Over the past couple of days, you may have heard of seen the face of one Joseph Kony, leader of his own Lord's Resistance Army or at least heard something about him. The group is notorious for kidnapping children, forcing the boys to become fighters and using girls as sex slaves.
Invisible Children launched a campaign in attempt to capture the alleged Ugandan war criminal in the form of a 30 minute video that recently went viral on many social networking sites including Facebook and Twitter. The video has nearly 10 million views on YouTube. The group aims to bring Kony to justice at the International Criminal Court, where he is charged with crimes against humanity in four African countries: Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Central African Republic and South Sudan.
While the supposed intent of Invisible Children sounds good, they were accused of spending most of its raised funds on salaries, travel expenses and film-making. In fact, NGO (non-government organization) watchdog Charity Navigator had given the group only two out of four stars for financial accountability. An article in Foreign Affairs even accuses Invisible Children for using "manipulated facts for strategic purposes".
"BBC News - Uganda rebel Joseph Kony target of viral campaign video." BBC - Homepage. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-17295078 (accessed March 8, 2012).
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