Speaker 1: Pushkin. Just a heads up. This episode contains descriptions of violence.
Speaker 1: Please take care while listening. I want to shake hands
Speaker 1: with him, and I'm pushed away. You can't shake hands
Speaker 1: because you're not a friend. You are an enemy, so
Speaker 1: please go back. That's Betty Bigombei, a former Ugandan minister,
Speaker 1: describing the moment in nineteen ninety three when she came
Speaker 1: face to face with a notorious warlord. She met up
Speaker 1: with him in an effort to broke her peace in
Speaker 1: Northern Uganda, a part of the country that was plagued
Speaker 1: by violence and war. Those moments when I felt really,
Speaker 1: really scared, and I didn't want to show that I
Speaker 1: was very scared, but I was deep down in my
Speaker 1: heart my goodness, if only they knew. But on the surface,
Speaker 1: I was very calm, very smooth. Begged my voice not
Speaker 1: to tremble any moment. And what language do I deploy?
Speaker 1: A motherly language because maybe and maybe that can touch
Speaker 1: his heart and soul and look at me as a
Speaker 1: protector as opposed to an enemy, that he begone. Based
Speaker 1: story is as much about changing the world as it
Speaker 1: is a personal story of change. On today's episode, one
Speaker 1: woman's approach to unlocking peace in the enemy. I am
Speaker 1: maya Shunker and this is a slight change of plans,
Speaker 1: a show about who we are and who we become
Speaker 1: in the face of a big change. Betty's story unfolds
Speaker 1: in the nineteen eighties in Uganda. That's when the country's
Speaker 1: president Yuwari msseveny asked Betty to take on a seemingly
Speaker 1: impossible mission in northern Uganda, where war had broken out.
Speaker 1: Betty was a government minister at the time, and Museveni
Speaker 1: wanted her to try and persuade rebels to put down
Speaker 1: their weapons and bring an end to the violence. Betty
Speaker 1: was aware of the profound danger that might lie ahead
Speaker 1: for her. She had no formal training in conflict resolution,
Speaker 1: and Joseph Coney, the rebel leader responsible for so much
Speaker 1: violence in the north, was a crazed warlord. He enslaved
Speaker 1: women and girls and abducted tens of thousands of children
Speaker 1: and turned them into child's soldiers to fight his war. So,
Speaker 1: when Museveni asked Betty to go on this dangerous mission
Speaker 1: and leave behind her young family in the safety at home,
Speaker 1: she wanted to know why was he choosing her. He said, well,
Speaker 1: I just need somebody that I can trust, that can
Speaker 1: tell the people of northern Uganda to persuade their children
Speaker 1: to put down their weapons. And Betty, why did you
Speaker 1: agree to say yes to this? I mean it was
Speaker 1: incredibly dangerous situation that you were entering into. Well, first
Speaker 1: of all, you must know our mentality. I was at
Speaker 1: the time already a government minister. How dare you say
Speaker 1: no to your president when he instructs you to do something.
Speaker 1: So I felt there for then that I had to
Speaker 1: do it. I had a lot of fear deep down
Speaker 1: in my heart. Plus I also I had small young children.
Speaker 1: My daughter was just about two years old, and so
Speaker 1: here I was as to go and in a war zone.
