Speaker 1: Pushkin im Ave Higgins, and this is Solvable Interviews with
Speaker 1: the world's most innovative thinkers working to solve the world's
Speaker 1: biggest problems. My name is Victor Chin. I am the
Speaker 1: executive director for African Youth Initiative Network. I'm from Uganda
Speaker 1: and my solvable is to work hard and end civil
Speaker 1: wars in Africa, hopefully in my lifetime. So our guests
Speaker 1: this week is quite a remarkable person. Victor was the
Speaker 1: first Ugandan and the youngest ever African to be nominated
Speaker 1: for the Nobel Peace Prize. That was for his human
Speaker 1: rights work. He's basically a peace builder working in parts
Speaker 1: of the world where peace is most needed. There are
Speaker 1: fifty four countries in Africa, and despite a long history
Speaker 1: of colonialism and the newer and potentially even more deadly
Speaker 1: reality of climate chaos, many African nations are managing to
Speaker 1: flourish today. Though our solvable is the fifteen African countries
Speaker 1: that are currently involved in wars. Victor knows firsthand what
Speaker 1: it's like to come up in a war zone, having
Speaker 1: spent the first twenty one years of his life as
Speaker 1: a refugee. He was one of the three million people
Speaker 1: displaced by the civil war that has raged through Uganda
Speaker 1: since the nineteen eighties. That conflict has now spread to
Speaker 1: the neighboring countries of Satsudan, the Central African Republic, and Congo.
Speaker 1: Victor was born in nineteen eighty one during the Ugandan
Speaker 1: Civil War, a period when many different rebel groups were fighting,
Speaker 1: and then in nineteen eighty seven, he was only six
Speaker 1: years old and a particular rebel group sprang up in
Speaker 1: northern Uganda, where he lived with his family, a group
Speaker 1: that became notorious worldwide. They called themselves the Lord's Resistance
Speaker 1: Army the lra A, and the l ra A grew
Speaker 1: increasingly violent against civilians, abducting and killing tens of thousands
Speaker 1: of innocent people in northern Uganda and mutilating manny others.
Speaker 1: Their brutality against children was particularly severe. They would abduct
Speaker 1: children and force them to kill, making them into child soldiers.
Speaker 1: That was one of their hallmarks. Into thousand and three,
Speaker 1: Victor's own brother, O'Mara, was abducted by rebels. The family
Speaker 1: suspect Omara was forced to become a soldier, and sadly
Speaker 1: they never saw him again. Victor's life has been dedicated
Speaker 1: to his community and other victims of terror and conflict,
Speaker 1: namely by founding the African Youth Initiative Network. Even as
Speaker 1: the thirteen year old, he instinctively chose to fight for
Speaker 1: peace when manny around him despaired and took up weapons. Today,
Speaker 1: his organization works to treat both physical and emotional wounds
Speaker 1: and advocates a leadership that always chooses peace. You'll hear
Speaker 1: how in this conversation with Jacob Weisberg. It's a little
Speaker 1: longer than usual episode of Solvable because Victor's story is
Speaker 1: one that we just don't get to hear a lot,
Speaker 1: if at all, especially told firsthand and with such grace. Victor,
Speaker 1: what is the problem of civil war and violent conflict
Speaker 1: in Africa right now? The problem of civil war and
Speaker 1: violence in Africa right now is manifested in mass movement,
Speaker 1: the refugee crisis all over the continent. How you have
Speaker 1: seen the international media the young people dying trying to
Speaker 1: escape from Africa to Europe. In the Mediterranean Sea, we
Speaker 1: have seen outbreak of preventable diseases which escalate and becomes
Speaker 1: more disasters because humanity is caught up in the struggle
Speaker 1: for survival. They can't afford to care for their own
Speaker 1: and we've seen increase is death, you know, due to
Speaker 1: civil war. We've also seen a lot of xenophobic attack
Speaker 1: in South Africa. You know, there's the continent, there's such alleges,
Speaker 1: so much in terms of conflict related movement that results
Speaker 1: into more tension, tribal differences, ethnic conflict and so much
Speaker 1: trangles of our properties and in so many ways natural
Speaker 1: disasters continues to be difficult to manage because humanity are
Speaker 1: caught up fighting. What are the major wars in Africa
Speaker 1: right now and how many people are affected, how many
Speaker 1: people die in those wars, and how many people die
Speaker 1: and are made refugees as a result of those wars.
Speaker 1: To even look at it a bit back in the
Speaker 1: history study has always saw that after every twenty years
Speaker 1: massa roseis happens in Africa, especially in the Great Legs.
Speaker 1: We've seen the windows of nineteen sixties, nineteen seventies, nineteen
Speaker 1: eighties and nineteen nineties. Night is when we at the
Speaker 1: random general side, they are trustees in the four in Congo,
Speaker 1: in northern Uganda the population went through the civil war
Speaker 1: over twenty years, and Central Africa we have Mali. We
Speaker 1: have Somalia falling apart. So if you look more, especially
Speaker 1: in the Great Legs region, we are in that window
Speaker 1: right now, window of possible Massa trustees. So we are
Speaker 1: continue to see the instability in Somalia, the al Shabab conflict.
Speaker 1: Of course, it's the international community, the African Union working
Speaker 1: towards trying to pacify Somalia by supporting the government. But
Speaker 1: still it's a big and challenging civil war that continues
Speaker 1: to have worked not only Somalia but also the entire region.
