace and healing, and the role transitional justice has played in achieving this. Clearly an American conception of ‘justice’ – one in which “bad guys” are captured, put on trial, and sentenced (to time in jail or death) – is not the only way justice can be imagined, and certainly not the way that has been embraced by most Ugandans. Crimes against and within communities require community-based solutions.

Another group whose work falls into the category of community based coalition-building and advocacy is the Women’s Advocacy Network, or WAN. Tanja Bergen will tell you more about WAN in upcoming posts, so stay tuned.

To this we add:

In response to critics’ claims that Invisible Children over-simplifies and omits key information in its video, it has issued this statement:

“In our quest to garner wide public support of nuanced policy, Invisible Children has sought to explain the conflict in an easily understandable format, focusing on the core attributes of LRA leadership that infringe upon the most basic of human rights. In a 30-minute film, however, many nuances of the 26-year conflict are admittedly lost or overlooked. The film is a first entry point to this conflict for many, and the organization provides several ways for our supporters to go deeper in learning about the make-up of the LRA and the history of the conflict. Likewise, our work on the ground continually adapts to the changing complexities of the conflict.” (Links their own).

The complexity of something like the LRA and its crimes throughout Central Africa over the course of almost three decades is certainly difficult to capture in a short film. That said, at 30 minutes, Kony 2012 is probably one of the longest videos ever to go viral on YouTube. Plenty of screen time is also taken up by characters like the director’s son, Gavin, and shots of his life in and family in the United States. It is certainly a valid critique to ask whether more time could have been spent elucidating some of the more complex aspects of the LRA and Uganda’s recent history.

Chris Dolan, director of the Refugee Law Project at Makerere University’s School of Law, has written extensively on Uganda, with topics ranging what he describes as “social torture” to male sexual violence. In 2008 he released a 44-minute video entitled Gender Against Men, in which he outlines the extent of sexual violence committed against men in the Great Lakes Region of Africa. You can watch this video here.

Yes, it is 14 minutes longer than Kony 2012, and yes, its purpose is quite different from that of Invisible Children – the video is documentary in style, and therefore primarily educational, while Kony 2012 is clearly a part of a campaign meant to inspire specific actions (buying ‘action kits,’ lobbying celebrities and politicans, and so on). All of this said, members of ACAC have expressed great appreciation for Dolan’s project, in that he succeeds in many ways at capturing a very complex, not to mention delicate, topic, in a 44-minute-long film. It is difficult, and it may not always lend easily to montages and appealing modern graphics, but it can be done.

Coming up next: our last entry on Kony 2012, complete with an updated round-up of responses and a comment on the positive take-aways from this campaign.

7 Days of Sober Thought after Kony 2012: Part 1

Posted on March 12, 2012 by africacanada

Over the next few days, ACAC will be posting a series of reflections on “Kony 2012.” We realize there have been a multitude of responses to this viral video. We thought we would take the time to summarize the main arguments made by others, elaborate on these with examples and further analysis, and provide a few unique observations of our own.

Stay tuned – later this week we’ll unveil a new series by ACAC’s own Tanja Bergen, with her Reports from the Field, based on her recent trip to Gulu, Uganda. Those of you who are interested in a more up-to-date, on-the-ground picture of the region should be sure to check in.

March 5, 2012 will now be known, for as long as our distracted social media-driven memories will allow, as the day Joseph Kony, Invisible Children and the child soldiers of the LRA were catapulted into popular consciousness. For better or for worse, the “Kony 2012” video has become one of the most successful viral campaigns employed by an international NGO, maybe ever. At the time that we write this, the 30-minute video has had 72,433,716 views online. 72 million. By Wednesday, #stopkony was a worldwide trending topic on Twitter, while by the end of the week, “Uganda” remained a trending topic on Canadian Twitter feeds. Some have reported Invisible Children has raised $5 million in sales of their Kony 2012 Action Kit.

Almost as soon as the video went viral, so too did countless critiques of it and of Invisible Children’s approach, a sampling of which we compiled into a round-up you can see here. Since the critiques continue to rapidly emerge in blogs, vlogs, editorials and the like, this is by no means an exhaustive list. There are many. Over the next few days we are going to expand on the critiques already penned by many authors online, as well as add a few points of our own.

Issue: Over Simplification

Critics have expressed a problem with:

- the unequivocal dichotomy that is created between “good guys” and “bad guys;”

- the implication that capturing Joseph Kony will bring peace to the region;

- the explicit focus on short-term ‘solutions;’ and

- the reduction of the complexity of the LRA’s power structure.

Sample critique: This post by HelloAfrica contributor Debbi N. Onuoha.

Our Response

One key figure that demonstrates the problematic nature of the good guy/bad guy dichotomy employed by Invisible Children is a man named Dominic Ongwen. (Much of our information on this figure comes from the work of Erin Baines, who discusses the ambiguity of Ongwen and victim/killer labels in this article). Ongwen, believed to be now in his 30s, is also an indicted war criminal, wanted by the International Criminal Court for his involvement in the LRA. However, unlike other figures on the list, Ongwen is the first to be charged with the very war crimes of which he is also a victim.

