Presents
Beasts of No Nation:
Inside the Mind of A Child Soldier in Africa
[Transcript prepared from a tape recording]
This event was held in Washington, DC
on Tuesday, February 28, 2006, at 4:00 p.m.
The Center for Global Development is an independent think tank that works to reduce global
poverty and inequality through rigorous research and active engagement with the policy
community.
Use and dissemination of this transcript is encouraged; however reproduced copies may not be
used for commercial purposes. Further usage is permitted under the terms of the Creative
Commons License. The views expressed in this transcript are those of the participants and should
not be attributed to the directors or funders of the Center for Global Development.
www.cgdev.org
Todd Moss:
Thank you very much for coming. My name is Todd Moss. I’m a
research fellow at the Center for Global Development and I want to welcome everybody here
today for a very exciting event I’ve been looking forward to for a while. You know, those of us
in the research and policy community often get stuck in our numbers and in internal literature
and I think, certainly I always forget, that we can learn a lot from other mediums such as fiction
and film and, in fact, that novels and films can often convey complexities of development issues
in a way that’s accessible to the public and is also, in many ways, enlightening for researchers as
well. I think that there’s been a history of that. Chinua Achebe’s classic book “Things Fall
Apart,” I think probably better describes the impact of colonialism on African societies, at least
as well as any history book. Certainly the writings of Coetzee and Nadine Gordimer tell us a lot
about apartheid that you can’t get from a history book. More recently, Michael Holman’s book,
“Last Orders at Harrods,” which I think’s one of the greatest books that I’ve read in a long time,
I think gives more insights into the World Bank and into the development community’s
relationship with Africa than anything that policy makers have been able to convey.
And I’m especially pleased that today we have both a novel and a preview of a film that’s in a
similar vein, enlightening about some very complex and difficult development issues. I am
pleased that we have Uzo Iweala here with us today, who’s written a novel that tells us a lot
about child soldiers, in a small way helping to make sense from something that from the outside
seems completely senseless, and we’ve also got a film with Sean Fine here. He’s going to give
us a world premiere exclusive preview on a film that’s in production now about child soldiers
and former child soldiers in Uganda.
Uzo’s book, “Beasts of No Nation”, hopefully you’ve heard about. If you don’t own a copy
already, they’re for sale in the lobby. It’s gotten some fantastic reviews. I think the New Yorker
called it haunting. Washington Post called it hypnotic. I noticed that Uzo’s book was listed on
the list of the top ten must reads for 2005 by both Time and actually People Magazine as well,
which I think is a real testament to the book’s ability to cross into new audiences. Also, there’s a
quote that I think was on the invitation from Salman Rushdie that says in reviewing Uzo’s book,
“It’s one of those are occasions when you see a first novel and you think ‘This guy is going to be
very, very good’.” I think that says a lot. Uzo’s going to do a reading from part of the book
today and then we’ll have Sean show a clip from his film, and then we’ll just have a discussion.
I don’t think it needs to be more formal than that.
Very quickly, Uzodinma Iweala is a Washington native. The book is “Beasts of No Nation”.
It’s his first novel. He graduated recently from Harvard, where he was a Mellon Mays Scholar
and received a number of prizes for his writing. He now splits his time between New York City
and Lagos in Nigeria. Sean is the producer, director and cinematographer of “War Dance” and
he’s been a film maker in Washington since 1996. His films have aired on ABC, National
Geography, Discovery and Spike TV. Sean received an Emmy for his National Geographic
documentary “The Pigeon Murders,” which is about a story of a New York City pigeon serial
killer and the copy that tried to catch him. And Sean is also the producer, director and
cinematographer for National Geographic series, “World Diaries”, which explores the life of
people on the front lines of political, social and cultural change around the world. As I
mentioned, War Dance is about child soldiers who are in the Lord’s Resistance Army or
formerly in the Lord’s Resistance Army in Northern Uganda. He was in Africa shooting in
August and September and in May, he’ll be returning for some more shooting to finish the film.
So with that, why don’t we turn it over to Uzo for the reading.
Uzodinma Iweala:
Well, thank you everybody for coming. I’m going to read from the
second chapter of Beasts of No Nation. First, I’m going to take a sip of water. So just to give
context, this chapter that I’m reading is, I mean the book is very short. The chapter’s short as
well. This is Agu, the main character, who’s a boy of anywhere from ages 9 to 12. This is sort
of documenting, or not documenting, the telling, the story of how he is forced to kill for the first
time as a soldier. So I’ll just start reading. Also, the characters that you’re sort of meeting in
this chapter, you have the Commandant, who’s the leader of the rebel fighting force, you have
the Lieutenant, who’s the second in command, Agu, the main character, and then Strika, who’s
Agu’s best friend, who’s probably a bit younger than Agu. So if Agu’s nine years old, Strika’s
probably eight or seven. And here we go.
[Uzodinma Iweala reads chapter 2 from “Beasts of No Nation]
Todd Moss:
All right. Sean?
Sean Fine:
Okay.
Sean Fine:
I’ll talk a little bit while we’re getting this together. Basically, this is a
film project that my wife and I are codirecting about child soldiers and former child soldiers in
northern Uganda that were abducted by the LRA, the Lord’s Resistance Army, in northern
Uganda. And basically, our film follows three children who have been affected by the Lord’s
Resistance Army, one that was abducted, two others that had their families brutally murdered in
front of their eyes, and we follow these children who now live in a refugee camp, to Kampala for
a music festival. And it’s the first time they’ve ever been out of their refugee camp. They’ve
never been to a city. They don’t have electricity and this is a small clip of the film. So I’ll just
play it.
