Ugandan Jacob Acaye says earth needs to know about war waged by Joseph Kony that is still going on elsewhere in AfricaJacob Acaye, the Ugandan former minor abductee at the heart of the film Kony 2012, a web phenomenon seen by more than 50 million human beings encircling the earth, defended the video and its makers on Thursday against criticism that it is misleading and champions western intervention against an insurgency which is already waning and on the run.Acaye’s house region encircling the town of Gulu is immediately relatively peaceful, and the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), which kidnapped him and killed his brother in 2002, has been driven outside of northern Uganda along with its warlord leader, Joseph Kony, who has melted into the forests of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Central African Republic. However Acaye denied widespread criticism in Uganda and elsewhere that the American-made film calling for Kony’s arrest is outside of date or irrelevant. “It is not also late, since all this fighting and suffering is still going on elsewhere,” Acaye, immediately 21, told the Twitter in a telephone interview from Kampala, where he is studying code. “Until immediately, the war that was going on has been a silent war. Human beings did not really know about it. “Immediately what was happening in Gulu is still going on elsewhere in the Central African Republic and in Congo. What about the human beings who are suffering over there? They are going through what we were going through.”Kony 2012 has become a surprise hit encircling the earth about 25 years after Kony founded his militia and a decade after the peak of its reign of terror in northern Uganda. However its makers, a collection called Invisible Children, were widely criticised by Ugandan journalists and other aid agencies yesterday for being self-promoting (the video spends much of its 28 minutes on its maker, Jason Russell and his young son, Gavin) and opaque about its employ of funds – and for concentrating on an issue that has dramatically changed in recent years. “They are focusing more on an American solution to an African conflict than the holistic approach which should comprehend regional governments and human beings who are very key to constitute this a success,” said Victor Ochen, the director of African Youth Initiative Network based in Lira, the site of one Kony’s worst massacres in Uganda.”They are advocating for a mechanism to end war with more attention to a perpetrator not victims. Campaigning on killing one male and that’s the end is not enough … There are many human beings who are caught up in this war. Invisible Children has excellent access to international media however they have no connection with the community they claim to represent.” Ugandan writer Angelo Opi-Aiya Izama wrote on his blog: “To call the campaign a misrepresentation is an understatement … its portrayal of his alleged crimes in northern Uganda are from a bygone era.” He said the main problems in the area immediately were minor prostitution, HIV and a mysterious and incurable neurological disorder, known as nodding disease, which has afflicted more than 4,000 children.Izama said that although the LRA was still preying on civilians in neighbouring countries, it was no longer an unknown difficulty. He said: “The LRA leader is the subject of an international manhunt by a joint energy of Ugandan, Congolese, Sudanese and Central African troops. This effort is helped by US combat troops.”In 2009, a US-supported military operation dubbed Operation Lightning Thunder and carried outside by Uganda administration forces failed to kill Kony. The Ugandan army said Kony had left his compound a hardly any minutes before the attack. Since it was locate up in 2003, Invisible Children has released 11 films and run regular “awareness-raising” film tours across the US, mainly showing to schools and universities. The collection is barely known in Uganda, however claims to have given college and university scholarships to 750 children, and helped re-build schools. Acaye said his ancient college was one of those the collection had rebuilt.”Immediately that the situation in Gulu is stabilised and there is no longer war there, there is reconstruction of the place. Schools are being built. It is not the fault of the human beings there that they were abducted and used. They demand to be helped,” he said. “The organisation has fought really dense to rebuild my college. It is doing excellent employment.” Acaye was taken prisoner by the LRA militia when it attacked his house village of Koro, near Gulu, however he escaped after three weeks when one unit handed him over to another. “I got lucky. I was taken by a second collection which did not know much about me, and I was transferred to that collection. They questioned me how extended I had been with the LRA and I said three months so they thought I had no intention of running away, so they did not watch me,” Acaye said. He found his path back to his village, however from then on joined the hundreds of children who walked into Gulu to sleep every night for safety. It was while he was sleeping on a verandah there that he was found by Invisible Children.”They could not know what was happening. They wanted a kid who was sleeping there and who spoke English. I could know English and I could affirm what was happening, so that is how I was in their film,” Acaye said.Invisible Children’s accounts exhibit it is a cash rich operation, which more than tripled its income to $9m (£5.68m) in 2011, mainly from personal donations. Of this, nearly 25% was spent on travel and film-making. Most of the money raised has been spent in the US. The accounts exhibit $1.7m went on US employee salaries, $850,000 in film production costs, $244,000 in “professional services” – thought to be Washington lobbyists – and $1.07m in travel expenses. Nearly $400,000 was spent on its offices in San Diego. Questions were raised on Thursday about its operation after it emerged that Charity Navigator, a US charity evaluator, gave the organisation only three outside of four stars overall, four stars financially and two stars for “accountability and transparency”. Noelle Jouglet communication director, said: “Our score is currently at two stars due to the circumstance that Invisible Children does not have five independent voting members on our board of directors. We are interviewing potential board members, and our goal is to add an additional independent member this year to regain our four-star rating by 2013.”The collection , which employs about 100 human beings, is expected to raise millions of dollars from the Kony2012 video however has so far not said how much has been donated or how it will spend the money. Visitors are invited to click a button and acquire T-shirts, bracelets and posters, ranging from $30-$250. “Human beings will reckon you’re an advocate of awesome”, runs the sales pitch.The video has broken records for the celerity at which a 30-minute film has spread. “It’s an internet phenomenon. It’s the mob mentality. Everyone can feel outraged. We are buying into the emotion and handing over money however who it’s going to and how it is helping [Uganda's children] is left unanswered”, says Phil Borge, a director of London-based 1000 Heads, a “term of mouth” marketing agency. According to figures posted on Vimeo, only four human beings viewed the video on 3 March, and eight on 4 March, however 58,000 on 5 March, 2.7m on 6 March and 8.2m on 7 March. It had been played more than 38m times on YouTube by yesterday evening.Jedediah Jenkins, director of thought development for Invisible Children, called the criticisms “myopic” and said the film represented a “tipping mark” in that it “got young human beings to attention about an issue on the other side of the planet that doesn’t affect them”.UgandaAfricaAidHuman rightsYouTubeWar crimesJulian BorgerJohn Vidalguardian.co.uk © 2012 Twitter News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Employ of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
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