Speaker 1: And worst we're seeing right now is a continued conflict
Speaker 1: in de Raca. Unfortunately, the Congress people have been through
Speaker 1: the worst of the worst in life rich nation, such
Speaker 1: vast potential. The Congress people have never seen a moment
Speaker 1: of peace at all, and you wonder how long and
Speaker 1: this score. But also we're seeing, you know, different countries
Speaker 1: in the region have Ugandan rebel groups. In Congo, the
Speaker 1: ADF doing mastercruitment and is linked now to ISIS, and
Speaker 1: they're doing recruitment within East Africa and even the Southern
Speaker 1: African countries. And this is growing up to be a
Speaker 1: very potential disasters conflict. But of course you're also aware
Speaker 1: of what's going in South Sudan the last five years
Speaker 1: has been so vicious that hundreds of thousands have died,
Speaker 1: millions are displaced. I'm from Northern Uganda where we are
Speaker 1: doing our work to support post conflict recovery. But also
Speaker 1: this is the region that currently host over one point
Speaker 1: two million refugees from South then from Congo, from Central
Speaker 1: African Republic. You can imagine the pressure. A communister has
Speaker 1: been through war for over twenty years without so much.
Speaker 1: Now it's condition is first to us another million refugees,
Speaker 1: so the depression ever stops. So the conflicten souths done.
Speaker 1: You know, in the race in Central African public and
Speaker 1: Malle is horrible. Deministration in Malley is not even getting
Speaker 1: better anymore. And of course live alone Libya and you
Speaker 1: know the potential Egypt is just traveling to stabilize. And
Speaker 1: in West Africa, of course there's so much to do
Speaker 1: in terms of historical injustice, historical conflict that has not
Speaker 1: been addressed, and this has got the potential. So the
Speaker 1: number of people dying I can't tell exactly, but so
Speaker 1: many people are dying every day due to war related crisis,
Speaker 1: either being killed in battlefields or as a result of war, poverty, disease.
Speaker 1: I want to hear about your story. I know you
Speaker 1: grew up and spent most of the years of your
Speaker 1: life and a refugee camp. How did you end up there?
Speaker 1: I was born in northern Uganda, in the district Cholera,
Speaker 1: and I was born in nineteen eighty one, just immediately
Speaker 1: after Dictator Idioman was deposed of power. And in that
Speaker 1: community there were more than ten rebel groups operating, including
Speaker 1: the current government was in the bush fighting and where
Speaker 1: I grew up, I could see the only vehicle I
Speaker 1: saw as a child was a military truck. There's no
Speaker 1: other vehicle. The only flying object the plane I saw
Speaker 1: was their captor, the military captor and jet fighters and
Speaker 1: bombing us and we won. That said, what is going on?
Speaker 1: And how long can disco? So? I was born in conflict,
Speaker 1: I grew up in conflict, and then it went on
Speaker 1: to the community, went into experience, continued to cut rustling
Speaker 1: by never in cultural tribal groups. Then the Lord Decision's
Speaker 1: army emerged and that became the worst of the worst
Speaker 1: in Uganda's history of conflict. It started close to our
Speaker 1: home and we were at the immediate target by the
Speaker 1: lay but also we are the media. Our community was
Speaker 1: the media target by the government battle field, so we
Speaker 1: became the center of battle for both government and a
Speaker 1: lot of resisions, I mean, and this went on. As
Speaker 1: a child, I could see I was wondering how long
Speaker 1: was it going to end? It took us twenty years
Speaker 1: to get out of that. So my growth I grew
Speaker 1: up in war. I grew up in the camp. I
Speaker 1: spent my childhood, as you know, in the camp. Growing up,
Speaker 1: I studied in the camp. I survived all the war
Speaker 1: related you know, challenges including health, education, feeding, shelter and
Speaker 1: one of the people who spent over seven years eating
Speaker 1: one meal a day. We didn't have food. My parents
Speaker 1: are too poor in terms of education, you know, it
Speaker 1: was even the more challenging. Of course, in conflict, education
Speaker 1: is not the priority. The biggest worry is for every
Speaker 1: child is if I will get the next That was
Speaker 1: the most wedding experience as a child, because it was
Speaker 1: always the tough to way that you wake up in
Speaker 1: the morning until four pm, you've got nothing to eat,
Speaker 1: and then you eat until the next day four pm.
Speaker 1: That is the life I grew up in. That's the
Speaker 1: life I survived and I start to struggle with my education,
Speaker 1: with my health. I survived. There was twice about outbreak
Speaker 1: in my community and live alone, manigieties, malaria. I went
Speaker 1: through anything that walk on course. And you've talked about
Speaker 1: the cycle of violence and revenge that people who are
Speaker 1: victims of war become warriors and one justice, but it
Speaker 1: perpetuates the cycle of violence. How do you break that cycle?
Speaker 1: To break the cycle of war and violence, it's easy
Speaker 1: said than easy. Then, First of all, walk with so
Speaker 1: much amount of trauma and the trauma needs to be healed,
Speaker 1: if not illed, trauma crits that a war then becomes
Speaker 1: war trauma, trauma, war cycle. You need to get to
Speaker 1: a point of breaking that, and it also becomes generational.
Speaker 1: When children are born in conflict, their parents would always
Speaker 1: be asked why are we being killed? Why are we
Speaker 1: being targeted? And these are the question that most parents
Speaker 1: doesn't have an answers. But then the question comes in
Speaker 1: the parents reach the point of saying, we are suffering
Speaker 1: because of that tribe, we are suffering because of them.