[A clip of “War Dance” is played]
Todd Moss:
Okay. Do you want to tell us a little bit more about where the film stands
and where it’s going?
Sean Fine:
Yeah, we’re basically, we were in northern Uganda in September, August,
September for six weeks of last year and the film is about 70 percent shot. We’re going to go
back – I’m going back in May to film the rest of the film, which will be following up with the
kids, especially you saw one child here – Dominic – there’s another little girl called Rose, and
there’s another girl, Nancy, and these are three kids we’re going to follow specifically
throughout the film, but we’re also focusing on their school and we’re going to go back to the,
it’s not really a refugee camp, it’s an internally displaced camp. They’ve been forced to live in
this camp from their villages, from their original villages, because it’s so dangerous supposedly.
That’s what the Ugandan government has said and has forced them to live in this camp. So you
see all those huts close together, that’s how everyone has to live, and when you put that many
people together in a place, you start having a lot of problems, health issues and violence issues.
Just your whole way of life has changed, so these kids are living through that, as well as living
through the war and being abducted and having committed atrocities. Dominic right there killed
seven people when he was seven years old with a hoe. He hacked them to death much like you
describe in your book. So that’s where we are in the film. It will probably come out, we expect
it to come out late September in festivals and hopefully be in theaters, we hope, in 2007.
Todd Moss:
I think if we have some questions, why don’t we just turn it open to the
floor for questions for either Uzo or Sean, and if you just want to get up behind the mike and
identify yourself and, that would be great.
Leila Dane:
Thank you for the presentation. My name is Leila Dane. I’m executive
director of the Institute for Victims of Trauma. I went last year and the year before to Kigali to
work with people trying to recover from the after-effects of the genocide there. One thing I
wanted to say, especially about that one little bit of the film that talks about war and victory, the
journalists in Rwanda are fearful of what they call the rise of tribalism, that any war dance
inspires in them the maintenance of the war. I would like your reflections on this, especially
yours, if you don’t mind.
Todd Moss:
Why don’t we take a couple of questions and then you guys can make
some comments, please.
Thomas Lee Johnson:
Uzo, thank you for your work. I’m Thomas Lee Johnson, Finesse
Harmony Group and my question for you is, how did you find that child’s voice? You seem to
have tuned very sharply into that child’s voice. I’m just curious as an artist how you found that
voice? Then for the filmmaking that you’ve done, you took a risk by following children to an
event that you had no idea of the outcome. What were you thinking in your mind what could
possibly happen and their reaction? Because that was a lot of build-up and a lot of things could
have happened.
Uzodinma Iweala:
You want to go first with the tribalism, with the War Dance question?
Sean Fine:
Yeah, I guess I could. Yeah. I’m not really 100 percent sure. I mean, was your
question specifically about a war dance and that it might not be a good thing or?
Leila Dane:
Sean Fine:
Leila Dane:
Sean Fine:
****.
Right.
**** war dance.
Which is one of their dances, yeah.
Next Speaker:
**** and it reminded me of speaking with the journalists in Kigali who
are very concerned about the return to tribalism and I’m wondering is the war dance ****?
Sean Fine:
Okay. Well for the Acholis, which is all of northern Uganda, is the Acholi
tribe. They see themselves, as far as I found out, that it’s one tribe and basically, they do the war
dance and the war dance, to them, is to keep their culture. It doesn’t have anything to do – the
particular war dance doesn’t have anything to do with the LRA or with the war that’s going on
now with them. They see it, and the elders see it, as a way to teach the younger kids about their
culture and their heritage because what’s happening in the internally displaced camps, is that
heritage is being lost. It’s not being passed down. They’re losing, I mean these camps are
becoming ghettos. I mean they’re atrocious and it’s been going on for 20 years, close to 20
years, so just think, these little kids growing up here, they don’t know where they came from.
They might be losing their morals and things like that in these camps, and so the elders feel that
these dances help to remind them of who they are and where they come from, but it’s also an
interesting question because the actual war dance has been banned by a lot of the elders because
of what you said.
They think that it brings out issues of war, especially when you have a young child performing a
war dance that’s actually committed atrocity. But at least from being there and from talking to
the other elders, I believe that it’s actually helping these kids cope. I mean, in the same dance
too, which is remarkable, which I didn’t talk about as you have children that were child soldiers,
they might have killed the other children, the child next to them’s family, the mother and father,
in the same dance, in the same class, learning together, which is also amazing. There is this
culture of forgiveness which is fascinating too. So I think the dance is also forcing those kids to
come together. At least with the Acholis, I can speak about northern Uganda.
Todd Moss:
Do you want to talk about that issue and then come back?
Uzodinma Iweala:
This is sort of, I mean I guess your question also gets to the larger
issue of how essentially you rehabilitate people. After writing this, I did some research with a
woman at Boston University who worked with former Sierra Leonean child soldiers. And I
mean, one of the big things was what’s the best way? Do you take them and do you go through
sort of a western process of counseling and reintegration back into the communities? Or do you
essentially let traditional, sort of what the traditional processes prevail, right? And I mean I think
the idea is that some of these things, and I mean I don’t know too much about northern Uganda,
but at least from what I studied in Sierra Leone, some of these things, like the traditional
processes, while on the one hand they might sort of bring people to think about greater tribalism
and whatnot, they’re also essential in having people feel comfortable or feel that they have been
accepted back into the communities that they came from. And sort of rekindling that community
spirit that was torn apart by the war and atrocities committed.