Speaker 1: You know, I feel like you're not giving yourself enough
Speaker 1: credit for the decision that you made. And the reason
Speaker 1: I say that is you know, you had been asked,
Speaker 1: you'd been appointed a minister by the president, and you
Speaker 1: actually resigned from that particular job because you felt it
Speaker 1: was an action oriented enough right, that you were basically
Speaker 1: just pushing paper, and that you really wanted to get
Speaker 1: in the trenches and make as big a difference as
Speaker 1: you possibly could. Maybe my resignation at that time did
Speaker 1: contribute to this in the sense that I went to
Speaker 1: him and I said, look, I cannot do crossword puzzle
Speaker 1: in the office, neither can I do Can I read
Speaker 1: novels like I see other people do? I want work
Speaker 1: and if you cannot give me real work, then I'm
Speaker 1: out of here. And African ministers don't resign. So it
Speaker 1: was kind of a shock to him to hear somebody
Speaker 1: threatening to resign because I had all this energy and
Speaker 1: desire to perform. You know, many of your friends called
Speaker 1: this a suicidal mission and they urged you to reconsider
Speaker 1: your choice. Well, there were people who said, look, he
Speaker 1: wants you did why should he pick you, a woman
Speaker 1: young at the time with a young family, to go
Speaker 1: and do this. So there were lots of discouraging talks.
Speaker 1: But I must also add in here that there had
Speaker 1: been wars in Uganda, had gone through wars and other
Speaker 1: civil strife, but I had never been assigned the responsibility
Speaker 1: to bring it to an end. So that kind of
Speaker 1: in a way inspired me too. If I can go
Speaker 1: and end this conflict and my people can go back home,
Speaker 1: get away from squalid comes and leave indignity, even if
Speaker 1: it's poverty. But like any other person. I set myself
Speaker 1: a deadline that I must end this war in six
Speaker 1: months low and behold, when I got there, it was
Speaker 1: a completely different story. Betty moves to Kulu, one of
Speaker 1: the largest cities in Northern Uganda, to meet the people
Speaker 1: there and figure out how to end the violence. Since
Speaker 1: Northern Uganda had been Betty's home, she thought she would
Speaker 1: be well respected. But when she arrives at the camps
Speaker 1: in Gulu as a government official, she's met with a
Speaker 1: very different response. I was dismissed by many people at first.
Speaker 1: Of all, there were those who said, well, she's never
Speaker 1: faced the gun, so she will run away. It won't
Speaker 1: be long before she runs away. There were those who
Speaker 1: say it, well, I mean the same story. Why a woman,
Speaker 1: this is a male domain. She cannot do anything. So
Speaker 1: in African community, when a woman is given such responsibility,
Speaker 1: she must be a girlfriend. You don't earn it, there
Speaker 1: must be some kind of relationship between you. So there
Speaker 1: were those who felt, well, nobody goes to that place anyway,
Speaker 1: not even government our officials. So probably he just wanted
Speaker 1: her way where he can have access to her any time.
Speaker 1: I also had inferior to complex inferiority complex that nobody
Speaker 1: knew me, nobody knew my family. My family was not
Speaker 1: one of those prominent families that were known. So reaction
Speaker 1: was wish she who is this ah? And I still
Speaker 1: remember one elder saying that, well, if miss Severne wanted
Speaker 1: to end the war, he could have appointed somebody from
Speaker 1: a prominent family and not an nonentity whom nobody knew
Speaker 1: where she came from. The only thing I had on
Speaker 1: my side was that I had gone to the best
Speaker 1: schools in the country. I had graduated from university. Just
Speaker 1: the fact that I had to introduce myself who I
Speaker 1: was was not an easy exercise. I'd like to hear
Speaker 1: about what it was that you were confronted with in
Speaker 1: those first few days in northern Uganda. Can you set
Speaker 1: the scene for people who might not know what the
Speaker 1: state of affairs was like? What I was confronted with
Speaker 1: voice was really traumatizing was going into these quality camps
Speaker 1: and finding people living in a situation that is difficult
Speaker 1: to describe. But what even traumatized me more was to
Speaker 1: find people who were immaginated children, little babies suckling breasts
Speaker 1: from mothers who had no milk whatsoever, not even water.
