.
Below is a news item which confirms what I was saying in response to the ACAS statement on KONY 2012, which obviously was not aware of what was happening on the African Union level when they were recommending that Obama follows the lead of the African Union by dealing with Kony diplomatically, rather than militarily when fact the AU was already committed to military action against him!
From: Kennedy Emetulu <kemetulu@yahoo.co.uk>
To: "usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com" <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Friday, 16 March 2012, 16:18
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Prof Mamdani on Kony video
To: "usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com" <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Friday, 16 March 2012, 16:18
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Prof Mamdani on Kony video
..
Prof Harrow,
What I get from ACAS's press release is a reactive, reactionary, retrogressive and paradoxically, a somewhat uninformed view of the crisis and the way out of it. So, what exactly is ACAS's concern with the KONY 2012 video to the extent that it's now committing itself to "producing materials that scholars can use to engage with students on their campuses and with teachers and middle and high school students in their communities, who are a major audience of the Kony2012 video produced by Invisible Children"? In other words, what exactly is the beef of this organisation that they are now invested in trying to purge the minds of those who've bought the KONY 2012 line through an academic campaign of their own? Well, the only thing we get there is speculation – speculation that it could have "dangerous unintended consequences" in the form of increased militarization of the region, which could lead to deaths of civilians who'd be caught in the crossfire or "become targets of retaliatory attacks by LRA, as has occurred in the past".
So, what is their proposed solution? It is that "the US government should give more attention to supporting the African Union of 54 nations in negotiating for peace in the militia‐torn areas of East and Central Africa". This is their most important recommendation. But they then followed this up with claims of listening to "many African people" from the affected region many of whom "are saying they do not want a widening of the war with national armies who often commit atrocities backed by U.S. troops or advisors that could continue the conflict for decades."
The truth is ACAS has not showed that the above view is the popular view in the region. Yes, they claim to have listened to "many African people" and that many of them say the above, but that isn't the same as saying majority of the people feel that way. They are scholars and until they can put better figures to this woolly idea of "many", we cannot accept what they are saying as representative of the majority of public opinion there. It is true that the people in the North, including his Acholi people, are fearful of the effect of military action against Kony if it is not decisive (since in the past this has come in form of reprisals from Kony against his own people), but that is not the same as saying they do not want the Kony menace settled. What they have been saying region-wide is that there should be better protection for the population in the area in case of such a push against the rebels, something that the Obama plan has carefully considered.
More surprising is ACAS's advice that instead of military action, President Obama and the Congress should support and take the lead of the African Union (AU) and its new Special Representative for Counter‐Terrorism Francisco Caetano José Madeira. First, the statement clearly fails to understand that the AU policy towards the crisis is also based on a military solution and this it is coordinating with the UN, the EU and the United States. After years of frustrating negotiations with the LRA (all negotiations that involved Mr Francisco Caetano José Madeira either as a UN envoy working with Joachim Chissano or on his own as an AU envoy), the AU has reached the conclusion that the military elimination of the LRA is the solution. That is the basis of its declaration of the LRA as a terrorist organization, its August 2009 Tripoli Plan of Action, the Malabo Declaration of July 2011 and the Peace and Security Council meetings of 27 September 2011 and 22 November 2011 in Addis Ababa. The plan is for the AU to help states in the region to set up a special Anti-LRA fighting force to take on the LRA and defeat them militarily, capture or kill its commanders and bring them to justice. The force was to have soldiers from Uganda, Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo and Central Africa Republic, with Nigeria and South Africa providing military assistance. However, so much shilly-shallying and dilly-dallying means the AU still cannot put this force together and therefore have had to rely solely on the UN's Blue Helmets to try to protect civilians from LRA menace in these areas. In the meantime, it waits hand and foot on the EU and the US who are the two main multilateral partners to fund the project and provide military support.
In December 2011, the EU announced it would help the effort by financing the construction of a coordinating centre for the joint operations at Obo, in Uganda, which would complement the one set up earlier in Nzara, South Sudan by the US. They are supported by the United Nations Stabilization Mission in the DRC (MONUSCO) in Dungu in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Indeed, the UN Mission has been doing a yeoman's job of containing the LRA which constantly raid that region of the Congo and which has intensified its activities there since it arrested Thomas Lubanga, another recruiter of child soldiers in 2005 after his forces killed nine Bangladeshi peacekeepers in the Ituri area. In fact, the recent conviction of Lubanga by the International Criminal Court in the Hague is significant, not only because he's the first, but it signposts the fate that welcomes Kony and co and gives victims in the area a sense that justice is being done.