Todd Moss:
Do you want answer about how you found the voice?
Uzodinma Iweala:
So to the question of the child’s voice, that came, I mean that came
from a number of things. One, the voice in the book, the voice that Agu speaks in, is a construct
really and it’s based off of, I mean it’s not Pidgin English, it’s not that specifically, but it’s based
off of that and sort of comes from listening to people speak in Nigeria. The book isn’t set in
Nigeria, by the way, but it’s just, that’s where I was for a lot of the time when I was writing it.
And just taking that into account. And then also reading a lot of interviews and accounts of child
soldiers, former child soldiers, and trying to just take that, sort of their cadence and that style of
speaking and the way that they would see and adopt that, and put it in the form that is in a sense
a little bit more accessible.
Sean Fine:
In terms of following these children to this event and taking a chance on
following kids to this event, and if they were going to win or not, I won’t tell you if – they have a
trophy, but I’m not going to tell you if they win or not. But you know, it didn’t matter. I mean it
didn’t matter to us if they won or didn’t, if they won or lost. I mean the trip for them, the
experience, that’s what the film is about and it’s also there’s a lot of documentaries out there
about child soldiers. A lot of times – they’re important, they’re really important – but a lot of
times when, when I talk to someone who’s seen one, they’ll say, “It was really good that I saw it,
but it really depressed me. It was very depressing. I can’t go see something like that.” I know
people that have walked out of films because the horror is too great for them to deal with. And
part of what we do is how do we tell people in middle America, you know, this is going on in
northern Uganda. How do we get it to them, get them to sit there and watch this and be
entertained? And also to see that these aren’t just all murderers. It’s just not horror.
There’s still life in these kids. They’re still great kids. And this music competition was what
allowed us to do this. It was the vehicle for this, and so that’s why we followed these kids. And
this meant the world to these kids. I mean, the previous two years they were supposed to go –
because of funding, it was cancelled. I mean the trip for them to get there, they had an armed
escort, they travel through rebel territory. It’s an ordeal just to get them there. For them, it
meant the world just to be there and experience this, and meet kids from the other parts of
Uganda where there is no war. I mean, other parts of Uganda, they don’t go to the north. They
don’t really understand what goes on in the north and the kids in the north have no idea what
goes on in Kampala. It was mind blowing for them to be there. And then to talk to other kids
and you know, dance with other kids and enjoy themselves. That was important for us, you
know. How do we tell this story and just not have it overwhelmingly depressing. I mean, I don’t
want to sugarcoat the issue, but I also don’t want to turn people away. It’s a really, really
important issue and it’s still going on there. It’s very important. So that’s why we followed this
competition – whether they won or lost, we were going to figure it out in the editing room, which
we’re trying to figure out now.
Todd Moss:
I want to encourage people to come forward with questions, but I want to
take the chair prerogative and ask both of you – I know that as artists, you both had an idea of
what you were trying to achieve and my question is, if you know, if beyond fulfilling your own
artistic ambitions, is there an outcome that you hoped would come from this? Is it, not to harp
on People Magazine, but I find that amazing that People Magazine would list this and that you’re
reaching a new audience and that, do you have expectations or ambitions or hopes that
something different will happen and people will think something differently from your book and
what would that be, necessarily and the same question for Sean.
Uzodinma Iweala:
I guess the first thing anybody wants when writing a book is to
finish. I think that’s the first thing. And then I think after that, it’s to have people read it. I
mean the subject matter, I mean I think when we started, when I started showing the book to
publishers, the thought was that there would be no crossover appeal in any sense, that this was a
book about a situation in Africa that nobody really knew that much about and that people weren’t
going to be interested in finding out too much about, especially the way that it was written, just
sort of the language was called inaccessible. I think one editor even asked why the character was
speaking in English and shouldn’t they be speaking in a different language? But I mean that
people have, I mean that it has had such a broad appeal, has been really heartening in that in a
sense, it’s taking the story and getting people interested in what’s happening, is you know,
probably the most that anybody can ask for.
People write for different reasons. I’m not writing to necessarily change anybody’s mind or to
prove a point – I’m writing because I wrote, because I had a story that I really wanted to tell and
I thought it was something important that needed to be said. What, in a sense, the reader does
with that story is, you know, the reader’s prerogative, and that’s something that the writer can
never, ever suggest. I can’t say that you should do this now that you’ve read the book or that this
is what you should think now that you’ve read the book, but if it causes you to think in a
particular fashion, you know, or to seek to find out more about the topic in the book or how you
can get involved then I feel fulfilled in some way.
Sean Fine:
Yeah, when we set out to make this film, we wanted to make a film that,
like I said before, appealed to the masses because our end goal for this is to get it in theaters and
we want people to go see it. We just don’t want it to be at a small film festival and a lot of
people on both coasts of the U.S. or in London or something go and see this. We want people all
over to check this film out. And that’s to raise awareness. We don’t have an agenda. We just
want to raise awareness of what’s going on and tell a great story about what’s going on and get
them to, somebody that sees the film, to go home and see what’s going on on the Internet, to pick
up a book about child soldiers, to, you know, stay with it and learn about it and learn what’s
going on and, you know, maybe voice some concern that this has been going on for 20 years.
Why is it still going on? You know, why is this happening? Why are kids killing other kids?