Speaker 1: That's already telling the child who their enemies are. So
Speaker 1: that transgenerational, cross generational transfer of trauma of pain is
Speaker 1: like planting in the new seats of violence in that
Speaker 1: child who's being told who you are, enemies are, so
Speaker 1: you have somebody to hit as soon as you can
Speaker 1: understand the world you're growing up with who you are,
Speaker 1: enemies are, with what you want to do next time
Speaker 1: you have opportunity to revenge, to strike back, to let
Speaker 1: them feel the pain everybody. As a child, I wanted
Speaker 1: to study it, become a doctor, to become a journalist,
Speaker 1: to become a you know, a pilot like another person's.
Speaker 1: But when walking, everything turned around. All became about survival.
Speaker 1: You're walking now and all of a sudden, two people
Speaker 1: get blown by landmines right in front of you. You're
Speaker 1: playing with your friends and within a few minutes we
Speaker 1: separated the bat. They are taken and they've never been
Speaker 1: seen again. You're just playing football. There was a moment
Speaker 1: when we were playing football. We made our own ball
Speaker 1: because there was no football we were in the camp.
Speaker 1: We bought one hundred of us. We made our own
Speaker 1: ball and we were kicking, kicking, and one of the
Speaker 1: elders came and so our ball made out of rugs.
Speaker 1: You know, we were playing kicking around hand falling, and
Speaker 1: he came and picked and said, kids, what are you kicking? Said,
Speaker 1: made our own ball. We're very excited. And then when
Speaker 1: he unveiled it, he found something wrong. It was a bomb.
Speaker 1: It was unexploded bomb. And then we were told that
Speaker 1: this is a bomb. Run. We're took off in many directions,
Speaker 1: crying and shouting, and we're afraid if this bomb blow
Speaker 1: her over one of the devasts, we're going to be dead.
Speaker 1: The question is who is next? Then becomes you. You
Speaker 1: are the next line. You can be blown off, you
Speaker 1: can walking alone, even be abducted. Every painful moment was
Speaker 1: to see your mom leaving home to fetch water. The
Speaker 1: big fear was will seek him back on my life?
Speaker 1: Will see not be blown by landlines, will see not
Speaker 1: be wrapped by the man in uniform. So this was
Speaker 1: every child's biggest fear. You know, the feeling of learndliness, powerlessness,
Speaker 1: and you feel unwanted, you feel though you don't belong.
Speaker 1: So this is the kind of spirit, the kind of
Speaker 1: feeling that renews and continues to perpetuate, and you know
Speaker 1: the trend of violence because the child will grown knowing
Speaker 1: that I have to do something to prove to my
Speaker 1: parents that I love them for what they did to
Speaker 1: me by retaliating. One of the cruelest aspects this is
Speaker 1: children who are kidnapped and turned into soldiers. They're victims,
Speaker 1: but they become perpetrators as well. It is very clear,
Speaker 1: almost obvious, that a child victims, if not properly rehabilitated,
Speaker 1: becomes an adult perpetrator. They're so indoctrinated. They are told
Speaker 1: would to kill, how to kill, where to kill, when
Speaker 1: to kill, and this is all their land. And once
Speaker 1: a child is misinformed and made to go through experience
Speaker 1: which is so painful. Like Northern Yogana, what I saw,
Speaker 1: kids as young as teniers and below were abducted and
Speaker 1: they are forced to kill their own parents before they
Speaker 1: are taken. You don't want to come back home. What
Speaker 1: are you going to do back home? Because you killed
Speaker 1: your own father in front of you had assistance, They
Speaker 1: saw that you're the one hitting, You're the one beating
Speaker 1: until they died, and then they took you away. So
Speaker 1: that kid, when it's in captivity, we never want to
Speaker 1: come back home. That is vicious. That is a very
Speaker 1: challenging part and now also comes into the issues of
Speaker 1: the role parents plays. Parents go through too much during war,
Speaker 1: especially women. I know in Africa there's that sense of
Speaker 1: feeling that a man, you must be strong to provide
Speaker 1: for your family, to protect your family. But when you
Speaker 1: are so powerless, there's that moment in war that you
Speaker 1: are too powerless to protect your own and that moment
Speaker 1: of vulnerability is when a lot of men gave up.
Speaker 1: Either they picked up began to go and fight in
Speaker 1: in being powerless, powerless and hopelessness or the committed society.
Speaker 1: A lot of men died during conflict. A lot of
Speaker 1: women demonstrated much more strength during conflict than men because
Speaker 1: a woman will say, okay, we know we are not
Speaker 1: supposed to be so powerful, we're supposed to be able
Speaker 1: to fast it, and they will do every risk to
Speaker 1: protect their family. But now in the post conflict verity,
Speaker 1: war is manifest team more in women than men because
Speaker 1: throughout all this time for women going through this process,
Speaker 1: they took too much. They sold a lot of strength
Speaker 1: and demonstrated, you know, power in the face of adversity.
Speaker 1: But now a lot of men in the post conflict
Speaker 1: are not as affected that women. You know, we can
Speaker 1: see manifesting so heavily in women and the trauma, the pain,
Speaker 1: and this is where the child say, this is the
Speaker 1: reason war is the reason why my mother is going
Speaker 1: through this kind of pain. I have to do something now.
Speaker 1: That's when they become adult perpetrators. They're looking forward to retaliate,
Speaker 1: to revenge, to strike back. And that's why I think
Speaker 1: parents or families plays a big role, because world destroys
Speaker 1: the most important institution in families torn a path, society
Speaker 1: down a path. I want to know what made you,
Speaker 1: growing up in a refugee camp as a young man,
Speaker 1: choose the path you did and think about breaking this
Speaker 1: cycle instead of, as you said, the path of despair
Speaker 1: or continuing the cycle of violence and seeking revenge yourself.
Speaker 1: I've seen the best humanity can do and the worst
Speaker 1: humanity can do. I reached a point where I was exhausted.