Speaker 1: You could see their heads, you could see the count
Speaker 1: their ribs. Sometimes the number of children who were dying
Speaker 1: was just I couldn't even count them. And I'd never
Speaker 1: come face to face with people starving to death. So
Speaker 1: that was spiritually wrenching. And probably I could say that
Speaker 1: this really inspired me too, that it has to come
Speaker 1: to an end. And when I walked into the camps,
Speaker 1: it gives people some hope that they is somebody, an
Speaker 1: official of the government, who probably will talk to government
Speaker 1: so that we can get food, so that she could
Speaker 1: talk to the international community, so that we could get
Speaker 1: some means of livelihood. You know, you mentioned that you
Speaker 1: were met with a lot of skepticism, right, yes, How
Speaker 1: do you work to build credibility and trust in the
Speaker 1: people that you were interacting with. I developed a culture
Speaker 1: of not lecturing to people that people I had grievances
Speaker 1: they needed to talk. I encourage to them. I said,
Speaker 1: if you want to insult me, go ahead and do it.
Speaker 1: If you want to insult the president, do it anything.
Speaker 1: But what I want is to bring peace. So I
Speaker 1: would sit and listen and listen for hours, and the
Speaker 1: most important thing to build that trust for people to
Speaker 1: realize that you're serious. You're there for them, to mourn
Speaker 1: with them, to grieve with them, and not just stay
Speaker 1: in town, but go and stay in the camps with them,
Speaker 1: so that when they're hungry, you're so hungry you're not
Speaker 1: going to take something special for yourself. And this was
Speaker 1: very instrumental in confidence building and trust building by the people,
Speaker 1: because then I demonstrated some kind of seriousness. Then people think, okay,
Speaker 1: if she can stay with us in the camp and
Speaker 1: it what we're eating, then she must be committed. I
Speaker 1: was very determined to prove my metal. That's decision to
Speaker 1: stay at the various camps carries unbelievable risk. The camps
Speaker 1: were scattered all over the region and rebels were routinely
Speaker 1: raiding them and murdering civilians. I went through land mines
Speaker 1: planted for me. A pickup truck that was carrying civilians
Speaker 1: was blown up, and I still remember vividly picking up
Speaker 1: a three year old baby where the mother was killed
Speaker 1: by the landmine and picking up this baby and other
Speaker 1: wounded people. And of course, the other thing which was
Speaker 1: very traumatizing was that each time the rebels attacked a
Speaker 1: camp to abduct and kill people. I had to be
Speaker 1: the first person on the scene. The most painful thing
Speaker 1: where was mothers, parents running to me and say, please
Speaker 1: save our children have been abducted, Our loved ones have
Speaker 1: been killed. Could you help to bury them? And the
Speaker 1: painful thing was I knew I could not save them,
Speaker 1: but I had to give them hope. You want them
Speaker 1: to continue to be resilient. That he spends close to
Speaker 1: a year living among the people at the camps, working
Speaker 1: to build trust with civilians and key players in the region.
Speaker 1: But there's one person that he has yet to meet
Speaker 1: face to face, the rebel leader Joseph Coney. Coney was
Speaker 1: the leader of the Lord's Resistance Army or l R,
Speaker 1: and he believed that he received messages directly from God.
Speaker 1: With Coney in charge, the LRA committed countless atrocities against
Speaker 1: the people of Northern Uganda, including murder, beatings, abductions, mutilations,
Speaker 1: and wraith. Betty, what had you heard about Joseph Coney
Speaker 1: at that time? Horrible things. I'd seen people whose lips
Speaker 1: had been cut, noses have been cut, ears have been
Speaker 1: chopped off, private parts cut off. This monster, I'd heard
Speaker 1: a lot about him. There were a few people who
Speaker 1: managed to escape and would tell me what kind of
Speaker 1: person he was. They all believed that he had supernatural power,
Speaker 1: that he was talking to go directly, and whatever he
Speaker 1: predicted did car did happen later. I'd also heard from
Speaker 1: some of the wives the girls who had been captured,
Speaker 1: and he would have shall be crude and say sex
Speaker 1: with at least six in one night. So I'd heard
Speaker 1: all these horrible stories about him. So in my mind,
Speaker 1: was this monster that you even think sometimes he had Houns. Yeah,
Speaker 1: at one point you received a death threat from Connie's army. Yes,
Speaker 1: and the letter said that the rebels were going to
Speaker 1: kill you, right, I still have that letter. The letter
Speaker 1: came barely two months after I had been in and
Speaker 1: was that get out of here as soon as possible.