Why is this being allowed to happen? Because it’s a very complex issue. You get, you’d think,
most of America would know about this. I mean you’d think most of America would know
about northern Uganda, but a lot of people don’t know what’s going on there. They have no
idea. And so I think that was definitely our goal in our mind when we went there, was to get
people to learn about this issue.
Todd Moss:
The back, and then here.
Steve Seigel:
I’m Steve Seigel from the Center for Strategic International Studies. I
have a question about your perceptions of communities when dealing with the aftereffects of
child soldiers and the responses to individuals who have, sort of essentially, in a simplistic way,
been stuck between fulfilling the role of your typical youth or child and being forced to fulfill
adult responsibilities and roles as well. And in the aftereffect, in the reintegration process,
whether it’s western or non-western techniques that you’re using to reintegrate these children
and these youths, what are the problems that they face when going back to their communities in
terms of, are they being allowed to fulfill different responsibilities? Are they being put back into
their sort of typical role as children and is that frustrating? Is there tension there? Especially
since you’ve been in an IDP camp and you’re probably seen what’s going on. I mean how is that
sort of immediated?
Sean Fine:
Okay. Well, it’s different. In Uganda there is a child soldier
re-introduction process. There are a couple NGOs that – and there is actually a government
organization that helps too when they get a former child soldier into their facility they spend time
with them, they do counseling with them, they try and re-introduce them to their families. It
works pretty well but the follow up isn’t very good and there hasn’t been a lot of documentation
on it. And then they only do like three weeks of counseling because that’s all they’re allowed to
do. Which is not enough for somebody that’s gone through what these kids have gone through.
The place that we filmed, the IDP camp, there’s none of that. This is a place where no NGOs go
to because it’s too dangerous so there’s none of that. These kids come out of the bush, you
know, most of them escape. Dominic escaped. And they show up back home and it takes some
time. I mean even their family members are kind of wary of accepting them back. You know,
like I said, these are kids that probably killed people in their own village. But eventually – at
least with the Acholi people there’s a ceremony they go through. There’s a really big forgiving
process for these kids and the kids are re-introduced back into the village but, that said, they still
struggle and they still have a lot of demons that they don’t share with anyone. Like, Dominic,
the xylophone player, we were interviewing him. You know, he told me about killing all these
people and then when we started spending time with his mother I never asked her but it became
apparent that she had no idea he ever killed anybody. You know, she thought he was just
abducted and carried water and came back so he never told anyone.
He told us and that’s the only – those are the only people he’s ever told that he did this. So,
obviously, he’s scared to tell people because he’s scared of what’s gonna happen to him. But in
general it seemed to be a pretty forgiving place in IDP camps. But they have difficulties. I mean
there’s no counseling. Every kid we talked to had dreams every night, you know. I think it’s
also very hard to just get into their heads. When you ask somebody why at 7 did you kill seven
people? Why did you do this? Well, they ordered me to do it or they would have killed me and
it makes no sense to me. It’s really hard to try and figure that out. I wouldn’t have probably
done that if somebody had – I don’t think I would have. And it’s hard to get into their heads to
figure out why they did this, you know. I think there needs to be people to help them deal with
all of this stuff and I think they live with their own personal demons. I think alcoholism is
becoming a pretty big problem. A lot of these kids are turning to that, too. There is nothing to
keep them busy and when they’re not busy you start thinking about stuff you did before.
Todd Moss:
comment further?
You hinted that there were these different approaches. Do you want to
Uzodinma Iweala:
I think you asked about challenges and issues. One, I mean sort of
in the research that I did, a number of things came up. One was, as you said, sort of substance
abuse. And that’s a big thing like in terms of, you know, and you’re saying how are people
forced to do these things. I mean, one of the things that you find is that there is a lot of substance
abuse. There is a lot of coercion. I mean if somebody stands in front of you and tells you, “I
will kill you if you don’t kill this person,” that’s a very – or even worse like, “If you don’t kill
this person, I’ll kill your family.” Then what are you supposed to do as a little kid? I mean, you
don’t, it’s incomprehensible. I don’t think anybody here would even know what to do at that
point in time so that’s one.
Then there’s the issue of education and a lot of sort of reintegration sort of what I found was that
a lot of reintegration. Education helps a lot with reintegration and getting people back into their
societies and one of the things that you read in a lot of the interviews of former child soldiers is,
you know, if I can just go back to school then I can become a doctor or if I can just go back to
school I can become a president or a preacher or whatever. Let me get my education together
and then I can get back to sort of righting the wrongs or providing for my community.
The only issue is that in a lot of the countries that infrastructure isn’t there any more. For
example Sierra Leone and Liberia. You’ve gone through quite a period of time where a lot of
stuff in certain areas wasn’t functioning very well or the money wasn’t there to pay teachers or if
the teachers are paid they’re not paid enough. Kids don’t have access to proper supplies or
things like that and that affects that process. And then there are obviously a whole host of other
issues in terms of the community and how the community – first of all the community might not
even really exist any more given that they have been displaced. What are you coming back to?
And within the community, what stress is that community facing in terms of just basic needs.
Are those being met and do they have simple things I guess you wouldn’t think about but like
access to food and water and that all creates a stress on the community in terms of who, then, is
allowed back in and like why should this person be in this place if they’ve done a lot to destroy
the community. What reason do we have to bring them back? So, there was something else – do
you –
Sean Fine:
There was actually – can I say something else?
Todd Moss:
Sure. Sure.
