Redeemer Students Participate in Peaceful Protest

On April 23, 2009, a group of Redeemer students, along with hundreds of other young people, spent a rainy night in Queen’s Park in downtown Toronto to raise awareness about the humanitarian abuses occurring in the longest running, and possibly most neglected, war in African history. Under the leadership of Invisible Children millions of people came together in over 100 cities worldwide to bring attention to the twenty threetwenty-three year war in Uganda.

In 2003, in search of adventure and material for an amateur film, Lauren Poole, Jason Russell, and Bobby Baily stumbled across a tragedy that inspired them to take action. In a war spanning back to the 1980’s, the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) has murdered over 10, 000 people and abducted over 30, 000 children, forcing them to be soldiers or sex-slaves for their rebel group. The unrest has created the largest internally displaced persons’ population in the world. After witnessing the children’s night commutes, countless children fleeing their homes to find refuge in the centre of cities and camps so that they are not abducted, the friends went home and created the film Invisible Children: Rough Cut, and from that film they created an organization which would eventually enlist the help of tens of thousands worldwide to give face to the forgotten and to work to end this heartbreaking war.

With the film, awareness campaigns, and political pressure, Invisible Children achieved US aid for the Ugandan government, night commuting ended, and with support from envoys from the US and other nations, peace talks began in June 2006. Peace talks continued and then failed in April 2008, needing only the signature of the leader of the LRA. Since Invisible Children first began in 2003, the LRA has pushed the war out of northern Uganda into southern Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and The Central African Republic. Since September 2008, violence in the DRC and southern Sudan has reached new heights. This past Christmas eve, the LRA murdered 600 Congolese civilians and abducted 160 children.

Moved by these tragedies and the knowledge that young people can and do make a difference, millions joined “the Rescue” mission on April 23, 2009. They bought t-shirts, wrote letters to MPs, newscasters and celebrities, and spent a night “abducted” like thousands of children in Uganda and the surrounding countries have been. The Toronto group was “rescued” by Rick Mercer, Jack Layton and Oliva Chow who promised Canadian support for the cause. In the states, Oprah aired the Chicago team live, after they refused to go home until she came, six days after the event began. The LRA Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act written up this summer cited the pressure felt by American young people as an influence.

And yet the war rages on. A news release from September 1, 2009 stated that in the three weeks previous, at least 125,000 civilians in eastern DRC alone fled their villages, over 3,000 people in CAR have been displaced, and food shortages have increased because of the unrest. There are still approximately 3000 child soldiers, and over one million people are still in internally displaced persons’ camps suffering disease and starvation.

You can find updates on the war situation and find out how to get involved with what Invisible Children is currently doing to end the war and help those affected by checking out www.invisiblechildren.com. Also keep your eyes open for upcoming events in this area.