Speaker 1: If you don't, we're going to kill you. This is
Speaker 1: a male domain, So if you don't get out of here,
Speaker 1: we have a way of getting you. We know where
Speaker 1: you stay and we can follow you anywhere. And when
Speaker 1: you saw the content of the letter, what led you
Speaker 1: to stay? Ah One in institution like that, you don't
Speaker 1: want to show that you're a coward. That's one. Two.
Speaker 1: Having seen what I had seen, How could I desert
Speaker 1: and live children dropping dead like flies? How could I
Speaker 1: desert people who were dying of treatable diseases. It would
Speaker 1: be highly immoral. In fact, I still remember one meets
Speaker 1: the one a public rally I went for in one
Speaker 1: of the camps, and as I was talking, the bodyguards
Speaker 1: I went with came to me and said, the rebels approaching.
Speaker 1: And I could see people around me slowly disappearing, and
Speaker 1: I could see also the soldier government troops were terribly scared.
Speaker 1: But I told them if we run away, what message
Speaker 1: is it going to send to the rebels. Of course,
Speaker 1: my heart was beating like crazy, about to pop out
Speaker 1: of my chest, but I had to exhibit courage at
Speaker 1: that point in time. So I told them We're going
Speaker 1: to go, but we're going to move very very slowly,
Speaker 1: so that it does not send a message of panic
Speaker 1: to the population, because tomorrow it will be all o
Speaker 1: our places that Betty run away from the rebels. How
Speaker 1: would it be perceived then the next time? How can
Speaker 1: I face people again if I did that. Betty's work
Speaker 1: to establish herself as a leader and to build trust
Speaker 1: in the community proves effective. She's tipped off to the
Speaker 1: fact Coney might be located somewhere nearby, But rather than flee,
Speaker 1: Betty decides she wants to engage with Coney directly. She
Speaker 1: sends him a letter and addresses him in a rather
Speaker 1: unique way. You know, it says so much to me
Speaker 1: about the nature of your peacemaking that when you reached
Speaker 1: out to Coney, you referred to him as your son,
Speaker 1: and you appealed to your united belief in the same God.
Speaker 1: And look, Betty, it was extremely effective because that led
Speaker 1: him to initiate a direct meeting with you. Is that right? Right?
Speaker 1: At that time, what I wanted to find out would
Speaker 1: be stalk be possible, and so my approach was then
Speaker 1: meeting and trying to understand he's mindset. Betty's approach works.
Speaker 1: Coney agrees to meet her face to face, more than
Speaker 1: sixteen miles deep in the jungle. She's told she can
Speaker 1: bring six people with her as long as none of
Speaker 1: them are armed. So I thought of who the six
Speaker 1: people I could take with me, knowing how dangerous it was,
Speaker 1: I even contemplated taking poison with me, because just in
Speaker 1: case it became very dangerous, I didn't want to be
Speaker 1: tortured I'd rather get myself killed instantly. So I went
Speaker 1: to religious leaders. Since he has this fanatic religious belief.
Speaker 1: So I went to the Castolic bishop. Was it fantastic,
Speaker 1: will come with you. I went to the Anglican bishop.
Speaker 1: We said we need peace, will come with you. I
Speaker 1: went to the Muslim and I said, I want two
Speaker 1: two two of each. That was two weeks before, and
Speaker 1: please please, nobody must tell anybody about this mission. And
Speaker 1: they all promised nothing would happen. But in the day
Speaker 1: finally arrives all of them cancel. The Catholic bishop sent
Speaker 1: me a letter and say it we pray for you.