Sean Fine:
There’s actually something I forgot that’s gonna happen when we go back
which will be interesting is there’s a forgiveness ceremony with the Acholis and the girl Rose in
here that you saw her father and mother’s heads were cut off and boiled – their bodies were
boiled in a pot and that’s how she found them when she came home and there’s a woman in the
film, Jolie, who’s working with her and trying to help her at the music festival and get through
this. Well, one of the girls that cut her parents’ heads off is a girl that Jolie helped before and has
adopted and so when we go back we’re gonna see one of these traditional forgiveness
ceremonies and actually see what happens and see if it works for Rose. Rose is gonna meet the
girl who killed her parents basically and see if that works and see that process firsthand.
Todd Moss:
Okay. I’ve got three questions. One here and then here and then here.
Ram Chopra:
My name is Ram Chopra. I used to be at the World Bank and worked
with Uzo’s mother for a long time and that’s my interest particularly in being here today. I saw
Uzo a couple of times when he was a little boy. So you mentioned in one of your earlier
responses that you thought this was a story that had to be told. I don’t know whether you feel
comfortable about talking about it or not, but if you do I would love to understand what sort of in
your experiences in life made you think about this as an important issue given the kind of
background you grew up in and secondly what kind of travel, source material, research that you
had to do to get there. Thank you.
Uzodinma Iweala:
Well, to answer that, the idea to write about this topic came my
senior year of high school which I guess wasn’t too long ago. When I came back home and sort
of flipped open a Newsweek magazine and in there was an article about a child soldier in Sierra
Leone. At that point in time I really didn’t know that much about what was happening in Sierra
Leone or Liberia or some of the other places where child soldiers were being used but just the
idea that a kid that much younger than I was. I think the picture they had was of a kid that was
probably maybe 12 or 13, you know, and he’s been through all this and here I am coming back
from track practice complaining that there’s no food, you know, and then I would have to cook.
When you read something like that and it just creates this – you just have to try and understand.
Or at least I felt like I just had to try and understand what was happening and why. How
somebody can be forced into this situation and how you cope in that situation.
And I guess I’ve always been interested in writing so the way that I decided to try was back then
to write a really bad, short story. And it was a really, really, short story. It was just like a sketch
of a scene of a kid who was forced to kill and from there I did that and put it away for a little bit
and then just kind of started doing other things. I had to go to college, right? So, I got to college
and then had a – as president of the Harvard African Students Association we invited China
Keitetsi who’s a Ugandan child solder. We had a former child soldier. She came and spoke at
this speaker series on conflict in Africa that we were running and I had the chance to sort of sit
with her afterwards and just chat and talk about different things in life and it was through that
conversation that I, again, got really interested in the issue of child soldiers and really after
having –there’s nothing like sitting with somebody who’s been through an experience and
talking with them and meeting them and speaking on different topics with them – to really get
you interested and to really to make you want to find out more about – even if it’s just on a
personal level – that person’s life and the experience that they come from.
So, I read her autobiography and then read – just read as much as I could in terms of peoples’
accounts, interviews, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International reports, anything that I
could read about anything that had to do with conflict in Africa or child soldiers – and then even
later on just general child psychology and development. I just read it just to get an idea and sort
of connect myself because obviously, I mean I grew up in Washington, D.C. and haven’t been
faced with any conflicts. And then talked to people who had been through conflicts. A lot of
people who had been through the Nigerian civil war of the 1960s. I spoke with them and
interviewed them and sort of tried to get an idea of what it’s like to live with violence and how
that affects the way you see the world. During the time of extreme violence and afterwards.
And all of that went into putting this together.
Lawrence MacDonald:
I’m Lawrence MacDonald of the Center for Global
Development. Uzo and Sean, thank you for bringing us these stories. They’re obviously
difficult and compelling and it’s probably enough that you’re master storytellers and so we
shouldn’t ask you for more. So, I begin my question with an apology but I wanted to follow up
on Todd’s question because I think that because you are both wonderful storytellers you’ve been
put in this position and especially if the film is as successful as you hope will be put in the
position again of people being moved by the stories you tell and then saying, well, so what
should I do or what can I do and we’ve got lots of policy wonks who can figure that out but I
wanted, I think that because you’re the person who brings the message and arouses the concern,
if you don’t have a response you can then raise the problem of people becoming concerned
saying there’s nothing that can be done and then turning off and in some ways it’s maybe worse
than if you hadn’t aroused their interest and concern to begin with. So, I wanted to ask one more
time what your thoughts were as concerned people and artists and storytellers and if you don’t
have an answer now, that’s okay, but I also wanted to ask you to think about that because I think
that people will ask you that more than they will ask our friends at Brookings and CGD and other
places what should be done about this. I don’t know what the answer is so I’m asking you again.
Uzodinma Iweala:
I mean I think sometimes the first thing and the best thing you can
do for anybody is just to provide that person with a different perspective or a, you know, a desire
to find out and seek out information and for me it was reading the Newsweek article that got me
thinking about something that I would not necessarily have focused so much attention on. And,
you know, in that sense, I think there’s a two, there’s a two – for people who are interested in
making policy, it seems that it could be said that people who are interested in making art are not
necessarily doing anything but I think the – and, you know, this is sort of the debate I have with
myself and with certain individuals in my house who want me to go to medical school – is
whether or not being sort of an artist or doing something creative is enough and I think – I mean
for me, personally, I don’t necessarily know if I would just stop. I don’t think I would just stop
at writing and say that’s it. But I think there is a lot to be said.
