Transcripts For DW Operation Kony 20240712

Networks never forget. So i searched in my personal archives. 2012. March. And i liked or shared the most viral video in history 100000000 views in just 6 days. My name is Jason Russell and this is my son. It was the story of a Young American director Jason Russell who hoped his 30 minute video would facilitate the capture of a new torrijos war criminal in Central Africa. Joseph coney. This is the guy. Just cody. The battle. For 26 years tony has been kidnapping children into his rebel. Turning the girls into sex slaves. The video was meant to shock to outrage peoples faces. To bring joseph kony to Justice Russell even set up a private n. G. O. S called invisible children. Internet campaign kone 2012 was a runaway success. Among those who circulated the video for a few of my friends. Until recently i had forgotten all about the video and about joseph koni himself. Then 2 journalists from our team entrusted me with this hard drive with footage shot in africa in 2014. The starting point for my investigation. I set out in pursuit of the most infamous war criminal on social networks and of invisible children being in geo that want to stop them my 1st port of call was good in northern uganda joseph coneys native region. I took the same roads that the directors of kone 2012 took and met the same people. Former child soldiers of the n. R. A. The brutal rebel group headed by joseph koni. From the late 1980 s. The warlord raided villages here to replenish his ranks with new recruits. It was. Frightening. In the morning when they came to our village. Or desolate in the rain. And the 2nd night i was given some simple training for the music and i think that. Whether i make it or not i dont. Know so i have to tough and i said. The 3 filmmakers from invisible children turned up here in gulu in 2003. I was able to track down the woman who served as their guide at the time. And then i want a lot of Charity Organizations and i went to the u. S. To talk about the war in northern uganda and i started telling how i was a for much i was sold and then how many kids still being abducted here and that is where i received a lot of people. Well theyre ignorant about the war and when the boys so i always called them the boys im sorry but when the filmmaker was sold this story. They contacted me and definitely i would see this story of how they wanted to talk about war in africa and this is wait a minute you want to talk about war theres a wall more than your gun. But because that when i used to i drove with them to the north. There was a lot and. Theres a russian weve been. Those were defeated. By one point even children. And thats how everything started. What they did they made a lot of small videos about. Some of the victims of the war. And of course the final the 12 documented was going to 12. Bringing it out in top 10 minutes. A war that had lasted for more than clinton. Many people even looked like a joke. Since then but now you kids have grown up and theyre in geo is now based in washington like all successful lobbyist. Like because its just good just but if its just the year before i could talk to the president of invisible children you can let me know if my hair will be a problem at any point and i knew that. There was an endless back and forth of negotiations in 24 teams my colleagues request for an interview was declined it took dozens of. Emails and months of waiting before i got the green light. To new remember what was the objective of the greens as well as the deal and part of my work 6100000000 people have now whats the Main Objective of the campaign was to push the u. S. Government to remain committed to implementing its counter eller a strategy and then the deployment of the advisers was an outcome of that strategy ready for the videos explicit aim was to provoke the u. S. Into sending troops after coni. Train track him in the fast jungle in order to find him the Us Government has to deploy them thats where the american advisors come in not for self defense but because it was right. Politically speaking it was hugely successful. Hugely successful not really 2 years before coney 2012 became a Global Internet sensation invisible children was already lobbying in the oval office as this photo from 2010 clearly shows. There is a small number of u. S. Forces i ordered the small number of american advisors to help uganda and its neighbors pursue the l. Or the removal of joseph kony from the battlefield sincerely. Its just a small step from garnering likes to dispatching troops. In the 21st century a video can start a war. But thats the americans helicopter visibility or says the videos on my hard drive document at the u. S. Operation it featured some members of the 100 strong special forces team deployed by obama. May we have just a question with you is it because we just wanted to understand. No photos go on camera or are there going i dont know. Somewhat surprisingly and invisible children camp can be seen on the footage. Surprising because my colleagues shot the material in 2014 in the Eastern Central African Republic by then it had been almost a decade since joseph coneys militia had abandoned their base in uganda. The remnants were holed up somewhere in a vast neighboring area between the democratic republic of congo south sudan and the Central African republic. Here in obo hundreds of kilometers east of the war torn capital bangui is