‘Kony 2012’ provides cover for U.S. imperialism in Africa

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... UNAC Action Plan 10 SOCIALIST ACTION APRIL 2012 Chances are that you have seen the film, “Kony 2012.”

Last month, the viral video attracted an unprecedent­ ed amount of attention in only a few days.

The subject of the film, The Lord’s Resistance Army, is a central African guerrilla movement with a fanatic religious character and a personality cult surrounding the figure of Joseph Kony. The group brutalizes those who do not join the LRA, and the centerpiece of the video is the LRA’s practice of conscripting child sol­ diers. The guerrillas also use girls as sex slaves, and children have been killed for attempting to escape.

The horrifying realities of the LRA make this campaign seem, on the surface, very palatable.

Desiring an end to the violence, the film advocates a strategy to stop Kony by making him famous, claiming that the leader is virtually unknown. Kony is obviously well known in Uganda and the neighboring countries where his guerrilla forces have operated, so what are the filmmakers talking about?

The problem is that he is not well known amongst the “right people”—Americans. The goal, then, is to build up public support for U.S. intervention in central Africa. We are asked to willingly be naïve and pretend that we can’t see the repercussions of U.S. interven­ tions in South Asia and the Middle East.

In a letter to Obama, the charity behind the film, Invisible Children, calls for the president to be more active in the central African conflict and to help the terrible regimes in Uganda and its neighbors fight the LRA: “Your decision to deploy U.S. military advisors to the region in October of 2011 was a welcome measure.

… We implore you to engage directly with the Presi­ dents of each of the four countries—in partnership with the African Union—to enhance regional coopera­ tion, increase the numbers and capabilities of troops (continued from page 4: “We’ll demand our right to protest within sight of the NATO Summit”)

• End all wars, interventions, targeted assassinations and occupations! U.S. out of NATO and all other intervention­ ist military alliances!

• No to targeted assassinations around the world and no to violent attacks in countries where the U.S. is waging unde­ clared wars!

• Bring all the troops, mercenaries, war contractors, death squads, and military advisors home from Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Pakistan, Colombia, Haiti, Cuba/ Guantanamo, and Korea!

• U.S. troops out of the Middle East, Af­ rica, Asia, Latin America, and Europe!

• No to the U.S.-backed military coup in Honduras! No to the 1000 U.S. military bases around the world! End U.S. aid to Israel!

• End all threats of war and interven­ tion against Iran and Syria! No to sanc­ tions, blockades, and embargoes!

Who are our allies? Who will help us build such a movement? The Action Plan presumes that we can win the vast ma­ jority to such a movement. That we can win the 99% to understand and mobilize against these wars by allying with the fight of the 99% for economic equality and championing the call to Bring the War Dollars Home for housing, educa­ tion, health, and jobs.

By standing with the unions, and when the U.S. Coast Guard is used to try to bust their strikes—as was done against the Longview longshoremen. By allying with the fight of the Black, Latino, Native American, and immigrant communities in their struggle against racist attacks like the one that killed Trayvon Martin.

With the struggle against the policy of deployed to LRA-affected areas.”

The group has also called for Kony, and other LRA members under investigation, to be brought before the International Criminal Court (ICC). Interestingly, every single case being investigated or prosecuted by the ICC is focused on Africa. One wonders whether the ICC has heard of the sanctions in Iraq, which killed 1.5 million children, or the invasion and occupation that followed, which killed over 100,000 more. Both were initiated by the United States.

In the film, there is a moment, filled with hugs and cheering, when the campaign declares victory, hav­ ing heard that Obama was going to supply Uganda’s Museveni regime with 100 military advisors. Yoweri Museveni, who sealed his latest presidential victory in February 2011 after a campaign of bribery and voter intimidation, has ruled Uganda since 1986. His gov­ ernment invaded the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in the 1990s, involving the military in the dev­ astating Second Congo War, which killed 5.4 million people. Currently, there are around 5000 Ugandan troops propping up the phony, U.S.-friendly, Somali government.