You know you were talking about Chinua Achebe who’s done perhaps more for Africa or – both
for African novelists and just for people interested in finding out or for expressing the African
colonial situation than perhaps any number of – I don’t know, say policy people could have ever
done in all the policies that they could have made for the last 40 years – and I mean that’s a very,
very powerful thing and I think it’s something that should really – I mean that people should
really take into account so that you don’t necessarily – well, I think that there is a lot to be said
for direction action and direct contact with people and actually getting out there and being on the
ground and I don’t think you really actually can write something like this or make a movie about
something like this without being immersed or being completely committed to the problem
you’re dealing with or being in the midst of the problem you’re dealing with to a certain extent,
but I think there is a lot to be said for just bringing that perspective to people.
Sean Fine:
Actually, I agree. Just bringing the perspective to people but also our film
is a little bit different, too. It’s a different film than we’ve ever worked on, my wife and I,
because it’s funded by a non-profit organization and the film itself is – all the money that the
film raises will go back to organizations that work with these kids or go back to the kids so even
by people buying a ticket to go to the film is helping these kids out a little bit. But, on a bigger,
on a broader note, to me it’s raising awareness so that people want to help and getting them to
figure out the way that they’re most comfortable to help or to get involved. I mean even like
checking the Internet every day to see what’s going on. Hey, if I can get like three or four people
outraged, you know, just in this whole film and they’ll do something, I mean I think that that’s
great. I mean I think it’s great. Whether it’s write a representative, get involved with an NGO,
you know, and –
Todd Moss:
Which is the non-profit that’s involved with the film?
Sean Fine:
No, it’s called Shine Global. ShineGlobal.org. There’s some literature on
the table outside about it so, and that’s pretty interesting for us doing this in this way. A
non-profit film and it’s a great idea because it’s a non-profit that raises awareness about
something and then also raises money through film so it’s doing two things at once which is a
really good idea I think and really important.
Uzodinma Iweala:
Can I just say something? That said, I said, Achebe has done a lot
more than policy people have. Not that policy isn’t good or necessary. I mean, that’s a, it’s very
important but I think, you know, you also have to acknowledge that art in and of itself is a very
important thing as well.
Sean Fine:
And also people that don’t understand anything about policy, they have to
understand what the issue is so that they can understand the things that you guys do about policy
so I think that’s really important to make that connection and ****
Todd Moss:
Right. I’ve got a question here.
Nicole Dial:
My name is Nicole Dial. I’m with the Child Soldier Initiative at Search
for Common Ground. And actually you’ve already answered my question but I will address it to
Sean. I wanted to know how you found your stories. How did you find yourself in Patongo
Camp and how did you get to Northern Uganda in the first place?
Sean Fine:
Basically Shine Global, I know the president of it. He contacted us to do a
story on – my wife and I – to do a story about the conflict in Northern Uganda. He read an
article and he wanted to do a story so we originally went on a scout. I went to see what’s going
on. I spent some time in Gulu and just talking to different people, talking to different NGOs and
I just felt that we had to get away from everybody. We had to go to where people haven’t been
before. We had to go to an IDP camp, you know. We had to go to an IDP camp that isn’t
getting help. So, we just by truck, you know, traveled everywhere. I mean up to Sudan.
Everywhere. The whole place. Places where when the military said you couldn’t go, we would
go. And if they would stop us, we were – we kind of had these credentials from NGO called
AMRAF that was kind of helping us – and we said we work with them and they would let us go
and we did everything we could to get as far as we could.
When somebody said don’t go there, we would go there because I feel that these are the people
that stories need to be told. I mean, if nobody goes to this camp, how will anybody ever know
what it’s like to live in this camp? When the NGOs that work – mostly work in Gulu and go to
the camps that are right around Gulu, no one will ever get to those kids further out. So that’s
why we went. And we just went and I sat down and spoke with kids at each school and each
camp and we spent a few days with them and we just talked to different kids and we found – I
don’t know, it was just a place that we found that stuck with us that – and that was – how do you
– it’s like a place that was true, too. A place that the kids were just so honest. I mean and
everybody was so honest. They weren’t looking for anything from us, too. It was this complete
honesty and openness with us and they were amazing for doing that. I mean we just lived there
basically and followed their lives and that’s what we’ll do when we go back. We’ll go and do
that again.
Nicole Dial:
**** came about after you –
Sean Fine:
The music competition came about while we were searching and then we
heard of this music competition so we went to, you know, when we went to the different camps
we saw kids practicing and stuff for the music competition and we asked them about it. Oh, this
is happening and we found out it was happening, it wasn’t happening, it happened, it didn’t
happen so many times so, you know, I was like this is crazy. But, so it was a mixture of those.
They were going to enter. But we also didn’t know who was gonna get there. There was a
semi-final and we didn’t know who was gonna get it so I hope that answers your question.
Todd Moss:
I think just to add that, you know, the purpose is mainly to raise
awareness. That’s wonderful in itself. In fact the Center for Global Development only exists
because of a film that a man watched a film in the middle of the night about debt, got interested
in it, said we have to do something about it. This was Ed Scott and then he did research and he
wound up founding the Center. So we very much believe in raising public awareness or we
wouldn’t be here. At the same time I don’t think that the average person is gonna found their
own think tank on policy and so just to echo a little bit what Lawrence is saying, both of you are
doing an amazing job in raising awareness about a critical issue and I would just urge you to
think about maybe some organizations that you feel strongly about or something so that when
that person who didn’t know anything about it is riled up and has energy and says, thank you for
telling me about this. What should I do? That you have an answer that gives them that next step.
