To Stop a Warlord

by Shannon Sedgwick Davis

  A tight place within him, something he’d kept so long, released. The others laughed, too, their chuckles growing longer, softer, changing cadence. Then they were quiet again in the dark.

  “Can I ask you something?” Aliciri asked out of the silence. “Why are you trying to help us?”

  “So you can help someone else,” David told him. “So it can end.”

  54

  EVIL HAS TAUGHT ME THE MOST

  KONY WAS STILL at large. I wanted desperately for him to stand trial before the International Criminal Court. But the mission had changed me. I’d seen so many different versions of justice: Acellam, Okello, Okuti, Opio Sam, and so many others coming out of the bush and starting new lives; Odhiambo’s death; Ongwen’s imminent trial. Each instance of amnesty and retribution had forced me to grapple with the humanity of the perpetrators—and with my own. I still believed in the necessity and significance of the International Criminal Court, and I was proud to have supported the effort, risk, and sacrifice that brought one of their first-ever indictees to stand trial. But I no longer thought that retributive justice worked on its own. I also had faith in the restorative kind.

  I decided it was time to tell Laren and my team that our work on the LRA was for the most part done, and it was time to move on. I knew Laren would see things differently: that we hadn’t yet finished what we started, that the outcome wasn’t the one we’d hoped to accomplish. But it didn’t make sense to me to continue to commit more and more resources to the hunt for a ghost who was no longer causing the same level of harm. It was neither sustainable nor practical.

  Laren flew to San Antonio and we sat at my kitchen table. He seemed to know what I was about to say.

  “We’re going to live in a world where a mass murderer goes free,” he said, his voice full of steady conviction. “We didn’t capture Kony. I can’t say we won.”

  “We tried everything,” I said, “and we won on so many fronts. There were close to eight hundred civilians killed by the LRA the year before the SOG deployed. Last year, only thirteen people died. It’s devastating that any lives were lost. We want that number to be zero. We want no one to be killed by the LRA ever again. But the mission has had huge successes securing the region, protecting children and families. That’s what the mission was always about. Protecting lives. Now we can take our resources, take what we’ve learned, and apply them in other contexts and conflicts. We can keep pursuing better ways to stop atrocities.”

  Laren was quiet. Finally he said, “I always imagined the day when Kony would come out in custody. How all of us from such different walks of life—Colonel Kabango, the Ugandan soldiers, David, the US Special Forces, the Central Africans running the HF radios in Obo—how all of us who’d been there together in a hostile environment trying to stop this vicious group would exchange hugs. How we’d celebrate. We got so close to that dream.”

  “We did,” I said. “And this time, it’s as close as we’re going to get.”

  * * *

  —

  I always thought that the goodness in the world would awaken me to my highest spiritual self. But it’s evil that has taught me the most, that has brought me to advocate for innocents so fiercely. It isn’t comfortable, it’s an unsavory concession, to give so much credit to the power of evil. But it brought me and many others to see our human interconnectedness more clearly, and to take action that didn’t seem possible. If the mission has taught me anything, it’s that we can’t eradicate the shadows. But we can hold our share of the night. For those of us whose lives have been largely protected from horrors, for those of us who have been fortunate to grow up in peace instead of war, we have a responsibility to share in the efforts to end human suffering. To stand together, to live in service to others’ lives, to find our own way to make a difference.

  Archbishop Desmond Tutu once taught me a word for this aspect of humanity: ubuntu. I am because we are. I am a product of the people who surround me. For a while, we thought that one man’s capture was the only version of peace and justice. I learned that peace is bigger than the fate of one man. It is the 90 percent reduction in LRA killings since 2011, when our mission began. The effort to tilt the balance in favor of life. And peace is embracing our shared humanity.

  * * *

  —

  I went and met with our closest partners—John Montgomery and our board, General Wamala and Colonel Kabango, and Muneer, Howard, and all the others who had supported us through the years—and told them that it was time for Bridgeway to leave the mission.

