Muneer explained that his mom, Patricia Templeton Satter, had attended Berea College, the first integrated college in the South, and gone on to become a civil rights activist in the Deep South during the 1950s. Much of his outrage about injustices in the world came from her, and she, along with his wife and five daughters, inspired him to use his wealth and influence to build a better world. He was looking for “Jedi warriors” in his lifetime—people doing extraordinary work on behalf of humanity, people he could bet on. He’d already supported several Jedis, including the founders of Belgrade-based CANVAS, the Center for Applied Nonviolent Action and Strategies, whose original work had led to the overthrow of genocidal dictator Slobodan Milošević.
“I look at philanthropy the same way I look at my investments,” he said. “I’m looking for exponential returns.” He had been on the verge of pulling some of the money he’d been contributing to counter-LRA work and putting it toward a different goal when Yvette Alberdingk Thijm, the executive director of WITNESS, another organization that he and Bridgeway both funded, had given him my name. “If you want to stop Kony, this is the person you need to talk to,” she had told him.
“I believe you’re a Jedi warrior,” Muneer said, beaming at me from across the table. “Whatever you’re doing to stop Kony, I want in at half.”
A DIRTY PATH
David Ocitti
AFTER ESCAPING FROM the LRA and reuniting with his mother in Alero, David Ocitti tried to pick up his life where it had left off. But he struggled to leave the horror in the bush behind him. It was difficult to concentrate. He easily grew confused. If anyone around him yelled, he would freeze, paralyzed. He would sweat and shake. Then there were his nightmares. In his dreams, the LRA returned for him, gave him a machete, forced him to hack his mother apart.
His nightmares were an effect of the trauma he’d experienced, Kony’s fear tactics still embedded in his brain. But they were also founded in reality. The LRA really did return for those who escaped. Sometimes the escapees were killed, sometimes recaptured. Sometimes their families were slaughtered as punishment. It wasn’t just his own life on the line anymore. Now he also needed to protect his mother.
He wanted to continue his studies and be someone who made positive contributions to the world. But he couldn’t imagine a specific future for himself. If he’d gone to a government-sponsored rehabilitation center created for the thousands of abducted children in northern Uganda, he would have had access to therapy and coaching that might have helped him through the terror and despair. But Kony had warned his young captives that if they tried to go home, the Ugandan government would hold them in military detention centers, so David was suspicious of the rehabilitation centers, fearing they were a form of punishment or imprisonment. Even if he had trusted them, what difference would it make? No amount of counseling could bring his father or his brothers back. Nothing could take away what had already happened.
David stayed with his mother and did odd jobs throughout the summer so he could begin secondary school in the fall with his friends. He couldn’t stand for his primary school friends to get too far ahead of him in school. He couldn’t forget the memory of his community members crying and moaning the night he was abducted, the inner sense that he had to be strong, that his community needed him back.
* * *
—
David walked eagerly to school on the first morning, smiling as he anticipated a reunion with his former classmates. He longed to be in the company of people who knew him well, who would welcome him home. He arrived early. He sat in the front row of his classroom, ready to surprise and greet his friends as they came through the door.
But as the other students filed in with their books and new supplies, they hardly looked at him. When the teacher arrived and began the lesson, David was the only student seated in the first row. No one sat in the row behind him, either. The other students sat jammed together in the back rows, some sitting two or three to a seat—to avoid being near him, he realized. It was as though he was contaminated, infected with a fatal and contagious disease. The other students preserved a radius around him at all times. He wasn’t David to them anymore. He was an outcast, forever an LRA member who walked a dirty path.
21
IMPOSSIBLE CAUSE
IN JANUARY 2011, the month before the training mission was to begin, John Montgomery and I traveled to southern Sudan to help monitor the historic referendum vote: an opportunity for the south to determine whether they would officially make South Sudan an independent nation. The Carter Center, which at that time had observed more than eighty elections all over the world, trained us as short-term international observers, and we were honored to help monitor the opening day of elections in a city south of Juba. It was an unbelievable experience—deeply humbling and inspiring to witness the profound excitement and optimism of people who’d been trapped by a long and bloody civil war at last able to make their voices heard.
After the election monitoring, we traveled with a translator to a large refugee camp near New Lasu, just on the southern Sudan side of the border with Congo. Our original intent was to visit the population there, as Bridgeway had supported some aid assistance to the close to ten thousand Congolese civilians living there who had been displaced by LRA violence in 2009. But when we arrived we learned the devastating news that there had been at least one LRA attack in the Aba area, a day’s walk from the camp, the week of Christmas. Many new refugees had arrived in the camp the previous week, and we were told that three to four hundred more were traveling there on foot. We met a woman whose hand had been cut off by the LRA before she managed to escape, and a couple whose five children had all been abducted. Meanwhile, LRA attacks were continuing multiple times a week in the northern regions of Congo, eluding Ugandan army and UN peacekeeping deployments. Later we would learn that the violence was intensifying because a new LRA group—including Dominic Ongwen, one of the International Criminal Court indictees and masterminds of the second Christmas massacres in 2009—was now operating in the area.