where the americans claimed that coney and his troops were hiding. On the ground my colleagues realized that not only was invisible children behind the deployment of u. S. Army advisers the american n. G. O. Was also hosting military meetings. Specifically for the u. S. Special forces directing operations in the hunt for kone and their allies the ugandans who are carrying out their orders now we can go to the. Morning. Care in the way colonel lately only commander of the us forces that were. In regional towns of course in the el rey bringing the ellery. They will hear our message today and you know theres time to talk about. I suspect a few weeks starts for us. To. Hes still in the bush right but his organization is coming out of the bush its as you know this is a gigantic area here and to find one person that does not want to be found is very difficult. Fast forward 4 years by now the u. S. Operation was over the Army Advisers had returned home having failed to capture kone. But why end a manhunt when the target is still at large. Had the most powerful army in the world been looking in the wrong place. Or did the mission have other objectives. My family remained mostly in uganda. The father was prime minister. Until that government itself was overthrown by the. Back to get. Us to 6 years of intervention right they didnt get it right where they even looking for him of course not they were not looking for corn and in fact its hard to say its even a success or failure since i believe 100 percent that was never the objective anyway. This operation has cost more than 700000000. 00 comes up possible it only makes sense if that money was going to finance another i genda. Who are the soldiers we filmed in 2014. What was the true nature of their mission. They were there under the banner of the pentagons Africa Command africa. But its not only a military command. According to this recently declassified internal document afrikan comprises both military personnel and civilians protecting us interests in africa is one of its goals. Which interests diplomatic and military but also economic financial as well as intelligence above all africa operates in the gray zone between traditional war and peace. What. Africa this meant to intervene in the humanitarian role so that is the official narrative. But the more geo political narrative is that the u. S. Would be able to start sneaking in u. S. Forces through uganda and then spread it into the region to counter other interest in africa. In 2014 the people of oboe rarely saw u. S. Army rangers on patrol. What they did see though was their aircraft their helicopters and their drones. Back to feeling great. For a. Millionaire playing out that you can. Conquer fear. Without the excuse of hunting down a war criminal the u. S. Military would never have been allowed to conduct an airborne operation over such an unstable strategic area. Thanks to operation. Tony it was able to map the area and install g. P. S. Beacons. For in military terms gather intelligence. Thanks but Central Africa is not just a region of military interest. Its also rich in gold and diamond reserves along with businessmen ready to exploit them. This man for example on the left. He appears in footage shot in 2014 at a security meeting in oval. That day he was handed what was clearly a confidential map. He refused our requests to film it and with good reason. Dont we have a look at the map was addressed to the colonel of the American Armed forces. Muck feel some this is mark pearson. Apparently hes a cultural advisor. But what would a cultural advisor be doing in. The course and why entrust a cultural advisor with an American Military map. 4 years later i looked into who mark pearson really was. Before following the American Military into the area he was employed by jim diamonds a multinational diamond operation. It boasts turnover of some 300000000 euros with mines and prospecting projects all over africa including one in the Central African republic. But the only area of diamond exploration officially declared by the company is in the west of the Central African republic one and a half 1000 kilometers away from mobile on the other side of the country. So what was one of jem diamonds former employees doing here in a region that harbors a wealth of gold and diamond process. In kampala the ugandan capital i needed to find out more about who was really running the country. You know where we must have any power in a coup in 1906 to consolidate his grip on power he purge the country of many rebel groups. Joseph coneys however was spared. The creation of the state. Only a member of the opposition would talk to me about this angle of the story. When as president cut it open my den so on i come to you so many days that on was a creation of the government. That will. Give that i had to state power but those for the well when i was there were trained. There this affected my base that never came in a body to create a bit of interest in what it is you dont you would have been bad if it didnt have the power as in about stick it out for themselves. Without gross of course. The Ugandan Administration would not be able to make the justification that it needs more build trust systems from the United States that means it needs more weapons and it needs more Financial Resources and diplomatic partnership with the United States how would you be able to make their mark there without the presence of