  Laren and I flew to Chicago to talk to Muneer. I was afraid that Muneer, who was a winner to the core, would find a way to talk me out of an end to our involvement. He looked at me with his sparkling dark eyes, then he studied Laren. “What do you think?” he asked Laren.

  “That we failed to catch Kony. But if we stay, we’re going to lose ourselves out there.”

  “Okay,” Muneer said. “When you’re ready for the next mission, let me know.”

  * * *

  —

  A few weeks later, in June 2015, when we pulled the last helicopter out of Central Africa, I had my first night of uninterrupted sleep in five years. When I woke up I could hear Sam and the boys out in the backyard. I got out of bed, put on my slippers, and looked at the framed photo that still hangs on the wall on my side of the bed, a photograph of the SOG walking a three-year-old boy out of the bush to safety. The boy wears a uniform, his eyes as wide as moons.

  Still in my bathrobe and slippers, I went to the back porch, to my thinking place. I sat in the chair where I was when Laren told me over the sat phone that it was time to bet the farm. But this time I wasn’t alone in the dark. Sam came and joined me on the porch. We were quiet together, watching the boys run back and forth on the grass, wild and happy in the morning sun. Life had come at us fast these last five years—the physical distance, the stress of heavy travel, the hard, hard loss of his mom. We were just surfacing, still feeling the weight of where we’d been.

  The boys called to Sam to join them on the lawn. Brody wanted to play catch. They put on gloves, started throwing the baseball, my three boys with their long limbs. Sam had always been a quiet person, and grief had made him even quieter. His mom’s baby grand piano had been moved to our house after she died. She’d been a revered music teacher and a beautiful player—she’d played a Spanish love ballad at our wedding at a Spanish mission—but no one else in the family played, and since her illness, her piano had gone silent. Just the other morning I’d come back from dropping the boys off at school, and when I walked in the door, I heard simple piano chords ringing through the house. Sam was sitting at the keys, doing a beginner’s tutorial on his phone to learn to play. The grief would always be there. But I knew he was going to be okay.

  I sat with my family now, feeling a surge of mixed emotions. I was so proud of my team and our partners—of our unlikely alliance. We’d seen a terrible thing happening in the world, and then seen that something could be done, and each of us had brought unique strengths to the collaboration. The Ugandan soldiers and military leaders had shed blood and risked their lives, and they’d brought decades of experience operating against the LRA and in this environment. Invisible Children, David Ocitti, and other NGOs and local leaders had worked to help pick up the pieces after the war and forged a new definition of what conflict resolution really means. The US had committed skilled forces and valuable resources in an unprecedented collaboration between the State Department and the Department of Defense. And Bridgeway, us—I hope I can say we brought the unique advantage of being able to make decisions quickly, act nimbly, and pursue flexible and creative solutions to fill gaps in the mission. Going forward, all of us had a greater awareness and appreciation of what public-private partnerships could yield, and how they could be even more effective in the future. It hadn’t been smooth—there’d been rough patches and rocky moments—but overall, our unp
recedented alliance had accomplished something extraordinary. I was humbled by the many successes we’d shared. But I’d left something behind in the field, too. The mission was over, but the LRA still existed, as did vast problems all over the globe.

  “Are you sad, Mommy?” Connor asked, leaving the game to run up to me and wrap his long arms around my neck.

  I was. But there was something more important, the real lesson I wanted to teach my sons. That the realities in the world give us something to tackle, that the first step in moving forward is to face the truth of evil and suffering.

  “I want to show you something,” I said.

  I went inside to our safe and pulled out a precious package, the one Laren had given me the previous Christmas: the set of tiny camouflage fatigues, too small to fit either of my boys, the uniform worn by the boy in the photograph of the rescue operation that hung by my bed. I unfolded the stiff fabric and spread the uniform out on the glass patio table—the brown collared shirt with short sleeves and gold buttons, the green and brown camouflage pants with rolled cuffs and a belt sewn into the waist. Connor peered at it. He asked if he could touch it, and when I said yes, he reached out to finger the tiny buttons, the faded hem of the sleeves.

