Forgotten: Kids dragged into war

By Mary Owen

An invisible war is tearing four African nations apart and a 19-year-old Silverton boy believes Americans can help.

“There is a lot of pain in the world and those who have the power to do good, have the responsibility to do good,” Justin Thomas said.  Two days after his high school graduation last June, Thomas traveled to Uganda with Global Expeditions, a Texas-based organization providing evangelism and service opportunities for youth. During his almost seven-week stay, he visited schools teaching teens about AIDS.

“I learned so much from going to Uganda,” he said. “We met so many people – thousands. Most of them managed a smile even though their country has been through hell and back.”

Now Silverton-area residents can get a glimpse of problems African families and children are facing through a movie produced by Invisible Children. IC is a social, political and global movement dedicated to exposing the plight of child soldiers snatched from their families to fight in Joseph Kony’s rebel war.

“What I hope people will get out of this is to turn these invisible children into visible children,” said May Bakke, a youth leader at Immanuel Lutheran Church, host of the April 17 humanitarian event.

Since 1986, more than 30,000 children, some as young as 5, have been inducted in the four African countries to fight in Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army, whose terror has now spread to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Central African Republic and Southern Sudan, IC reported. The report says the terror began under the veil of a “spiritual” movement and has evolved into “senseless and merciless crimes against humanity.”  An estimated 90 percent of LRA troops were abducted as children.

IC is raising awareness, advocating for the children and raising funds for development work in central Africa via economic and educational initiatives.

“To disarm and capture the top leaders of the terrorist group, congress passed the LRA Disarmament and Northern Ugandan Recovery Act last year,” Bakke said. “This is also to help rebuild their houses, schools.”

Thomas attributes much of the trouble in Uganda to families robbed of fathers by AIDS and even polygamy.

“Men have children by many, many wives, but they cannot take care of them,” Thomas said. “Many of those kids don’t even know their father, or don’t speak to him. When I met with the kids I realized how much of their plight was caused by them not having their fathers around.”

Thomas urges Americans to “turn off their TVs, get off their couches, and go do something worthwhile with the copious amounts of leisure time they have.

“The poorest of Americans is already much richer than the rest of the world,” he said. “People aren’t aware of how good we have it. Some people would kill to have the opportunities Americans have.”

“We need people who are both willing and passionate about helping.”