One Day the Soldiers Came - Charles London [82]
The terror child soldiers inflict on the populations they control does not go away when they are out of the army. Most people believe that former child combatants are likely to get involved with criminal activity after they are out of the army, even though there is little evidence to support this belief. Jane Lowicki and Allison Pillsbury of the Women’s Commission for Refugee Women and Children note in their report, Against All Odds, that in Kitgum, in northern Uganda, there have been several cases of adolescents who commit crimes and claim to be former child soldiers. They are then turned over to the rehabilitation centers who learn that they are young people from the community, not former child soldiers at all. They use the fear and guilt surrounding the Lord’s Resistance Army as an excuse.
The Acholi people in northern Uganda have been plagued by the Lord’s Resistance Army for years. The LRA has abducted around twenty thousand of their children and forced them to fight. When they escape and attempt to return home, they are often ostracized, resented, and sometimes abused. Community leaders express a desire to forgive them for atrocities they have committed, but they fear the bad deeds have infected the children. They must perform cleansing rituals, which free the child from the guilt that attaches to them and demonstrate that the child has sought forgiveness. Without these rituals, it is believed, the spirits of those who were wronged by the children will punish the entire community. In order for the cleansing ritual to succeed, the child must show remorse for his or her actions. Even though they did not commit these deeds by choice, they are held responsible for them and often blamed for all the crime and misfortune that befalls the community after their return. On the other hand, the cleansing ritual can allow the child to take responsibility for the atrocities she has committed and free her of the guilt.
The ritual is called mato oput. Many children who fought with the Lord’s Resistance Army and have now returned home participate in the ritual, which is led by the elders of the community. The child crushes an egg to symbolize a new beginning; he leaps over a stick of bamboo to symbolize the leap from the past. He drinks a bitter brew made from the herbs of the oput tree with the people he has wronged, both parties accepting the bitterness of the past and vowing never to taste such bitterness again.
Similar rituals are practiced in Bosnia, Sierra Leone, Mozambique, and Angola. Involving the entire community in the process of forgiveness can help restore faith in social structures for everyone involved. By submitting to the will of the elders, the children show that they still respect their community; by asking forgiveness the children acknowledge the resentment the community might feel. The community is not devoid of responsibility in this problem. One of the reasons the child soldier problem remains in many areas is because the situation in the community has not changed. Violence and poverty remain. The world the children return to when they leave the military is the same world they left when they joined.
Paul, sitting in the demobilization center, was beginning to grow resentful. His community failed to protect him and then they were hesitant to take him back. This resentment can grow, and often does among former child combatants. The community must make the child feel safe again in order to rebuild trust. The adult world betrayed former child combatants, and anger at that betrayal can lead to further violence. Unless adults prove that they can be trusted not to fail the children again, the likelihood of recovery and reintegration into a peaceful society is unlikely. This is even harder when the fighting is ongoing, as in the eastern Congo and Uganda.
Sakundi was fourteen years old when we met. The vast structure where he lived was one of the best I’d seen for ex-child combatants. Sturdy gates