4/6/10

The following is a reflection on our visit to “Peacetown,” a village outside of Makeni we visited on January 19^th.  The story was a part of our presentation at the Monterey Institute on April 6, 2010.

Our bus arrived at a community outside of Makeni that had been renamed “Peacetown” in recognition of its role as the site of a signing of a peace accord between the RUF rebels and the Sierra Leonian government.  It was apparently somewhat of a hotbed of activity in the 1990s, the site of a UN brokered peace treaty, and as the large monument in the center of town indicates, “Peace Was Born Here.”  Curious children gradually surrounded us, and we posed for pictures in front of the Peacetown monument, the children flashing the peace sign.  It was a light moment, one that was tempered by the rest of our visit in Peacetown.

Some of us lingered with the children that had surrounded us, passing out stickers and fake tatoos.  A boy gestured towards the bottle water I was carrying, I couldn’t resist and handed it over.  A younger man, the community spokesperson I assumed because he could speak English, ushered us over to some shade under a few trees.  Adults gathered around us, the children pushed to the side, though quick with a sneaky wink everytime I glanced down.

We heard from the village residents the story of Peacetown.  It was long established settlement, significant as a thoroughfare to and from a nearby barge for a river crossing.  The village had been targeted by the RUF rebels during the war.  It was attacked and burned to the ground, the surviving inhabitants forced to flee into the jungle or across the river.  We heard stories of the community members returning to their village, participating in its reconstruction, and most remarkably hosting the signing of a peace accord.

But since then Peace Town has been befallen by government neglect.  We heard from the community a great sense of impatience and distrust directed at the Sierra Leonian government.  We heard what had become a common sentiment; that this is a place that had been neglected and left isolated in the aftermath of the conflict.  That other groups and communities, most egregiously former RUF rebel fighters, had received more attention and aid from the government and the international community.  It was not such a different story than that which we had heard from the residents of the amputee and war wounded camps, and what we would later hear from the miners in Tongo.

I remember listening to their testimonies, and looking up to catch, seemingly on cue, one of the ubiquitous white NGO SUVs drive through Peacetown on its way to another community.  Its back seat was overflowing with boxes containing computers.

We listened for awhile to their testimonies of inaccessible schools and health facilities.  Poor roads, and lack of electricity and drinkable water.  Taking in our surroundings, Peace Town certainly seemed to be every bit the impoverished place that was described to us.  Not that different from any other community we would visit in Sierra Leone for that matter, but it seemed that the community’s designation as “Peace Town,” and its monument declaring that “Peace was Born Here,” had left a particularly strong set of expectations here.  And I can understand why.  There have been high profile reconciliation and peacebuilding initiatives undertaken in Sierra Leone; the TRC and the Special Court perhaps most famously.  The sentiments we heard expressed from people in Peacetown was in part frustration that interventions such as these, had brought little change to the well-being of people.

We eventually filed onto the bus and took the short drive from the center of Peace Town to the river crossing.  We got off the bus and stood on the river bank, watching the barge slowly make its way across the murky river.  Our guide pointed to the tree limbs perhaps 40 feet above us and told us during the rainy season the river swells to reach these limbs.

I walked with our guide back to the bus, I asked what he thought of the TRC process, did he feel any reconciliation?  Had it translated to village and the residents of Peace Town?  I figured him to be a likely candidate to confirm my skepticism as to the effectiveness of the TRC.  He said simply that it was a good process.  Watching him, and observing his thousand mile stare, I wasn’t convinced.

February 12, 2010

I left for Sierra Leone exactly one month ago.  I knew that once I got back from the trip I would have to take care not to become consumed by my present life as a student in California.  It has been hard to try to keep a part of my head in Sierra Leone, to continue to reflect and think carefully about what I learned and saw.  I was expecting to return and be asked to talk about the trip and what we observed, and my struggle has been not to give cursory and generic answers.  I am trying to force myself to at least talk thoughtfully about Sierra Leone.  It is an important practice, and I think absolutely vital to the work I have ahead of me.

A question that I have tried to spend some time thinking about was posed to us on our last full day in Sierra Leone, when we visited the Catholic Relief Services office in Freetown.  We gave a short presentation to staff members, presenting some of the themes we had observed during our two weeks of field research.  At the end of the meeting a CRS staff member asked us about indicators of peacebuilding, and what we would consider as indicators of progress in Sierra Leone.

I sat silently that day.  The indicators that came to my mind in response to the question were of the somewhat generic, human development variety.  Access to clean water, school enrollment, and gross domestic product I think obviously miss a lot in terms of capturing progress made towards fostering lasting peace.  But on this day I was not able to articulate some ideas as to what sort of indicators could be used with regards to peacebuilding.

With the benefit of two weeks of hindsight, as well as some borrowing from articles and papers I found on the subject, I have some ideas as to what I think could be indicators of peacebuilding in Sierra Leone.  I think an important moral is to bear in mind that peacebuilding indicators must be very context specific.  Just as generalizing about conflicts, their root causes, and strategies for engagement and resolution, is fraught, so to are generic indicators of peacebuilding.