Despite the glaring evidence of more attacks, the Congolese government officials in the capital, Kinshasa, steadfastly denied the LRA’s presence, prompting the Catholic Church and Civil Society groups to stage a protest to call on the government to acknowledge the threat and protect the residents of northeastern Congo. Back home, I watched the continuing reports of violence and hoped the training would make a difference.
But then Eeben wrote to say that for some unclear reason, the Ugandan troops selected for training had been delayed in their arrival at the training site and would not be able to begin on the agreed-upon date. He wrote, We are very frustrated with the situation and are well aware of the fact that every day we sit on our bums, we are wasting your money and simultaneously, people are getting killed or kidnapped.
As the delay continued for days and then weeks, his outlook worsened. This smacks of a very slack attitude re the LRA by all parties concerned in supposedly stopping Kony and his thugs, he wrote. Indeed, were it not so tragic, it may even be funny to see how so many are claiming action yet remain dedicated to inaction.
I didn’t want to share his worry that the Ugandan military wasn’t really serious about ending the LRA. They were the best—the only—option to counter the LRA in the region, and although the meetings with General Aronda had not been without wrinkles, I trusted his desire to stop the LRA was sincere. But Eeben’s concerns—that we were being used in some way, that corruption and profiteering made it useful to some for the LRA crisis to continue—ate at me.
I needed a concrete reminder to keep the faith and I began wearing a charm on my wrist, a pendant picturing Saint Jude, one of Jesus’s original twelve Apostles, who preached with such passion during the most difficult circumstances that he became celebrated as the patron saint of lost or impossible causes. Sam’s family had introduced me to a number of Catholic traditions, including the practice of calling on spec
ific saints for guidance and support through challenging situations. The oval-shaped pendant I chose had a tiny relief portrait of Saint Jude in a long flowing robe, one hand holding a staff, the other a picture of Jesus against his heart. It weighed less than a penny, and I grew used to the tiny jangle it made when I moved my arm, the subtle feel of it against my skin reminding me to pray and remain hopeful.
* * *
—
Meeting Muneer and discovering his passion and capacity to see the kind of world change I spent my days dreaming about felt like an answer to my prayers, a sign that despite my worries, I wasn’t alone.
Before he dispatched funds to support the mission, he brought me to his home in Chicago to meet his wife, Kristen, and their five daughters, including a set of triplets. The girls gathered around me affectionately. Tess, the eldest, was nine years old, a kind big sister to her younger siblings. We sat in the kitchen together, nibbling on snacks. Tess told us about going ice-skating with her friends that day, and her worry when one of them had gotten hurt. She was deeply empathetic and I thought, That little girl will be a world changer. Kristen, who wore her beautiful long dark hair down in a no-frills style, engaged with the girls in her patient, matter-of-fact way. She struck me as stoic, an obvious anchor for the family. Muneer looked on happily, glad to see that we were enjoying each other’s company. Before we parted for the evening he said, “You are one of the most baffling people I’ve ever met. I mean that in a nice way. Most people don’t take the risks you take.”
As I curled into my bed in the Satters’ guest suite, I thought of all the people who were taking the real risks. I thought of Ida on her tiny motorbike, the radio operators working to protect communities throughout Congo, and of the Ugandan soldiers who would soon deploy for the training. I was taking some risks, but others were risking their lives.
I also thought of all the people I’d met so far in this mission—Abbé Benoît, Luis Moreno Ocampo, Colonel Ochora, General Aronda, Eeben Barlow, Muneer Satter. Whether behind the scenes or on the front lines, each individual, fueled by a unique motivation, was doing something remarkable. If we managed to stop Kony, it would be because of the beautiful culmination of a lot of people’s goodwill and our ability to lock arms and work together. For a moment, I felt a peace. It was hope, and something as important as hope: a deep and abiding gratitude.
22
USE THE FORCE
ONE AFTERNOON A few weeks later, Connor watched me posting lists around the house—reminders about school functions, carpools, playdates, birthday parties—and I saw him register that I was getting ready to travel again.
“Is the bad guy still hurting people?” he asked.
I put down the calendar and sticky notes. I would be heading to South Africa in a few days to meet Eeben’s trainers and accompany them to Uganda, where the Ugandan military troops were finally ready to deploy for the first training. I knew I needed to lay a foundation for my boys to understand my absence—not just the upcoming weeks away, but all of the trips the mission might require. I needed them to try to grasp the reason I’d be gone so much. Maybe if they could see the goal and track our progress it would help something endless feel more finite and contained.
“I want to show you something,” I said. I found a big piece of cardboard and taped a large map of Central Africa to it, then fished around in a kitchen drawer for some stickers. The only ones I could find were puffy Star Wars characters. It wasn’t hard to choose which sticker would represent Kony. I showed my boys the vast region in which Darth Vader—our “bad guy”—was hiding and explained that I hoped each day would bring us closer to discovering his location. I put two Jedi star stickers, one orange and one green, in northwestern Uganda to show them where Mommy and Mr. Laren would be for the training. Connor and Brody studied the map and stickers carefully.