  Brody and Sam were still out on the grass. They’d thrown off their baseball gloves and were sprawled on the lawn, wrestling and laughing. Connor squinted his blue eyes at me. “A little boy wore this?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I told him. The world had allowed an evil to exist for decades, scarring generations of Central and East Africans, and there was no redeeming that trauma and loss. “But,” I told my son, “the boy who used to wear this uniform, and hundreds of other children like him, are now free.”

  EPILOGUE

  Despite the mission’s many successes and the significant reduction in LRA violence, Joseph Kony is still at large, and problems persist in the region.

  In Kafia Kingi, the disputed territory between Sudan and South Sudan, satellite shots taken three and a half years after Operation Merlin reveal the existence of what is suspected to be an active LRA camp. A recent defector claims that Joseph Kony is still hiding there, and that he has been ordering the collection and looting of agricultural tools, and the abduction of boys to work on expanded farming operations in K2.

  LRA violence is still minimal compared to the deadliness of the organization pre-mission. There was a surge in abductions in 2016; the abduction rate has steadily dropped since then. While most captives are forced to serve as temporary porters and soon released, some abducted children are still missing.

  In the years since the end of Bridgeway’s involvement, there was only one active operation to stop the LRA. Citing the cost of the mission and the diminished threat posed by the LRA, the United States Department of Defense withdrew from the counter-LRA operation in 2017. The Ugandan military said they would stay in the region under a United Nations mission in the Central African Republic, but no agreement was reached, and the Ugandan troops are now fully withdrawn from the Central African Republic.

  Since the coup in 2013, large parts of the Central African Republic have descended into chaos. When US and Ugandan counter-LRA troops withdrew in early 2017, UN peacekeepers were unable to fill in the security vacuum, contributing to a massive escalation of violence in the east of the country by a range of armed groups.

  Northeastern Congo continues to experience relatively low levels of looting, poaching, attacks, and abductions at the hands of the LRA.

  Northern Uganda has seen rapid growth and development in the years following the voluntary resettlement from the displacement camps back to communities. There has also been a surge in the refugee population pouring into the north from South Sudan from ongoing civil strife.

  Bridgeway is now working to stop other armed groups that are killing and abducting civilians in Central Africa, pursuing justice for perpetrators of mass atrocities who are operating with impunity.

  Shannon Sedgwick Davis is enjoying a season of tremendous gratitude, getting to travel with her family and show Connor and Brody some of the world, learning so much from their precious and unencumbered lenses. There’s the added bonus that instead of lugging diaper bags and strollers along for them, her boys now help carry her luggage (the wonderful exception being when she gets to caddy for Brody’s golf tournaments).

  David Ocitti is now happily engaged to be married, and he continues in his advocacy work to this day. He and his Land Cruiser, “The Tank,” have covered 116,000 miles and counting to provide defection and reintegration support to former LRA members. David traces the homes of those still in captivity, records messages from their families and loved ones encouraging them to come back home, reunites them with their communities, and helps them readjust to civilian life. He says, “Peace is a mission for me. I want to see a peaceful world where no matter what kind of conflict you have been involved in, you can always start the new life you deserve. No matter what the situation, I hope you always come home.”

  Laren Poole and his wife, Courtney, moved back to his home state of California in September 2015, after three years of living and working in Central and East Africa for the counter-LRA mission. Just one year later, they welcomed their first child, Cade, into their family, and they are now awaiting the birth of their second son. Laren and Shannon still work in some of the most remote and hostile regions of the world, creatively operating to stop crimes against humanity, and Laren still makes regular trips to East and Central Africa, where he visits Colonel Kabango and many of the Ugandans he worked closely with in the Central African Republic. One day, he hopes to see Joseph Kony stand trial for the crimes he committed.