course of course. That brings us to the least known and least documented part of the story. On the pretext of driving out just of kone the ugandan army committed horrific atrocities inside its own country. Between 19862004 most event hes army engaged in a bloody crackdown in northern uganda. Officially it was hunting down the l r a. Son officially it was crushing resistance to his move from the arch only people in the ethnic group to which joseph coney belonged and which had dominated the previoUs Government. Young man called the church was complaining a lot im talking about im. One army uniform on the unit and they came back and said this one of the rebels want to show you today that this i would give it a war so they take in ladies others they dont because on battery and the shutting it take it for the zealotry mothers it taught to hate and it told her and say shut up you can do anything well do this and. This very incident was detailed in 1991 m. S. D. International report. We havent a single its been where the u. P. D. I was accused of intentional image and mass killing people are you familiar with the 2005 Human Rights Watch report about this conflict. Human has no Human Rights Watch. No you know. Because there are 2005 reports which is the most exhaustive they refer to torture. Rape. Full killings. On both sides on the r. A side and also on u. P. D. Of sites so its not in the case of impossible to have our own human rights commission. But you do agree for instance some 2005 report by Human Rights Watch the worlds a pretty strong willing full killing torture this is not lights where. Some of them. Some of them just one little is enough to verify yes we have cases over matter. Of when personal medical people. And intuitional. Why was the United States desperate to support the ugandan regime that. Despite its abuses despite the authoritarian rule of most of any president for more than 3 decades was it because the agent ugandan autocrat was providing a few services to his american godfather. Exists to. Have one president do with them so that. Today as we speak you learn to say in so much. 21. 00 to 0. 30 of my that american officials can progress in parliament to support deployed abroad. If you need somebody to be involved to help in fighting. Terrorism and a place like somalia which is celtic and it was so many is willing to do that sending ugandan soldiers. I think thats a very easy decision for us to make regardless of anything else that was submitted does you know weve been hit so. It can weigh in on me when too late i quoted a couple of. The shoulder where they stayed in the broad daylight when it comes get the blind eye been made is that been about the how but it could double that time what the blink troops since the incident so you and i because. America made it so when we screwed it. Yes were coming along so. None of this was mentioned in the kone 2012 video. Not a word about the ugandan regime about president museveni 4 about the war crimes committed by his army. Why not. And what exactly was invisible childrens role. When they say theyre helping the widows or the war orphans or so on what are these really do and. Those are the sorts of questions that always occur in my mind. I think across them probably about 2 years before their big viral video and. I found their website and look at them and read what they said they were doing. So something about it felt very off to me. Their level of access to the region of northern uganda is around 2005 northern uganda was completely sealed off by the ugandan army the only people who got in especially people with camera gear sophisticated camera gear such people did not get into northern uganda without the express permission of the ugandan government Jason Russell and his team they were in there because the ugandan government want them to be in there so why. The small in geo was purportedly working to save orphans when in fact it was promoting one of the most corrupt regimes in africa. This is a radio h. Q. Where we coordinate all the security information for the southeast of the Central African republic. The newsroom. Every day we have a security round in the morning and another in the afternoon. In concrete terms it was nothing more than a network of informants scattered through dozens of villages they were responsible for reporting the movements of active armed rebels without really knowing whether there were any small isolated l r a groups among them or not of course this and they did that was more information than the military because the radios were all over the community. And then that information. This is so it was a long title. In the meeting. Most of the information would come to the invisible. Mr sawyer and i knew about it was how forceful the entire. But i dont know how it would have been between the nonprofit. Information to the military so we were kind of like. At the end of its the look to us if we were the voice of. The n. R. A. Why children if youre feeding the military before they go on get them to the children. To do your good she told me she felt uncomfortable with sharing information with the military. And. Thats very interesting i was not in a position of leadership that i am now at the time when jolie was working with invisible hand in that role but my understanding was that that was not her sentiment previously so i. Only recently. My understanding is that that was not a sentiment that she held. At