In Sierra Leone, I would want to survey attitudes, beliefs, and perceptions.  Amongst the war wounded, amputees, widows and others that bare physical marks of their victimhood, I heard sentiments that they felt left behind and neglected.  A common refrain I heard from these people was that ex-combatants and rebels, those that were perceived as the perpetrators in the conflict, were given amnesty, offered job training, and in general were allowed to reintegrate into society.  I was left with the impression that to the eyes of the war wounded, their situation stood in stark contrast.  Their physical separation from society, living in camps on the outskirts of the cities we visited, and their sense of disenfranchisement, I think left them feeling that the actual perpetrators had received a great deal more consideration.

As an indicator, I would look to see how these perceptions changed on the part of the people who live in the amputee camps.  I would want to find out if their feelings of separation and neglect by the rest of society had changed.  Are people living in the war wounded camps able to move freely to population and employment centers?  More importantly, do they have true choice in being able to leave the war-wounded camps and reside elsewhere?  I heard from people a great sense of relative deprivation.  To me, an indicator of progress in peacebuilding and steps taken towards reconciliation would be if I heard that people felt they were not being willfully ignored.

I heard in Sierra Leone a lot of strong statements around the primacy of economic development.  A professor at Njala University made the point that for him, peacebuilding is economic development.  And I understood these sentiments.  My first written reflection after being in Sierra Leone was about my own discomfort with being in the midst of obvious poverty.  How the impossibility of concealing my privilege made me uncomfortable.  I sympathize with the emphasis on economic opportunity and the desire for wealth creation, but I see in these sentiments a kind of willful blindness and unwillingness to consider that there are traumas and victims that deserve attention.  I think that inherent in peacebuilding is dialogue about violence and traumas that were suffered during the conflict.  A recognition that the society continues to be in conflict, that there are testimonies to be heard all around, and that listening and consideration are required.

Economic development, job opportunities, new schools and infrastructure are important.  But I think the emphasis on economic opportunity I heard in Sierra Leone belied a discomfort or an unwillingness to address the fact that there are many in society who cannot conceal the physical marks of their victimhood.  There are former rebel fighters who may feel separate from society.  There are remote communities that were destroyed during the violence and have a desire to express their separation and victimhood.  As an indicator I think I would want to hear from people that economic development is not a panacea for peacebuilding.  In concert with economic development, I think I would like to hear about relational and social development.  Just a recognition that there are people who are disenfranchised, and perhaps an important step to be taken in terms of reconciliation is to listen to them, recognize that there are degrees of suffering and that for many, peacebuilding is not simply access to economic opportunity.

I would look for evidence of dialogue as an indicator of peacebuilding progress.  There are dramatic challenges to peacebuilding in Sierra Leone, as an early indicator of progress I think I would look to see a willingness to talk about these challenges.  That there are problems of coordination amongst actors working to build peace; that corruption is pervasive; that many people are deliberately kept separate from society.  I would look for dialogue beyond rhetoric of economic development.  True dialogue around subjects and issues that seem to be somewhat taboo.  The role of secret societies in Sierra Leone and the cultural violence they foster; the plight of diamond mining areas and the structural violence allowed because of the Sierra Leone’s diamond “resources.”  I would look for an indicator that the challenges to peacebuilding in Sierra Leone are being addressed in ways that are not distant and foreign.  Face peacebuilding in terms that are blunt, rather than couch the issues of opportunity, inequality, rights violations and violence, within economic development.

My indicators are admittedly narrow, and themselves guilty of the shortsightedness that I accuse economic indicators of being.  They are also unquantifiable.  I admit that I don’t know how to quantify peacebuilding.  This frustrates me.  I hear in myself when I talk to others about peacebuilding, healing, and reconciliation, my own fallibilities in believing in something that I cannot explain how to measure.  It is something I am going to have to hone.

January 31, 2010

Back comfortably in Monterey.  I took a couple days off from thinking about the trip to Sierra Leone.  I’ve wanted to write a reflection about our day trip on January 23rd to Tongo village, and the nearby diamond mine.  It was a day that really affected me, and I think brought to bear a lot of the tension and conflict that lingers very near the surface in Sierra Leone.

The morning of our departure for Tongo I was feeling a lot of the good vibrations left over from our visit to a remote village the night before.  During that visit, there were more than a few times when I considered my surroundings and felt some envy for the way of life in the village.  Things have been very much put in a new perspective since then, and I am certainly not blind to the challenges that the community expressed to us.  But something about that place was attractive and intoxicating.

Tongo left me with a quite opposite emotional response.  The place felt overtly hostile to me.  We were escorted through the mine outside of town.  Standing among the dunes of gravel that men sift through by hand, everything felt tense, and my insecurities were heightened.  It was oppressively hot this day, we congregated around a depression in the dunes, above us on the mounds of discarded gravel were dozens of workers and other observers.  It felt more claustrophobic to me than any other situation we had been in.  The escort of police officers, the presence of mine security personal – one of whom was conspicuously videotaping us with a small hand-held camera – just the overwhelming maleness of the mine made me uneasy.  Here there were no exuberant children, as there had been the night before at the village and previously at the war wounded camps to ease the tension and awkwardness.

