Catalyst for Peace (formerly Catalyst Peacebuilding)

Four years after the civil war ended in Liberia, and with the first female president in the continent, Liberia has received much positive attention for its development efforts. President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf recently received the Medal of Honor from the U.S. White House and the UN has tagged Liberia as one of its “successful” peacekeeping missions (UNMIL). This past week was my first time in Monrovia, and I was pleasantly surprised at the magnitude of construction that was taking place throughout the capital and the number of foreign investors flowing through the hotels. But a closer look illuminates the fact that most of the visible construction is going towards complexes that demand rent far above what the average Liberian can afford.

Unemployment and illiteracy rates are at eighty percent. We have read that the older generations are more educated than the young, school-aged, generation. We heard during our time there that many Liberians are frustrated as they are not yet experiencing any benefit from the country’s growth. Despite this, taxi drivers we spoke with all expressed sincere satisfaction in the work of their president and acknowledged the importance of being patient with the reconstruction of their country: “destroying is very easy, but rebuilding a country, it takes time…” Billboards abound educating the population about rape, HIV/AIDS, domestic violence, reconciliation efforts of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and fighting corruption. Education up to the age of 6 years old is now free and the President is known to be working hard to eradicate corruption in the government.

Cautious optimism is what I left Liberia feeling. President Johnson Sirleaf seems to be investing in the right things – long-term development - and Liberia is heading in a positive direction. But the immediate needs of the average Liberian is not being met – employment, electricity, education… there is a sense that the peace is still very fragile.

Meet Dixon: Dixon was 12 years old when he was taken with his brother by Charles Taylor’s forces, the NPFL, in 1993, though not before witnessing the murder of his father and the rape of his mother by the same forces. Echoing the dilemma faced by many young adolescents during the war Dixon told us, “we didn’t have our own way, so we fought.” Dixon managed to escape the conflict in 1996, when he made his way to the Ivory Coast and then to Buduburam, Ghana in 2001. He is now a teacher in the settlement but would like to continue his own education, as “education transforms the mind, and it takes human resources to develop a country, people to rebuild Liberia.”

Meet Aloysius: Aloysius was ten years old in 1992, when he was abducted in Grand Gedeh County. He was placed in a Small Boys Unit (SBU), consisting of about 25 boys ranging from the age of approximately 7-13. Because Aloysius is a Krahn, one of the 16 main ethnic groups in Liberia, but was taken by Gio rebels, he was forced to cook, clean and do the wash for the forces when he was not actively fighting; the Gio/Krahn conflict took place along ethnic lines and is a result of the former President Samuel Doe who gave preferential treatment to his own ethnic group, the Krahn. Aloysius was able to escape in 1996, during an attack in Maryland County. He made his way through the Ivory Coast and arrived in Buduburam in 2006, where he is the Officer in Charge for VECSAOL.

Meet Houston: A former child soldier and member of VECSAOL, Houston has earned a certificate in Community Health, First Aid and General Medicine and managed to pay for his school by fixing bricks in the settlement and buy living with friends or sleeping in churches. In 2002, he was hired as the Chief Medical Record Officer at the clinic in Buduburam settlement, where he worked until July of 2006. During his tenure, he was consistently confronted by staff members or patients who would argue that he should not be working there on account of the fact that he is a former child soldier. He was later accused of being insulting to the staff and patients, resulting in his dismissal, though he believes that he was dismissed due to his status as an ex-combatant. Houston has not been able to find another job, though he has helped to start an after-school program in the local vicinity. Unfortunately, cases like this are frequent and likely to continue without the proper education and sensitization of the community regarding reintegration of former child soldiers.

Meet Brocks: In 1990, at the start of the war, Brocks was 13 years old and his sister was 15 years old. His sister befriended a young rebel in town, who helped his family get some food. Shortly thereafter, this young man took Brocks with him to Kataka to train him to fight; Brocks followed, believing that his family would be guaranteed safety if he were to fight with the rebels, he wanted to be able to provide food and money for his family, to protect them. He stayed with the rebels until 1994, when he went to the Ivory Coast and has been in Buduburam since 2001. Brocks still has family in Liberia who would like him to go home to them, the same family that he fought to protect. Sadly, the only way he knew to protect them has caused him to remain separated from him loved ones, as many former child soldiers like himself are too concerned about revenge killings to return to their country.