the time that these programs are being developed the concept of neutrality with the l r a is very different than in the context of a civil conflict or intercommunal conflict and so in that context supporting essentially Law Enforcement in the protection of civilians we felt it was very important. Except that in the code of ethics for n. G. O. S recognized by the un neutrality is nonnegotiable in fact a Nongovernmental Organization should always be independent of governments enormous. Invisible children however has always collaborated with the ugandan army and regime. So just like in february 2009 at the time the most of any government claimed there was a conspiracy afoot to overthrow it. Patrick koma cash who had worked for invisible children in its early days was accused of being part of a plot. I was having. Only. For me. I was. Never seen in my life before. And a member one day said i was the. Prisoners who were down there. On what i. Think was eventually cleared of all charges but who denounced him the answer was hidden in a secret diplomatic note written by the Us Ambassador himself in 2009 later published on the wiki leaks website. Number 4 they say they foiled a plot against the ugandan government and were looking for someone. Coming because. They say he was then arrested thanks to a tip off from invisible children. Even the American Ambassador implies that the organization does the leg work for ugandan forces. By then i dont even and i was not working with him. And i didnt know what up. From there i quote. Somebody there. Was so much in this. Investigation. That. From. This. You know him. No no i do i do know who he is but i dont i cant recall. If i heard his name that might have been back in 2007 or. Do you know what evidence or. No i dont he says that it is been arrested. Because invisible children that its i gave you both to the Ugandan Security forces i have no information about that. How do you feel about doubts about so thats was a question of them would have to be able to to do so well i have i have no way of knowing if thats true at all i sorry it is i mean of the guy there is substantial evidence thats actually invisible children have thats im david supposed to be your in the money tree in the arrested him and the guy was fortunate for 3 months and then he was cleared because he didnt do anything how would you feel about that is that. I i have no information about that situation at all i obviously anyone who acts who would experience something horrible like that is is unacceptable i have no information on that situation. Another thing that bothered me about the coney 2012 video was the evangelical rather messianic tone adopted by Jason Russell. The founder of invisible children seems to regard himself as something of a pastor his speeches are sermons. More you know and no one im here to tell you who are not. Heres the copy that was put out by truth wins out they were children position i was working. For the saudi oh i found a pearson russell at the gathering in 2000. The gathering is the Biggest Community of christian fundamentalists philanthropists in the United States. Doesnt own when it and so with this movie we are able to be the trojan horse in a sense going into it without say guess what lifestyle our friends and stuff. And scotts start and thats what this has been all. Well i was surprised that he would use the word trojan horse even at. A conference such as that of a joker christian donors i was surprised that he went that far to it minute that is is that they visible children was. Perpetrating some some deceit. As its. Its true. So i. Cant comment on what jason might have not said but i can say very calm down we are in a religiously affiliated organisation. All of this was funded by an army of young people who put their money where their belief in the value of all human life they gave a few dollars a month of what little they have. Their funding comes from young people who give a few dozen months. As invisible children became better and better known they were able to get small donations by by presenting themselves as more or less a secular. Nonprofit which was doing great things in africa but thats not where they started they they started with money from the. Giant fundamentalist of unshackled philanthropies that gave them seed money. This is the 1st year there are Foreign Languages in this board is the list of donors thats really its a lot of churches and yellow churches a lot of ministries so heres the big one the Provision Foundation which is a subsidiary of the National Christian foundation and so this form lists. 350000. 00 and i think theyre one of the biggest in grants they got in 2007 and the National Christian foundation its a fundamentalist christian philanthropy they say in their statement of belief that the bible is the infallible inerrant word of god and that that were about essentially extending the kingdom promoting the kingdom are our kind of the christian kingdom throughout the world and. We are. Nonprofit organization thats completely secular and that folks at the trustees prevention into neuroscience programming so thats not thats not the. Hi im sorry to say she. Did we go to invisible children websites you know to see what theyre publishing you know in terms of the best looks you know theyll be interesting because i havent looked at it. I think its probably still with this. Theyre getting half a 1000000. 