Kony 2012 Part II: My Letter to Prime Minister Harper

I believe in practicing what I preach. While I still find the Kony 2012 campaign highly flawed I also believe that Kony should be arrested and that steps should be taken by the international community to fully dismantle what remains of the LRA.

This evening I composed an email to Prime Minister Harper outlining my concerns and demanding that Kony be brought to justice.

If you would like to send him your own email he can be reached at:
stephen.harper@parl.gc.ca

If you are a bit more sentimental and write him a letter you can send it to the following address:

Office of the Prime Minister
80 Wellington Street
Ottawa, ON K1A 0A2

My email read as follows:

Dear Prime Minister Harper,

I am writing to you today about Joseph Kony.

My name is Kirsten Van Houten and I am currently working as a CIDA intern in Uganda where I am a Peace and Conflict Officer with the Uganda Cooperative Alliance. The project that I am working on is focused on alleviating poverty for poor rural farmers in Northern Uganda, including in areas affected by the Northern War and the Lord's Resistance Army. I am currently in Arua in the West Nile Region having arrived from Lira and Masindi where I have been conducting conflict-sensitivity training for cooperative members and conducting research to identify conflict indicators for the project.

I am sure you have received several emails over the last few days resulting from the Kony 2012 campaign. While I do not agree with how the campaign is being orchestrated and recognize that it is missing some key facts, I too believe that Joseph Kony must be stopped.

As you know, since 1988 Joseph Kony has kidnapped over 66,000 children who have been forced to work as child soldiers and sex slaves. In addition the LRA is known for its brutal attacks against civilian populations which include rape, murder and mutilation which breaches International Humanitarian Law under the Rome Convention. While the LRA's attacks were predominantly centered in Northern Uganda since 2008 they have moved to the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Central African Republic. I'm sure you are aware of the conflict which has raged in the DRC since 1998 and has claimed over 5 million lives (directly or indirectly) according to the International Rescue Committee.

In 2005 the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Mr. Kony. The Ugandan army and the Congolese armed forces are currently searching for Kony in the DRC. Both of these armies have been accused of poor discipline and themselves violating international humanitarian law through the use of child soldiers and attacks on civilian population.

Mr. Prime Minister, Joseph Kony needs to be arrested as soon as possible. While I am not an expert on international military operations I implore you to take action either to support the Ugandan and Congolese troops searching for Kony while complying with international humanitarian law or to support a UN or African Peacekeeping mission to assist in his arrest.

However, I would also like to ask you to take a few more steps. While it is important that Mr. Kony be brought to justice, his arrest alone will not dismantle the LRA or heal the damage which it has caused. As a result I suggest that you send a delegation to facilitate peace talks with the remaining members of the LRA. Further, I would also suggest that that you should provide funding to organizations such as War Child Canada, Save the Children and the Child Soldier Initiative who can provide assistance in disarming, demobilizing, rehabilitating and reintegrating child soldiers back into their community.

In addition, I would like to stress that in the event that Kony is arrested and brought to trial in front of the ICC it should not entitle any Canadian to feel a sense of justice because we as Canadians and as members of the international community have allowed the LRA to operate with impunity for far to long and no justice will be felt by those who lost loved ones to this army in East Africa. In the future rather than waiting for over twenty years Canada should act as quickly and early as possible to prevent such grave violations of international humanitarian and human rights law.

I believe that Canada still has the capacity to be a leader in international human rights. Arrest Kony, support Disarmament, Demobilization, Rehabilitation and Reintegration and recognize our Responsibility to Protect.

Sincerely,

Ms. Kirsten Van Houten