But everyone knows how incredibly difficult it is to contain the LRA. Of the over 17,000 UN Blue Helmets stationed in Congo, only 1000 of them are deployed for anti-LRA duties in an area twice the size of England. In a rugged terrain, mastered very well by an opponent that kills, loots and moves, the UN Blue Helmets have largely been forced to be a defensive, rather than an offensive force. Indeed, in the period of Christmas 2011, it had to deploy extra forces for anti-LAR activities to forestall the ritualistic Christmas reprisal massacres by the group, which it had routinely engaged in in previous years. It's obvious that against such a background, coordination and intelligence are the key things to concentrate on without boots on the ground. That is why the UN welcomed the deployment of 100 US military advisers by Obama by immediately setting up the Joint Intelligence Operation Cell (JIOC) in Dungu to coordinate with the Americans, the Congolese and the Ugandan armed forces). Two representatives of the US advisers sit in JIOC. With the AU's Peace and Security Council November 2011 declaration to militarily deal with LRA through the special force it is trying to put together, JIOC expects that South Sudan and Central African Republic will now send in their own representatives.
In the meantime, the American involvement is yielding great results in the form of better information gathering through the deployment of one US C-12 reconnaissance aircraft (codenamed Tusker-Sand) which flies over the entire region daily. The Obama administration has also successfully convinced Congo to deploy its 391st Battalion to key LRA affected areas. These are elite troops who received training under the United States and the UN. The US is now pushing Uganda to deploy its elite forces as well, even as some of those are deployed presently in Somalia.
Thus, clearly, the US and international approach has been to support the wider regional effort by the AU on one hand, but with equal bilateral action with the states affected by the crisis on the other hand. The latter is first with a view to protect the civilian populace in those areas and secondly, to get physical and social development to them, because years of low level warfare in the area (and in the case of Uganda, including negative internal political and ethnic dynamics) have taken their toll. The irony of the ACAS press release is that it seems not to appreciate that the AU and the US have been working hand in hand with regard to the military operation in the affected area. In fact, the US supported the appointment of Francisco Caetano José Madeira as the AU special envoy to the anti-LRA taskforce precisely to work with Abou Moussa, the UN Head of the Regional Office in Central Africa as the political coordinators of the military operation being put in place by the AU, the UN, the US and EU. The only thing holding that back is that everyone is waiting for the AU to get its act together and show political leadership. It is therefore no surprise to see that the AU never uttered any criticism of the Lord's Resistance Army Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act of 2009, the deployment of US military advisers, the KONY 2012 campaign or any action being undertaken now by international political authority and civil society groups to get Kony. Unlike what has been implied by the ACAS statement, they have never been sidelined. Even if for diplomatic reasons they aren't saying anything now, their collaborative actions on the ground as we speak indicate clearly that they are fully onboard.
Now, specifically to Uganda, we must not forget the role the US is playing in pushing the "Recovery" part of the 2009 Act and the non-military development agenda therein. Pursuant to this, the US has made sure to hold the Ugandan government to the development agenda via the Peace Recovery and Development Plan (PRDP) aimed at taking advantage of the improved security situation in the North to begin development initiatives in the affected areas, which Obama sees as key to the attainment of long-term peace in Uganda. In pushing the development aspect of the 2009 law through the PRDP, the US has been snapping at the heels of Museveni and other influential Ugandan politicians whose mind-sets are still anti-Acholi, as the latter were brutally used against them in the past when elements of their ethnic group or from the North were in power. But Obama has used the USAID and US diplomatic channels to put huge pressure on Uganda policy makers to meet their obligations under the PRDP. Indeed, it is the peace and development now being enjoyed in that region that some of them fear they'll lose with this renewed campaign against Kony (because of his notorious reprisal actions against his own people). But, very much aware of this, Obama's game-plan is to keep physical and social development high on the agenda in the North, while encouraging coordinated military action not only to pursue Kony, but mostly to protect civilians and the development investment being presently made. So far, it's working perfectly, even as every party is still waiting for the AU to put the real military force together politically as it's reaffirmed in its 299th Peace and Security meeting of 22 November 2011 in Addis Ababa.
