Op-ed: What Invisible Children Truly Is..

A 30-minutes documentary-video packed with emotions, sorrow, bravery and justice – KONY 2012, has made a huge impact on the social media lately with a tremendous 104.4 million views on both Vimeo and YouTube in just a month after being published on the web.

            The video is about the Ugandan Rebel Army, Joseph Kony and the LRA, along with their atrocities against humanity. This video, however, is said to be misleading with Kony actually operating in other African Countries rather than Uganda. But even though he does not working in Uganda, he still operates in other countries while still committing these war crimes. According to the LRA Crisis Tracker, since the video was released, the LRA killed 3 civilians and abducted 78 children.

            So, he needs to be stopped.

            Now, what exactly is Invisible Children?

            Invisible Children, a non-profit organization founded in 2004 to bring awareness to the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), and its leader, Joseph Kony. But many Ugandans say it’s already to late. He committed many more war crimes 6 years ago. Now, he’s lying low. It isn’t that bad.

            They accept donations and sell merchandise, such as bracelets, t-shirts and posters, to raise money for their cause. The money they raise is used to produce awareness films and for humanitarian aid to northern Uganda.

            At least that’s what they say it is. But behind the curtains, what is it?

The message they spread is really simple. There is a man named Kony and he needs to be stopped. He uses small boys as child soldiers and small girls as sex slaves. If that wasn’t bad enough, the child soldiers were forced to kill their parents with a face that has been deformed so the parents wouldn’t recognize them. Kony needs to be brought to justice.

So, is donating to Invisible Children a good idea?