Speaker 1: I was tired. I was tired of my own insecurity,
Speaker 1: my fear I was I wasn't sure if I was
Speaker 1: the one was wrong. As a child, I kept on
Speaker 1: asking myself what did we do to deserve all these
Speaker 1: kinds of It would be raining heavier than this, but
Speaker 1: you have to run and sleep in the rain, without tent,
Speaker 1: without cover, without shelter. And this was not for a year.
Speaker 1: We waited for war to end. Took years, took ten years,
Speaker 1: over became twenty years. War was still continuing, stronger and stronger.
Speaker 1: But then as a child, it reached a particular moment
Speaker 1: when I think I was on the brink of giving
Speaker 1: up like another kids. I saw my friends who are
Speaker 1: running in and out from Monday to Monday. We every
Speaker 1: next two hours run. You're being chest surviving attack to
Speaker 1: surviving landmines. And life became so complicated, and I saw
Speaker 1: my friends volunteered, somebody volunteered to be adapted. Said, even
Speaker 1: if I stay, I'm not being protected. I have no choice,
Speaker 1: but let me just go. If I go, I'll probably
Speaker 1: have a gun. I'll be in charging my own security.
Speaker 1: I'll kill somebody, or somebody might kill me. This was
Speaker 1: a despair. We went to fetch water in the morning,
Speaker 1: in a group of about eight to ten of us.
Speaker 1: On our way to fetch water, two people in front
Speaker 1: god blown by landmines. Boom. We took off running back
Speaker 1: without a small container jarragon for water. Were crying running
Speaker 1: towards home. When he got home and my mom told
Speaker 1: me to go and pick up some goats because he said,
Speaker 1: now that the landman said, that means the rebels are round,
Speaker 1: So take on and and get the goats and bring them.
Speaker 1: And then when er I left my friend at home,
Speaker 1: I went like for a distance on all in all,
Speaker 1: the process took less than five minutes. When I was
Speaker 1: speaking the goat pulling it home, I came and asked
Speaker 1: my mum, where did my friends go? They said, they've
Speaker 1: all been taken away, said by Woo, said the riva
Speaker 1: just took them right now. And that's how I survived
Speaker 1: that man one particular moment, and I I was just lost.
Speaker 1: I said, no in the morning, some who were blown
Speaker 1: by land mine just now. Some are taken already, and
Speaker 1: the question is who next. It became me. I was next,
Speaker 1: and that's when I realized that it was no longer
Speaker 1: far and it was just a matter of time before
Speaker 1: I'm taken. And we Mum said, no, don't mind, it
Speaker 1: will be fine. Let us keep on trying as much
Speaker 1: as we can. Then there was all of a sudden
Speaker 1: gunswers we ran and came back. When he came back
Speaker 1: home after a few hours, we found like so many
Speaker 1: dead bodies at home. And I remember my mom shouting
Speaker 1: and crying loud. Who met the gun? That was a statement,
Speaker 1: who met the gun? Who manufactured the gun? Shouting at us,
Speaker 1: look at every one of us. We don't have the question.
Speaker 1: We don't have the answer to the question who made
Speaker 1: the gun? But she kept who made the gun? Why
Speaker 1: a gun coming to kill children? Women? What did they do?
Speaker 1: Who made the gun? That was like she was crying
Speaker 1: and you could tell she was powerless. We didn't have
Speaker 1: answer to a question, but that was a repeated question,
Speaker 1: and who met the gun. The next day, so the
Speaker 1: government military track came and everybody was running towards the
Speaker 1: camp center, and I asked, Mom, said, what is that.
Speaker 1: They said that the government has brought a lot of weapons,
Speaker 1: and they're saying anybody who can shoot a gunslow to
Speaker 1: shoot a gun. So they even brought the child friendly
Speaker 1: uniform military uniform. So it meant that women, men, children,
Speaker 1: everybody who can fire the gun should go and pick
Speaker 1: up the uniform. I saw people running and I told Mom,
Speaker 1: I'm not going, so yes, don't go. So my remaining friends,
Speaker 1: out of despair, picked up the uniform, picked up the weapons.
Speaker 1: They were trained for a few hours. They were deployed
Speaker 1: to fight the rebels. You were how old? I think
Speaker 1: I was thirteen. Some were younger than me actually went
Speaker 1: and pick up the uniform. We didn't have clothing. Some
Speaker 1: went because they wanted something to wear. Myself, I had
Speaker 1: only one pair of shot. There was nothing else. So
Speaker 1: when I told myself I'm not going, and then said, perfect,
Speaker 1: don't go. When they went, kids as young and women
Speaker 1: with children in their back became the guns. They were
Speaker 1: trained and order. The rebel waited for them, were laid
Speaker 1: them and pushed them, disarmed them. Some who try to
Speaker 1: just were killed somewhere their hands, nose, he has lips
Speaker 1: cut off, and some were taken. Those whose world you
Speaker 1: know this figure. Those who were mutilated were sent back
Speaker 1: home with their body parts at turn. Take this to
Speaker 1: take government. Take it to seven. This was a message
Speaker 1: from Lay. In the evening, there was crying all over
Speaker 1: the camp, and I said, this is it. How long
Speaker 1: can disco? The next day I said I'm not going
Speaker 1: to sit and watch. When I did, I went and
Speaker 1: I sat three hundred meters away from the child soldiers
Speaker 1: recruitment center, and I started pushing my friends who were
Speaker 1: coming to join, because they said, you come, come, everybody
Speaker 1: was out of frustration who were coming. I would stand there,
Speaker 1: I would stop them, talk, don't go, You'll be killed.
