Invisible Children and Joseph Kony have quickly become two of the biggest topics of conversation on the web. The Kony 2012 video has been trending worldwide since Monday, sparking worldwide support for the goal to make Kony “infamous.”
Yet as support for Kony 2012 continues to grow, it has been met with great debate. Some have expressed concerns about the validity of Invisible Children’s campaign via Facebook and Twitter, while others express concerns of “armchair activism” and whether people really understand the cause they are supporting by sharing the video.
We took a look at the top 5 things you need to know about both Joseph Kony to help you form your own opinion.
1. Joseph Kony is the leader of the Ugandan rebel group the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), formed in 1986 as a branch of a larger militant movement in Uganda. Kony was indicted on war crimes charges by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in 2005 and is accused of kidnapping and forcing as many as 66,000 children to fight for the LRA, or become sex slaves, and for displacing more than 200,000 people in a northern area of the country.
2. Kony was one of the first people to be charged by the ICC and remains at the top of the court’s most wanted list. His indictment included 21 counts of war crimes and 12 counts of crimes against humanity including murder, enslavement, sexual enslavement and rape.
3. According to World Vision, the LRA is responsible for abducting over 30,000 children and forcing them to become soldiers, weapons carriers or sex slaves. Some children are as young as eight when they are abducted.
4. In May 2010 U.S. President, Barack Obama, signed into the law the Lord’s Resistance Army Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act, legislation that was aimed at stopping Kony and the LRA. In October 2011, Obama authorized the deployment of 100 U.S. combat troops to central Africa in hopes to remove Kony and major LRA combats from the front lines.
5. The LRA has continued to dwindle in size since its uprising, however the LRA has not been in Uganda for several years, despite what the documentary leads viewers to believe. The LRA is believed to be currently operating in the Congo, Central African Republic and South Sudan.
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