Tag Archives: child soldiers

Motivation is a funny thing.

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It is the driver behind the work that we do that can be so imperceptibly lost, and unexpectedly rediscovered in the most unlikely of places.

One such place was at a recent conference, where one of our workshops, entitled “So You Want to ‘Save’ Africa?”, was presented by a pair of well-intentioned facilitators., unaffiliated with but nonetheless inspired by AfricaCanada.org.

A member of our team was present at the workshop. The session itself began well, but quickly changed into a presentation that featured problematic statements, platitudes, and dangerous generalizations surrounding ethical advocacy.

Despite good intentions, the original workshop was distorted to a point where the essential message was overshadowed. However, the unexpected occurred: the importance of speaking out about ‘true’ ethical advocacy was made blatantly apparent.

The motivation for why we do what we do so fervently, was found.

Below is an e-mail that AfricaCanada.org sent to one of the presenters. To respect privacy we have deleted names and slightly changed some details.

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Dear G,

It was quite the experience sitting in the audience, hearing and seeing the workshop presented in a very different context. Let me begin by commending you and your co-presenter, once again, on wanting to raise awareness about the (very complicated, and very convoluted) ethics behind international advocacy. I also appreciate that you incorporated an aspect of your own experiences in Togo.

Ethical Advocacy is a field that we at AfricaCanada.org are extremely passionate about, and one in which we are continually learning. Having presented “So You Want To ‘Save’ Africa?” many times, it has grown to be a message that is very important to me, and a message I personally believe in, in the strongest terms. Seeing you and your co-presenter present the workshop, and hearing the responses from the conference delegates, really made this passion apparent to me, and I would like to thank you for that.

I understand the difficulties that time constraints placed on the manner in which the workshop was presented. We’ve had occasions where we’ve had to cut down the workshop by more than half in the past! That being said, there are some issues of integrity, language, accuracy and accountability to be discussed.

What message does it send when:

On one hand: You are trying to convey the fact that Africa is not an homogenous entity, but one with diverse countries, each with their own complex histories, politics, cultures and challenges.

On the other: You do not have one case study in your workshop, and the only glimpse we have of an African country is a few minutes of children singing in Togo? (without a sense of Togo’s context)

On one hand: You are aware of how charity campaigns clearly create an “us” and “them” dichotomy.

On the other: Both presenters continually use terms like “those issues”, “them”, “those people”, and “in Africa”, without a specific level of detail?

On one hand: You want to debunk the myth that only boys are soldiers and girls are often stereotypically reduced  to “sex slaves”.

On the other: You present a statistic (Actually, 20% of females are armed combatants in Africa, etc.), without any context. 20% of females where? “In Africa?” What army? In what country? And what conflict? What is the context of that armed conflict? Are you suggesting that there is armed conflict everywhere in Africa?

Time constraints should never be a reason to present oversimplified and potentially misleading information. Especially at a platform as public and important as the conference that we were all fortunate enough to attend. As workshop facilitators, you have a responsibility to present a message that is informative, culturally sensitive, nuanced, balanced and accurate to your audience.

I understand that you wouldn’t dream of presenting misleading statistics intentionally, (irresponsible campaigns do this all the time…that’s why the workshop was created). Many people in the audience perhaps did not notice/were not bothered by this. However, all I am trying to draw your attention to is that something as small as language could cause serious offence to someone seated in your audience who had a fair bit of knowledge about certain aspects of what you are presenting on. None of us are experts, that is why we included a very important disclaimer at the beginning of the workshop.

I would love to continue and deepen our conversation about the workshop, as well as all that we do with AfricaCanada.org. Have a squizz through our website, (and our blog!), to get a feel for who we are. I’d also like a copy of your presentation, as is, and I’ll send you the notes I made about specific aspects. Please do not be discouraged! As I said earlier, I would love it if you continued to spread this very important message wherever you can. Let’s just iron out a few things, learn from each other, and make sure we’re on the same page!

Speak soon!

All the best.

Returning from the LRA

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“The international community appears to be more interested in the infamous Kony and his LRA outfit than in their many victims in CAR and other countries in the region. The LRA threat will hopefully diminish and eventually disappear – with Kony and other LRA leaders brought to justice – but the victims will remain.” – Godfrey Byaruhanga, Amnesty International Central Africa Researcher in a 2012 report.

It is believed that in the coming months the numbers of those leaving the LRA will steadily increase. It is time to look at some of the challenges that come with reintegrating into society.