Posted by Sara Terry:

so, the other day i spent most of the afternoon with a former ex child soldier named emmanuel. claire and i had interviewed him already and i was letting him use one of my cameras to take pictures that represented himself and his relationships within the community. he’s by far the most unsettled ex child soldier we’ve met. even after coming to the refugee camp here, he left to fight in other wars — most notably, fighting three different times with the janjaweed in sudan, all that fighting and he’s only 24 years old. emmanuel can be aggressive — he was quite angry with claire because he thought we hadn’t shown up at a time we had “promised” to (his interpretation of our schedule!). but there’s a lot going on with this young man. when he sat down to be interviewed by us, he started by telling us the title he was giving the interview, “telling the truth far away from home. this is the name of my story.” we set out to make photos and he knew several places he wanted to go — but along the way, he offended one man who ran a small tailoring business by not properly asking him if he could take a picture. it turned into quite an argument, but we eventually were able to go on our way (the man didn’t want to let us leave). we talked a bit about what went wrong as we were heading on our way to our next destination, and we passed a group of women who gathered under a tree, singing. we had just moved out of sight of the women when emmanuel stopped and said, “can i take a picture of those women, as a way of apologizing to all the mothers i have hurt?” it was the last thing i expected him to say. he had not expressed much sorrow about being a soldier when we had interviewed him. i said, yes of course, and we went to greet the women, who had begun to pray. emmanuel took off his hat, waited respectfully, and when the woman in charge asked what he wanted, he told her that he had been an ex-child soldier and that he wanted to make a photograph with the women as a way of saying sorry, and to show that he was trying to be a changed man. . .well, i can guarantee you that just about every woman in that group had been affected by some great loss during the liberian wars — had probably lost at least one family member to the violence, possibly at the hands of a child soldier. and these women just looked at emmanuel, and invited him to sit with them so that i could take their photo. emmanuel was 11 when he was taken by rebels, 12 the first time he held a gun in battle. these women understood what had happened to him, and took him in in what felt to me like a collective embrace. emmanuel chose to sit at their feet when i took the picture, and they gathered around him. one woman called him over to speak to him privately, and told him, “God bless you.” there was a quietness among them all, a gentleness, a bit of sorrow. i think emmanuel was stunned by the reception he received. it was overwhelming to me, and i was really just an observer. . . after we left the women, we went on to talk to the director of a vocational school where emmanuel hopes to study plumbing. this director — who has ten ex-child soldiers as students at his school — was very patient with emmanuel, and very kind, urging him to know that he could build a new life if he focused his energy and his mind on accomplishing it. he said emmanuel would find support in doing these things — and i mentioned the women we had just been with, and the way they had embraced him. . i looked up at emmanuel and saw his eyes redden, then brim with tears. the kind of tears that don’t just come in a moment. the kind that have been building up inside you for a long long time, with no release, until something happens and they just start spilling over. that kind. one tear began rolling down emmanuel’s cheek, and then a few more. he didn’t say anything. he was just standing there, looking away, and it seemed like he was really far far away in his thoughts. maybe remembering who his own mother, who was wounded by rebel gunfire when she was trying to escape the violence with an 11-year-old emmanuel. she was bleeding and there was no one to help her as they were fleeing. a week after being shot, she passed away, in front of him. not long after that, emmanuel was taken by the rebels. i think he had been thinking about his mother because as we walked away from the school, he was quiet for a bit, and then the first thing he said was, “do you know how many years i have been homeless? how many years i have been motherless, fatherless?” i think he had been rocked to the core of his being by what he had just encountered — by the kindness of this man and even more, by the embrace of the women. many ex-child soldiers have told us the one thing they need is love. and i think that’s what emmanuel felt that day. i know i did. we saw him again the next day — he’d already been back to see the director of the school, and he’d asked me to write down the days the women would be under the tree again - -they had just started a baking school and said he was welcome to come back to see them. i don’t think it’s going to be easy for emmanuel. he got mad again that day about something — it’s hard for him to find the skills to get things done when obstacles are in his way, the kind of skills that most of us learned in some way or another as we grew up. but that’s something emmanuel never got to do. neither did any of the other ex child soldiers at the buduburam camp, or any of the other ex child soldiers in the world for that matter. i hope emmanuel goes back to see those women who sing and pray and bake. they have the heart, it seems to me, to embrace him again and again, to remind him of what it means to be somebody’s son — and not somebody’s soldier.

We have met an incredible organization based in Buduburam, known as VECSAOL (The Veteran Child-Soldiers Association of Liberia). In 2003, Ivorian armed groups, followed by other armed groups, began entering the camp to recruit former child soldiers to join their forces. In response, several brave former child soldiers formed VECSAOL to increase awareness, education and sensitization in the community about the positive impact that these men and women can have, in addition to advocating against allowing recruiters into the camp. There are no longer any armed forces recruiters entering the camp, and VECSAOL has also been successful in reducing stigmatization in the community against ex-combatants.

The 300-member strong organization is now working to encourage the ex-combatants to live in the present and to not have their future be dictated by the past.The civil war in Liberia, much like that in Sierra Leone, is known for the abduction and use of children in conflict, among other war crimes. The growing use of child soldiers has become an international trend and one we have also encountered in our trips to Sierra Leone and northern Uganda.