Ongwen, born in Northern Uganda, was abducted by the LRA at the age of 10. He quickly moved up to the highest ranks within the rebel group because of his ‘loyalty,’ or his willingness to carry out leaders’ orders and the efficiency with which he did so. All of this is complicated by the fact that he was a child – just like the filmmaker’s friend Jacob – at the time, and yet, his ‘loyalty’ continued well into adulthood, now making him one of the world’s most wanted criminals. Child soldiers aren’t children forever.

Ongwen’s reported compassion further complicates his role in the LRA and his label as a “killer.” As Erin Baines describes, Ongwen is said to have occasionally shown mercy to families during village raids (i.e. by leaving at least one child behind with their family), and is said to have spared civilian villages from violence when they were caught in between his conflicts with other rebel groups.

Clearly, the case of Dominic Ongwen is not so clear-cut. He is neither a good guy, nor a bad guy, and hardly fits into the simplistic model of child soldiers put forth in the Kony 2012 video. The picture that Invisible Children captures – a world where big bad Joseph Konys exploit innocent little Jacobs – may be slightly out of focus.

What’s more, the Ongwen case illustrates the problem with assuming that capturing Kony will dismantle the LRA. This is because Ongwen is one of two men (the other being Okot Odhiambo) who are in a position to take over leadership of the LRA in the event of Kony’s arrest. This also illustrates the complex power structure of the rebel group (which extends far beyond Joseph Kony), and the flaws of such a short-term solution without a long-term sustainable plan for peace.

To this we add: The significance of stigma

One issue ACAC has yet to see emerge from the multitude of critiques of Kony 2012 is the issue of stigma and the politics of ‘reunification.’ In the video, there is a shot of (what we are likely meant to assume is) a former child soldier, being reunited happily with his parents. This image misrepresents the incredibly complex relationship between family members and those who become, willingly or unwillingly, involved violent acts or armed groups in Uganda. As stated earlier, child soldiers are not children forever – sometimes the reunification or reintegration process happens after children have aged into adulthood, complicated their relationship with their families. Often times families treat former family members with direct hostility, having known the level of violence their children, sisters, or brothers may have committed on others or even on their own community.

The Kony 2012 video states outright that boys are recruited to be child soldiers, and girls, sex slaves. While this may be true, these roles are not exclusive – Uganda girls have been documented as both child soldiers and sex slaves (or forced into ‘bush marriages’) and boys are not immune from sexual violence. The stigmatization of female child soldiers is extreme, as is the stigmatization of rape victims, outright rejected by some communities who fear HIV infection or ‘bad luck.’

For a summary of a panel related to these issues, visit this page by the United States Institute for Peace.

Next post: Issues of misrepresentation and omission

All Perspectives Matter – Invisible Children’s Response to the Critiques

Posted on March 8, 2012 by africacanada

Invisible Children has just released their response to the large amount of controversy their “Kony 2012″ campaign has created. We hope that hearing them in their own words will further enable you to form your own opinion about the campaign’s value.

Please find their response to some of the criticism here, and their detailed letter (along with Resolve and the Enough Project) to President Barack Obama here.

For those of you who may not have the time to read them through entirely, here are some highlights from the response:

“We do not defend any of the human rights abuses perpetrated by the Ugandan government or the Ugandan army (UPDF). None of the money donated through Invisible Children ever goes to the government of Uganda. Yet the only feasible and proper way to stop Kony and protect the civilians he targets is to coordinate efforts with regional governments.”

“We have never claimed a desire to “save Africa,” but, instead, an intent to inspire Western youth to “do more than just watch.” ”

” [If] you have critiques, to get specific: find facts, dig deeper, and we’ll gladly continue the conversation from there. If encountering something you disagree with, suggest an alternative to what we are doing- and we will absolutely take heed.”

As well as the letter:

“[Funds] should be used to provide enhanced mobility, intelligence, and other support for ongoing operations, though it is crucial that any beneficiaries be monitored closely and held accountable for abuses committed against the civilian population or any other illicit activities.”

Kony 2012 – A Different Perspective

Posted on March 8, 2012 by africacanada

Many of you may have seen that Invisible Children’s latest project, “Kony 2012″, took up a sizable amount of internet traffic last night. In keeping with ACAC’s principles of critical self-reflection, here is a collection of thoughtful pieces which raise some important questions about the well-intentioned but highly problematic “Kony 2012″ campaign.

Please note that ACAC does not necessarily endorse or agree with any of these bloggers or authors, these posts are simply starting points for further discussion. We encourage you to form your own opinion on these matters.

We are concerned with presenting a balanced account of the debate surrounding the video campaign. If you would like to contribute an alternative perspective to this discussion, whether it be your own thoughts or a blog post, we strongly encourage you to send it to us at contact@acacdrcongo.org so that we may feature it in this discussion.

We will be sharing our own thoughts on this soon, so stay tuned for more.