Recently, Invisible Children sent out an update to its subscribers with the following headline “Top LRA commander killed in combat.” Finding news sources that confirm this was an unexpectedly difficult task. However, not because it is not true, but because in large the media seems to take little interest in this recent development as our television screens focus on efforts to regain control in Mali.

A Ugandan newspaper does report on the death of Binani – according to them “Kony’s chief bodyguard.” While that sounds essentially different from “Top LRA commander”, it is clear that Binani had been at the centre of LRA structure. The source further reports that in the last 6 months, 200 women and children had been freed from the LRA. In addition, the hopes are high that the death of the commander will lead to more people leaving the LRA.

With this in mind, we want to delve a little into some aspects of the process of reintegration into society of those that had been abducted, because the story does not end when they return home…

The 2000 Amnesty Act and “Justice”

While the LRA is now mostly in the Central African Republic (CAR), and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), it is still worthwhile to look at Ugandan legislation, because many of the rebels have been abducted within Uganda as children.

“Amnesty” means a pardon, forgiveness, exemption or discharge from criminal prosecution or any other form of punishment by the State” – Ugandan Amnesty Act, 2000

In an effort to end the atrocities, the Ugandan government enacted Amnesty in 2000. This basically meant that any LRA rebel would be forgiven by the State, so long as they turned themselves in and renounced rebellion. The idea behind this was that if the rebels knew that they had no punishment to fear, they would return to society. So Amnesty was supposed to bring peace.

And it proved successful. This statement by the Enough Project laments that the Act has not been renewed after it expired in May 2012. Roughly 26,000 rebels from over 25 different armed groups had received the Certificate of Amnesty.

But as things usually go there is a ‘however’… Many Ugandans were not satisfied with the Amnesty Act. Grace Acan, who had talked about this matter at an event in the Liu Institute in UBC Vancouver, has denied the government’s amnesty offer. As a former LRA abductee, she finds that it is not her that needs to be granted forgiveness, but the government, for failing to protect her and many others who were then children.

The UN has also released a report on the impacts of the Amnesty Act. While recognizing a state’s sovereign right to grant amnesty, they are critical of the long-term impacts of such a policy. “Experience has shown that a culture of impunity and a legacy of past crimes that go unaddressed are likely to undermine a lasting peace.”

Reintegration into the military

After having been pardoned by the government, some former LRA members choose to become part of the army and help track down those who used to be their comrades, as the UN organization IRIN reports. This may sound like a good plan from a military perspective, but there are grave concerns with this strategy. The above article points out the negative effect this can have on LRA victims. It specifically mentions a woman that recognizes the man who raped her among those that had been pardoned.

The role of the International Criminal Court

It is not just Ugandan law that has failed to provide the justice that people seek – some regard the decision of the International Criminal Court (ICC) as even more controversial.

The ICC has indicted 5 of the LRA’s top commanders (the first indictments ever of this organization). Joseph Kony, Vincent Otti, Dominic Ongwen and Okot Odhiambo are all on the list (Raska Lukwiya deceased in 2006). These indictments were a wake-up call to the international community and raised hopes locally that the problem could soon come to an end.

Of course things are more complicated than that…

The ICC decisions made the LRA less willing to have peace talks. It was more difficult to bring the LRA to the negotiation table, since they had little incentive to leave their hiding places. This has attracted critiques, stating that the ICC indictments would interfere with local efforts. Indeed, the ICC contradicts the Amnesty efforts of the Ugandan government. On the other hand, as we saw earlier, that system is also problematic. There is also the argument that the LRA had more than enough time to come to a peace agreement and chose not to.

While institutions struggle to find a way to bring justice, civil society fights for reconciliation.

Civilian Efforts

Regardless of the justice system, those who return from the LRA or other armed groups often face other challenges or strong stigmas upon returning home. Many grassroots and civilian organizations have formed. We would like to highlight one group who we are partnering with.

The Women’s Advocacy Network (WAN)

The WAN is a local grassroots organization composed of several advocacy groups in Uganda. These women support each other in many ways: together they raise the money for their children’s school fees, they approach the government with a unified voice and they support each other with everyday challenges of post-conflict northern Uganda.

Being in a network of others that have had same or similar experiences has helped many of the women to process their time in the LRA. Many of them also face the same daily challenges – such as illiteracy, if they were abducted before receiving an education.

In the end justice remains a vague and difficult concept. The international community and the Ugandan government have been contradictory in their approaches. However, more recent developments show that joint efforts are on their way.

