By Mary Slosson
LOS ANGELES, April 11 (Reuters) – The group behind the viral
“Kony 2012” video that drew world attention to Ugandan warlord
Joseph Kony tipped off Ugandan forces in 2009 to the whereabouts
of a former child soldier wanted by the Kampala government,
according to a classified U.S. cable published by Wikileaks.
Invisible Children, which shot to prominence last month when
its video on Kony and his brutal Lord’s Resistance Army drew
more than 100 million hits on social media, told Ugandan
officials that a man wanted by security forces was staying with
the group in the northern Ugandan city of Gulu, the cable
showed.
Patrick Komakech, the former child soldier who was featured
in Invisible Children documentaries and said to have been
abducted by Kony’s rebels at age 9, was immediately arrested,
according to U.S. document, posted in a database of classified
cables published by Wikileaks.
“Komakech had confessed to being part of a new
anti-government movement in the north,” the 2009 State
Department cable said. “Komakech reportedly gave the locations
of several arms caches… with a total of 600 weapons.”
The “Kony 2012” video, the latest in a series of
documentaries by the group, has been hailed for inspiring young
people to activism.
But the video has also been criticized for what some have
called a misleading and oversimplified portrayal of events in
Uganda, and for neglecting African initiatives to solve the
crisis as well as opening up old wounds.
Invisible Children took another hit when the maker of the
Kony 2012 film, Jason Russell, suffered a public meltdown last
month that doctors described as a brief psychotic breakdown.
The group released a follow-up video last week pushing back
against the criticism that has been leveled at it. The new video
includes more African voices and context on the long-running
conflict involving Kony in several African countries. It was
released before April 20, which has been planned as a day of
action.
WORKED WITH ANOTHER REBEL GROUP
The cable about Komakech, transmitted in 2009 from the U.S.
Embassy in Kampala, said he had been working with the People’s
Patriotic Front, a resistance group whose objective was the
overthrow of the Ugandan government.
Before his arrest, Komakech had also been engaged in child
soldier rehabilitation efforts with non-governmental
organizations including Invisible Children.
“In 2009, Invisible Children was contacted by a member at
the U.S. Embassy in Kampala regarding Patrick Komakech, a former
LRA combatant who Invisible Children had been supporting in
attempts to assist with his personal recovery and academic
development,” a spokeswoman for Invisible Children said in an
e-mailed statement.
The group said it had been brought to its attention that
Komakech and a group of others were “allegedly involved in
activities that could be jeopardizing the lives of civilians and
putting the organization and its staff at risk.”
“Invisible Children was deeply saddened to learn of these
allegations; the organization was cooperative in providing
information to the U.S. Embassy regarding the nature of our
relationship with and academic support to Mr. Komakech. In light
of the severity of these allegations, the organization severed
all ties immediately with Mr. Komakech,” the statement said.
The diplomatic cable indicates Komakech was likely released
by Ugandan security forces after interrogation because he was a
“low-level operative.”
Komakech visited the United States in 2007, when he was 25,
for a bike ride across Iowa to bring attention to the plight of
child soldiers who had been abducted and forced to fight for the
LRA, according to an interview he gave in July 2007 to the Des
Moines Register.
Kony’s guerrilla band captured him when he was 9, and by age
16 he was a battalion commander with the LRA, according to the
Des Moines Register. He eventually escaped.
“They have never been to school. But they know how to shoot;
they know how to kill,” Komakech told The Des Moines Register.
“If they don’t have enough to eat, what do you expect they will
do?”
(Editing by Cynthia Johnston and Christopher Wilson)
