I don't know anyone who does not hate Joseph Kony
Angelina Jolie expresses her support for a viral video which calls for the arrest of Joseph Kony, the fugitive leader of the Lord's Resistance Army militia group in Uganda.
The video of Angelina Jolie swept across the internet this week, attracting a wave of support on social media as well as a skeptical backlash against the charity responsible for producing it, Invisible Children.
By Thursday, the YouTube video had been viewed almost 60 million times, while Kony had become the number one trending topic worldwide on Twitter.
At an event to mark International Womens' Day in New York, actress and humanitarian activist Angelina Jolie added her voice to those supporting the movement, stating, "I don't know anyone who doesn't hate Kony."
She added: "I've been to Uganda and Congo and been to the International Criminal Court myself and spoken with the chief prosecutor about the case and he's the one that we all want to see in jail so I think it's great that more people are talking about it."
"He's an extraordinarily horrible human being who, you know...his time has come and it's lovely to see that young people are raising up as well."
The film has had its share of supporters and detractors.
Jacob Acaye, the child at the centre of the film, who was taken prisoner by Kony's LRA in 2002, said: “Until now the war that was going on has been a silent war. People did not really know about it.
“Now what was happening in Gulu is still going on elsewhere in the Central African Republic and in Congo. What about the people who are suffering over there? They are going through what we were going through.”
The Obama adminsitration also congratulated the "hundreds of thousands of Americans who have mobilised to this unique crisis of conscience."
Critics argue Kony and his diminishing troops, many of them kidnapped child soldiers, fled northern Uganda six years ago and are now spread across the jungles of neighbouring countries.
“What that video says is totally wrong, and it can cause us more problems than help us,” said Dr Beatrice Mpora, director of Kairos, a community health organisation in Gulu, a town that was once the centre of the rebels’ activities.
“There has not been a single soul from the LRA here since 2006. Now we have peace, people are back in their homes, they are planting their fields, they are starting their businesses. That is what people should help us with.”
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