Speaker 1: People that I was joking. I became hated by some
Speaker 1: of them. My name also future to the rebel camp
Speaker 1: that I was the one discouraging young people from joining them.
Speaker 1: My name was also with the government troops that I
Speaker 1: was the campaigning discouraging patriotic young people want to protect
Speaker 1: their community. And for the first time both rebels and
Speaker 1: the government troops from their common enemy that was me.
Speaker 1: It went on to become so difficult and so complicated.
Speaker 1: We were struggling in all ways with education. My parents
Speaker 1: couldn't even afford to buy a pencil. They were that poor.
Speaker 1: And the worst of the worst came. I lost my
Speaker 1: mom when she was started by malaria. There's no medicine,
Speaker 1: and the road to town, which is about twenty five kilometers,
Speaker 1: was blocked by several camps of the rebel. Rebel camps,
Speaker 1: we tried as much as we could to get medicine
Speaker 1: for a mom. There's no single government health centers working,
Speaker 1: no private health center. We didn't even have money. There's nothing.
Speaker 1: Then my brother, whom we followed, was two years older
Speaker 1: than me. We sent him to town. That can you
Speaker 1: go and pick up medicine from the government hospital in town?
Speaker 1: He had to walk through the bush. Took him almost
Speaker 1: twelve hours to go through the bush from Holli morning
Speaker 1: when they still dark to late night when they still dark.
Speaker 1: When he got to town and he went to the
Speaker 1: government hospital and said that our mom is very sick
Speaker 1: and we don't have we don't know, we don't have
Speaker 1: any means to bring up. We don't have a bicycle. Then,
Speaker 1: so we have come to get medicine. And then the
Speaker 1: government also told him that no, we have to pay
Speaker 1: an equivalent of half a dollar to get medicine. He
Speaker 1: didn't have the money went back home without So when
Speaker 1: my brother went back and said, we did not manage,
Speaker 1: so maybe we should take our mom get away of
Speaker 1: taking her to the hospital, the road was blocked nowhere
Speaker 1: called no bicycle, no nothing. We had to make some
Speaker 1: reads to carry her through the bush to take her
Speaker 1: to the hospital. But we tried our best as our children,
Speaker 1: taking her through distance a little bit. But when he
Speaker 1: went through, there a moment when we almost stepped on
Speaker 1: landmines went through our bushes. We could we survived and
Speaker 1: our mom saw that our health was deteriorating. It's not
Speaker 1: easy anymore. And then he said, I know you're trying
Speaker 1: your best to take care of my health, but don't
Speaker 1: mind about my health, mind about your security. I don't
Speaker 1: think i'll make it. Take me back home. We took
Speaker 1: her back and she went on. So that was difficult,
Speaker 1: very very difficult. Of course, as a family we remained
Speaker 1: so solid. The children were much stronger we the children
Speaker 1: were stronger than our own. Our father was so depressed
Speaker 1: and it was on suicide watch because it didn't have
Speaker 1: anything to do. It was lost, it was powerless. It
Speaker 1: was it was unable to do anything. In two thousand three,
Speaker 1: after struggling so hard to survive, to leave my brother
Speaker 1: whom we sent to pick our mother the medicine, him
Speaker 1: and I went actually to the village so we had
Speaker 1: some two house and we wanted to pick it up
Speaker 1: and we rode on the same bicycle with him for
Speaker 1: the first time I worked for had bought a bicycle,
Speaker 1: and that was the first bicycle in our family I
Speaker 1: bought for him, and he was a very happy man
Speaker 1: that day. It was because it was also a priest,
Speaker 1: praying always for the people in the camp. We went
Speaker 1: together with him at home. We spent the night in
Speaker 1: the same house, the same building, and in the morning said,
Speaker 1: now the road is not very safe. Let me walk
Speaker 1: ahead of you with the cow and another young man.
Speaker 1: Then he follows the bicycle because from the same family
Speaker 1: would be very rescue for us to walk together. Two
Speaker 1: kilometers away from home, we entered the ambush, so the
Speaker 1: rebel started chasing us. But as we were walking, there
Speaker 1: was another woman walking behind us, like five hundred meters
Speaker 1: in the road, and she saw us being chessed by
Speaker 1: the rebel, me and my friend and the two cows,
Speaker 1: and ran back home and said, those kids are already taken.
Speaker 1: I saw them being chessed and they were so un
Speaker 1: rebeled with a gun chasing us, and I said, no,
Speaker 1: we're all going to stop until they shoot us, and
Speaker 1: we kept on running. We ran across the valley and
Speaker 1: then the rebel stopped, so we were not taken. Black
Speaker 1: Play my brother, upon hearing that we were taken, he
Speaker 1: was panicking and freaking wanted to come, and the soldiers
Speaker 1: stopped him said no, don't go. If they're taken, we
Speaker 1: shall get away of recovering them. If not, let them go,
Speaker 1: but you remain for me. I was also on the
Speaker 1: other side of the bridge, afraid that my brother was
Speaker 1: going to come and enter the ambles. There was no phone, Nora.
Speaker 1: The only road we had was blocked at night. When
Speaker 1: the soldiers told him nobody's going to go to town,
Speaker 1: we were blocking the road. The rebel came and took
Speaker 1: him on the tenth of December two thousand and three. Unfortunate,
Speaker 1: up to now, we has not come back. He was
Speaker 1: abducted together with my two cousins and other closer family members.
Speaker 1: They all never came back, and that was the moment
Speaker 1: I was just lost. I had all the wishes in mind.
