Bill number two: Rewards for Justice Expansion legislation

Invisible Children mobilized activists in support of the Rewards for Justice Expansion bill during our KONY 2012 campaign, which began in March of that year. We continued to work with activists on the bill for the whole of 2012. In addition to local lobby meetings, hundreds of supporters called their members of Congress and thousands wrote letters, which our ‘IC Citizen’ Team hand-delivered to Congressional offices. Our efforts culminated with the LOBBY:DC event on November 16th, 2012. More than 800 activists descended on Washington and participated in roughly 300 lobby meetings over the course of six hours. These activists called on their elected officials to support the passage of the Rewards for Justice expansion bill and to continue to support the efforts of the U.S. advisors in central Africa. Needless to say, Capitol Hill took notice, and the bill was passed on January 15, 2013.

The bill expanded the U.S. State Department’s existing War Crimes Rewards program, which allows the U.S. government to provide a monetary reward for information leading to the capture of wanted international criminals – meaning those wanted for war crimes, genocide, crimes against humanity in international criminal tribunals. The program has been in place since 1984 and offers financial rewards for information that leads to the capture of wanted terrorists and drug traffickers, as well as war criminals wanted by the international criminal tribunals. (In other words, it quite the motivational tool to track down a criminal). Thanks to the passage of the Rewards for Justice Expansion legislation, that list of criminals now includes Joseph Kony and two other top LRA commanders, and the State Department is authorized to offer a reward of up to $5 million to anyone who provides information that leads to their arrest.

** It’s important to note that this reward money is exclusively for information that leads to the arrest top LRA leaders. It is not a bounty and cannot be given as a reward to anyone that kills Kony or his fellow commanders. Additionally, the money cannot be given to government officials or forces who might facilitate Kony’s arrest

U.S. funding to help end LRA violence and support communities

In addition to the advocacy that Invisible Children has organized for the two laws mentioned above, our Citizen Team has also continued to work closely with our most committed activist across the country to ensure that Congress appropriate funds in the national budget to strengthen efforts to arrest Joseph Kony, end LRA violence, and support the recovery of affected communities in central Africa.

Since President Obama’s first released his comprehensive LRA strategy in November 2010, our sharp, determined, and passionate community of Citizen activists have helped turn that strategy into concrete, life-saving action by successfully convincing Congress to secure hundreds of millions of dollars in humanitarian assistance and support for counter-LRA efforts in central Africa.

These funds have enabled a spectrum of critical, life-saving efforts — from rehabilitation programs and early warning systems to help protect communities from LRA attacks, to intelligence-gathering equipment and mobility support to help regional forces track down and arrest top LRA leadership.