And as the Women’s Advocacy Network initiative (and many others) shows, there is progress. And there is hope.

Women & Justice – A night of inspiration, complexity, and solidarity.

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“As you can see, there are more questions than answers in this respect, but thinking about the different ways in which women find themselves within conflicts will then allow us form analyses that are not based on dichotomies, but that tackle complexity, particularities, and possibilities” – Eliana Pinto Velasquez

Last Thursday, November 29, 2012 AfricaCanada.org hosted “Women & Justice”, a cross-cultural discussion on the role of women in building peace and searching for justice and reconciliation.

In particular, the night was made by the contributions of our three panelists:

Juliane Okot Bitek, an award-winning writer and scholar at the Liu Institute for Global Issues who works with Dr. Erin Baines and the Women’s Advocacy Network on using stories of survivors of captivity in the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) to remember and heal.

Veronica Fynn has earned a BSc (Ghana), BA (UBC), MPH (Nottingham), LLM (York), and is an adjunct professor at the University of British Columbia, teaching public health law. As the founder of EV Research Inc. and the Journal of Internal Displacement, she has authored several publications. Veronica’s blog on the rights of women in war can be found here.

Eliana Pinto Velasquez is a social worker and holds a Master in Gender studies from the National University of Colombia. She is a researcher in the University Initiative Program for Peace and Co-existence at the same University. She works with the University Javeriana in a project about access to justice of indigenous women and peasants in Colombia and Guatemala. She worked in the area of land and conflict in the Historical Memory Group of the National Commission for Reparation and Reconciliation.

Each panelist had thoughtful perspectives to share on the struggles of women in the different contexts of Colombia, Liberia and Uganda.

Social Work – Colombia

Eliana shared her research on the experiences of women and girls demobilized from the diverse armed actors in Colombia’s civil conflict such as the ELN and FARC guerrillas and the paramilitaries or the AUC under the auspices of The Colombian Institute for Colombian Welfare (El Insituto Colombiano de Bienestar Familial) programs.

Pertinent points were how in Colombia a number of forced combatants or ‘child soldiers’, are not forcibly recruited. Eliana also emphasized reintegration into civilian life for women, particularly those who became mothers during their time with illegal armed groups. For demobilized women and girls, Eliana said, the violence they experience within the armed group is gendered, evidenced by how armed groups would regulate romantic relationships and dress codes within communities in addition to practicing forced abortions and sterilizations for women within armed groups. Moreover, the experience of civil integration for females is also marked by gender as the program focuses on, for example, making sure that women “are proper mothers”.

A very interesting point surrounding the ‘voluntary’ nature of female recruitment in Colombia was how, according to Eliana, women often took up arms in order to create a space of agency in their lives. Often, women who join armed groups are fleeing social exclusion, poverty, or intra-familiar violence, and by becoming a part of an armed group they can show that as women they can not only manage life, but also be agents of death.

A highlight of Eliana’s presentation was how -through quotations- she integrated the voices of 6 women she had personally worked with who had been demobilized from Colombia’s largest insurgent group, the FARC, ending with a note from a woman from the Caribbean coast of Colombia:

“The transitional process is not just a judicial one, it is a process of social and political reorganization, and the reconstruction of the personal, familial, and communitarian institutions for women”

Law – Liberia

Veronica, for her part, spoke of the challenges of indigenous Liberian women in the post-conflict context, particularly focusing on the challenges of seeking justice for victims of sexual and gender based violence (SGBV) from a judicial point of view.

In 2005, Liberia established its first criminal rape law. However, there are struggles of applying this law with respect to the customary law that exists in Liberia as well as the corruption within the legal system. Veronica provided specific examples of perpetrators during the war who had yet to be brought to justice.

Veronica also touched on the extremely problematic nature of unequal power relationships within international development projects and social justice activism in general. She poignantly and frankly critiqued uncritical Western ‘saviour’ complexes, as well as spoke of the complexities of her own positionality with respect to her work, as she is both a survivor of Liberia’s conflict but at the same time enjoying the privilege of graduate education at a Western institution.

Building on the theme of supporting grassroots women’s groups, Veronica shared the courageous work of three local grassroots women’s NGOs in Liberia working to reduce the extremely high levels of impunity for SGBV crimes.

Storytelling – Uganda

Juliane Okot Bitek spoke of the power of storytelling. Juliane spoke of her work trying to rebuild the stories of female survivors of captivity in the LRA and how she has worked along with Dr. Erin Baines to help the women tell their stories.