The organization is mostly comprised of men – not because young women and girls were not taken as participants in the conflict but because we have found that the women are more fearful of identifying themselves as former combatants/sex slaves. We have met some extraordinary former child soldiers who are working hard to demonstrate to their community that today they are neither a security threat nor “bad people”; they have started an art school and after-school programs, they are farming land to be able to feed their community, they are teachers and students. They do not like to reminisce about the past and are adamant that they want to focus on who they are today and who they want to be in the future. Each one is desperate for education to be able to make a living and give back in some way. The work of VECSAOL and the support it provides for its members have been a crucial ingredient to the decreased tension between the non-combatants and the former combatants in the community.

VECSAOL is not without its management problems or other issues that a small organization may encounter, and this is also not to say that every former child soldier in Buduburam is working hard to build a new life for themselves so they can contribute positively to the development of their community. But it is truly remarkable that the former child soldiers that we have been fortunate enough to get to know during our time here have been able to at least begin to overcome the many psychological, emotional and physical consequences of their forced participation in conflict. They have taught me that the only way to move forward is to accept responsibility for their actions while balancing the difficult reality that their contribution to the war was not their choice. Forgiveness of self is paramount.

Posted by Sara Terry:

our introduction into the buduburam refugee camp has been through the liberian dance troupe — a remarkable group founded by two refugees, “jake” jacobs and emmanuel lavelah (who likes to be called by his last name). lavelah was our guide from day one — greeting us at the camp gates and showing us through the camps. we’ve gotten to know him a bit, and have been amazed by his committment to his community. lavelah was a dancer before the war, and started the troupe here in the camp as a way to help liberians remain connected to their culture. he teaches traditional liberian dances to anyone who wants to learn — from little children, to teenagers, to western aid workers living in the camp. with sponsorship from war child canada, the troupe also holds a series of workshops for children in the community — everything from computer classes to conflict resolution. lavelah believes that only by being rooted in traditional culture, and its values of reconciliation and forgiveness, will liberians be able to build a just and peaceful society. one of the things children learn at the cultural center he runs is the nation’s pledge of allegiance (similar to the u.s. pledge), and also the words to the rather lengthy national anthem (much longer than the star spangled banner!). we heard lavelah talking with the children one day before the dance class started, helping them to understand the meaning of the pledge. he told them that if liberians had really believed the pledge, and lived it, there would never have been a war. he’s learned forgiveness in his own life — his mother was killed in a mortar attack during the war. and when he was in ivory coast (as a refugee) he learned that the woman who had been in charge of mortar attacks during the war was staying in a nearby house. he told us he wanted to revenge, he wanted to hurt the woman for what she had done. but as he sat, just twenty or thirty feet away from the house where she was staying, he began to think about what revenge would accomplish — and he said he realized that if he killed this woman, someone who cared about her would come after him and kill him, and then someone who cared about him would go and kill the killers. . . and on and on. “that’s how generational conflict begins,” he said. and he chose to forgive the woman, chose to not what she had done govern his feelings and life. the result, he said, was feeling free, feeling free to live. . . lavelah is a man full of kindness, full of care. his dream is to return to liberia and to hold a series of reconciliation festivals around the country, using dance as a way of celebrating peace and relationships between people, while also using the festivals as a way to hold community workshops about reconciliation and conflict management. he’s a visionary, a big thinker, a man of great heart. we are fortunate that he has been our guide.

We have been in Accra for just over a week now, spending time and researching at the Liberian Refugee Camp about 45 km outside of Accra… This camp has been active since 1990, the start of the Liberian civil war. At its peak, there were approximately 45,000 refugees in the camp; now, there are approximately 32,000, per the Liberian Refugee Welfare Council based in the camp. We came to the camp to learn about another consequence of conflict - I doubt there are many Liberians in Buduburam who did not pass through Sierra Leone, Guinea, or the Ivory Coast before making their way to Ghana, where they are still dealing with the trauma of the war. Our first few days here were spent trying to gain permission to work in the camp from the camp manager, UNHCR, the Ghana Refugee Board and the Ministry of the Interior - the Ghanaian government is taking their responsibility of protecting the refugees quite seriously… we have also learned that everything takes a little more time to accomplish here!

Liberians in the camp are rightly proud of how well they are managing. You can find anything that you may need directly in the camp, including a large choice of Converse and Adidas sneakers! There is a clinic, many schools and churches, clean water (for purchase), a few places for internet, and many stalls selling fruits, vegetables, and peppers… Although there is some farmland, no one has large enough land to be able to produce enough to sell; all of the food is actually bought in the town nearby, Kasoa, and then re-sold in the camp.

Some say they want to go back to Liberia but don’t have the resources, some say they will never return out of fear, some wish to be resettled in the US, where there are several large Liberian communities…  what will become of the camp is unknown, but in the meantime, life goes on in Buduburam.