The ‘Kony 2012’ campaign is calling for more military intervention into Africa and follows US President Barack Obama’s decision last October to deploy 100 troops to Uganda with the aim of “removing” Joseph Kony from the picture.

As Jody McIntyre has rightly pointed out: “It is clear that the United States of America are intent on re-colonising Africa, directly and militarily, and the ‘Kony 2012’ video is a cleverly produced piece of propaganda to further this aim.”

Of course Kony is a brutal warlord. Kony, along with Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni – whose army the ‘Kony 2012’ campaign explicitly support and want the US military to give direct assistance to – has a well-documented history of human rights violations.

It is clear that Western military intervention in Uganda is not a recipe for solving that country’s problems. Slavery, the colonialisation and the neo-colonialisation of Africa, along with the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya all teach us that Western imperialist intervention in Africa and the global south leads to death, destruction and devastation.

And that is before the West’s global project of neo-liberalism – and the poverty, starvation and brutal inequality which comes along with it – is even mentioned.

The US has killed many more people than either Kony or the Uganda government are capable of: one million in Vietnam, one million in Iraq, hundreds of thousands in Afghanistan and tens of thousands in Libya just to name a few of US imperialism’s crimes against humanity.

Samira Musa put it very well indeed on her blog ‘Samira Speaks’:

“Africa has been raped, murdered and pillaged by the West since the slave trade and has continued to be right up until this Kony malarkey so it begs the question – why do the West care?

Did they care about Africans when they dragged us on bloody feet and chains and more our ancestors their slaves?

Did they care when their companies illegally dumped nuclear waste on Somali shores?”

Perhaps Uganda’s recently discovered oil reserves might be one factor that has sparked the West’s concern?

No doubt the West also wants to get their hands on some of the other natural resources central Africa is famous for – including cooper, cobalt, gold, uranium, magnesium and tin.

What can we do to support peace and justice in Africa?

The most important thing progressive people in the West can do to support peace and justice for the people of Africa is simple: oppose our own governments intervening for their own interests at the expense of Africans.

Instead of supporting the ‘Kony 2012’ campaign, get involved with campaigns that support the self-determination of the Africa people and oppose imperialist interventions such as the Stop the War Coalition and Hands Off Somalia Campaign.