Speaker 1: It's time to bring peace, but we cannot come with you.
Speaker 1: Good be with you. The Anglican escaped to compele A city.
Speaker 1: The Muslim said, I have darya, I have malaria. I
Speaker 1: can't come with you. So that moment in time, I
Speaker 1: was very scared. So I debated within myself do I
Speaker 1: abort this mission or do I go. Eventually I wrote
Speaker 1: to my family, this is going to happen. I may
Speaker 1: not make it back, wrote to President of seventy said mays,
Speaker 1: children must get educated. And then I set off, knowing
Speaker 1: how dangerous it was Betty makes her way through the jungle,
Speaker 1: and she knows she's being watched. Tony's soldiers are hidden
Speaker 1: throughout sum up in trees, monitoring her movements. You had
Speaker 1: all these child soldiers. Obviously AK forty seven was too
Speaker 1: heavy for them and too tall, too tall for them,
Speaker 1: And yet one was behind me, one in front, one
Speaker 1: on left and right side of me. Ah. Suddenly I'm walking,
Speaker 1: and one elderly man popped out with sheer butter oil
Speaker 1: oliver and splash it all over me, reciting something. If
Speaker 1: you have bad intentions, can this wash this away so
Speaker 1: that you don't hurt us. So at that point in time,
Speaker 1: I stopped and I said what is this you're doing?
Speaker 1: And one of their another commander, popped out and said, oh,
Speaker 1: please forget this. They don't know what is going on.
Speaker 1: We want these pistocks to succeed. Please persevere. So I continued,
Speaker 1: and then out of nowhere another one pops out and
Speaker 1: holds me by my neck, and again I said, I
Speaker 1: am not going anywhere. If you want to kill me,
Speaker 1: you can now kill me. Here Again, another commander comes
Speaker 1: and persuades me. Now we are not very far from
Speaker 1: the venue. Please let's continue the big man that would
Speaker 1: call him will be coming soon. And it was just
Speaker 1: I was totally overwhelmed. There was jumping, there was shouting,
Speaker 1: there was screaming that the demon is coming out. There
Speaker 1: was laughter from some distance. Then finally he comes in.
Speaker 1: So I go like, I want to shake hands with him,
Speaker 1: and I'm pushed away. You can't shake hands because you're
Speaker 1: not a friend, you are an enemy, so please go back.
Speaker 1: Then he introduced his senior commanders. We said whatever they
Speaker 1: wanted to say. Then eventually it was him. We started
Speaker 1: talking and he talked for about four hours that first meeting,
Speaker 1: and then I responded very briefly, basically praising God, speaking
Speaker 1: the same language as him. Then what happened was because
Speaker 1: bestead late, it was dark. All we could see where fireflies.
Speaker 1: Then he decided said we haven't concluded anything. We haven't
Speaker 1: even started talking, so you're not going anywhere. You're going
Speaker 1: to spend the night here so that tomorrow we can
Speaker 1: resume the talks early in the morning. Again, my heart
Speaker 1: was about to burst to come out of my chest,
Speaker 1: but I kept very calm and I said, again, this
Speaker 1: is God's which God is great. However, I want you
Speaker 1: to know that I am your mother, but I'm also
Speaker 1: a government official. Now, if government soldiers wait for me
Speaker 1: on the other side and I don't show up, they
Speaker 1: will think this problem. They will storm this place and
Speaker 1: fighting will break out and we'll probably will all die,
Speaker 1: and then there will be no more pistocks. So he said,
Speaker 1: you're right, we have consulted. You're right. That could happen again.