I heard appeals and testimonies from the men at the mines of their poor wages, the gross inequity between their circumstances and that of the diamond exporters, and their feelings of disenfranchisement.  A cell phone was passed around as we asked questions of the miners, and someone in the crowd had a small radio that we could hear ourselves being broadcast on.  Later I learned that a journalist had taken the opportunity of our visit and used it as a vehicle to broadcast the grievances of the miners.  These were not new grievances I heard.  The workers made appeals for infrastructure, health care, better wages, more jobs, and education.  I heard the same pleas from amputees and women left widowed by the war.  Indeed, amongst all the welcome feelings and hospitality at the village the night before, the people there expressed the same frustrations.  But here, in the mine pit, under the hot sun, and surrounded by men that to me projected aggression, I felt threatened.  I felt their anger and frustration to be directed at me.  I was not comfortable here.  I tried to listen and consider as thoughtfully the expressions of the miners as I had those of the war wounded.  But I just wanted to leave.

The mine and the Tongo community was the first time during the trip where I felt I was in the midst of a conflict.  Speaking with war wounded and amputees was difficult, but there the feeling I had was that the conflict was not nearly as manifest.  I had the sense that in those communities people’s energies were focused on moving on from the violence and traumas they had endured.  Their words impressed upon me a desire to be allowed to be a part of society again, and to reconcile their wounds and internal scars through new economic opportunity.  In Tongo and at the mine, the conflict seemed very much in the present.  I felt an anxiousness, and was troubled by what I detected as deep anger, and perhaps a latent expression of violence lying not too far from the surface.  Again, the people in Tongo had the same grievances that I had heard from almost every party that was affected by the war, but I perceived it in a new way.

After visiting the mine we returned to Tongo and met with a group of youth and other community leaders.  I was distracted during most of the meeting, trying to make notes about and articulate the palpable conflict I sensed here.  I jotted notes about how I felt there was something different about this community, and how it must have been affected by the war.  What the presence of the diamond mine might have meant for Tongo’s experience during the war, and how this “resource” may foster the hostility and maleness I felt in Tongo.  I tried to observe the rest of the group during the meeting.  The evening prior we had stepped off the bus and I think to some degree we were all infected by the sense of goodwill in the village.  We had gravitated towards the children in the village, embracing them as we sat there into the evening.  Here, in Tongo, again surrounded by curious children, I observed our body language turned obviously inward.  Hardly anyone made efforts to reach out to the kids.  For the most part I saw us sitting arms crossed, stern-faced and noticeably not infected in anywhere near the same way many of us had been in the village.

I asked one of our hosts if in the mine there were former rebel fighters working there.

“Yes, many.  Maybe 80% are former rebels.”

“Is this problematic?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

“They like to fight and cause problems.  You met them.  Those men you talked to in the mine, many of them were the rebels.”

This stuck with me.  After the meeting with the community leaders we insisted on going somewhere to talk with women in Tongo, who had been noticeably absent from the meeting.  We made a short drive to the main outdoor marketplace in Tongo, run almost entirely by women merchants.  We were escorted through the market in much the same way we had been through the diamond mine.  The absence of men here did nothing to dispel the feelings of hostility and aggression I felt.  It seemed like the mine again.  Here I think our desire to speak with women was overridden by the discomfort we felt.  I did not feel welcome in this space, and we walked out of the market after perhaps ten minutes.  As we walked I chatted with one of our police escorts about the women in the market.

“Many of these women were with the rebels during the war,” he told me.  “Some had guns and fought just like the men.”

We stopped briefly at a shop to buy drinks.  I stood in the store trying to pick from the sugary drinks available and noticed that the shelves were stocked with cases of plastic gallon jugs of gin, rum and other liquor.  I stared for a moment and considered what this said about the mining town.  To enable living here, someone decided, required for people to be drowned in booze.  The people here were victims of exploitive work and neglectful government.  And where were the NGOs that marked every other community we visited?!  Tongo and the diamond mine left me with the feeling that they were being willfully ignored.  Outsiders were not welcome here.  Indeed, we were under obvious suspicion by the local police as soon as we drove into town – having to jump through a few hoops and then tolerate a small entourage of bodyguards the whole time we were in Tongo.  It seemed strange at first that our visit with the miners was broadcast on the radio, and obviously used as a platform for the men in the mines to rant.  But perhaps it was indicative of the people here being so obviously exploited, and others having great interest in keeping this exploitation somewhat a secret.

This place seemed deeply scarred to me, but scarred in a different way than the camps for war wounded and other communities we had visited.  The difference, to me, was the presence of the diamond mine.  It attracted people to Tongo; workers, traders, exporters, speculators and government; and corrupted them.  Driving out of Tongo I considered what was to me an obvious absurdity: That all of this exploitation in Tongo is just for rocks.  Rocks that at some point someone decided to assign a value to.  “Diamonds don’t do anything,” I thought.  What kind of resource are they really?  What good has Sierra Leone realized because of its diamond endowments?

I understood then that my emotions were somewhat sophomoric, and were getting in the way of understanding the complexities of Tongo and the diamond trade.  I was reminded of this later in the day when over dinner we talked with the owner of our hotel in Kenema, a diamond exporter for over 40 years in Sierra Leone.  But Tongo and the diamond mine remain, over a week later, the part of the trip that lingers most unresolved in my head.

