Kony 2012: The Lord's Resistance Army

Historically, there have been child soldiers even in the United States. Bugler John Cook, served in the U.S. Army at the age of 15 and received the Medal of Honor for his acts during the American Civil War (“Child Soldiers Are Unfortunately Nothing New”). However, the use of child soldiers has dramatically declined in western civilization during the 20th century. Surprisingly, the recent use of child soldiers in Africa is still seen in media today.

Joseph Kony, a Ugandan warlord abducts children. With the help of his Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), he forces children to join the military. Invisible Children, a US-based company, created a viral YouTube video called “Kony 2012” that opposed Kony’s and the LRA’s actions. John Naughton wrote an editorial praising “Kony 2012” in the Observer. Children from other countries enlist unwillingly in the military as well.

In addition, from 1988 to 2004, the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) in northern Uganda abducted youth as recruits to their guerilla force. More than 60,000 child soldiers are estimated to have been abducted by the LRA, taken from one day to ten years. Many children were taken from their homes, forced to become child soldiers against their will. If 60,000 child soldiers were abducted by the LRA, there are 60,000 people suffering because of the battle in Uganda.

The early history of the rebellion began in January of 1987. Kony made his first appearance as a spirit medium. The former Uganda People’s Democratic Army commander Odong Latek played a huge part in helping Kony rebel. Latek convinced him to adopt conventional guerrilla warfare tactics. These were primarily surprise attacks on civilian targets. Kony wanted to prove the inability of the government to protect their populace.

This warlord of Uganda is just another Hitler of our world. Kony is a man with a mission to stay in power. He will do all he can to maintain a superior status.Kony has not committed these crimes himself, but has become the rising leader for Lord's Resistance Army

* Men yelling in your face. Women screaming for their children’s lives. Imagine all of a sudden you are brainwashed and turned into a killing machine. How would you feel if you were made a slave to a cause you didn't even understand. This sounds like it's straight from a movie, right? Well, the Sierra Leone Army (SLA) and Revolutionary United Front (RUF) used tactics like these towards children in order to indoctrinate them. In 1991, the start of the Sierra Leonean civil war, many children were drafted and forced into the RUF and SLA armies. The armies brainwashed the children and aimed them at the opposing force. By indoctrinating children it is stripping them from their necessary human rights and harm is put on these children. Tactics used by the militaries are against moral standards in every way shape and form. *

Recently, two million children have died over the past ten years due to becoming a child soldier. A huge deplorable development that has extended recently is the increase of child soldiers. Children are constantly being used as soldiers for various reasons. In some countries, there are more child soldiers than they are adults because children are more compliant. Children have been exploited as soldiers because they are being recruited to do a violent action, it is difficult for them to, later on, assimilate back to their lives, and child soldiers are regularly used in developing countries.

No one wants their childhood to be utterly destroyed or have their family taken away from them in the blink of an eye, without the chance to even say one last goodbye. The odd chance of that happening to us, here in America, is slim to none. In Sierra Leone on the other hand, along with many other parts of Africa, child soldiers are being put to use in armies. In A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah, the recruitment of child soldiers, African living situations, and the psychological trauma endured by the children deals with the issue of child soldiers.

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Imagine being snatched from your bed in the middle of the night and forced to commit horrific war crimes at only 7 years old. In Uganda, this sadly isn’t an unusual occurrence. Children and their families live in fear of being captured and made into child soldiers against their will. Led by Joseph Kony, the Lord’s Resistance Army has abducted over 30,000 children in Uganda and forced them to fight in war. These children are forced to become brutal killing machines, and lose touch with their livelihood, morals and ultimately their childhood. A student at MHS should care about the child soldiers in Uganda because children are the future of a country. If children grow up in inhumane conditions and trained to be violent from a young age, they will grow up into antagonistic adults that our generation will have to deal with later on in life.

Some of the basic human rights we see as children of the United States are not guaranteed everywhere. One example of this would be the oppressing of children in Uganda. As more and more children were enslaved by the Lord’s Resistance Army, led by Joseph Kony, the Invisible Children was founded to raise awareness through their campaign of “Kony 2012.” After eight years of campaigning against the Lord’s Resistance Army, the Invisible Children posted a video titled “Kony 2012.” It began as an experiment, but with over 100 million views in only six days, the infamous Joseph Kony went from an obscure villain to world known criminal. The campaign reached its goal in April of 2012, when President Barack Obama announced that he would reignite the United State’s mission to help the African Union in stopping LRA violence.

In over twenty-five countries, many children are abducted and beaten into submission to be used in real life wars. A very famous viral video called “Kony 2012” was trying to get people to help catch the Ugandan warlord Joseph Kony, who has kidnapped thousands of children over the past twenty years. Child soldiers are defined as: children under the age of 18 who are recruited by state or non-state armed groups and used as fighters, cooks, suicide bombers, human shields, messengers, spies, or even for sexual purposes.

Around 120,000 adolescent children are now engaged in conflicts throughout Africa (“Child Soldiers: An Overview” 4). In Sudan, for instance, thousands of children, some as young as 12, were recruited against their will into separatist and government groups (“Child Soldiers: An Overview” 5). Thousands more children have been enlisted into the armed forces throughout Asia and the Pacific. The most significant numbers are in Afghanistan, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, and recently, Cambodia. Myanmar, a country in Asia, has some of the most child soldiers throughout the world, with children being recruited into both non-government and government armed forces (“Child Soldiers: An Overview” 6). The number of child soldiers has been decreasing annually, but these children are still being taken against their will.

Right outside of the Treasure Island casino in Las Vegas, Nevada a group of friends Ice, Stella, Jim, Ace, Count, Angle. The head of the group Ice a grad student who was thrown out of Harvard for scamming fellow students started this group to get easy money. They have been scamming stores and gas stations for about 2 years now, but it was time for something bigger they were all very smart and from various places. They had to learn how to count cards for this heist they have been studying for about 6 months now and they all seemed very ready.

Women are automatically thought of and treated differently because of how their bodies function, while men embrace their bodies and tend to flaunt due to the lack of advertisement. There is a public image of how women’s menstruation is “seen as smelly, taboo, and distasteful.” Ads in women’s and men’s magazines differ greatly. These show the differences in how women and men are thought about regarding their hygiene.