Speaker 1: I said, praise God, your fantast good is fantastic. Allelujah. Amen,
Speaker 1: this is now. You have to be to act like
Speaker 1: your obsess too. Amen, this is fantastic. And in my heart,
Speaker 1: what is coming next? Eventually he said, you're right, you
Speaker 1: can go. We'll be back in a moment. With a
Speaker 1: slight change of plans, Betty Begombey manages to make it
Speaker 1: out at that first meeting with Joseph Coney alive, and
Speaker 1: she goes on to meet with him five more times
Speaker 1: over the next year and a half, and even though
Speaker 1: he's responsible for countless atrocities, Betty chooses not to treat
Speaker 1: him like the enemy. You've mentioned that you focused on
Speaker 1: using the language of a mother rather than of a
Speaker 1: militant when you engage with him. Do you mind sharing
Speaker 1: more about that choice? I mean I must have taken
Speaker 1: I guess my question is motivated by the idea that
Speaker 1: you're sitting in front of this monstrous human and you're
Speaker 1: trying to maintain your composure, but you seem to have
Speaker 1: also had the cognitive wherewithal to be strategic in the
Speaker 1: way that you were interacting with him. And so I'm
Speaker 1: just trying to dig into that a bit more. If
Speaker 1: I could you, my son, then that means I'm going
Speaker 1: to protect you. A mother cannot be a danger to
Speaker 1: her child or children. A mother will provide protection. So
Speaker 1: the whole thing was here, I am your mother. Well,
Speaker 1: all I want is for you to be safe, and
Speaker 1: people to be safe, and people to live in dignity.
Speaker 1: So those moments when I felt really, really scared, and
Speaker 1: I didn't want to show that I was very scared,
Speaker 1: but I was deep down in my heart, my goodness,
Speaker 1: if only they knew. But on the surface, I was
Speaker 1: very calm, very smooth, begged my voice not to tremble
Speaker 1: any moment. And what language do I deploy? A motherly
Speaker 1: language because maybe and maybe that can touch his heart
Speaker 1: and soul and look at me as a protector as
Speaker 1: opposed to an enemy. Betty continues to connect with Coney
Speaker 1: on a personal level, and in doing so, she makes
Speaker 1: great progress towards peace. She's so successful that Coney ends
Speaker 1: up calling her mummy Bigombe, and remarkably, one year after
Speaker 1: that first meeting deep in the jungle, Coney agrees to
Speaker 1: enter into peace talks. A date and venue to sign
Speaker 1: a peace agreement are agreed upon, and Betty rushes to
Speaker 1: President Museveni to tell him the news. But Museveni has
Speaker 1: changed his mind and cancels the continuation of the peace process,
Speaker 1: opting for a military solution instead. Coney and his rebel
Speaker 1: army respond by attacking a small village and killing hundreds
Speaker 1: of people. I was so totally traumatized by the killing,
Speaker 1: the massacre that took place of innocent people. I was
Speaker 1: so heartbroken. That was niceeen ninety four, Betty ends up
Speaker 1: stepping away for some time. She says she needs some
Speaker 1: breathing space, some distance from the tragedy that's just occurred.
Speaker 1: Betty ends up joining the World Bank, but just as
Speaker 1: she's getting ready to leave on a work trip in
Speaker 1: two thousand and four, she catches a glimpse of a
Speaker 1: CNN segment that shows scenes of the continued violence taking
Speaker 1: place in Northern Uganda. Here was CNN breaking news. The
Speaker 1: Lord's Resistance army went into a camp in Northern Uganda,
Speaker 1: killed over three hundred people, somewhere hacked to death, somewhere
Speaker 1: shot dead as they were running away. Here I am
Speaker 1: getting ready to travel this breaking news. The only person
Speaker 1: who almost ended the war was Betty Bobe. She met
Speaker 1: the rebel leader. She did as I did that on CNN.
Speaker 1: I couldn't believe it. So I thought this was a calling.
Speaker 1: I'm going back. I'm quitting my job. So I did,
Speaker 1: returned in two thousand and four and initiated another round
Speaker 1: of peastocks. And I went and told President mis Sevine,
Speaker 1: but please, this is true, said crazy group without any
Speaker 1: clear political ideology. But we have to talk to them.