Juliane made clear the immense difficulty with respect to ethics of trying to create artistic expressions which reveal truth without defining it, and the fragile nature of dealing with the stories of others.

Since many of the stories she works with are stories of suffering, she also spoke of the second-hand trauma/anxiety that can come with reading such powerful, vivid, and at times disturbing accounts from survivors of their experiences in the LRA. Juliane then read an eloquent piece of writing that worked with strong and original symbols and metaphors to characterized one such experience.

The night did raise more questions than answers and more complex issues than an hour and a half could do justice to.

The diverse approaches – through law, through storytelling, through grassroots initiatives and much more – show that there is not one way to go about these challenges. Each of them is essential in processing the past and thus creating a hopefully better future. In all of these places, during and after the war, there was great pain and injustice. With even greater courage and resilience women struggle with the ongoing fight for reconciliation, justice and peace.

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The Women’s Advocacy Network (WAN) in northern Uganda has displayed great courage and agency, despite tremendous challenges. They were our inspiration to host this event. They created a mutual support network, fight for support from the government and make their voices heard.  For more information on these grassroots initiatives please see some of our earlier posts.

The Lubanga Trial: A Historic Landmark for the International Criminal Court

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At the height of Konymania last month, the International Criminal Court (ICC), war  criminals and child soldiers become uncharacteristic talkings points. On March 14, the Netherlands-based court made headlines in its own right when it passed a landmark verdict – its very first – by convicting the Congolese warlord, Thomas Lubanga Dyilo. He was found guilty on three counts for the abduction of children in the eastern Ituri region in 2002-03, of forcing them to serve as soldiers, and of using them during the war in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s from 1998- 2003.

Lubanga served as the alleged head of the Union of Congolese Patriots (UCP) and its former military wing, the Patriotic Forces for the Liberation of Congo, during the Second Congolese war. The ICC decision was unanimous, and now Lubanga faces a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.

The Lubanga verdict is exemplary because it was the first one passed by the ICC since its establishment about a decade ago. Lubanga’s trial was due to be held in 2008, but was halted when it was discovered that the Office of Prosecution had failed to disclose evidence. It was restarted on January 26, 2009. Many critics have questioned why it took about six years to convict Lubanga after his arrest, bringing into light the weaknesses and
frailties of the International Criminal Court to administer timely justice.

Some have also questioned ICC’s equity when it comes to convictions of war criminals. All 28 people who have been charged by the ICC so far have been from Africa. The ICC is comprised of 120 countries currently party to the Rome Statute, with 33 African states. “By the numbers alone, assuming that conflicts occur with similar frequency in each inhabited continent, a national of a member state found to be in violation of the provisions of the statute is statistically more likely to be from Africa than from any other continent,” Nanjana Nyabola told Al Jazeera.

Neverthless, the ICC has only ever intervened, with the exception of Kenya (read more about that here), where the countries have asked for intervention or there has been a UN Security Council Resolution.

Another question that has been raised is how much impact the vilification of Lubanga will have on the communities who were affected by his crimes. Many members of the Ituri region, which was ravaged by Lubanga’s forces in 2003, are reported as feeling satisfied by the verdict, but not expressing their opinions publicly due to fear of potential supporters of Lubanga and the UPC.

The verdict has also come after a significant amount of time and the communities have already made progress towards reconciliation, despite ICC’s delay in court proceedings. There is also the issue of others who had been indicted alongside Lubanga, but are still at large in the DRC. A prime example is Bosco Ntganda, who was charged along with Lubanga, but still operates openly in the Eastern Congo region.

It is evident that ICC’s conviction of Lubanga is a historic milestone for international justice, but it also serves to highlight the court’s limitations and weaknesses when it comes to conducting international trials. The Lubanga trial serves as an important step in holding those who commit war crimes accountable by the international community.

7 Days of Sober Thought after Kony 2012: Part 1

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Over the next few days, ACAC will be posting a series of reflections on “Kony 2012.”  We realize there have been a multitude of responses to this viral video.  We thought we would take the time to summarize the main arguments made by others, elaborate on these with examples and further analysis, and provide a few unique observations of our own.

Stay tuned – later this week we’ll unveil a new series by ACAC’s own Tanja Bergen, with her Reports from the Field, based on her recent trip to Gulu, Uganda. Those of you who are interested in a more up-to-date, on-the-ground picture of the region should be sure to check in.