I think that could really help push that over to the next thing. We’ve got a question right at the
back, please.
Peter Hopcraft:
For the most part it seems that the strategy of putting kids through this sort
of extreme violence and bestiality and all that sort of thing is a deliberate effort to alienate them
from their own societies and to a certain extent that’s succeeded in a number of places. For
instance, the LRA, we’ve been working in South Sudan area on that problem and for the most
part the SPLM which they are called now, the Southern Peoples Liberation Movement is forming
the government there really believes now that the only way to deal with this group as a group is
literally to go and hunt them down and kill every one of them. That’s the – and to a certain
extent this is not borne of sheer nastiness. It’s borne of the fact that these people have become
totally alienated and bred into this way of life and so in some senses the process has succeeded. I
wondered if you have any comment on that.
Uzodinma Iweala:
I mean I guess one would be wholeheartedly in agreement with
what you just said. I think the way that you get – and even in a sense you see it with more
traditional armies. I mean the way you get somebody to go to war is you have to disassociate
them from the society that they were – that they grew up in – and you have to take them – and
their values, right. If you look at sort of the training that a U.S. soldier would go through or the
training that any soldier around the world would go through, the isolation from society and the
building of this group, this group unit, with ethics specific to that unit and that condition and that
situation. I mean I think it’s a practice all the way around. It’s just that in this, in these
situations, I mean I guess you’re not as fettered by the “rules” of war and rules of engagement as
you would in other situations whatever those rules may be that people have come up with for
killing people. That’s rather absurd when I say it. I mean I think it’s a necessary process for if
you’re going to train soldiers anywhere and I mean even though they’re kids, it seems they’re
soldiers. That’s what they do. That’s their profession in a sense. It just is all the more tragic
because they’re not at an age where they understand that they have – they are not in the position
to have made the choice to say yes, I want to do this or no, I don’t, if anybody, you know, has
really that choice to make. There are a lot of conditions in there but, I’m sorry.
Todd Moss:
A question here.
Don Sherk:
Thank you. I‘m Don Sherk with the Center for International Private
Enterprise. First of all I want to thank the Center for Global Development for giving us this
opportunity to hear the two speakers and I think it was edifying for all of us. I just returned from
two weeks in Southern Uganda and I have to go check my airline ticket to see if I was in the
right country because I found the south totally at peace. I found it perhaps one of the most – I’ve
traveled in 30 or 35 African countries – I found it probably the most beautiful country that I’ve
ever seen in my life. I really did. But the question that I have for both of you is – and I know
you don’t have accurate statistics on this – but I would just like your own gut feel for how many
of the child soldiers were orphans and then that links into HIV/AIDS because I think we may
have a problem on our hands for another generation. Thank you.
Todd Moss:
in the war?
You mean orphans before they became soldiers or that they were orphaned
Don Sherk:
Ah, probably the former. The before they became –
Todd Moss:
Orphaned from HIV / AIDS?
Don Sherk:
leaving orphans.
Not only that but the killings that go on where the adults are wiped out
Uzodinma Iweala:
I don’t have stats. I guess I’m not in the position to answer that so.
Sean Fine:
I don’t have stats but one thing that’s interesting in Northern Uganda is
there aren’t too many orphans in the north because they actually don’t have a lot of orphanages. I
asked a couple of people why aren’t there orphanages and they said it’s because of the family
structure. You have aunts raising cousin’s kids. You have every family looks out. It’s your
obligation. They’re not happy about it. I mean Rose’s guardian in the film is raising 14 kids I
think and she treats them awful. I mean because she’s mad. She has no food. She has nothing
and it’s her obligation, her cultural obligation to raise the kids. I think and I don’t – the way
they’re abducted they weren’t orphans beforehand the ways these kids were abducted. The LRA
would just go into their homes and take them, you know, kill their mother or father and take
them.
The thing about HIV/AIDS I think the camps are the biggest problem in Northern Uganda. The
HIV/AIDS rate is a lot higher in Northern Uganda than it is in the south. And people in the
south that live in Southern Uganda, they have the same impression that you do. Everything is
fine. And they don’t go to the north. It’s really split. It’s really interesting. Some of those kids
in that competition would yell stuff at the kids while they’re performing. You’re a murderer.
You’re Koni. You know, you’re Joseph Koni. You’re LRA leader. You know, just these
horrific things they’d yell at them. It was really bizarre but the IDP camps are, I think, gonna be
the worst thing for HIV/AIDS in Northern Uganda.
Todd Moss:
Then I have a question here.
Next Speaker:
I’ve heard here today and I’ve read a lot about reintegration and bringing
people forgiveness but I was kind of curious if you in your research or in your filming you found
anything about remembrance and memorializing those who did not return either their parents,
kids lost who may actually still be alive or children who lost friends who were also abducted
with them and what those cultural things may have been or how expressions may have been.
Maybe it all came out in the film but I’d be curious what the native cultural aspects of that might
be.
Sean Fine:
In terms of losing friends or loved ones, I mean they grieve. There wasn’t
really a cultural that we found – a cultural thing that they did for people that had passed on or
died, I mean, I think that one reason that we didn’t find that is a lot of people don’t know where
their kids are. They’re still hoping they’re gonna come home. We ran across many skeletons,
bodies, you know, this is an LRA combatant. And it’s a kid. Didn’t the army take down his
information or a description? Why doesn’t the army take the body and get it identified? There’s
parents looking for this kid. Oh, it’s you know, the commander of the UPDF would say it’s no
problem. They’re not important and so these parents, I think a lot of them, are still looking for
their kids but they’ve kind of – it’s strange. They kind of accept it as a way of life after 20 years.
