An American filmmaker is determined to use social media to make Joseph Kony famous.
Jason Russell doesn't want to win Kony any fans. He wants to educate the world "to raise support for his arrest and set a precedent for international justice."
The Sydney Morning Herald reported that Kony is the leader of the Lord's Resistance Army, which abducted more than 30,000 children in Uganda as they forced young boys to kill their parents and young girls to be sex slaves.
The humanitarian group Invisible Children released the film online Wednesday. Russell belives that if more people know about the warlord and his crimes, they will demand action.
"The problem with Joseph Kony is that nobody knows who he is," Russell told AllAfrica.com .
Kony is wanted on 33 criminal charges including 12 counts of crimes against humanity, UK Metro reported. There are also charges including murder, enslavement and rape.
The United States considers him one of the world's most wanted terrorists.
In the movie Russell focused on Jacob, a former LRA child soldier who talked about being under Kony's command. Jacob talked about how soldiers killed his brother for trying to escape and how, at the time he was first interviewed, he would rather have been dead than alive.
"It would be better to kill us," he said. "How are we going to stay in our future?"
To battle against this, Russell said in the movie, "We started something. A community. We got creative and we got loud." The video, which hopes to continue that support and push for action, is spreading as #stopkony becomes one of the most tweeted topics globally.
The Associated Press reported the U.S. committed 100 military forces in 2011 to help capture or kill Kony and his top lieutenants.
But recent reports say that women and children abducted by the LRA are dying and suffering from hunger. The belief is that Kony told his men to stop raiding communities for food in fear that they would be detected.
0 comments:
Post a Comment