A video highlighting the atrocities of brutal African warlord Joseph Kony has gone viral on the internet.
The 30-minute documentary, Kony 2012, has been viewed more than 15 million times on YouTube since it was released by activists on Monday.
The Ugandan’s bloodthirsty Lord’s Resistance Army has waged a campaign of terror against his country’s government and neighbouring African nations for 25 years. Kony, 50, and several of his leading lieutenants were indicted for crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court in 2005.
His guerilla army claims to be fighting under God’s orders to establish a society based on the Ten Commandments.
But it is believed to have murdered tens of thousands of people, forced more than 1.5 million to flee their homes and abducted at least 30,000 children to work as sex slaves or soldiers.
The film begins with a Ugandan boy called Jacob describing the death of his brother and his fears of being abducted by Kony’s LRA.
“We worry that when the rebels arrest us again they will kill us,” he says. The campaign by US activist group Invisible Children has attracted attention from celebrities including P Diddy, Oprah Winfrey, Rihanna and Justin Bieber.
But the group has been criticised by some experts, who question its motives and charitable record. It was accused of spending most of its donations on film production, wages and transport.
Its founders, who back military action against Kony, have also been criticised for supporting the armies of Sudan and Uganda — despite claims that both have been involved in rape and looting. The LRA operated for more 10 years in northern Uganda but left in 2008 and has since committed atrocities in Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo and the Central African Republic.
Kony has evaded all attempts to capture him — at times emerging arrogantly from the jungle to give interviews to journalists before vanishing again.