“Is there anything you want to ask me?” I said.
Connor shook his head. “Use the Force, Mommy,” he said, and threw his arms around my neck.
* * *
—
The day before I left for Africa, my parents came over for dinner. Usually our family gatherings were raucous, the boys running full speed through the house, the adults yelling back and forth to get things on the table, but tonight the mood felt somber. My father, so loving and protective, was withdrawn, frowning down at his steak. Sam kept trying to draw him into conversation about the boys, about San Antonio’s NBA team. I realized that without knowing any of the details of the mission, my dad was terrified. He had raised me with such warmth and support, attending every volleyball game and school play, teaching me that there was no limit to what I could accomplish. Now I could see how scared he was to watch me go. As we were clearing the plates away after dinner, my mother took my hand.
“I know you can’t talk to me about what you’re doing over there, but I just want you to know I’ve started a twenty-four-hour prayer group to pray for your safety and success,” she said. I would later learn that she always signed up for the 3:00 a.m. shift—the hardest one.
At bedtime, Connor held out the love-worn froggy blanket he slept with every night. “Take it with you to Africa and then you won’t feel lonely,” he said, placing it ceremoniously in my hands. I lay down beside him on his little bed, trying to drink in his sleepy warmth, to memorize the sound of his soft breath easing him into sleep. I thought he was already fast asleep, but then he turned to me in the dark and planted a kiss on my forehead.
“I just have to count to ten and then two more and you’ll be home,” he said.
23
OPERATION VIPER
“LET’S NOT BE under any illusions,” Eeben lectured the large men gathered on his back patio in Pretoria. He was giving his team their pre-deployment briefing and orders. “There’s no magic solution. We’re going to be training these men to do something extremely difficult.”
I sat sipping a Krest bitter lemon, a quinine and lemon juice soda sold all over Africa, and watched the sun dip behind the tops of the acacia and yellow-wood trees that towered over Eeben’s grassy lawn. Laren’s flight had been delayed. He was missing the opening meeting with the trainers and I was struggling to connect with them. I motivate and operate out of relationship, and I had from the beginning felt a connection with Eeben. But now the circle had widened to include his team, and they were such a different breed from the humanitarians and government officials I was more accustomed to partnering with.
They were very polite and respectful. But they were also cagey, sitting aloof and stiff-jawed in a way that was both physically imposing and disconcertingly reserved. Trying to gauge them—their personalities, their motivation for being here, their hopes and fears—was a challenge. Later I would understand that they had a long experience of being painted poorly in the press and that the sensitive nature of their work made them wary of outsiders. I searched their terse faces for common ground, trying not to stare at the biggest, tallest man, who had a permanent scowl on his face.
“The LRA are running around in 360,000 square kilometers of jungle,” Eeben continued. “Finding them and stopping them isn’t just going to happen on its own. The Ugandan soldiers will be chopping their way through an overgrown jungle where there aren’t any roads or paths. If they move even one kilometer in an hour, that’s a good pace. They’ll be lucky to move six or seven kilometers in an entire day. Just locating the LRA’s trail will be their biggest challenge. If they manage to discover signs of the LRA, they’ll already be days old. When the rains come, the work will get even harder. Everything—the terrain, the rain—favors the LRA.”
All that Eeben said was painfully true. But it wasn’t the pep talk I’d imagined. I wanted to talk to the men not just about the risks and impediments to the mission, but about why they were here at all. To find the heart in each man that motivated his sacrifice. Most of them were fathers, Eeben had told me. They were used to shutting that part of themselves off
to do the work of war. But I wanted to make sure that for this mission they turned that part of themselves completely on. I wanted them to operate in the field not just from the framework of force, but through the lens of protection. I wanted to beckon their paternal instincts, their moral mandate.
And so when it was my turn to speak, I began to talk about the children I’d met and the atrocities they’d endured—the terror that would continue as long as the world failed to intervene.
“It’s such a small number of perpetrators getting away with so much,” I said. “And until now, no government entity or international body has responded in a way that stopped the conflict.
“And here you are, a concerned group of men taking risks—and for less compensation than you usually receive—when entities with greater resources and capabilities are doing so little. We spend so much time talking about how difficult situations are, how things are so complicated, instead of just looking at the essence of our humanity—that we have quite a bit more power than any of us probably realizes we do.
“Stopping mass atrocities relies on the power of the individual, not the power of institutions. Institutions don’t have hearts or souls. But people do. Mothers and fathers do. You do.”
The men sat still, immovable as stone, arms crossed over their large chests. But in some of their faces I could see the veil had lifted. Eeben had told me that this mission was a unique opportunity for his team—to be contracted to help stop a conflict, to work with a well-articulated goal, instead of being pulled into the machinery of a forever war. One of the head trainers, a man built like a brick, approached me after the meeting.
To Stop a Warlord Page 12