Speaker 1: Astonished to your image because it is believed that you
Speaker 1: don't want to want them in the war. Put yourself
Speaker 1: in the shoes of the parents in Northern Uganda whose
Speaker 1: children get abducted and they helplessly cry and look, and
Speaker 1: some of them lose their children. Forever. You love your children,
Speaker 1: they also love their children. The grandparents in Northern Uganda
Speaker 1: are in scholid calms. The elders have lost their dignity.
Speaker 1: They're not like your father is living in dignity. Put
Speaker 1: yourself into that shoes. Lets have no problem. Please, if
Speaker 1: you can reach out to them, do And so with
Speaker 1: mis seventies Blessing, Betty attempts to restart the peace process
Speaker 1: with the LRA. Those negotiations ultimately break down, but Betty's
Speaker 1: work helps the government set the stage for more successful
Speaker 1: peace talks. A year later, and although the agreement is
Speaker 1: never signed, the LRA agrees to give up nearly all
Speaker 1: their weapons in land and considerably shrinks down in size.
Speaker 1: I think what's so important about your story, Betty, is
Speaker 1: that it speaks to incremental progress. You're absolutely right. It's
Speaker 1: about having that determination that it can happen. It must happen,
Speaker 1: but it takes a lot. There will be challenges. You run,
Speaker 1: you fall down, you get up and start again, and
Speaker 1: you fall down. And that is very typical of all
Speaker 1: conflict resolution exercises. When people have when blood has been shared,
Speaker 1: when this deep seated distrust, when so much negative things
Speaker 1: have gone under the waters, it's not something that you'll
Speaker 1: say shake hands now your brother and sister, you can
Speaker 1: now go home and live together, happy, happy ever after. Pert. Yeah,
Speaker 1: one final question for you. Um. We've we've talked today
Speaker 1: about how it is that you change the world, and
Speaker 1: I want to know how the set of experience has
Speaker 1: changed you. Oh it really has. Um. I want to
Speaker 1: be where there is a war. When I see on
Speaker 1: television screen children in yem in Syria, the women, I
Speaker 1: want to be there. Maybe I cannot end the conflict,
Speaker 1: but give them hope. Maybe they're ways of saving lives
Speaker 1: of people, and maybe reaching out the factions and trying
Speaker 1: to talk to them some kind of sense. Maybe I
Speaker 1: can give some people ideas. Hey, thanks for listening. Join
Speaker 1: me next week. When I talked to Chaparral Wells, a
Speaker 1: mother from Chicago whose son Courtney Copeland was murdered, Chaparral
Speaker 1: launched her own investigation to find out what actually happened
Speaker 1: in his final moments. It wasn't by choice. I had
Speaker 1: no other option. I needed to know why and I
Speaker 1: needed to know how, how did these things occur? What happened?
Speaker 1: And I had to try to uncover whatever I could.
Speaker 1: A Slight Change of Plans is created written an executive
Speaker 1: produce by me Maya Schunker. The Slight Change family includes
Speaker 1: Tyler Greene, our senior producer, Jen Guerra, our senior editor,
Speaker 1: Ben Taliday, our sound engineer, Emily Rostek our associate producer,
Speaker 1: and Neil Lavelle, our executive producer. Louis Skara wrote our
Speaker 1: theme song and Ginger Smith helped arrange the vocals. A
Speaker 1: Slight Change of Plans is a production of Pushkin Industries,
Speaker 1: So big thanks to everyone there, including Malcolm Gladwell, Jacob Weisberg,
Speaker 1: Lee Tall Mulatt and Heather Fame and of course a
Speaker 1: very special thanks to Jimmy Lee. You can follow us
Speaker 1: Slight Change of Plans on Instagram at doctor Maya Schunker.
Speaker 1: See you next week