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PWRDF and Kony

March 19, 2012

By Zaida Bastos

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There has been a lot of hype and attention paid to Joseph Kony of the Lord’s Resistance Army through social and main-stream media over the last few weeks.  PWRDF’s CIDA Program Coordinator, Zaida Bastos, wrote this entry detailing PWRDF’s involvement in the region working with African partners to enact responses to the challenges facing the region.

PWRDF in the nineties and early 2000’s worked with the Church of Uganda on this issue. Charlotte Maxwell, PWRDF’s Eastern and Southern Africa Program Coordinator funded and provided guidance to the Church of Uganda on this issue. Charlotte helped the CoU to set-up their Human Rights Program which led to the Church of Uganda to develop strategies for church involvement in advocacy and actions in the Acholi region including resettlement centres for people that escaped from the LRA. Acholi Bishops were very active in addressing this issue and there was even a mission to Canada about the LRA. Another Canadian organization that was very active was World Vision. There was a network of Canadian NGOs throughout the nineties and early 2000’s just addressing this issue.

What the video misses is the African leadership in dealing with the issue and Ugandan’s ability to find solutions by themselves. It gives the impression that the Africans/Ugandans were silent and Invisible Children are the ones taking action. It is very disempowering to Africans to see that. Charlotte who knew very well the situation once said to me, not necessary word by word: “This is not a simple situation. Acholi Partners say that the LRA has brought the conflict into the family and sometimes it is difficult to name the good and bad guys. “ It meant that the situation is not black and white. The greys are so much more important. It is also important to say that this is a regional problem with many layers. Kony has been chased out of Uganda. However, the conflict in the Great Lakes region provides the LRA the space to continue to operate. It is also important to note that during its peak, the LRA had more than 30,000 children soldiers. Today the number is reduced to a thousand or so. While one child soldier is one too many, we need to recognize the effort made by Africans to get down to this number.

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