We don't have a strong NSR following, so I decided to put this up on the main forum. It can be moved back to NSR a bit later. [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4MnpzG5Sqc"]KONY 2012 - YouTube[/ame]
Gigantic scam, using people's guilt to get them to re-post, so the upper echelon of the organization can line their pockets. Many better charities out there.
Scam aside, what should not get lost in the arguments is the fact that at least this issue is getting made public, which may lead to a resolution- right?
According to the 100% accurate and totally reliable charitynavigator.org, the CEO and 2 co-founders only make 3% of total expenses as compensation for their jobs (totaling ~240k). The CEO of the "Himalayan Cataract Project" makes 120k to himself - which is 3.7% of their total expenditure. ?
Except removing Kony might not even improve the situation! Twenty, what makes them a scam...refusing audits...using so little of their funds on direct services...
i think it depends a lot on what you think the goals of a charity should be. there are huge charities that do a lot of good stuff ( like Christian children-feeding ones ) but they do have highly paid executives, but the percentage of the operating budget is small because of the fact that they collect so much money. for example: Samaritan's Purse pays Franklin Graham only .12% of their budget, but that's $420K. since the Graham name has a lot of draw in the Christian community, i guess he gets paid partly because of name recognition, but 420K seems like a lot of money to me. OTOH, Samaritan's Purse is a very responsible outfit, all things considered, from a charitable institution POV...
Ignoring the audit the biggest problem is that they are funding militias to fight Kony who use similar tactics as he does. The problem is still there but because the West have alleviated their 'white guilt' by taking down Kony they can go back to blissful ignorance. Kony, as vile as he is, is a symptom of a much larger problem which Invisible Children are prolonging arming future Konys to take him down.
i'm sure that the problem is endlessly complicated but it's difficult to focus on a region in Africa that doesn't have a grim history of corruption and genocide. the tribal culture, the colonial oppression, the friction between religious sects or groups, all of this and more has spawned violence, corruption and evil men. it's not going to end any time soon.
No offense but I don't think some of you have any clue what you are talking about. Come visit Africa and go to these villages and talk to the parents of abducted children, talk to the children who manage to escape from these evil bastards and talk to the people in the villages who have been destroyed by the likes of Kony and you may sing a different tune. You sound like the UN, 'removing Kony won't help, someone else will spring up, lets talk' - bollocks. I have worked and lived in Africa for three years now, I have worked in Rwanda, Congo, Nigeria, South Africa, Uganda, and visited a dozen others. You have no idea the effect these evil men have on this wonderful continent. To re-start a country sometimes evil people have to die that prevent the country from moving forward, these people are the ones that terrorize the country and ravage the innocence of the children - people like Kony. So forgive me if I don't listen to your assumptions that these organizations are funding the wrong people; the water isn't always clear and sitting in your armchair you don't get to see the whole picture. I have met this organisation in the rough of it and many like them and for sure they are not perfect, they certainly have made mistakes but they are active and they are doing something. We on a football forum are discussing a problem that gets worse everyday. Why? Because of the viral campaign they started. you have no idea the perception of these groups, they are seen as a savior in some areas, they literally prevent villages form being raided. Do you know what that means? I'll tell you having seen it first hand. Women and children raped - mostly raped by a family member forced at gunpoint and at pain of torture. The 'soldiers' believe that the shame of raping a family member will keep them out of the fight, it will break their spirits. Villages burned to the ground with any baby left inside the house to ensure that nobody grows up angry at the 'soldiers'. Babies used as footballs. Children raped in front of the family and then after their immature genitals are so destroyed by these animals they are cut off, breasts and genitalia. Wombs are destroyed so that these children will not reproduce. Men tortured and shot in front of the entire village to ensure compliance. then they take as many children as they wish with them, the girls to be used for sex - any girl over 6 will be taken for sex, and the boys to become soldiers. The children are immediately forced to take mostly heroin, they become addicted quickly and are trained to kill, mostly using prisoners as the training tools, they become so desensitized that they don't even think about it after a week or two. I have met these children. I have met their families. I have met 'soldiers' who do these things and laugh about the stories they tell. So somebody wants to arm militias that fight against these people? You know where these militias come from? Locals. Local villages who get together and say we'll fight to defend our village now rather than wait for them to come, we'll be ready for them if they do. Are they brutal in that defense? Maybe, do some get aggressive and do wrong, for sure. Do some legit soldiers in our own countries uniforms occasionally under the stress of wartime deployment make mistakes? Yes. Do we stop giving them weapons? Of course not. There are success stories in Africa - Rwanda is one, there is a still tension occasionally but it is a wonderful place to visit and somewhere I would consider living. Only by armed force did they stop genocide, should we have tried to talk to the Hutu leaders for a bit longer perhaps? Africa requires action not armchair pontificates from people who use Wikipedia as source of information. The orgs that really hurt are the idiots like the UN and Red Cross who come in and kill the local economy by paying truck drivers US salaries which means no local farmer can find a driver to deliver his farmed produce which them spoils, which means the locals rely on the Red Cross or the UN to deliver food aid... and the cycle continues. Do I agree with everything that some charities do here, no. Would I rather they got involved and tried, yes. Read a few first hand accounts, books like 'A long way gone' and you may have a better understanding of the problems.
no doubt that the situation in Rwanda is better under Kagame than it was previously, but it still isn't ideal by any stretch. most people think that Kagame is a de facto dictator to the extent that he takes pretty oppressive action against those who challenge him. Kagame was a military leader. most of them don't make great politicians.