Everybody has somebody that’s been killed in their family. Everybody has somebody that’s
missing. So it’s just a way of life, and that’s kind of how they deal with it. Other ways they’re
dealing with the ways to find kids is when you get abducted you’re given a different name.
Usually in Uganda it’s from where you’re from. So, you’d be Potongo. There’d be like 50 kids
named Potongo that were all abducted. And so a kid will escape and then they’ll come back to
the village and all the elders will try and figure out did you see this child, did you see, so they try
and figure out who was killed that way. There’s also – they do a radio broadcast that they
broadcast out to the LRA. Now the LRA they listen to it. They listen to the BBC. They’ll listen
to this radio and they urge child soldiers to come out of the bush. They try and find out who’s
out there so they do that.
Todd Moss:
Okay. I think we’ve got our last question here at the back.
Next Speaker:
Two comments and one question. One comment is the book to me
answered very clearly how this could happen. I thought because we were in the child’s mind the
part with the sexual abuse. I think that very clearly answered how this could happen. My second
comment I’m gonna say the same thing everybody else has said. I think it’s one thing to say,
Americans are ignorant. Americans don’t know. And then to raise their consciousness I think
it’s very, very important and given our society and sometimes we tend to be a little lazy is to
have something very solid for them to look at. Go to – especially in the situation in Northern
Uganda where we have Koni who’s been there for 20 years and the Ugandan government
essentially has done nothing. So I think it’s very important to point them, you know, write your
congressman and ask questions. Things like that. Those are my two comments. My question is
for Sean if you’ve seen “Invisible Children” and if you’ve crossed paths with them or what do
you think about them. I know it’s a very MTV sort of, you know, approach to the situation but
just your comments on invisible children and what you think.
Sean Fine:
Yeah. I haven’t. I mean I’ve seen that film but I haven’t – our film’s a lot
different and that’s all I know really about them. Yeah. That’s all I can say about that. But also
in terms or raising awareness, I should have said this in the beginning. You can go to
ShineGlobal.org. We do have a web site. There is – you know, the web site is articles, the web
site has links to NGOs that are reputable that are doing great work, you know, so you can do
things and you can make donations to ShineGlobal.org if you want to, you know, to get more
films made like this, to help this film get further down the line so there are things with our
project that you can do. You can go the web site. You can check it out.
Next Speaker:
Did you read the Vanity Fair article ****?
Sean Fine:
Yeah. Yeah. And that’s on –
Next Speaker:
That was another example where they told the story but they told us the
end but they didn’t tell us **** where –
Sean Fine:
And that’s on the web site and at the end of our film we’ll have a list of,
you know, web sites but really it’s this web site and that’s why this film is so unique because it is
an NGO funding this. So you’ll go there and then there will be links to all the other people doing
work. I mean you could actually help one of these kids if you want to after you watch the film.
The particular kids in the film by going to the web site so I should have said that in the
beginning.
Uzodinma Iweala:
I guess I’m not – I don’t have a web site that you can go to. I
mean I think the thing is you want to be in a sense careful because – while I agree – for me
personally I think that it doesn’t just stop at you write this book or you get people to know – and
I mean the way that I behave and what I’ve tried to do is – I mean after writing I felt like I knew
a lot, you know, and had done a lot of research but I didn’t feel like I had done anything
concrete. Do you see what I’m saying? And so I wanted to get in and actually sort of in a sense
put your money where your mouth is.
At the same time I think that there needs to be a bit of separation between art and activism
because what you get sometimes when you get sort of activist art is the art isn’t necessarily very
good and the activism isn’t necessarily very good. I think that what you want to do is – while I
think it’s very important, I mean for somebody to have – for somebody who reads the book to
have an outlet and to know, okay I can go to this web site and that web site and that usually for
me happens – if people want to know more about what they can do – that usually happens for
me in talking to them – I think there’s something to be said for having a piece of art be there.
And having the person have this space to on their own say, okay, this is what I’ve read. Let me
let this simmer. Let me let this build in me and then take a course of action whether it’s finding
out more or whether it’s trying to actually do something specific.
I mean for me it took a while before – the book is in a sense one form of my action in terms of
doing something about a problem that I saw. There are other things that I have done and will be
doing but I mean it also took a while between reading that article that I read and putting together
a book in which case there had to be a lot of trying to understand what’s happening and I think
you can’t just bombard people with a story and then expect for them to take action right away. I
think there needs to be a little bit of separation.
Sean Fine:
And if I can address that, too, for myself I come from a journalist
background, you know, I – we pride our documentaries on being true – so I also feel like I can’t
go out there and say I’m an activist. I’m gonna change the world. I have to tell what’s really
going on here. I have to show up and find out what’s the truth, what’s going on. I could go to
Northern Uganda. I could make a film that all of you would be like just blown away by a lot of
interviews from different people but I guarantee some of those interviews are not gonna be true
and stuff and so we have to really try and find the truth when we’re out there and I can’t go out
there being an activist like because sometimes when you’re an activist I think you don’t overlook
the truth but you’re so passionate about this one thing that you’ve kind of got blinders on. I’ve
got to take those blinders off when we make this film so that’s also how we see it.
Todd Moss:
All right, well, I don’t think you can come to Massachusetts Avenue and
throw an important issue and not have people try to push you down the policy line so you’ve
come into the Beltway [dictation ends here].