January 28, 2010

I wanted to write a response to a comment we received on the blog about our use of the word victim:

I’m surprised by how much the word victim is used in this blog!  Is the goal to establish who’s fault it’s not?  I’ve been trained to use the word “survivor” instead, when referring to women who have been raped.  To me it promotes a sense of strength, whereas “victim” seems to imply helplessness. Is there a specific reason you guys use the word “victim?”

It’s an important question, and I wanted to reply in a separate post that wouldn’t get missed in all the replies and comments we’ve been getting.  Thanks to the comment’s writer for the good question, I hope you see this, and please keep the discussion going!

I sympathize with the desire not to burden a people with a label and an identity that can handicap them.  I think in the United States, and perhaps Western culture in general, we have a certain discomfort with the idea of being a victim.  We cling to the idea that we are always in control of our circumstances.  We seem to feel that tragic occurrences; assault, robbery, rape, are things that were not completely unavoidable, and  How many times do we hear people in our society refrain that “she should have known better than to walk down that street; or talk to that guy; or go to that country….”  Also, there is the notion in our culture that great strength is gained from surviving and recovering from trauma.  I detect great romanticism in the story of people overcoming incredible circumstances to succeed.  To the point that suffering can be seen not so much as an incredible burden for someone to bear their entire life, but something that we should expect people to shed and grow stronger from.

I like to use the word “victim” because it absolves that person of responsibility for what happened to them, and the expectation that they should be made newly resilient.  It is something that after spending two weeks in Sierra Leone, and meeting with amputees, war widows, miners and former child soldiers, seems totally appropriate.  I question what exactly is so harmful of the identity of victimhood?  What I saw through my lens, and heard through my ears, were testimonies and pleas of people crippled by the lagging economic development in Sierra Leone and their separation from the rest of society.  To the extent that there was an identity of “victimhood,” it seemed not to be the thing that was inhibiting people from moving on after the conflict.

In terms of healing and reconciliation, I think gaining comfort with one’s own victimization is valuable.  Admitting to having been a victim, and allowing others to understand that you were victimized, I think is hardly an expression of weakness.  I think for a lot of people, knowing oneself is a challenge, and as such, fostering an identity of being a “survivor” seems to be something that is easier to project.  But the idea of victimhood is extremely nuanced, and should not be confused with weakness.  Indeed, I see it as a true display of strength, to confess that something terrible happened that was beyond your control.  Personal healing and strength I think grows out of a certain comfort with your own circumstances and fortune.  Without a doubt, it is difficult.  For me, it is hard enough to be comfortable with how fortunate I am in the opportunities I have now, and have benefitted from in the past.  I cannot imagine the difficulty in becoming comfortable with severe traumas.  But I do feel that comfort with this makes healing possible.

Similarly, reconciliation at a societal level is, I believe, enabled by an acceptance that some, many, or most were victimized.  Sympathy for traumas that were suffered, as well as apologies, are necessary for this wide reconciliation.  An emphasis on surviving, to me, detracts from the severity of the trauma.  Amputation, rape, and mutilations are difficult to know and consider, but it is valuable for the victim to have some faith that others know at least some recognition of their suffering.  Please do not lift them up yet with language of courage, survival and strength.  Allow for the suffering to happen.  The catharsis in the wake of traumas of the kind in Sierra Leone I think comes about after those that were victims are allowed the space to know their victimhood, and to see that others recognize their suffering.

Lastly, we should bear in mind that “victim” has wide application.  Are the children that were forcibly taken from their communities, traumatized through beatings, and drugged not victims because they then participated in acts committed by the RUF?  And about Foday Sankoh, the leader of the RUF, and a man who appears to have been somewhat of a pawn of Charles Taylor’s in carrying his war to Sierra Leone.  Is he not somewhat a victim?  I like to use the word “victim” because it allows us to understand that victimization is not one-sided.  Brutal violence of the nature that Sierra Leone experienced leaves victims from all parties in its wake.  I certainly do not mean to sound as if this absolves Sankoh or the RUF combatants of the atrocities they committed, it merely asks of us to be more nuanced in our consideration of the war.  There were not perpetrators on one side, and targets and survivors on the other.  To some degree, the war touched everyone in Sierra Leone, and by this token, in some way, everyone was a victim of the war.  The label of victim reminds us of the grotesqueness of war.  Conflict is not a bad thing, but war and violence produce victims all around.  The “winner” of a war will still be rife with victims.  Understanding this allows us to know that violence and war are not constructive.  In any way.  Conflict offers great opportunity for growth and positive change.  Violence in conflict produces victims.  Labeling those that have gone through traumas as survivors or heroes seems to me to somewhat glorify the violent acts to which they were subjected.

Again, great, great question.  Please be mindful that these are only my words and thoughts, and by no means do I speak for the group.  Also, I know that I am not “right” in my ideas of the terms victim versus survivor.  It is only my perspective and I understand that there are many others, and some that are undoubtedly more persuasive.  I hope others in the group and those that follow the blog can reply to the question of “victimhood.”  It is a good dialogue for us to have.