Speaker 1: If I had a gun, I would have probably attacked
Speaker 1: the rebel myself. I was going to have a one
Speaker 1: man army. I had other wishes that if I may
Speaker 1: be a made a mistake by not picking up the gun,
Speaker 1: by not becoming a soldier. But something in me kept
Speaker 1: on telling me that no, no, no, carry on and
Speaker 1: your choice to be peaceful was right. So I started
Speaker 1: walking to the camp. I would just walk like I
Speaker 1: was lost. I was mentally and well. I think I
Speaker 1: was also angry and still wondering what to do. Walking
Speaker 1: through the camp, I would see people children who lost
Speaker 1: both parents were in the queue for food aid. They
Speaker 1: would be kicked out. The sick people would be kicked
Speaker 1: out of the line. I was angry that people were
Speaker 1: kicking them out. I feel like I wanted to like
Speaker 1: fight them physically. Why are you kicking the most vulnerable
Speaker 1: people out of line? Because the only people were strong
Speaker 1: enough could get food. It was always a scaffle and
Speaker 1: I started somewhere from nowhere. I started acting like a
Speaker 1: weird person. I would go and pick these people were
Speaker 1: weak and sick, put them in line, and I said, no,
Speaker 1: you touch them. I'll deal with you until they get food.
Speaker 1: I'll not leave. People saw me and say, what is
Speaker 1: this guy doing? Who is he anyway, He's coming from
Speaker 1: a different camp. What is he doing? But I left
Speaker 1: it the next day, but at least something was burning
Speaker 1: in me. That's why I went on to form this
Speaker 1: organization called Africa You finished the Network because I was lost.
Speaker 1: I wanted to talk about peace. People didn't understand. When
Speaker 1: I started the work with the organization, there was no money.
Speaker 1: For two years, I was struggling to look for asking
Speaker 1: people can give us two hundred dollars five hundred dollars funding.
Speaker 1: They said, no, we are not here to give you money.
Speaker 1: But you started it in one camp yeah, And did
Speaker 1: people join you and work with you? Yeah. I started
Speaker 1: in one camp. I went on to another camp doing
Speaker 1: eloping these people and then said, Okay, maybe what I'm
Speaker 1: doing is right. So what I need to do is
Speaker 1: to now have a formal institutional backing. People become so
Speaker 1: suspicious if you have good intention in a community where
Speaker 1: violence is the order of the day. That was so
Speaker 1: strange that there was somebody was so kind that all
Speaker 1: the international engines who had all the money, all the
Speaker 1: big money, they never gave us anything. They all said, no,
Speaker 1: we are not here to support, we are here to
Speaker 1: allow other people. After we started working talking about peace
Speaker 1: meeting formally abducted meeting for my child's soldiers and families,
Speaker 1: people told us, why are you talking about peace that
Speaker 1: you've never seen? We kind of talk about peace with
Speaker 1: all these war wounds on our body. I could understand
Speaker 1: their pain, I could understand their fear. In one of
Speaker 1: the incidents, I was talking to the young people, I
Speaker 1: was cancelingde this young man who told me his story
Speaker 1: how it was abducted, and what it was told to do,
Speaker 1: how he killed other people, how he abducted other people.
Speaker 1: And there was one particular story that he told. It
Speaker 1: was actually talking about how we operated in my home area,
Speaker 1: and he went on to talk about the church because
Speaker 1: we had built a church at home. Then said, yeah,
Speaker 1: in that camp. Actually we used to hang around the
Speaker 1: church and that church was exactly in our home we
Speaker 1: built it. Then I went on to probably more and
Speaker 1: he explained one particular situation, how we abducted, what they did,
Speaker 1: how they came and made sure that the soldiers who
Speaker 1: were sleeping in the church, which was photometers away from
Speaker 1: the house where people were sleeping, would be guarded, would
Speaker 1: not be allowed to know what was going on. He
Speaker 1: explained how we abducted my own brother. So he explained
Speaker 1: how he took my brother. It was a very difficult encounter,
Speaker 1: how the tide him, how they made him carry loads,
Speaker 1: and how they tried to cross the water, and majority
Speaker 1: of them didn't know how to swim, And I knew
Speaker 1: my brother didn't know how to swim, so I when
Speaker 1: you talked about that moment of forcing them to swim,
Speaker 1: yet they didn't how to swim with lots of luggage
Speaker 1: on their head. I just said, no, I don't want
Speaker 1: to know what exactly happened to my brother. I did
Speaker 1: not tell him. You didn't tell him. I did not
Speaker 1: tell you realize it was your brother? Yeah, I did
Speaker 1: not realize. And I told him, can we stop the
Speaker 1: discussion and I have some emergency. Can I come back tomorrow?
Speaker 1: Then they continue, They said, yeah, of course you can
Speaker 1: go and come back. I was freaking out. I was
Speaker 1: I was darken. It was I didn't know what to do.
Speaker 1: I wanted to cry, I couldn't cry. I was chalking
Speaker 1: in pain and shocked in disbelief what I learned about
Speaker 1: my family fate. In the morning, I went back to
Speaker 1: the kid again, I said, can we continue talking because
Speaker 1: I also wanted to know what happened to my brother.
Speaker 1: When we started talking, it how the money to cross
Speaker 1: the river, and they went to the field, They went
Speaker 1: to the primary school where they had so many other
Speaker 1: rebel groups assembling, and with comparing the abducted numbers of people.
Speaker 1: So then how they tried There were people who tried
Speaker 1: to escape. They were killing them in the in the
Speaker 1: in the playground, and I just again they couldn't handle
Speaker 1: that story anymore, and I said, Okay, this is it.
Speaker 1: Let's let's stop now. I'll come back after a week.
