Uganda HELP

Okay guys, so we know our website hasn’t been updated in ages, but NEVER FEAR!

You WILL be informed on the most recent exploits to save Uganda and wake this campus UP to this issue verrrry very soon.

Keep a look out for our always beautiful chalking to be 100% informed on UgandaHELP or email us at UgandaHELP@gmail.com

Also, remember meetings have been changed to Tuesdays at 7:30pm!

Peace and Love!

Today Friday February, 27th, the Invisible Children East Coast roadies team will be at the JC Cinema at George Mason University (Fairfax campus) for a movie screening.

Invisible Children is a non-profit based in San Diego, California that is focused on bringing awareness to the issues of IDP camps and the plight of child soldiers in Northern Uganda. IC’s campaign is based around the documentary Invisible Children: Rough Cut whom was created by IC’s founders, Jason, Laren and Bobby. IC spreads awareness through traveling teams called “Roadies”, the team in charge of the Mid-Atlantic East Coast will be at the JC Cinema at 4pm to give a presentation about Joseph Kony and the LRA as well as promote IC’s international event “The Rescue” in May. IC has planned major events such as the Global Night Commute and Displace Me which have brought together over 100, 000 people from around the United States in solidarity for those living in IDP camps and night commuters.

Please join us and IC’s East Coast Roadies Team to learn about the atrocities committed by the Lord’s Resistance Army and their leader Joseph Kony. The screening is free.

Joseph Kony’s child soldier rebel force may be close to surrendering to the coalition of DRC, Subaneses, and Ugandan military forces according to Congolese officials. The rebel leader may also be among those 250 rebels remaining in the Garamba swamps. The rebels have been the target as a result of Operation Lighting Thunder, a military operation designed by United States miliary officials to drive the LRA out of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Kony’s second and third in command are also said to be in the progress of surrending to Congolese forces, but both failed to surrender to UN peace keepers in Sudan.

For the full report click here.

The trapped rebels have been responsible for over 900 civilian deaths since the beginning of January. LRA rebels devastated civilians in their retreat from attacks by Operation Lighting Thunder. For more information on these attacks visit our report here.

21 year old Jackline Apio, who was abducted 6 years ago, was recently rescued in an joint operation between Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. She relates her experience to a IRIN news researcher.

The first day of the attack I was in the camp. LRA leader Joseph Kony had told us a day earlier there were plans to bomb the camp and ordered all his commanders and other soldiers to leave immediately.

At about 11am, after we had cooked, we heard the sound of approaching helicopters. Minutes later they [the helicopters] started bombing the camp. We all ran away.

After two hours the rebels came back [to the camp] and collected food, medicine and weapons they had abandoned. The rebels, women and children later joined Kony. He was looking enraged, and we started walking towards [the] Central African [Republic].

For the full story visit the IRIN report.

Please join us for the documentary Uganda Rising. Uganda Rising is an all encompassing exploration of the humanitarian issues facing Uganda unlike Invisible Children, which primarily focuses on child soldiers and night commuters. Uganda Rising goes in dept to study the issues of child soldiers, the Lord’s Resistance Army, Internally Displaced Peoples camps, and the Ugandan government actions.

Please join us on Wednesday, February 11th, at 7:30pm in the JC meeting room G.

I must warn you that there is very graphic non censored imagery in Uganda Rising.

The New York Times reports that a failed attack on LRA forces in the Democratic Republic of Congo (that was planned and sponsored by the United States military) resulted in 900 civilians massacred by retreating LRA rebels.

The American military helped plan and pay for a recent attack on a notorious Ugandan rebel group, but the offensive went awry, scattering fighters who carried out a wave of massacres as they fled, killing as many as 900 civilians.

The unfortunately results of these tragic events only further reinforces the point that an armed response is not the answer. A researcher for the Enough Project reports that the massacres are “the LRA’s standard operation procedure”. We must find a peaceful way to dissolve the Lord’s Resistance Army, as their military force is formed out of coerced child soldiers. We cannot protect the civilians in the area by attacking brainwashed child soldiers.

