Biography of Joseph Kony - How did he become this mad man?

Lately, there was a lot of rumour about Joseph Kony, who has become world famous in only few days. In the video of Invisible Children Inc. he was presented as a tyrant, a villain and as the most wanted person, what, indeed, seems to be true. But who is he really? What is his personality and how was his childhood like? In this article, I would like to show some background information about this newly-become notorious “celebrity”.

Joseph Kony was born in 1961 in Odek, Uganda. Odek is a village, where he and his Acholi family lived. Acholis, by the way, are an ethnic group that is mostly Catholic or Protestant and sometimes, they also have the same believe as the Islam. Parts of the ancient religion remained like a familiar spirit or ancestral worship. He founded his movement LRA (Lord’s Resistance Army) with only the age of 26 and he was terrorizing Uganda and their surrounding areas for nearly twenty years.

In his lifetime as the head of the LRA he committed many crimes and got himself a high rank in the most wanted list of the U.S.A. Some say he is the ninth most wanted person others say he is the most wanted criminal in the world.
There are 33 charges on Joseph Kony for the following:
12 points are a crime to humanity. They consist of enslavery, premeditated murder enforcement to prostitution, rape, inhuman actions, mutilations and severe mentally and physically torturing.
And he has 21 points indicts for war crimes, namely the following: premeditated murder, cruel treatment of civil persons, robbery, premeditated attacks in civilians, forced recruitment of children and incitement to rape.

He abducted about 66’000 children, but because the black number is so high some people even suggest up to 104’000 children were abducted by Joseph Kony resp. by the LRA organization.
And all those children have been forced to kill their parents as well as their neighbors (or the abductors did it on their own). This way, the children had no other choice but to yield the will and commands of Joseph Kony.

It is always interesting to get to know some details about the childhood of such tyrants. Will we maybe see his process of ending up to be one of the most wanted persons on earth?

It was reported by former classmates that Joseph Kony was a brilliant dancer and he loved playing football. But he was a more exhaustive student at school and finally dropped out as a teenager. In his village, Odek, he was also known as the “witch doctor”. His brother used to have this position originally, but he died and when Joseph Kony was still a teenager, he continued the job of his brother. It is known that he did well with his siblings, but seemed to become very aggressive at some occasions like for example in a disagreement about something.
So far, he seems to have had a fairly normal childhood for a Ugandan boy except of the dropping out of school. But let us take a deeper look in his religion.
He is a strong religious Alochi. In his area, there were mixed up cultures and beliefs, but he was a devout Christian. Until the age of 15 he used to be the altar boy as well. There used to be a movement called “Holy Spirit Movement” by Alice Auma, but this movement was defeated later. This certain movement seemed to have a great impact on Joseph Kony and influenced this strong that with the age of 26 (in 1987) he founded his own movement, what is known “Lord’s Resistance Movement” today. His aim with this movement is to purify Uganda and turn it into a Christian-theocracy ruled by his personal interpretation of the Ten Commandments. He also believes in polygamy and is thought to have about 88 wives (as of 2007) and impregnated them, what made him the father of probably 42 children.
Today, he annually wanders to the Ato Hills in Uganda, where he lies down in the sun of the top of the hills for days. He covers himself with red termites, which would bite deeply his body. Oil of the Yao plant would cover his body and he would enter a cave, where he would stay in seclusion for several weeks. And he also believes in the literal protection of the holy cross. That is why he tells his child soldiers to spread oil on their bodies in a cross shape in order to be protected by bullets.

His original roots in religion seemed to have a subconscious influence on him plus also did he have already as a teenager an affinity to the spiritual (since he was the witch doctor in his teenage years), but probably was it the Holy Spirit Movement that has had such a great impact on him that he decided to start such movement on his own and he believes to be told by God to kill his own impure people, because it says so in the Ten Commandments (after his interpretations).
This madman seems to have a psychological issue, what led him believe he is in some way the Messiah of his culture (and even was he already portrayed as the Messiah).

But as of today, he has vanished in Kongo (or in another surrounding state) and might even be dead by now and with the disappearance of Joseph Kony the LRA movement seems to have vanished as well, but still there are (only) some followers, who still continue the LRA movement, but it can be seen as virtually vanished from the spotlight and actually, Uganda has many other more important problems what led me into great disbelief of this “KONY 2012” video by Invisible Children Inc. (click HERE for my critical scrutiny of this video and the Invisible Children Inc. – Scam or not?)

by mbyL

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