$5 Million Bounty Reward Offered For Information Leading To The Capture Of Joseph Kony For His Alleged Crimes Against Humanity Since The 1980s, Which Includes Capturing Children As Sex Slaves
The Obama administration offered up to $5 million in rewards for a bounty regarding information leading to the capture of Lord's Resistance Army chief Joseph Kony, two of his top aides and a Rwandan rebel leader suspected of crimes against humanity, the Associated Press reported Wednesday.
Kony is wanted by the International Criminal Court for his alleged crimes against humanity. Now, a $5 million bounty is out for him and others.
Kony is accused of ordering widespread atrocities during a brutal campaign for power that originated in Uganda in the 1980s, according to the AP.
It is believed that he is hiding in the Central African Republic where African troops stopped searching for him because of cooperation with the country's new leaders, who overthrew the government in March.
Other than Kony, the rewards apply to his lieutenants, Okot Odhiambo and Dominic Ongwen, as well as the leader of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, Sylvestre Mudacumura.
In 2005, Ben Keesey was the executive producer for "Invisible Children," which was a film based on the brutal attacks of Kony's Ugandan rebel group that is blamed for tens of thousands of mutilations and killings over the last 27 years. The militia abducts children, forcing them to serve as soldiers or sex slaves and even making them kill their parents or each other to survive.
The film received a lot of attention and helped spread the word to find Kony.
"The core message is just to show that there are few times where problems are black and white. There's lots of complicated stuff in the world, but Joseph Kony and what he's doing is black and white," Keesey said in an interview with the AP last year.
The bounties are being offered by the State Department under a provision in the War Crimes Rewards Program authored by Secretary of State John Kerry since January.