What the Leaders Were Like

                Joseph Kony is a brutal thug who has killed, raped, and terrorized children for decades. Joseph Kony said himself that his death would be a mystery just as Hitler’s was. He also said that someday the world will wake up and find that he is dead and that no one will know the circumstances, no one will know the day that he dies or the day that he will be buried. He supposedly has direct contact with divine powers and has 12 spirits that he takes orders from. He has also predicted many things that have happened. He may be the most wanted man in the world.

                In a way Hitler and Kony are very alike and very different. They both terrorized people and used fear to keep there power. Kony as said himself that he will die like Hitler and no one will know about or why he has died. They both had their own beliefs were Hitler thought that people with blonde hair blue eyes were the only people that should be allowed to live while Kony says that he is taking orders from 12 spirits and that he only acts on their orders.

Who Was Targeted and Why

In the 1980s, Joseph Kony founded the Lord's Resistance Army rebel group to overthrow Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni. Kony kidnapped an estimated 30,000 children in the north of Uganda, forcing boys to become soldiers and girls to be sex slaves. Pushed out of Uganda in 2006, he and his dwindling force now operate in South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the Central African Republic. The children that are made into soldiers for Kony are mostly under 15 years of age and it is a major war crime.

While Kony forces boys that are too young into an army and the girls to be sex slaves, Hitler isn’t much different in forcing all of the Jews in gigantic concentration camps. Both of them are similar because they both throw people into situations were they barely have enough food to do anything and are forced to do all of the dirty work with barley anything to help them to stay alive.

How They Obtained Power

Joseph Kony came to a power position in the mid to late 1980’s. It all started when Kony a former altar boy was caught in the middle of a storm of violence that marked the last years of Milton Obote’s presidency. Obote was deposed in a military coup in 1985. Soon after this happened Yoweri Museveni's National Resistance Army (NRA) seized power. Kony’s Lord’s resistance was one of many who rose up against the NRA. Kony was a spiritual leader, known as a healer among the Acholi people. He inherited a powerful support base from Alice Lakwena, a spirit-medium. Lakwena's followers would "daub themselves in Shea butter crosses which they believed would protect them from bullets and they believed that stones would explode like grenades," explains Matthew Green, author of "The Wizard of the Nile - The Hunt for Africa's Most Wanted," about Kony. This just speaks to how ludicrous what Kony preaches is.

                Now when we compare him to lets say Adolph Hitler there are some similarities and differences. Just like Kony Hitler received his support because of someone else. Hitler rose to power when he was recruited by Hindenburg. In November 1932 elections the Nazis again failed to get a majority of seats in the Reichstag. Hitler contemplated suicide. But then he was rescued by Hindenburg. Franz von Papen (a friend of Hindenburg) was Chancellor, but he could not get enough support in the Reichstag.   Hindenburg and von Papen had a govern by emergency decree under Article 48 of the Constitution.   They offered Hitler the post of vice-Chancellor if he promised to support them. Hitler refused he demanded to be made Chancellor. So Von Papen and Hindenburg took a risk. On 30 January 1933 Hindenburg made Hitler Chancellor. He thought he could control Hitler how wrong he was.  However in the end, Hitler did not TAKE power at all he was given it.

How They Maintained Power

Joseph Kony was able to maintain power through fear, some of the things that he did was he would cut off people's hands as a kind of warning not to raise any hands against the rebels. Kony once gave an order that anyone caught riding a bicycle should have their legs cut off. Bicycles were a very common means of transport in rural areas and he was worried that informers, if they saw the rebels, would rapidly pedal away and alert the nearest army post. The violence was done in a way, displaying a message, that their government could not protect them.

                Kony and Hitler were able to maintain there power because Hitler was given the power and used it in the wrong way while Kony took the power and used his power to force people to do what he wanted them to do. Both of them made up ridiculous rules that were for their own good and they only used fear to keep everyone in line by executing anyone who disobeyed the leg or else violently hurting them just to show an example.

Works Cited

Whiteman,H. (2012,March 9). Joseph Kony: brutal warlord who shocked world.

thebostonchannel.com. Retrieved March 14, 2012, from

http://www.thebostonchannel.com/r/30643943/detail.html

Davis,C. (2012, March 14). ‘Kony 2012’ – effective or just ‘slacktivism’?. Philly.com. Retrieved

March 14,2012, from http://www.philly.com/philly/insights/142571275.html

 

Lees, P. (2015,March 15). Kony predicted he would ‘die like Hitler’. ninemsn.com Retrieved March

14,2012, from http://news.ninemsn.com.au/world/8435293/kony-predicted-he-would-die-like-hitler