Documentary on reflects horrors but champions hope for Africa

In 1986, a war was waged in Africa. Twenty-six years later, the Ugandan civil unrest is now the continent's longest running war. Its devastating effects have been seen most profoundly in the nation's "invisible children," the name given to the child soldiers forced out of their homes and into war zones every year.

The documentary shown Thursday night in the Student Union, "The Rescue of Joseph Kony's Child Soldiers," provided not only a harrowing look into these dire conditions, but also a powerful sense of hope for change.

Six years ago, California natives Bobby Bailey, Laren Poole and Jason Russell decided to take a trip to southern Sudan and document whatever adventures might have come their way. "We didn't plan on doing this; we're just doing it," they said in footage prior to the trip. However, after being sidetracked, the trio found themselves in northern Uganda, bearing witness to the tragedy that had plagued the nation for the past two decades.

Failing to overthrow the Ugandan president in the mid-1980s, a rebellious faction now known as the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) commenced their terrorist regime by killing hundreds of civilians and abducting even larger numbers of children, forcing them from their households and into combat at ages as young as eight years old - all at the hands of one man, Joseph Kony. To date, Kony, a war criminal wanted for trial by the International Code Council, has had over 30,000 children abducted.

"The child soldier is the most invisible child. No one knows whether he lives or dies," says Bailey at one point in the film. In hopes of drawing public attention to the devastatingly-lacking cause, Bailey, Poole, and Russell released their first documentary in 2003, entitled "Invisible Children."

The resulting outpour of aid and support was an empowering one; more progress has been made since the war's inception, perhaps best underlined by the appointing of Tim Shortley, a United States senior-level diplomat whose job it became to deal with matters pertaining specifically to this issue. Unfortunately, liberation of these child soldiers still involves a long road to be traveled.

In April 2008, after discourse with political officials, the LRA accepted the offer for a peace agreement that would put an end to the killings, abductions, and child-soldiering. Over two hundred people, including members of the LRA, gathered in the northern Ugandan jungle, awaiting the arrival of Kony, who was to come out of hiding and formally sign the agreement.

Five days later, it was announced that Kony would not show.

What followed was even more heartbreaking. The LRA's reign of terror stretched to the Republic of the Congo, where hundreds of citizens were killed and over 100 children were abducted, before spreading to neighboring nations.

In a recent addition to the 2006 documentary, the crew behind the Invisible Children organization speaks of just how it is they plan to combat these new developments. "The war wages on and so will we. But we need your help, now more than ever." The three part plan that follows this proclamation consists of sending 250,000 signed citizens arrests - over fifty of which came from those in attendance Thursday - to the White House so that President Obama will make an official statement declaring the United States' involvement in northern Uganda; the Give Peace a Tri campaign, which asks for weekly donations of just three dollars; and involvement in Schools for Schools, a campaign hoping to utilize the efforts of American schools to revolutionize the education system of Uganda.