January 27, 2010

(I made a point to inquire about opinions and feelings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) process today.  At our visits to a village outside of Makeni, renamed “Peace Town” after it was the site of the signing of a peace accord between the RUF rebels and the government, and an amputee camp on the outskirts of Makeni, I detected a sense of impatience and some distrust of the Sierra Leonian government.  Peace Town is a memorial site, complete with plaques and a small monument in the center of town, declaring “Peace Was Born Here.”  The Amputee camp, like the others we visited outside of Freetown, was established by the government, ostensibly to provide a “refuge.”

It seems that one place, the Peace Town, should be held in high regard for its role in bringing an end to violence, and the other, the war wounded camp, should be a place of special attention.  What I heard from the people here were feelings of neglect by the government.  I sensed resentment that more has in fact been done to accommodate former rebel combatants.  Is it unfair of me to consider this as indicative of at least a partial failing of the TRC?

My prodding about the TRC has been met largely with answers along the lines that the process was useful, it was appreciated, and that people were grateful for the undertaking.  But the answers have seemed hollow to me).

That was the end of a partial reflection I wrote on January 19^th, over one week ago now.  I think I came to Sierra Leone with strong biases against the TRC and the Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL).  Through my lens they seemed distant.  Too far removed from the population of Sierra Leone.  Too Western, and too burdened by their own financial endowments, standing in stark contrast to the poverty of Sierra Leone.  I came here believing very much that these instruments contributed little to the long-term process of reconciliation.

To my disappointment, my biases with respect to the TRC and the SCSL seemed not to be supported by the people I questioned about them.  I couldn’t finish the reflection I began on the 19^th because to that point, what I heard from Sierra Leonians about the TRC contradicted my opinions.  I started to try to turn around what people told me, and point out contradictions in what they said versus what I observed.  But I couldn’t.

We were back in Freetown for our last full day of meetings two days ago.  Reflecting on a meeting with the Human Rights Commission of Sierra Leone, a government office whose work in part is devoted to supporting the TRC and disseminating its findings, my notes are marked by incredulity and skepticism at what I was hearing about the positive impact of the TRC.

What is it about these processes of the type of the TRC that make me so distrustful?  I know that I am being unfair.  What I think is largely at the root of my revulsion towards the TRC is my desire to blame someone, anyone, for the violence that took place here and the missteps in the peacebuilding process. The TRC is an easy target, for what I think is real disconnect from the wider population of Sierra Leone, and absolution of its responsibility to elicit apologies for atrocities committed.

But the TRC, and the Special Court for that matter, began with a good idea somewhere, and were conceived by some group of people who I think were well-intentioned.  I need to remind myself of this.  While both institutions should not be absolved of criticism, they also do not deserve the brunt of my frustration, and I should be careful in guarding against my desire to hinge an undue amount of blame.  I feel tremendous unease in Sierra Leone, and in some pockets we visited, great tension and conflict.  The process of reconciliation has a long, long road to travel here.  However, this does not mean that the TRC and Special court processes did not make some contribution.

We heard a prosecutor at the Special Court defend the process with the “but for” argument.  That is, if not for the Special Court then what?  What would the place look like without the Special Court?  Is it fair to say that these processes made things worse for Sierra Leone?  It’s not a satisfying defense, but it is remindful of the fact that the TRC and the special court were undertaken with good intentions.  For a place that has been so victimized and exploited, this is indeed significant.

We’ve been on the move the last several days.  Lots of good experiences and I’ve tried to take time to write and reflect as I go through things.

January 17, 2010

It is our first night in Makeni, the capital of the Bombali District in Northern Sierra Leone.  We left this morning from Freetown, and I feel a great sense of relief at being out of the city.  Everything for me felt heightened in the first two days I had in Freetown.  It certainly was not the chaos, traffic and commotion of a big city.  I usually enjoy urabn dynamics, and feel at ease making my way through dense places.  With a day to reflect, I can say that I think the poverty, as well as being white and obviously privileged was extremely unsettling.  I felt exposed just stepping off of the bus and walking a block down the street.

It changed today to some extent.  On our way to Makeni we stopped at beach, a beautiful beach not too far south of Freetown.  I enjoyed the drive, went for a run on the beach, and in general I think was able to become more comfortable when the stark differences between me and Sierra Leone were not so concentrated and somewhat escapable.  I am relieved to be out of Freetown, but also hopeful for my return in one week.  Optimistic that I will be more comfortable with myself in that setting.

Yesterday we visited camps, established by the Sierra Leonian government on the outskirts of Freetown as refuges for victims of the conflict.  Different settlements were home to amputee victims, widows whose husbands were killed in the war, children who were orphaned, and those that suffer from polio or are handicapped.  I felt a great deal of suspicion from the adults we visited.  Indeed I was grateful that at each settlement we visited and with each group we talked with we were always in the midst of children.  Kids that were cute and seemed to me curious about us to the extent that they just wanted to walk around and hold our hands.  It brought needed levity to the day.

But I sympathized with the suspicion the people we visited expressed.  Paraphrasing the sentiments of one woman, an amputee and rape victim and the hands of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebel group, she’s given her story to a lot of intrusive visitors.  Today, after the extreme traumas she has lived through, she lives in a community deliberately segregated from the rest of the population, and in deep poverty.  We were asked for money as compensation for them sharing their stories of the war and answering our questions about the efforts made at peacebuilding and reconciliation.  I understood the frustration and suspicion of us, and I think as a group we felt a good deal of trepidation during our first sit down with war victims.  I can say that, to the extent possible in an hour or so, I think some degree of comfort and trust was established.  People did share their stories and I think there were moments of true candor and confession.