Please take a moment out to write and/or  call your Senators and Representatives and ask them to end the American military’s involvement in the affairs of the DRC and Uganda.

Here is a the contact information for your Senators.

Click here to find your Representatives.

Go here for the full NY Times report.

Also. Please share the NY Times report with all your friends and family, spread the word, the more that know about whats happening the better!

Ever find yourself sitting in the JC with 30 minutes before your next class endlessly checking email/facebook? If you’ve already perused this website, resolveuganda.org and other websites dedicated to this cause, go to freerice.com!! It’s an awesome website. Every time you get a vocabulary/ trivia question correct, 10 grains of rice is donated to the UN World Hunger Fund. Free rice has donated rice to Ugandan children before, so they’re obviously awesome. AND you’ll get smarter from doing all that vocab!

Today, Friday Feb. 6th, Uganda HELP will be maintaing a digital letter writing campaign in the Johnson Center from 10am to 2pm at Kiosk C.

We will be writing to President Obama, reminding him to honor his promise to raise the human rights violations of the Lord’s Resistance Army into the international spot light.  With the aid of Resolve Uganda we sent Barrack Obama this letter:

Six months ago, you wrote a letter to Resolve Uganda’s members about the violent attacks and abductions of children committed by the Ugandan rebel Lord’s Resistance Army, stating that, “…the international community can and should do more to resolve this horrendous situation, and I will continue to press this case.”

As a member of Resolve Uganda, I thank you for your concern about this deeply saddening crisis. Even as I write, the LRA are actively abducting more children in the DR Congo and South Sudan. In the past two months, they have also massacred over 800 innocent civilians.

I write today to ask that you live up to what you wrote, and take action to end this crisis and promote sustainable peace. Specifically, you should develop a strategy to apprehend top LRA leaders and prevent them from committing more atrocities, help ensure better protection for vulnerable civilians, and provide the humanitarian and development assistance needed for affected communities to recover.

If you cannot make it to the kiosk today, we encourage you to write your own letter at home by visiting this website.

Here are what some of our government officials have done for Uganda:

Former President Bush: gave 15 billion dollars in aid in the Presidential Emergency Fund for Aids Relief, some of which went to Ugandan efforts.

President Obama

As Senator, Barack Obama signed a letter to the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon supporting the peace negotiations in Uganda.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton

• Co-Sponsor, Senate Resolution 573 (09/06) calling for greater engagement of peace process
• Signatory, Senate letter to Secretary of State Rice (11/06) regarding the Juba negotiations
• Signatory, Congressional letter to President Bush (06/07)
• Signatory, letter from Senators to the Chairs of the International Appropriations Subcommittee (04/08), asking for $22 million to assist reconstruction in northern Uganda

*info from resolveuganda.org (http://www.resolveuganda.org/node/791)

The Ugandan government has declared an emergency for the Karamoja region located in northeast Uganda as severe droughts have resulted in food shortages, threatening the peoples of Karamoja with starvation.

Aston Kajara, the minister of Karamoja declares:

Government has recognised that Karamoja should for now be treated as an emergency area and food must [quickly] be distributed to this area to avert this problem,

The UN World Food Programme and the Ugandan government launched an aid operation from Acherere, Uganda on Feb. 3rd which will aims to provide for nearly a million Ugandans facing starvation.

Aston Kajara states the following, concering the situation in Karamoja:

There has been an acute food shortage in Karamoja subregion for quite some time now. We appeal for more support as the situation seems to re-occur every time. Money should be mobilised to purchase sufficient food for Karamoja so that the people should not die.

Karamoja, only has one annual harvest instead of two like the rest of Uganda enjoys. So any particularly bad harvest has devasting consequences. Due to these terrible conditions, mothers have also had to travel further, looking for work to bring home food, leaving their children behind, to fend for themselves.

Click here for the full report.