Speaker 1: Then you can continue discussing something else, because the story
Speaker 1: would always be heavy. Is innocent is a child? It
Speaker 1: was never a commander because as a commander you have
Speaker 1: command responsibility, but as the commander, you have no choice
Speaker 1: about to do what you're told to do. Something. Go
Speaker 1: back to him, go back to you. It could be
Speaker 1: a good opportunity for you to work with somebody who
Speaker 1: probably would be a good tool for you to mobilize
Speaker 1: other people like him. I went back after a few days.
Speaker 1: I met with him and I said, I want to
Speaker 1: work with you. Said, I don't care about your level
Speaker 1: of education, but all I care about is your heart.
Speaker 1: You have such a good heart. You've been through too much,
Speaker 1: but you're so strong. I think you can talk to
Speaker 1: and work a lot to people who have been through
Speaker 1: terrible life like you. That moment of giving a handwritten
Speaker 1: appointment letter to this young man, promising to pay him
Speaker 1: an equivalent of eighty dollars a month, I've never felt
Speaker 1: anything like that. The process of picking the paper, handing
Speaker 1: it over to him, and saying that I want to
Speaker 1: work with you. I'm appoint to giving your appointment to
Speaker 1: become one of our counselors, will train you to even
Speaker 1: to become better and better. I felt the heaviest lord
Speaker 1: of pain, of fear, of the torment felt of me.
Speaker 1: You know, for the first time, I became myself. By
Speaker 1: handing over that trust, that love, that care, that kindness
Speaker 1: towards my brother's a doctor, I felt at peace with
Speaker 1: myself and I felt at peace with him. I've started
Speaker 1: feeling at peace with the world. To me, that was
Speaker 1: the most powerful moment of my life. And I today
Speaker 1: he works with us, he still works with you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he doesn't know that. He doesn't know that he that
Speaker 1: he was the abductor of your brother. I've not told him. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And did you ever find out what became of your brother? No?
Speaker 1: I tried a lot. I was once working on the radio.
Speaker 1: One of the formally abducted came and said, are you Victor?
Speaker 1: Said yes, we used to listen to your program on
Speaker 1: radio because I was doing a dollar sense sexual reproductive health.
Speaker 1: And then he used to listen to your program on
Speaker 1: radio in the bush. And then did you have a
Speaker 1: bread who was abducted? Said yes, so the one day
Speaker 1: he was listening to you and he was crying as
Speaker 1: I was listening to your voice, and I said, okay,
Speaker 1: what happened? Then said, I don't know what happened because
Speaker 1: as we listened to the radio, all of a sudden
Speaker 1: there was a government helicopter came and said that randomly
Speaker 1: bombing us. There, a lot of children were adapted, a
Speaker 1: lot of people got killed. I don't know what happened
Speaker 1: to him. I never saw him again. We all run
Speaker 1: in different directions. So that was the last day I
Speaker 1: saw him, and that was the last information had about
Speaker 1: the victor. Tell me about your work today, how the
Speaker 1: organization is ground, and what you're doing and where you're
Speaker 1: doing it. We say it can we use our pain
Speaker 1: transform it into something good to helop us built ourself
Speaker 1: and then we use that story to helop Us build
Speaker 1: the African Youth Inititive Network. And since then we've been
Speaker 1: working to support medical reabilitation of victims of mutilations of gunshots, trauma,
Speaker 1: healing victims of sexual violence. It's ongoing. Actually, up to
Speaker 1: now we still have ongoing medical sidebo comes to conduct.
Speaker 1: Is now about twenty two thousand people that we have
Speaker 1: supported those whose lips, nose, ears were cut off, amputated,
Speaker 1: sexual abuse and all that. We have a group of
Speaker 1: forty two young people and working with permanently employed with us.
Speaker 1: Half of them are educated their degree olders, others captive
Speaker 1: and masters, but half of them are not educated. There
Speaker 1: are people when you go to my office you'll find
Speaker 1: there have no lips, they have no ears, they have
Speaker 1: no hands, but they're doing terrific work. Their experience compares
Speaker 1: to no degrees in the world. They're wonderful people whose
Speaker 1: stories empowers themselves, empowers harders. Not until people heal physically
Speaker 1: and emotionally, it will always be difficult to talk about
Speaker 1: peace and justice unforgiveness. Because we have healed people, it
Speaker 1: has opened for us the doors now to work with
Speaker 1: young people, mobilize and train them as leaders in peace,
Speaker 1: you know, in reconciliation, in mediation and conflict prevention. This
Speaker 1: is what we're doing with the young right now. In
Speaker 1: other parts of the continent. We do a lot of
Speaker 1: continent wide exchange programs working with the young people. It's
Speaker 1: more about the focus. How can we plant in the spirit,
Speaker 1: the seeds and the culture of peace among the young generation.
Speaker 1: How can we support healing, reintegration, but also support community
Speaker 1: efforts towards reconciliation. In addition to that, also work to
Speaker 1: promote the international criminal justice. Who've been promoting a lot
Speaker 1: of the isec the International Criminal Court to prosecute, to
Speaker 1: mobilize victims as witnesses before the court. We are happy
Speaker 1: and frustrated at the same time because the whole thing
Speaker 1: we agreed up front was any move to ensure victims
Speaker 1: get justice would support it. We supported iscs so much
Speaker 1: and still I now reach a point of saying that
Speaker 1: for the sake of justice, trial must be bad at home.