Three full days here now, and I am impatient with myself.  I am anxious for a revelation, for the field experience to lend the light bulb moment that complements the research and writing on conflict resolution I’ve done in Monterey.  What I have right now are some tug of wars in my head.  A theme arising is for me is an emphasis on economic development.  Indeed, during my first day in Freetown a professor of peace and development studies at Njalla University said something nearly as strong as “peacebuilding is economic development.”  That first day I bristled at this, and wrote in my notes that, while an important aspect, economic development cannot possibly heal the extreme traumas that I feel are inherent in war.  In talking with war victims the following day, at the resettlement camps, I at first found my conviction bolstered.  I heard in people’s sentiments a frustration at internal healing and reconciliation they have been denied.  It seemed a strong rebuke of the idea that clean water, roads, and jobs equals peace.  But I am flip flopping on this point a lot.  The same war victims that my ears heard talk about the restoration of relationships and healing traumas, almost uniformly emphasized the lack of jobs, quality housing, education and opportunity.  The desire for economic development opportunities seemed to me a consistent theme.  So perhaps it is required to satisfy this basic need before all else.  Economic opportunity and security may foster trust.  The personal and internal healing could be fostered over time, but certainly not in a context of poverty.  How could we expect people to reconcile their society when opportunities for wealth creation are not available?

I think I know better than to believe that economic development is the silver bullet in peacebuilding.  But I have been presented with what are to me powerful stories and pictures that nearly suggest this.  It’s a conflict in my head right now, and I think I should leave at that.

January 18, 2010

After a day of travel and the beach, this was our first full day in Makeni.  I felt somewhat energized today, and there were a lot of moments in our day of visiting various organizations that I found resonant or intriguing.  The day left me with what I think are a lot of good questions to have moving forward.  I might be beginning to find some piece of a foundation for how to move forward in reflecting on what I hear and drawing out some themes.  It has taken a few a days, and the first few were really uncomfortable for me, but I am beginning to feel more at ease with being here, approaching people, and trying to glean things from them.

There was a lot of talk today from our hosts and interviewees about helping people to “access justice.”  Conceptions of justice, how to foster justice for various parties, pretty much anything to do with justice, was an aspect of peacebuilding that I was certain I and the rest of the group would wrestle with here.  I’m not ready yet to articulate some real thoughts or ideas on this, but I feel somewhat close, or at least confident that light will continue to be shed on this for me.

A theme I heard today was usage of terms like “human rights organization,” or “rights-based approach to justice” from the organizations we spoke with.  I sort of perk up at talk of universal human rights, or of pursuing justice through the protection of basic rights.  I am really quite intrigued by what I understand as fairly absolutist notions of human rights.  Not quite ready to drink the human rights kool-aid, but finding the ideas powerful.  All the more so when, as I have been in Sierra Leone, I am confronted with stories of extreme trauma that I could not argue are anything but violations of some basic right.  But my understanding of the rights based approach to justice leaves me feeling that it is overly prosecutorial.  Too wrapped up in the immediacy of identifying violators and taking action against them.  Conversely, it may be fair that conflict resolution is too consumed with deep understanding and working to foster long term positive affects on a society, helping to make a context in which the same conflict will not become destructive again.

Now, I think there is a reason that practitioners and students of the two fields, conflict resolution and human rights, work in similar spheres and I think have general agreement on issues of peacebuilding.  The fields seem to me complementary, and it is my opinion at the moment that a situation demanding peacebuilding interventions will benefit from efforts undertaken through both lenses.  To this point, I am feeling the process in Sierra Leone, particularly with respect to “access to justice,” has been characterized by short term interventions.  Those that fit more in line with the immediate prosecution I feel is an aspect of a human rights approach to peacebuilding.

For me, this is typified nicely by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) in Sierra Leone.  I harbor a good deal of skepticism right now towards the TRC process that was undertaken here.  I sense a wide gulf between the TRC institution and its attempt at fostering healing, and the greater population of Sierra Leone.  Similar to some reservations I have about a universal notion of human rights, I am just not sure that the TRC means that much to most people in Sierra Leone.  The process has been undertaken, completed, and reports have been published.  But I feel that missing is an attempt to use what was gleaned from the TRC to steward broad and deep healing, of the type that can guard against renewed violence and trauma.  Admittedly, I do not know enough to make these judgments.  But there they are.  It is useful for me to put this down.  I am not sure what these unfinished thoughts are going to add up to.  Which ones have some validity and resonance, and which are indicative of a student.  But as I said, I am gaining some confidence with my process right now.

January 23, 2010

A sort of formative last few days I think.  From Makeni we traveled to Bo, one day and night there, and then on to Kenema for the last three days.  Both of the new cities are characterized by their relative commercialism compared to leafy and relaxed Makeni.  I am grateful that we went to Makeni when we did.  There, away from Freetown, the traffic and dust, I was able to find a level of comfort with Sierra Leone.  I had moments during every day in Makeni in which I could calmly consider myself living and working there.