00 from someone no name and it was yeah i mean. When you see when you go to do some daughters in your thoughts. We can say that we can see that there was amounts of money for instance house a 1000000. 00 from someone but we dont know we dont know who it is really not the one you know but if. I could send them because yeah because its so interesting. And good luck getting done with a few days after the interview but the ship the invisible Children Press officer who cut in during the interview sent me this clarification. It guarantees that donations are from private foundations with no religious affiliations will use. It is going to reply that i would like to believe there is no religious connection for me but need to check for myself. Could i have the names since then ive had no word from invisible children. But it doesnt end there the involvement of another more powerful entity in uganda raises the question who was really behind kone 2012. On the author of 2 books about an american fundamentalist organization with deep involvement in uganda. The family or the fellowship as its known is the oldest and arguably the most influential Christian Conservative Political Organization in the United States. The organization the furs and perry very low profile the more invisible you can make your organization the longtime leader and on the same the more influence it will have he liked to refer to it as the christian mafia. Located close to congress this unremarkable red brick building belongs to the fellowship. Its members meet here in private to talk about jesus and business. But it wont open its doors to outsiders. Its membership was not for the masses they werent doing any big revivals it was for congressmen Business Leaders government leaders and they play a major part and facilitating u. S. Relationships with authoritarian figures around the world thats what they admire this they when they look at christ they dont see a model of love or compassion primarily they see strength. Could there then be a more i do. Hell recruit for the fellowship then the autocrats know where he moves have any. Call for a terry and vehemently homophobic and evangelical. The family looks at the 70 as their key man as they put it in uganda but also as their one of their key men in africa and one of the key men globally saying come to us pray with us. Do business with us and they really take credit for forging that relationship at the beginning and turning the 70 into the american sphere of influence where he has remained as powerful regional proxy ever since. In washington i was particularly interested in one member of the fellowship. A senator named jim inhofe known for his interest in african affairs. On. The bottom of the on on life and you know paula if you like to thank you for that. Then hoff was one of the stars of the coney 2012 video. For all the problems that are out there no one is more severe than when the mutilation takes the lives of the little kids. In the system its all about this senator jim inhofe from oklahoma must be pretty close to the ngo because in one of the other videos we have we see him taking part in one of the n. G. O. S protests. There he is. His interest in uganda goes back many years and. In this press release from 2006 he was already raising the alarm about what he called northern uganda as terrorist group the l r a. When i go he says im doing my jesus thing when he goes and meets with foreign leaders he says im a u. S. Senator im a conduit to u. S. Power and money if you want to get there you go to me and you go to jesus. The senator will not answer our questions whats clear is that for decades a radical fellowship has been pulling strings behind the scenes to get uganda to advance u. S. Interests. Me 2012 was just part of a much more complex story. Incidentally what happened right after the videos of viral success. Once its makers collected 17000000. 00 in donations. That. The coin treasure trove when i was c. E. O. Decided that there was no funding coming i mean made the decision to close the invisible children in uganda. The moral of this story. Is that there isnt one. In 2017 the u. S. Governments Development Agency usaid awarded 24000000. 00 in grants to invisible children to fund a 5 year mission in the democratic republic of congo. Today invisible children gets most of its funding from the Us Government. To me a founder member of the invisible today and im the one who led to them to get this story i felt. That this is our story that went out there and it was being managed by someone else that is why i chose to continue with it. The sound of the alps and now open your eyes. What do you. Have callouses and ted williams. Welcome to what may be the most unusual event to hear the high rise concert of the dresden Symphony Orchestra your next. 30. To. 40. In free to any of the trials it moved on. To do some tests one day in the footsteps of the great privileges concerns. Town the fleet street. 3 times i wanted. To marry my fellow. Travel guides to such a. Mechanism where exactly. Was fun and learned a lot our culture history of. Travel extremely worth a visit. This is deja news live from version of u. S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg as tied to. The death of the liberal judge of 87 gives President Donald Trump a chance to expand the conservative majority on the court as he faces free of action also coming up. 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