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Jeremiah* was only 12 years old when the Lords Resistance Army raided his village in northern Uganda. The soldiers attacking the village gave he and his family an ultimatum; Jeremiah was forced to make a decision between being killed, or taking the life of his parents. The human desire to survive is why he is still alive today, coping with the tragedies of his past. Although Jeremiah’s past is harrowing, he is positive about the future due to support from an organization which is working to stop child soldiering.
Arthur Serota is a former University of Maine graduate and the executive director of the United Movement to End Child Soldiering, a nonprofit organization based in Uganda. The UMECS works to end the use of children in conflict and also sponsors the rehabilitation of former child soldiers. He spoke about these efforts at the Socialist and Marxist lecture series Thursday.
“Child soldiering will never end until war ends, because children are the soldiers of choice,” Serota said. Amnesty International estimates that there are more than a half million children worldwide who are actively fighting for government or armed militia forces. The Lords Resistance Army is notorious for kidnapping children and using them in war. The LRA has been rebelling against the Ugandan government since 1987. Its leader, Joseph Kony, wishes to establish a theocracy in Uganda based on the Bible. In the past, widespread violence was used against civilians who were seen as cooperating with the government. Uganda has seen relative peace since peace talks between the government and the LRA began in June 2006.
Jeremiah was forced by the LRA to march with other kidnapped children from his village in Uganda to southern Sudan, where he was taught to kill by attacking local pastoral tribes. Serota said instances like these are “kill or be killed scenarios.”
“[The UMECS] felt this is where we would start our work, because in this war of the government of Uganda and the Lord’s Resistance Army 85 percent of the LRA’s soldiers were children – mostly abducted children.” Serota approached children to hear their stories because he said he wanted to hear from them what UMECS could do to make a difference. This is how he met Jeremiah.
After living in Africa since 1980 and seeing the effects of children caught in conflict, Serota and others attended the United Nations Peace Conference Against Racism in Durban South Africa in Sept. 2001 which addressed the immediate causes of child soldiering; UMECS formed several years later, in 2004.
“There needed to be a means by which grassroots communities most affected by war were actually leading the way toward building a culture of peace,” Serota said. “Above all, addressing the needs of children in their communities who are affected by conflict.”
Jeremiah is now 20; he risked his life by escaping from the LRA when he was 17 and was picked up by the Ugandan government. UMECS sponsored him to attend secondary school and he is now a community volunteer and a school leader. He stressed the need for education for all children, especially former child soldiers in Uganda.
“In many cultures there is a separation between the wrong doing and the wrong doer – the actor and the act,” Serota said. The belief in reconciliation and knowledge within a culture that people can heal is the essence of peacebuilding. “In so many war-affected communities there is a desire to build a culture of peace,” and the key to building peace is to start young. He says there needs to be a cleansing of both the individual and the community and an emphasis on maintaining peace, because “once wars start they are like forest fires, they rage out of control.”
*Name has been changed.
Bangor Daily News