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Ugandans say Kony film is 'misleading', 'too late'

A DOCUMENTARY and social media campaign to publicize the atrocities of Ugandan rebel leader Joseph Kony has been labelled "highly inappropriate" by members of the East African nation.

In the town of Gulu, where Kony's Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) was once focused, community health director Beatrice Mpora told the(London) Daily Telegraph Kony no longer reigned in the region.

"There has not been a single soul from the LRA here since 2006. Now we have peace, people are back in their homes, they are planting their fields, they are starting their businesses. That is what people should help us with."

Kony's army fled Uganda six years ago and the strongman and his fighters are now spread throughout many neighbouring countries, it was reported.

Ugandan journalist Rosebell Kagumire agreed with Mpora, saying, "This paints a picture of Uganda six or seven years ago, that is totally not how it is today. It's highly irresponsible."

A spokesman for Uganda's defense and army, Felix Kulayigye, told The Wall Street Journal that Kony was already a spent force. "The world is just realizing the evil in this man, but these are the things we have pointed out countless times in the past," Kulayigye said. "Good enough, we have decimated his capabilities now."

Kony is wanted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity and war crimes including murder, sexual slavery and using children as combatants.

Ugandan government spokesman Fred Opolot hit out at the charity behind the film, Invisible Children, saying, "They are doing it only to garner increasing financial resources for their own agenda."

The film has generated almost 45 million views and over 170 related video clips on YouTube, according to online measurement firm Visible Measures Corp.

Twitter users mentioned Kony more than 950,000 times on Thursday, according to social media analytics firm PeopleBrowsr, with tweets by public figures including Rihanna, Alec Baldwin, Sean "Diddy" Combs, Ryan Seacrest and Bill Gates.

"While this is a very impressive example of viral marketing, it's raising awareness for a cause that doesn't need awareness," said Scott Gilmore, chief executive of Peace Dividend Trust, a non-profit that focuses on streamlining inefficiencies in humanitarian operations. "Those 30,000 kids who were kidnapped, this isn't going to un-kidnap them."

In a statement, Invisible Children said Uganda had "a vested interest in seeing [Kony] stopped," adding, "The LRA was active in Uganda for nearly 20 years, displacing 1.7 million people and abducting at least 30,000 children."

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That's naive and inefficient. I'd rather take an objective approach to social justice and seek real, statistical success for the Ugandan children.

I don't think you really mean what you're saying here. If they fail (which would suck), you're going to feel betrayed.

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Hate on the deliverers of this message all you want, but I still think it's pretty amazing how quickly something like this can spread around the world.

People just need to make sure next time that they're delivering a message that is both accurate, and still relevant in that people can actually do something to stop people like this.

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This might have already been said, but I just got my wisdom teeth removed and am in no mood to read 4 pages of hardy thread.

So what if Invisible Children is being all unethical as far as handling their money and biasing their videos, there is still one thing both sides can agree on and that is that Joseph Kony is a horrible man and deserves justice.

As long as this guy is brought to justice I can overlook their inconsistencies, as without Invisible Children, he would still be in power today enslaving, raping, and killing innocent people.

Amirite?

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A world where people aren't cynical a$$holes and believe that they can actually change things.

Funny how the more educated people come off as, the more more cynical they sound. I thought education was supposed to have the opposite effect...

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This might have already been said, but I just got my wisdom teeth removed and am in no mood to read 4 pages of hardy thread.

So what if Invisible Children is being all unethical as far as handling their money and biasing their videos, there is still one thing both sides can agree on and that is that Joseph Kony is a horrible man and deserves justice.

As long as this guy is brought to justice I can overlook their inconsistencies, as without Invisible Children, he would still be in power today enslaving, raping, and killing innocent people.

Amirite?

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Naive and inefficient is lecturing people on an internet forum and trying to make them feel bad about their good intentions towards helping people. When you take away that "feel good" feeling out of trying to do something for others, you essentially train people to avoid doing it again in the future. In other words, you create in-action.

I'm not actively supporting this cause or denouncing it, but I am supporting people that are collectively trying to do something. No one should be ridiculed for that -- which has happened far too often in this thread. In the simplest wording possible, let people be proud. If they find out later that their trust was misguided, then I hope they can draw inspiration from their good intentions.

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Helping people should not be an issue of pride, at least to the point where people won't do anything lest they feel unproud.

There are lots of problems with this little Kony thing. One problem is people are now focused on a non-problem when they could be actively participating in another charity etc.

Every $30 that goes to IC is $30 that does go somewhere else.

People time and resources are not unlimited.

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Sure the money could be distributed more wisely, but think of how many people would not have donated to anything at all had they not watched the video. Even if only 5 dollars of that 30 dollars goes towards helping out the victims over in Africa, it's still better than no money going anywhere.

Thats gotta count for something.

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Helping people should not be an issue of pride, at least to the point where people won't do anything lest they feel unproud.

There are lots of problems with this little Kony thing. One problem is people are now focused on a non-problem when they could be actively participating in another charity etc.

Every $30 that goes to IC is $30 that does go somewhere else.

People time and resources are not unlimited.

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