Also—the minimum age of service in the Ugandan military is 13. The government that Invisible Children and the Obama administration entrust to rid Uganda of child soldiers has a military that is itself comprised of child soldiers. And it is, like the LRA, accused of us­ ing rape as a weapon. Why does this charity, along with the Obama administration, deride one but not the other?

The timing of the campaign by Invisible Children and the U.S. government is very odd. The vast majority of Ugandans believe that, for the last few years, they have been living through a relative period of peace. The conflict has subsided, and it is likely that Kony has left Uganda. Why does the U.S. feel the need to militarily criminalizing the African American com­ munity through the practice of mass in­ carceration and stop and frisk. By stand­ ing with our immigrant brothers and sis­ ters when they are victimized by ICE and Homeland Security. The Action Plan says that we must integrate the fight against the wars abroad with the wars at home on the 99%, and with special attention to the most victimized among them.

At the heart of the Action Plan is the recognition that the carrying out of un­ popular wars requires the powers that be to rush to suppress civil liberties on every front. We will not be able to build an effective movement unless we are in the forefront of the fight for civil liberties for all. We cannot sit by while our Mus­ lim brothers and sisters are the target of special mass surveillance and harass­ ment programs, while they are swept up through entrapment, frame-ups, and lies into special prisons based on the per­ verse policy of preemptive prosecution.

We must fight the growing militariza­ have an equally absurd narrative to justify neocolo­ nialism: the West has to rescue Africa from the Chi­ nese!

In April 2011, shortly after the latest sham election of Yoweri Museveni, Ugandan workers and students took to the streets. While the president spent the Ugandan people’s money on military equipment and celebra­ tions for his inauguration, the price of fuel had risen dramatically and, with it, the price of basic household necessities like rice and cooking oil. The people were demanding that the government intervene, and take some of this burden off of them. Yes, this is the very radical notion that has been so popular lately—that the government’s job is not to preserve the extreme luxury of a small minority but to act in the interests of the 99%.

The protests grew to be massive, with many specu­ lating that Uganda would be the next Tunisia or Egypt. And though Museveni is still in power, we have already seen how quickly this can change.

Central Africa is the source of many rare earth metals necessary for the high-tech and electronics industries. Importantly, the DRC has a majority of the world’s coltan, used for energy storage in cell phones, tablets, computers, and video game consoles. The coltan re­ serves in DRC have yet to be fully developed, a point of great interest for international capital.

The Obama administration wants to prevent one of two scenarios: China can continue to benefit from Af­ rica’s resources at the expense of U.S. claims, or worse, an independent movement could arise in an African country that overthrows capitalism and institutes workers’ control over those resources.

Groups like Invisible Children are vital in providing cover to U.S. imperialism in Africa. When our friends and fellow activists talk about “Kony 2012,” we have to counter the propaganda. There is no such thing as “hu­ manitarian” imperialism! A simple glance at the disas­ ters in Haiti and Libya should be enough to prove this.

A U.S. military presence in Africa, through the expan­ sion of the United States Africa Command (AFRICOM), is the greatest threat to the hopes and dreams of all African people. The Ugandan people need our solidar­ ity in the face of this growing threat, so that when they rise up again, Museveni won’t be aided by the might of the U.S. military. U.S. hands off of Africa! n tion of our cities, the massive police as­ saults on the Occupy movement, the use of grand juries to silence antiwar and sol­ idarity activists. In Chicago, we must win the struggle to reassert our right to pro­ test war and austerity. With such a pro­ gram we can help bring together natural allies to build a stronger and more effec­ tive movement to end U.S. wars.

Part II of the Action Program prioritizes the upcoming actions to which UNAC as a broad antiwar coalition should throw its support.

Foremost among the actions at the cen­ ter of our conference this weekend are the May 20 permitted march against the NATO summit in Chicago, a people’s sum­ mit held May 12-13 to build that march, and the ongoing and critical struggle to establish our right to protest war and austerity without fear of repression. There are a number of other actions pro­ posed in this section, and I urge you to consider them before our voting plenary begins this afternoon. n