Kony 2012 Video: Campaign to arrest Uganda rebel chief goes viral

 KONY 2012 is a film and campaign by Invisible Children that aims to make Joseph Kony famous, not to celebrate him, but to raise support for his arrest and set a precedent for international justice.
 WASHINGTON - A campaign to bring accused war criminal Joseph Kony, the fugitive head of Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army rebels, to justice has gone viral on the Internet.
The hashtag "#stopkony" was among top trending topics on Twitter on Wednesday, vying for the top spot with tweets about the new iPad and Peyton Manning, who was released after 14 years as quarterback of the Indianapolis Colts.
The campaign was launched by the non-profit group Invisible Children with an emotional 30-minute video which has been viewed more than 7.3 million times on YouTube and attracted more than 150,000 comments.
"Invisible Children" and "Uganda" were also among the top trending topics on Twitter on Wednesday.
A number of celebrities joined the campaign by tweeting links to the video and promoting the campaign.

Cult leader

Kony first came to prominence in January 1986, as the leader of one of the many premillennialist groups that sprang up in Acholiland in the wake of the wildly popular Holy Spirit Movement of Alice Auma (also known as Lakwena and to whom Kony is thought to be related). Their relative loss of influence after the overthrow of Acholi President Tito Okello by Yoweri Museveni and his National Resistance Army (NRA) during the Ugandan Bush War (1981–1986) spurred resentment among the Acholi, which boosted Joseph Kony's popularity.

Kony, along with a small group of followers, first moved beyond his home village of Odek on 1 April 1987. A few days later he met with a small group of former Uganda National Liberation Front soldiers from the Black Battalion and managed to recruit them for his group.His first raid, carried out shortly afterwards, was on the city of Gulu.

Lord's Resistance Army

Further information: Lord's Resistance Army

Kony's group was originally called the United Holy Salvation Army (UHSA), and was not perceived as a threat by the NRA. By 1988 it had become a major player in Ugandan affairs: an agreement between the NRA and the Uganda People's Democratic Army (UPDA) left members of the UPDA unsatisfied, and many joined the UHSA as a form of rebellion. One such person was Commander Odong Latek, who convinced Kony to use standard military tactics instead of attacking in cross-shaped formations and sprinkling holy water. The new tactics proved successful, and the UHSA completed several small victories against the NRA.

The NRA responded by significantly weakening Kony's group through political actions and a military campaign named Operation North. The operation was devastating to the UHSA and, with their numbers reduced from thousands to hundreds, they engaged in retaliatory attacks on civilians and NRA collaborators. The LRA say that spirits were sent to communicate this mission directly to Kony.

The bulk of Kony's foot soldiers were children.Whilst estimates of the number of children conscripted since 1986 vary, some put the figure as high as 104,000.When abducting the children, Kony and his army often killed their family and neighbors, thus leaving the children with little choice but to fight for him In 1992 Kony renamed the group the United Democratic Christian Army, and it was at this time that they kidnapped 139 girls from the Sacred Heart Secondary and St. Mary's girls schools.

For a decade, starting in the mid-1990s, the LRA was strengthened by military support from the government of Sudan, which was retaliating against Ugandan government support for rebels in what would become South Sudan. Sudan withdrew its support for the LRA shortly after the ICC issued a warrant for Kony's arrest, however.