Right now, considering our time in Bo three days after being there, it seems a bit like a blur.  I think some important things were revealed about the culture in Sierra Leone during some of our meetings in Bo.  Most importantly, the role and prominence of secret societies.  There seems to be enough to these secret societies to warrant their own reflection.  That will come later.

In Kenema, the last two days have been emotionally uneven.  It’s all extremely fresh right now, and I cannot be sure how I’ll consider these events one week or a year from now.  But today, I feel that last night I was treated to a rare moment of trust and connection between cultures.  We traveled last night to a village outside of Makeni, literally diving into the jungle in our bus – a vehicle that at this point I would not be surprised to be capable of driving across the English Channel and up and over the Cliffs of Dover – and emerging at the village just before darkness and to a reception of applauding people and elated children.

Again, I have been here only ten days, I have no idea if any of this was stagecraft, but it felt real and authentic.  We sat in the village into the evening asking questions of each other.  Whenever I looked to my side the person sitting next to me would smile with what seemed like lack of any self-conscience.  With what felt like pure happiness.  The energy here was intoxicating.

I should be careful not to over romanticize the village life described to us.  Drinkable water, accessible schools, and health centers were all absent.  The men spend their days farming and working in the surrounding jungle, but other economic opportunities are not there.  Their overtures for economic development and social services were largely the same from what I have heard from our visits to the camps for the war wounded, speaking with NGOs, and today in our visit to the Tongo Diamond Mine.  And like everyone else, the people in the village seemed sure that they were the ones being left behind by the government and other organizations in Sierra Leone.

All these groups we have met, to me have displayed real sense of relative deprivation.  That some other group is the beneficiary of support, be it the former combatants, the people in the big cities, men, or the war wounded, while they are being forgotten.  In a country characterized by wide destitution, some feel deprived in as much as they perceive that others are granted more than them.

The various constituencies here, amputees, villagers, mine workers, each of whom I think have real grievances, are left quite separate from one another.  The war wounded and amputees are moved to camps outside of the city; the former combatants are given jobs as motor bike drivers or in some cases diamond mine workers; the nature of their work leaving them isolated.  I think there is something happening here in which reminders of the conflict, amputees, combatants, and the diamond mines, are thought best to be put out of sight.

The challenges here in terms of alleviating poverty, public health, infrastructure, education, all indicators of human development, are truly immense.  And I have felt at various times in the last ten days that our understanding and questioning of peacebuilding, healing and the long-term reconciliation needed in the wake of the kind of violence that happened here, has run up against the immediacy of the need for the provision of basic needs.  I have heard the pleas for economic development, and been somewhat turned away from needs for justice, reconciliation and other aspects of peacebuilding.  But I know that these aspects should not be mutually exclusive.  Placing people in isolation through their living situation or work widens the cleavages in this place.  People have a purity in them, I was reminded of this in our visit to the village.  I wonder if this can be restored, how much time it will take, and how to remove the structural violences.

January 15, 2010

My first full day in Freetown.  Synthesizing experiences and people is a challenge right now.  I am not sure how I should orient my thinking when we visit people and organizations.  The temptation is to parse statements and question things I hear that seem incongruous with what I expect and my biases.  But I don’t know.  Perhaps I need to simply listen well, make my observations and let things sit in my head for a few days.  I feel I need to force myself to practice some patience in attempting conclusions.  By not doing so, I think I risk making the conclusions about Sierra Leone, the conflict, and peacebuilding in general, that I had preconceived from the comfort of California.

I think the struggle right now for me is, that while being mindful of not making early conclusions, I cannot be passive in my observations.  In listening to people talk today about the war, reconciliation and peacebuilding I have heard themes that I expected and others that do not align with my biases.  At Search For Common Ground this morning the Director of the organization spoke about the value of fostering dialogue as a part of peacebuilding.  I saw in this organization an understanding of the importance of offering an outlet for the release of tensions, in the case of Search For Common Ground through music, drama and the arts.  It resonated with me.  Dialogue as a means of reconciliation, or perhaps more accurately reconfiliation – a term I first heard in a lecture on the peacebuilding process in South Africa, described as meaning to make someone your family again – is something I believe in.  My biases leave me with the belief that trauma and healing must take place at an individual and community level.  Not to the exclusion of broader, or top down peacebuilding initiatives, but as an equal complement.

Later in the day we met with representative from the National Committee for Social Action (NACSA), a government agency that struck me as a little bit slippery, exemplified by their numerous name changes.  The nuance that I appreciated from the Director of Search For Common Ground in his discussion of the issues of peacebuilding was, for me, largely absent here.  A lot of the appropriate language was thrown around, but so were statements like: “Development and government cannot be mixed… they are like oil and water; women need some guidance in acquiring skills so that they can move on from the conflict, and; we work only with the victims of the conflict, not the ex-combatants.”

Each of these statements troubled me.  I see no way development, or peacebuilding, cannot be political or biased.  I truly feel that impartiality or neutrality, particularly in an area that has experienced conflict, is impossible.  I am somewhat dubious of anyone who claims as much.  Also, the tone I heard when describing the “guidance” that women require to move on after the conflict was one of condescension.  Not overtly or maliciously – they were speaking in the context of fostering job and other vocational skills – but to my ears I heard a sentiment that somehow men can better move on after the conflict, and these sensitive women need a little extra attention.

