Grace Akallo, a former child soldier, spoke about her experiences in a guerilla army.

Former Ugandan child soldier speaks out at JHU

By: Giselle Chang

Posted: 4/23/09

At the age of 15, Grace Akallo was abducted by and forced to serve in the Lord's Resistance Army, a sectarian guerrilla army based in Northern Uganda, which claims to seek justice for the people of Uganda against the government.

Akallo, a former child soldier, and Professor Pamela Reynolds of the Department of Anthropology, spoke Tuesday night regarding the involvement of children in armed conflicts.

The event was hosted by Amnesty International in cooperation with the Hopkins Political Science Department and the Department of Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies.

Reynolds gave a brief introduction to the issue of child soldiers, discussing her own research work in Zimbabwe as well as in South Africa and explaining the complexity of the subject.

"On the one hand, we want to assert [the children's] innocence and call [for] their protection, while on the other hand, we must acknowledge that the young person can become engaged for a number of reasons that cannot be disregarded," she said.

Reynolds also discussed contentions regarding children who may or may have not volunteered to join the conflict.

"War undeniably removes the possibility of choice, but some engage with a consciousness that reflects themselves," she said. "One asks 'What, for the young or for any of us, are the limits of consenting to horror as political responses?'"

Grace Akallo, now a graduate student at Clark University, then told her own personal story.

"In 1996 when I was thinking about joining high school, the Lord's Resistance Army attacked my school and abducted 139 students," she said. "They took us into the bush, what you call the jungle."

A nun from the Catholic school Akallo was attending followed the soldiers and after pleading with them, managed to rescue 109 students, Akallo and 30 others, however, were detained by the Lord's Resistance Army and after a month, marched into Sudan where they were trained as soldiers.

"It was the last destination, that's what I thought," she said. "I was trained and then sent to fight: They taught us how to clean, dismantle and shoot a gun."

"It was survival, kill or be killed. It was a means of survival."

Akallo described how she had been buried alive once and had attempted to take her own life multiple times before being stopped.

Akallo finally escaped after seven months.

"I still ask myself why I survived because some of my friends were killed."

Akallo stressed that she travels and speaks not simply to share her own story, but also to enlighten people about the changes in conflict and its negative effects upon children.

"When I begin to think about how many children are affected by armed conflict today, I think about what kind of future we will have and what kind of life we will have in the future," she said. "Now we are fighting 'terrorism,' but at the same time we are breeding terrorism. We are breeding people who don't know love but only survival."

Akallo also emphasized that responsibility and prosecution should be limited to leaders of the Lord's Resistance Army and those who voluntarily join the guerrilla armies.

Several members of the audience asked questions regarding the innocence of children who were abducted to serve as soldiers and who grow up to become abductors as well as perpetrate violence against others.

Akallo insisted on the need to separate those who were abducted and those who joined voluntarily.

"But when we talk about children who were captured and grew up in captivity, what kind of justice could we bring against them?" Akallo asked. "Injustice was done against them already. They will not think about what they did, they will see only the punishment."

"You should consider what these people have gone through; the beatings, the fighting, the threats: when you train a child, it's like training a dog, to hold a gun," she said. "It becomes a game to them."

In answering the audience's questions contesting whether combatants are victims or perpetrators, Akallo argued that instead of considering this question, people should focus on the fact that these children were not protected from this conflict in the first place.

"Maybe it's good to hold them responsible, but how much do they even know about being responsible, what kind of love are we showing them? Are we giving them any choice? What are we holding them responsible for when at first we did not protect them?" Akallo said.

Akallo encouraged the audience to contact congressmen and senators through letters and insist that they recognize the situation.

She explained that before 2006 and the release of the movie Invisible Children, the Ugandan government refused to mention the conflict taking place in Northern Uganda. The movie and the actions of Americans, Akallo said, was proof of the great impact that the American public and government can have upon the actions of the Ugandan government.

"Your government is funding my government and my government is using this conflict to gain funds, not to protect the people but to profit," Akallo said. "Your government should be accountable for what it releases to my government."

Both Reynolds and Akallo stressed the globally connected nature of the world and the need for everyone to become involved in preserving the future of the world.

"This planet belongs to all of us, to the generation to come," Akallo said. "It's a future we have to protect, not out of guilt, guilt doesn't work, guilt is a way of pulling people down, but out of responsibility."