LETTER OF THE DAY: Ending The Kony Insurgency: Try Out New Tactics As Well

Nov 14, 2002

SIR— The Kony war has been on for over 16 years. People in the north have suffered immensely over this time. A huge number have never seen peace — the peace we have here in Kampala and take for granted.

SIR— The Kony war has been on for over 16 years. People in the north have suffered immensely over this time. A huge number have never seen peace — the peace we have here in Kampala and take for granted.
There have been a number of tactics used by the Government and others to try and end this war. This is a suggestion to try out another tactic.
The suggestion was actually tried by The New Vision but it was a half-hearted, feeble attempt. A graphic picture was put on the front-page of the New Vision. The editorial then explained the picture (which explanation was actually more graphic than the picture). The editorial then explained the purpose giving the American example where the picture of a girl being burnt changed the course of the war that America was involved in at the time.
It should be noted that at that time, a picture of that kind was, to use teenage talk, “too much”. Now, due to disaster after disaster and war after war worldwide, people are much more hardened. It takes more than just that to move people.
On top of being hardened, unless a problem is at home, it is just another story. This Kony war is at home. However, this fact does not really sink in for the rest of us who are not directly affected by it because
* The media when reporting the stories do not really show the damage caused effectively. We will see a burnt bus today, a length story tomorrow, an old picture of Kony the next day, etc. Hence the seriousness is not really put across.
My suggestion is to start a campaign against this war by showing Ugandans the effects that this war is causing.
- show the effects of this war but in pictorial form (reason being one picture speaks a thousand words).
- Dedicate a page in The New Vision either daily, weekly or whatever period for this purpose.
- Show pictures of the effects of the war without flinching (probably 6-8 pictures on the page). Say if the page is to be weekly, then show the effects of the war from events that happened that week.
- The pictures should not be of burnt buses which have no real effect but bodies of victims, mourners looking at the bodies, huts that have been burnt, hospital beds filled with injured people, streets in towns with people sleeping in corridors because they are afraid to go home, etc.
- Have a paragraph (or more) in the editorial stating that the reason for this new campaign is to stop the war with publicity. With the majority of the people concerned and willing to do what it takes, the war will end sooner than later for the good of this country.

R. Kakuba
armail@arltd.biz

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