Speaker 1: And when you talk about the vision of ending violent
Speaker 1: conflict in all of Africa, is it really about this
Speaker 1: movement spreading? We're talking about bringing the international system, the
Speaker 1: international framework, normative frameworks, and you and all those players
Speaker 1: on board and bring on the same table the traditional
Speaker 1: African approaches. They were born too, you know, the things
Speaker 1: that have held the continent together. If we bring them
Speaker 1: together and integrate them, then you can say, who are
Speaker 1: they players in peace building? It's not only religious leaders,
Speaker 1: it's not only elders. It's not politician, but it's politician,
Speaker 1: youth leaders. We main leaders peace at home defines peace
Speaker 1: in the community, defined peace at the nation. So we're
Speaker 1: saying if we can help bring people together through the
Speaker 1: Peace Academy, then you can and greater platform where we
Speaker 1: can train youth as peace builders, launch a peace movement,
Speaker 1: a continent word peace movement. Because we have an African outlook,
Speaker 1: want to build a peace Academy in Uganda, but then
Speaker 1: start conducting a training opportunity to support a youth leaders
Speaker 1: on different parts of the continent and after forming the
Speaker 1: web Network of peace Builders, we launch a peace movement.
Speaker 1: It is our hope that through the Peace Academy in
Speaker 1: two three years time, we can have an African lead
Speaker 1: model peace building operation, not peace keeping operation. We want
Speaker 1: a model peace building operation, something that we know where
Speaker 1: the next war is going to happen. Even right now,
Speaker 1: the world knows where which account is going to go
Speaker 1: through the next war, but nobody's doing anything to prevent it.
Speaker 1: We want to be able to be preventing conflict upfront.
Speaker 1: But only it is possible when we have the local,
Speaker 1: homegrown peace builders, homegrown conflict media us not waiting for
Speaker 1: outside one to come. Patrific and empower ourselves and create
Speaker 1: the platform where can also strengthen our humanitat and response
Speaker 1: capacity locally. There's so much we can respond to protect
Speaker 1: and support one another. But because we are not more blized,
Speaker 1: we're not connected, it's so difficult to do it. So victory,
Speaker 1: I know a lot of people listening to the serve
Speaker 1: is moved and inspired by your story as I am
Speaker 1: hearing it. What are some things that people can do
Speaker 1: to support your peace initiative, but also more generally to
Speaker 1: promote prevention and end to violent conflict in Africa. I
Speaker 1: know the one is full of problems, and sometimes people
Speaker 1: find that the suffering or the war or pain is
Speaker 1: too far away from me. Just because it is in
Speaker 1: Africa doesn't affect my business in Europe, in America, it's
Speaker 1: okay to some people. That is how it feels. I've
Speaker 1: always wanted to reach out to people. We genuinely want
Speaker 1: to allop Africa and allow African people to live life
Speaker 1: of peace and the continent is safe. There's so many
Speaker 1: ways one let us support, join hand and support the
Speaker 1: local actors, local peace builders, local young people. It hurts
Speaker 1: me to see they're dying every day trying to escape
Speaker 1: the continent. They're diving into the unknown in the water.
Speaker 1: Africa has given to so much wealth from this planet.
Speaker 1: But I think the world timers came also for the
Speaker 1: world to get Africa out of poverty, would be willing.
Speaker 1: We would be happy to be supported to allop us
Speaker 1: build a peace academy, support our work in training the
Speaker 1: peace activists across the continent. We need change right now
Speaker 1: in Africa, but we cannot pursue change by planting seeds
Speaker 1: of destruction. We need to pursue change by planting seeds
Speaker 1: love and careful fellow humanity. And that's what I think
Speaker 1: you can do as a listener. Don't think it's too
Speaker 1: far away. If you love me, if you love our people,
Speaker 1: we love the continent, you could allop us work towards
Speaker 1: hunting the right seats in the right generation, at the
Speaker 1: right age. Let us have a platform, welcome, promote the culture.
Speaker 1: Maybe we're going to in our lifetime raising new Mandela,
Speaker 1: raising new Desmond, Tutu leaders who have sown so much
Speaker 1: care and treasure for humanity and the other people give
Speaker 1: us so much hope. And I do believe so many
Speaker 1: Africans really hoping that one day there will be peace
Speaker 1: and they will live better, happy life. Victor, I feel
Speaker 1: like I've just been talking to someone like the people
Speaker 1: you mentioned, and I want to thank you for who
Speaker 1: you are and what you're doing, and for sharing your
Speaker 1: story with us. Some incredible personal testimony there about life
Speaker 1: in a war zone in northern Uganda from Victor Oten
Speaker 1: and his journey through it and out of its. Archbishop
Speaker 1: Desmond Tutu said, my heart swells with joy to see
Speaker 1: Oten as one of the new hope for Africa, and
Speaker 1: it's a rare and beautiful thing to know that much
Speaker 1: of Victor's work with the Piece Academy and his work
Speaker 1: with survivors of conflict is coming down the line. You
Speaker 1: can find him at African Youth Initiative dot org. Solvable
Speaker 1: is a collaboration between Pushkin Industries and the Rockefella Foundation,
Speaker 1: with production by Chalk and Blade. Pushkin's executive producer is
Speaker 1: Mia LaBelle, Engineering by Jason Gambrell and the fine folks
Speaker 1: at GSI Studios. Original music composed by Pascal Wise. Special
Speaker 1: thanks to Maggie Taylor, Heather Faine, Julia Barton, Carlie Migliori,
Speaker 1: cher Vincent, Jacob Weisberg, and Malcolm Gladwell. You can Learn
Speaker 1: more about solving today's biggest problems at Rockefella Foundation dot org.
Speaker 1: Slash Solvable, I'm Mave Higgins. Now go solve it. It It
Speaker 1: couplet