Late in the afternoon we traveled to the Njala University campus in Freetown, the home of the Peace and Development Studies program and place of study for many master’s students.  Our lecture at Njala began as an academic talk on the history of the conflict and some primary actors.  The lecturing professor’s tone progressively escalated to something like, what struck me as, a sermon on the challenges facing Sierra Leone and the sorts of initiatives needed for peace.  I felt as though it was a lecture much more for the substantial number of Sierra Leonian students that had joined us in the classroom.  And this seems totally appropriate.

I was struck by the professor’s emphasis on economic development and fostering good governance as the requisite steps for lasting peace.  At Search for Common Ground earlier in the day I found myself nodding along with the Director as he touched upon rebuilding relationships, what I saw as some of the most fundamental and deep aspects of healing and restorative justice.  But attracting investment and improving the economy?  These seemed to me like shallow interventions that would miss the traumas left behind from the conflict.

I’ve had only one day thus far, and I feel good about how I have operated.  Just taking notes, asking questions, and not forcing opinions.  I think that as the trip progresses this will become more challenging.  The messages I heard from Search for Common Ground and the Professor at Njala University I suppose are not mutually exclusive.  But I was left with some sense of contradiction between the two.  It may have been only me, and after a day I feel I cannot yet articulate the dissonance I felt.  As I said at the beginning, I have not found my way of operating and information gathering yet.  I’m going to be patient in my listening.  And while being careful to form questions and develop themes, also take everything I hear at its own face value to some degree.  I’m just going to believe what people tell me, and work on synthesizing what may seem like contradictory interpretations.

December 17, 2009

I’m in an airplane, on my way home to Michigan for a Christmas visit.  The fast approaching trip to Sierra Leone leaves me feeling numb right now.  I think I’ve been good about trying to remain cognizant of the challenge that the trip will pose.  I’m excited by the entire undertaking, but unsettled as well.  I think my unease stems in part from what I expect out of myself during the trip, knowing the emotional limitations I see in myself presently.

How am I going to operate in Sierra Leone.  I expect a harsh wake-up call.  I’m scared.  Not because I don’t think I’ll be able to process what I will experience, but because I don’ t have confidence in me emotionally appreciating what is in store.  I think I’m afraid of the challenge that reflection will pose on the trip.  I’m going to have to force myself to do more than just report, but also think back and reflect upon experiences in Sierra Leone.

Ahead of the trip I’ve formed some opinions and ideas about Sierra Leone, the conflict and the prospects for peacebuilding.  I think it will be valuable to try to get through these now.  They should prove interesting, and at the least useful to me, as I’m sure my notions will change during and after the trip.

• The images of the violence our group saw in films thus far are grisly.  The severing of limbs, ears and noses is a kind of violence that is so personal.  It requires close interaction, shooting at a person from a distance seems easy compared to what must be required of the perpetrator that cuts off the hands of another.  How does this violence happen?  By no means do I mean to sound as if this has never happened before Sierra Leone and other African conflicts, I’m aware of the brutal violence that took place by all races and cultures through history.  But the question remains, what is the chemistry that is going on inside of people that makes it possible to do these things?  I just do not understand it, I’m not sure that I should.
• My biases and my personal lens, is one that looks for explanation of violent acts through structures, histories, systems and grievances.  I’m not one that has to guard against labeling something mass criminal behavior.  Indeed, for me, the check has to come from the other direction, in that I have to learn to be hard on those that commit brutal acts.  This I think is where my emotional distance from things troubles me the most.  I need to become more comfortable I think with the emotional response that the images I’ve seen evoke.
• I think the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) bears an unfair amount of blame for the war and violence in Sierra Leone.  I don’t know enough to articulate why, or who else shares blame, but I will not – at least not at this instant in an airplane over Illinois – accept that the RUF was some spontaneous incarnation of extreme violence.  What is this saying?  That there was some reprimitization of a people that happened in Sierra Leone?  I reject this.  There is more blame to go around.
• And that leads me to another confession: I want to blame someone.  I try to remain sober about the conflict, I have to guard against signaling out an “other,” or a “them” that bears responsibility for the violence.  I think I’m good about this, but as I think about the trip ahead of me, the clinicians discourse I’ve learned to use when looking at conflict is unsatisfying.  I want blame to be doled out, I want to know who is most responsible.
• I’m skeptical of efforts at peacebuilding by outside actors.  I don’t know who the good stewards are in Sierra Leone, and right now, I’m dubious as to whether there are any.  Knowing peacebuilding purely from my detached perspective as a graduate student, I put much more stock in indigenous initiatives at peace, governance and the restoration of relationships.  I consistently find myself concluding that in Sierra Leone, Somalia, Uganda or wherever, that these places managed for a long time without outside actors, and that they surely have the capacity to heal their societies.

It’s not all of my biases, but they are what I think are some of the most salient at this time.  I want it to be clear to anyone reading this, these ideas and statements are merely an effort to try to articulate my own lens, to try to better know myself.  I do not mean for my writing here to sound dogmatic.  Quite the contrary, I am trying to reveal my own fallibilities.  I want to guard against what I often become annoyed with in others, that is an inability to step outside themselves, examine where they are coming from, and project some humility.