Attempts to capture Joseph Kony, the Ugandan warlord, may lead to the killings of child soldiers he uses as his bodyguards and would thus be opposed by the United Nations.
A video by Invisible Children focusing on Kony's atrocities in South Sudan, Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Central African Republic, has been watched by 100 million viewers. Women's and children's welfare groups have protested that the images have rekindled traumatic memories and unsettled efforts to bring combatants back into society.
Radhika Coomaraswamy, the UN's special representative to tackle children and armed conflict, said: "We know that he uses child soldiers and military actions may mean that they would be harmed, injured or they may die; so we would be against this. There are schemes which have proved to be highly successful in integrating child soldiers back into society and these are the kind of solutions we should follow rather than acts which may result in these children being harmed."
Ruth Ojiambo, the executive director of Isis-Women's International Cross-Cultural Exchange, said in Kampala: "While the idea of this campaign against the LRA [Lord's Resistance Army] leader is welcome, the steam it has created overshadows the real concerns of the sufferers and survivors of this conflict in Uganda."
- Independent