March 5, 2012 will now be known, for as long as our distracted social media-driven memories will allow, as the day Joseph Kony, Invisible Children and the child soldiers of the LRA were catapulted into popular consciousness.  For better or for worse, the “Kony 2012” video has become one of the most successful viral campaigns employed by an international NGO, maybe ever.  At the time that we write this, the 30-minute video has had 72,433,716 views online. 72 million.  By Wednesday, #stopkony was a worldwide trending topic on Twitter, while by the end of the week, “Uganda” remained a trending topic on Canadian Twitter feeds. Some have reported Invisible Children has raised $5 million in sales of their Kony 2012 Action Kit.

Almost as soon as the video went viral, so too did countless critiques of it and of Invisible Children’s approach, a sampling of which we compiled into a round-up you can see here.  Since the critiques continue to rapidly emerge in blogs, vlogs, editorials and the like, this is by no means an exhaustive list.  There are many.  Over the next few days we are going to expand on the critiques already penned by many authors online, as well as add a few points of our own.

Issue: Over Simplification

Critics have expressed a problem with:

-             the unequivocal dichotomy that is created between “good guys” and “bad guys;”

-             the implication that capturing Joseph Kony will bring peace to the region;

-             the explicit focus on short-term ‘solutions;’ and

-             the reduction of the complexity of the LRA’s power structure.

Sample critique: This post by HelloAfrica contributor Debbi N. Onuoha.

Our Response

One key figure that demonstrates the problematic nature of the good guy/bad guy dichotomy employed by Invisible Children is a man named Dominic Ongwen.  (Much of our information on this figure comes from the work of Erin Baines, who discusses the ambiguity of Ongwen and victim/killer labels in this article).  Ongwen, believed to be now in his 30s, is also an indicted war criminal, wanted by the International Criminal Court for his involvement in the LRA.  However, unlike other figures on the list, Ongwen is the first to be charged with the very war crimes of which he is also a victim.

Ongwen, born in Northern Uganda, was abducted by the LRA at the age of 10.  He quickly moved up to the highest ranks within the rebel group because of his ‘loyalty,’ or his willingness to carry out leaders’ orders and the efficiency with which he did so.  All of this is complicated by the fact that he was a child – just like the filmmaker’s friend Jacob – at the time, and yet, his ‘loyalty’ continued well into adulthood, now making him one of the world’s most wanted criminals.  Child soldiers aren’t children forever.

Ongwen’s reported compassion further complicates his role in the LRA and his label as a “killer.”  As Erin Baines describes, Ongwen is said to have occasionally shown mercy to families during village raids (i.e. by leaving at least one child behind with their family), and is said to have spared civilian villages from violence when they were caught in between his conflicts with other rebel groups.

Clearly, the case of Dominic Ongwen is not so clear-cut.  He is neither a good guy, nor a bad guy, and hardly fits into the simplistic model of child soldiers put forth in the Kony 2012 video.  The picture that Invisible Children captures – a world where big bad Joseph Konys exploit innocent little Jacobs – may be slightly out of focus.

What’s more, the Ongwen case illustrates the problem with assuming that capturing Kony will dismantle the LRA.  This is because Ongwen is one of two men (the other being Okot Odhiambo) who are in a position to take over leadership of the LRA in the event of Kony’s arrest.  This also illustrates the complex power structure of the rebel group (which extends far beyond Joseph Kony), and the flaws of such a short-term solution without a long-term sustainable plan for peace.

To this we add: The significance of stigma

One issue ACAC has yet to see emerge from the multitude of critiques of Kony 2012 is the issue of stigma and the politics of ‘reunification.’ In the video, there is a shot of (what we are likely meant to assume is) a former child soldier, being reunited happily with his parents.  This image misrepresents the incredibly complex relationship between family members and those who become, willingly or unwillingly, involved violent acts or armed groups in Uganda.  As stated earlier, child soldiers are not children forever – sometimes the reunification or reintegration process happens after children have aged into adulthood, complicated their relationship with their families.  Often times families treat former family members with direct hostility, having known the level of violence their children, sisters, or brothers may have committed on others or even on their own community.

The Kony 2012 video states outright that boys are recruited to be child soldiers, and girls, sex slaves.  While this may be true, these roles are not exclusive – Uganda girls have been documented as both child soldiers and sex slaves (or forced into ‘bush marriages’) and boys are not immune from sexual violence.  The stigmatization of female child soldiers is extreme, as is the stigmatization of rape victims, outright rejected by some communities who fear HIV infection or ‘bad luck.’

For a summary of a panel related to these issues, visit this page by the United States Institute for Peace.

Next post: Issues of misrepresentation and omission