  Adam Finck recently got married among the redwoods in Big Sur, California, with Laren by his side as best man and David as a groomsman. The event was made incredibly special by Shannon and her boys joining in the celebration, as Shannon was able to thank Adam’s parents and sisters in person for letting him go on this journey together. Adam is still working with Bridgeway, traveling to the region often, and living in Los Angeles, where he is pursuing a masters in public diplomacy at USC with a focus on the role of non-state actors in counter-narrative and influence campaigns. He and his wife just had their first child, a boy named Weston.

  Ida Sawyer, after reporting on political repression in Congo, was barred by Congolese authorities from living and working in Congo. She is now based in New York City and is the Deputy Director of Human Rights Watch’s Africa Division.

  Invisible Children continues to work in LRA-affected regions of Central Africa, expanding the community-run Early Warning Network, and focusing on resilience initiatives in isolated and vulnerable regions. The organization recently received a multimillion-dollar grant from USAID to expand the Early Warning Network and continue the work for peace in Central Africa.

  Ben Keesey left his decade-long tenure as CEO of Invisible Children to share lessons learned with other social impact organizations. He lives with his wife in Albuquerque, where he is now the managing director of production and outreach at the Center for Action and Contemplation.

  Jason Russell remains on the board of Invisible Children and continues to work as an activist. His creative agency, Broomstick Engine, is dedicated to telling stories and creating campaigns that inspire action. He and his wife, Danica, wrote a children’s book called A Little Radical, and created a podcast of the same name, to teach kids and their parents that it’s cool to care.

  Abbé Benoît Kinalegu passed away in April 2016, but his legacy for justice and peace in Central Africa lives on. At the time of writing, the Early Warning Network is active in more than 130 villages in the Central African Republic and Congo. That number is steadily growing.

  General Aronda Nyakairima became President Museveni’s Minister of Internal Affairs. While traveling home from a government trip to South Korea in September 2015, he fell asleep on his flight and never woke up. It is believed he di
ed of an acute heart attack.

  Eeben Barlow is still chairman of STTEP International. In 2015, the Nigerian government, under outgoing president Goodluck Jonathan, hired his team to train and mentor a dedicated Nigerian army strike force to fight the notorious terrorist organization Boko Haram, with great success. In addition, Eeben has authored his second book, Composite Warfare, which aims to help African armies create an Africa-centric approach to stopping nonstate aggressors.

  Muneer Satter manages Chicago-based Satter Investment Management, helping create and grow companies that will make a significant impact on the state of health care. He and his wife, Kristen, have given more than $50 million through the Satter Foundation to numerous organizations that work to ensure democracy and human rights, protect the environment, and improve educational opportunities for disadvantaged students in Chicago and around the world.

  Captain Kommando, Lieutenant Charles, and Lieutenant Pauson are still active-duty soldiers in the Ugandan army. They have most recently deployed to Somalia with the African Union mission to stabilize the country from the terrorist group al-Shabaab.

  General Katumba Wamala was promoted to Chief of Defense Forces of Uganda, assuming the highest military rank in the Uganda People’s Defense Force. He now holds a government post as Minister of State for Works in the cabinet of Uganda.

  Howard G. Buffett, as chairman and CEO of the Howard G. Buffett Foundation, continues to invest rare risk capital to support food security, conflict mitigation, and public safety. In September 2017, he was sworn in as sheriff of Macon County, Illinois.

  Colonel Michael Kabango is now a brigadier general in the Uganda People’s Defense Force. He has served as a defense attaché to Somalia, the leader of the quick reaction force to Burundi in 2016, and the overall commander of the Ugandan military force protecting Uganda from the terrorist group the Allied Democratic Forces. He is now the commander of Uganda’s 5th Infantry Division and the Ugandan Contingent Commander to the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM). He and his wife have three children.