Washington wakes up
to Kony nightmare

Children still flood into Kitgum and Gulu to sleep in safety
[Photo: James Akena/CMS]

As the House of Lords debated northern Uganda this week, a film on the ‘night commuters’ fleeing the LRA shocked the US Congress. By Peter Nyanzi of Uganda’s Daily Monitor.

A documentary on children commonly referred to as ‘night commuters’ in war torn northern Uganda, has left the US Congress in shock.

‘Night commuters’ are children, numbering about 25,000, who leave their homes every night to take refuge in churches, hospitals and on shop verandas in towns for fear of being abducted by the Lord’s Resistance Army rebels led by Joseph Kony.

For about three years, three young American filmmakers, Mr Jason Russell, Mr Laren Poole and Mr Bobby Bailey packaged powerful footage that provides a window into the lives of the children.

The film, Invisible Children, was screened on March 9 to the Congressmen under the auspices of the Congressional Human Rights Caucus and the Uganda Caucus.

Africa Faith and Justice Network, a lobby group based in the US, sponsored the event.

The State Department’s Washington File reported on Saturday that the film would be screened in 150 cities across the USA to raise support for the children of northern Uganda.

“With unclear goals and unlikely chances for success, Kony has resorted to kidnapping children to populate his army, turning them into murderous child soldiers,” the co-chair of the Congressional Human Rights Caucus, Mr Frank Wolf, said.

“In order to avoid being abducted by the LRA from their rural villages, around 25,000 children commute into towns and city centres to find churches, bus stations, and even verandas where they can sleep. Although they are generally safe from the LRA, these children are vulnerable to sexual predators and lack food, water, and supervision.”

According to the Washington File, Americans will on April 29 take part in a “global night commute” by lying down in the streets of their hometowns in a bid to put pressure on the US government to act.

“Congress couldn’t ignore that,” the paper quoted one of the producers of the documentary as saying. The documentary was shown at the Hudson Institute, a policy research organisation in Washington.

The LRA has been waging a 20-year war against President Yoweri Museveni’s government and the people in the north and north-east of the country, leaving a whole generation of children dehumanised.

The film producers intend to raise support for the people affected by the war.

Some of their strategies, they said, include selling bracelets in different colors, accompanied by a copy of the video, and organising a number of fund-raising projects across America. They will include car washes, dance marathons and sponsored bicycle rides.

They hope to capture nationwide attention on television news programmes. Each screening includes a viewing of the film, a question-and-answer session and opportunities to become involved in helping the children of Uganda.

A university student in Wisconsin after the screening said: “It changed my life. You can’t see it and keep living the same way.”

Described by the UN as the “world’s biggest neglected humanitarian crisis” last year, the humanitarian situation in Uganda has come under the international spotlight in recent months.

Last week, another film, Lost Children, which documents the lives of three formerly abducted children, was reported to have won two international awards before being screened to members of the British Parliament.

Copyright The Daily Monitor, Kampala