Have you been there? Let me tell you it is a different place. His methods are firm, a dictator he certainly is not. Imagine what he took over after the genocide, the decades of wars, and yes he was a leader of the RFP, but just picture a country that was destroyed, the population hated each other, there was fear everywhere, evil deeds that were done to deal with. This man came in and knew some things: 1. Genocide could not be allowed to happen again. 2. Forgiveness must be preached and followed through on 3. A new country must be re-born and built offering hope 4. The guilty should be put on trial not murdered in revenge 5. Structures must be put in place in order to ensure reasonable communication and fair discussion I visited there the first time about 4 years a go and was stunned to see such a wonderful place. I did experience first hand what some would call 'censorship' (I work in the entertainment industry and at that time for a 24/7 African news channel). I heard a radio broadcast that stunned me on an 'independent' radio station, the presenter was having a pop at Kagame and basically denying the genocide and saying some people deserved to die. The station was closed the next day. A new one was given the same bandwidth a week later and they are monitored the same way. Not to control free voices but to stop the spread of hatred in a country that has a population that expresses hatred in unimaginable violence. Kagame knows his people, he is trying to take it step by step, almost feeding the population on a drip so they don't stuff themselves too quickly. We have laws in almost every country in the world against holocaust denial and Kagame is all to aware of how denying or forgetting the past could be lethal to this young country. there is healthy discussion there, people openly disagree on politics and normal things, he just doesn't allow the seeds to be sown to take the country back to where it was. Rwanda has almost no corruption - unique in Africa, only a few countries here can say that. It is one of the most connected countries, I was getting 10MB lines regularly, it has ample food and clean water, has a great road structure that is well maintained and has new buildings, safe housing and a police force I would trust. I could go on. Is it perfect, of course not, but have you visited downtown LA recently? Nowhere is perfect, and given our own riots in 'safe, cultured countries' I would feel safer there than some western cities. The interesting thing about Africa for me is that things are just more open. Have a look at the US media, you can seriously tell me it's open and free? Not controlled by particular agenda driven entities? CNN? Fox? CNBC? Really? The difference in Africa is that corruption or bias is more transparent. In the USA if I want to land an account or close a deal I need to take them out for dinners, buy them nice bottles of wine, take them to a game or two, remember birthdays, etc. etc. etc. In Africa they tell me up front 'Give me a gift of $100 and the deal is yours.'
The point is Invisible Children will be funding the people who will be replacing Kony. Its not about someone else may spring up its that the money donated in stopping Kony is being given to Militias like The Sudans People Liberation Army are also engaging in the rape and execution of civilians. http://www.sudantribune.com/South-Sudan-army-accused-of,34515
Groups like this get their funding from all kinds of places including our governments. They might say that scale and the lesser of two evils applies. Life in Africa is tragically cheap in so many ways and I would rather have people here trying to stop it than not. As I said before some local militias become corrupt and gravitate towards power but for everyone one of those I can tell you there are 100 more protecting their own village without letting it get out of hand. The idea that no action is better because some people become corrupted is not a good one. It only helps those using brutality and murder as a weapon.
No one is saying no action but the people who donate to Invisible Children who misappropriate are not going to be donating to the charities that can actually help the people of Uganda. Fred Opolot, spokesman for the Ugandan government. Rosebell Kagumire, a Ugandan journalist specialising in peace and conflict reporting Dr Beatrice Mpora, director of Kairos, a community health organisation in Gulu, a town that was once the centre of the rebels’ activities.
Of course the people you quote have no agenda? I was in Uganda twice last year and will be there again in about 6 weeks, I have seen first hand things that would dispute what the above quoted people say. The LRA may not 'base' themselves in Uganda any more but the idea that they do not use it as a refuge occasionally or that they are not active there any more is not accurate. Look I am not suggesting that these NGO's have no agenda or that they are not making mistakes but again I would say no action is worse that some action and if this raises the awareness of the issues and forces 'Invisible Children' to be cleaner or better in their actions then I would say it's a good thing overall. Condemning them outright from our Google quoting armchairs is not really that helpful to those in need. Just a side note, for those who think we have no culpability in Africa should think again. We still cause problems to this very day.
Shit. just. got. real. Co-founder has psychotic meltdown in public. http://jezebel.com/5894048/invisibl...arrested-for-drunkenly-masturbating-in-public