On the ground, the Invisible Children organization has established a sophisticated high frequency radio network to monitor the activities of the LRA daily, which is helping to build a more comprehensive picture of the organization's modus operandi. About a week ago, for instance, information coming in from abductees indicates that the LRA has acquired new guns and is now clothing its operatives in the uniform of the Congolese army to avoid detection. The Invisible Children's radio operations and daily report of LRA activity can be found here:.http://www.lracrisistracker.com/ .
Of course, I'm very much aware that part of the criticism against the Invisible Children is that they are singularly concentrating on LRA. I have no problem with that and I do not think they have to defend themselves against such a charge. The important thing is that after over a quarter century of hand-wringing and head-scratching by international and domestic policy makers on this very issue, some people are making it their cup of tea and not only generating the necessary attention to it, but actually doing something on the ground. ACAS and their members can go back to writing policy papers, which are also helpful in their own way; but I fully support the effort of the Invisible Children, because it helps as well. What I do not support is some group of supposedly concerned people and do-gooders attacking them for daring to put this matter in public consciousness and singularly doing things their own way to make a difference. There are tough choices to be made here and I'm happy those that matter are now making those choices because of civil activism of the sort being championed by the Invisible Children.
..
From: kenneth harrow <harrow@msu.edu>
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Sent: Thursday, 15 March 2012, 19:22
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Prof Mamdani on Kony video
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Sent: Thursday, 15 March 2012, 19:22
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Prof Mamdani on Kony video
kennedy
you yourself provided the reason to question the video. i forwarded the acas position, which i found reasonable. but all other reasons aside, the video may be right in condemning kony, but not in ignoring how kony's role in uganda was part of the larger politics of museveni to crush acholi opposition, and even to crush the acholi people. kony arouse out of the resistance to that, and he himself turned "viral" into something horrible-- but maybe not radically different from the forces he opposed, who also conscripted child soldiers.
but what bothers me as well is the refusal to confront how the video itself constructs unstated values that place the white savior in the center of this campaign. how are we going to free ourselves of thinking that returns to that model on the ground that the cause is good so the framing of the message doesn't matter?
ken
-- you yourself provided the reason to question the video. i forwarded the acas position, which i found reasonable. but all other reasons aside, the video may be right in condemning kony, but not in ignoring how kony's role in uganda was part of the larger politics of museveni to crush acholi opposition, and even to crush the acholi people. kony arouse out of the resistance to that, and he himself turned "viral" into something horrible-- but maybe not radically different from the forces he opposed, who also conscripted child soldiers.
but what bothers me as well is the refusal to confront how the video itself constructs unstated values that place the white savior in the center of this campaign. how are we going to free ourselves of thinking that returns to that model on the ground that the cause is good so the framing of the message doesn't matter?
ken
--..No, Chidi. The tragedy here is that some African "intellectuals" cannot make any reasonable argument against the Kony 2012 campaign and yet they expect everyone to join them in blindly condemning it. You are here calling it propaganda; but to what end? Look, if you have something cogent to say against the campaign, say it. Some of us do not suffer from herd mentality. We are all entitled to our opinions, but if we must defend or project them in public space, then we must explain them properly. This empty bow-wowing won't cut it!…From: Chidi Anthony Opara <chidi.opara@yahoo.com>
To: "usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com" <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, 15 March 2012, 13:26
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Prof Mamdani on Kony video
--It was bad enough that the fortune hunters went as far as setting up this Kony 2012 propaganda and worse that some African "Intellectuals" believed it. The worst was that these "Intellectuals" expected everybody to do the same.--------CAO.
From: kwame zulu shabazz <kwameshabazz@gmail.com>
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Cc: Kennedy Emetulu <kemetulu@yahoo.co.uk>
Sent: Thursday, March 15, 2012 2:43 AM
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Prof Mamdani on Kony video
Sorry, meant to type YOU raise many good points...kzs--
On Mar 14, 2012, at 5:23 PM, kwame zulu shabazz wrote:
I raise many good points
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-- kenneth w. harrow distinguished professor of english michigan state university department of english east lansing, mi 48824-1036 ph. 517 803 8839 harrow@msu.edu
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