On April 20 Invisible Children will hold a worldwide rally to draw attention to murderous Ugandan Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) founder Joseph Kony. The event is called "Cover the Night," but when one looks a bit closer at the shady right-wing extremists this group cavorts with, a more appropriate name might be "Invisible Agenda: Covering Up the Theocratic Nightmare."
Before we go any further, I want to state that I agree with the ostensible goal of Invisible Children and their viral video KONY 2012, which is the incarceration or elimination of the LRA's Kony. However, I wonder, based on their disturbing associations, if Invisible Children is truly anti-Kony, or if it is a propaganda campaign designed to bolster the reign of Uganda's dictator Yoweri Museveni.
The Ugandan strongman is the point person for the American-based Fellowship (aka The Family), which is a secretive group of powerful Christian zealots who want to impose their ideology all over the world. This organization is largely blamed for the introduction of Uganda's draconian anti-homosexuality bill.
At least two of Invisible Children's programs have involved collaboration with The Fellowship and its members. By 2007, Invisible Children was described by both Fellowship and Invisible Children staffers as having partially merged its developing school and mentoring programs in Uganda with The Fellowship's Ugandan educational and leadership training system, which works to raise up a cadre of elite, Jesus-centered leaders who will transform their nation along "Biblical" lines -- with one apparent objective being the categorical elimination of homosexuality.
Ugandan Fellowship member Paul Lukwiya, now Education Director for The Fellowship's Ugandan leadership training schools, has supervised the programs of both groups. In spring 2007, little more than a year and a half after the Invisible Children nonprofit was launched, Paul Lukwiya is reported to have traveled with IC members to the United States, where he spoke before an April 28, 2007 Invisible Children Seattle rally.
We also know that Invisible Children is funded by the U.S.-based National Christian Foundation (NCF), which has also provided significant funds to fanatical groups deeply tied to the persecution of LGBT people in Uganda.
Furthermore, at a 2005 Christian conference in San Antonio, Invisible Children's co-founder Jason Russell called his organization a "Trojan Horse" designed to infiltrate secular institutions and surreptitiously promote his group's version of Christian fundamentalism.
When one connects the dots, there are two looming questions that Invisible Children's leaders have yet to answer: Why are they claiming to he humanitarians yet kissing up to the Ugandan potentate and paling around with his Fellowship enablers? Is Invisible Children a group of genuine idealists or a cabal of ideologues producing propaganda to strengthen Museveni's rule so fundamentalist Christians can continue to lord over Uganda?
Invisible Children's ties to Museveni are unacceptable. It is like they are hanging out with Bigfoot and then pointing to the Creature from the Black Lagoon and yelling, "Monster!" Well, what about the murderous and undemocratic monster you are already with?
For example, last September Ugandan police forced 20,000 Ugandans from their homes, burning the homes to the ground and accidentally burning one child to death.
In some ways the attention to Kony feels like a misdirection play. In drug parlance, it is as if Museveni is the Kingpin and the cartel is The Fellowship. Except instead of drugs, Museveni is trafficking in political power, and the American evangelicals are peddling homophobic religious doctrine. In this paradigm, Kony is the violent street corner dealer who is terrorizing the neighborhood.
Yes, Kony needs to be taken off the street corner. But is it not odd that friends of the kingpin are making movies to have people focus on a thug running around the remotest areas of the bush with only 250 soldiers? To put this in perspective, there are 120,000 gang members in Los Angeles County. Sure, Kony is awful, but compared to the present-day damage done at the hands of the Ugandan ruler, Kony is a mere sideshow, albeit a violent one.
To restore its waning credibility, Invisible Children should immediately cut ties with the dictator and the corrupted Fellowship. As long as Invisible Children is linked to human rights violators, its claims to be humanitarian will be suspect.
Follow Wayne Besen on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Truthwinsout
Victor Udoewa: Invisible Children: A Better Story About Faith and Science
Stop trying to get famous off of other people's success.
What are YOU doing to bring down Kony?
Like it or not IC has been at this for eight years
Like it or not IC builds schools
Like it or not IC has provided scholarships for over 750 students...this year
Like it or not IC is rescuing abductees
Like it or not IC has given thousands of american kids something to be aware of besides the IPOD
What's so bad about catching this guy kony and putting him on trial.
Like it or not the majority of Ugandans pray for a changing of the 27 year murderous leadership.
Your story is a joke. What is amazing is that if you touch a 100 million people with a KONY2012 movie, there are millions of people like you with nothing to do but create a conspiracy.
Find something to do.
Like it or not, IC provides approx 750 scholarships in Uganda.
Like it or not IC rescues abductees
Like it or not IC has been at this effort for 7 years.
Like it or not the average Ugandan cant wait for the Current government in Uganda to be overthrown
Don't expect Uganda to like anything american
Like it or not IC builds schools in Uganda
Like it or not, IC has mobilized hendreds of thousands of kids here in america and gave them sometihng to think about aside from their Ipods.
Your thinking is laughable.
Find something to write about.
LFBREMR
When will Americans stop building their arrogant theories and worldviews on the backs of innocent Africans? Don't you ever stop? It's exhausting for the rest of us to have to put up with and makes us consider renouncing our birthright entirely. Yes I am an American but today I do not even wish to admit it.
They are innocent, and Uganda threatened to kill them.
Oh wait, I forgot, homosexuality is non-African according to these leaders.
I snapped a pic:
http://www.elkeinland.com/img/invisiblechildren.jpg
I still haven't determined what they were doing around my town, just as long as they weren't cruising for kidnapping kids themselves. was my concern. I still don't know what to think about this organisation.
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10150675530276368&set=a.163464371367.158585.8392031367&type=1&theater
Has to do with actually reforming problems in Uganda, where the christians there want to -kill me-.
When will Invisible Childrens real agenda become visible to everyone? Can Invisible Childrens true colors remain invisible for ever?
- http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=29772
- http://www.infowars.com/wikileaks-kony-2012-creators-spied-for-uganda/
Kinda like the Komen Foundation. Pick a good cause, defund promising stem cell research, pull funding to Planned Parenthood...suddenly, exposure and another trojan horse.
By all reports Kony isn't even IN Uganda any more. (see, it's working)
When they start slaughtering gay people all the blood will be on their hands, and the people of America should demand that those responsible pay.