Cowboys

It’s been a slow couple weeks in Juba. I was supposed to be out on mission earlier in the week, but due to circumstances outside of my control, I was never manifested on the flight and found myself grounded for another week in the capital.

I’m on the mobile protection team – a new approach to protection mainstreaming that is being led by my organization, Nonviolent Peaceforce. The idea is to integrate the protection of civilians into the overall humanitarian response in a sustained, meaningful way.

The problem is that the humanitarian sector is often preoccupied with logistics – how to get food from A to B, how many households need mosquito nets, and how to target vulnerable populations who have fled to the bush, those who are relying on emergency food strategies and sheltering under trees or in disused cattle camps.

My team will be there to make sure these logistics are incorporated in a way that humanizes the populations. Our main concern is to measure the capacities, vulnerabilities, and resiliencies of the host population in order to foster ownership and build long-lasting relationships with influential local actors.

We build the networks. We’re what Malcolm Gladwell calls “Connectors.” Ideally, those of us doing mobile protection are the “first in, last out.” We’ve joked that we’re the cowboys of the organization, flying wherever there’s need and busting our hump to establish a presence.

We don’t, however, just ride off into the sunset. When we hit the ground, we’re establishing relationships, not only with local leadership but with influential actors in the community – religious leaders, doctors, elders, teachers, business people, and women.

When a distribution finishes, we stick around to make sure that the systems serve everyone effectively, especially the most vulnerable – women, children, the elderly, and the infirm.

So you can understand the frustration that for the last week, I’ve been grounded. Insert Top Gun reference here –

I want the clip where they take away Maverick's wings for going below the hard deck, but you take what you can get, I guess. 

In all seriousness, it’s been a bit of a blessing in disguise. We’ve done a lot of the ground work that is necessary when building a team. We’ve been able to meet with others in the protection cluster to establish our mission and our responsibilities. We’ve also been able to outfit the team so that we can hit the ground running.

You’d be surprised how important this ground work is, and how little opportunity you have to do it in an emergency situation.

It’s also allowed me to spend time researching the human rights situation in the country and gain an understanding of what we will be facing in different areas of the country. Amnesty International published their report Nowhere Safe: Civilians underAttack in South Sudan a few weeks ago, around the same time that the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) published their Conflict in South Sudan: A Human Rights Report.

Both make for pretty grim reading. In the nearly six months since the conflict started, both government and opposition forces have committed grave human rights violations including rape, murder, targeted attacks on civilian areas of refuge including churches and medical facilities, attacks on humanitarian actors including the UN mission, and looting. Worse, these violations seem to be institutionalized on a scale and level of organization that represent crimes against humanity.

We can’t forget what that means. These are crimes so deplorable that they actually shock the conscience of humanity. They target civilian populations and serve no military objective other than to terrify and destroy innocent life.

There are, however, some gems of humanity that shine through the horror. Stories of survival buried in the narrative that allow you to believe that this conflict is anything other than madness and carnage.

From the Amnesty report –

“In the afternoon of 16 December 2013, I was at home, in the Mia Saba neighborhood, with my family. My wife and our five children were in our house and I was sitting outside under a tree with seven (male) relatives. We heard shooting nearby and I ran to a neighbour’s house. He is a Dinka soldier and a good friend. I stayed hiding in his house and we saw two Toyota pick-up trucks full of soldiers. We heard them shooting by my house… [After the soldiers left] we found that my seven relatives had been shot dead… We found my wife and children cowering terrified in the house. The soldiers had gone in and taken money, several telephones, a computer, and a TV. My neighbour took us to his home for the night and the following day he drove me, my wife and my children to the UNMISS base; he saved our lives. He knew that his colleagues had come to kill Nuer and he could not stop them but saved us by hiding us in his home” (emphasis mine).

In the midst of complete chaos, a friend helped a friend, a neighbor stood up for a neighbor despite ethnic differences. He did it at great risk to himself. There’s danger in being a ‘collaborator,’ a serious risk to your short-term well-being to preserve your own humanity.

It is ultimately why I have faith that a solution can be found in this conflict. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t believe that. Sometimes it’s hard to see, but then I think of two of my colleagues, national staff, one Dinka, the other Nuer. Over the course of our training, they became fast friends. We never saw one without the other. Two women who developed a bond that will long outlast the politics of the day.

It’s what gives me hope. It’s what allows me to read reports filled with horror, to suffer abuse from aggravated IDPs in the camps, men and women who have experienced traumas far outside anything I could imagine.

It is what allows me to keep going, even when I’m stuck on the ground, longing to fly.

The First Mission

He came to us at night, half-naked, covered in dust, and breathing heavily.

"Help me! Please! They want to kill me! Please!"

I had just fallen asleep, so I was awake again in a flash.

"Zandro! Get up!" I shouted as three men ran in after him.

The largest grabbed him by the arm, was pulling on him, trying to pull him away from us.

"Wait, wait!" I shouted. I felt the stick the large man carried whip past my face as he tried to strike the man I was trying to protect. "MY FRIEND. WAIT! You've nearly hit me now."

When the belt nearly hit me, I placed myself directly between the two. One man on the ground, trying to shield his face from the blows, the other in a murderous rage.

What I didn't realize was the man doing the beating had several inches and at least 45 pounds on me. If it had been daylight, I don't know if I'd have been as quick to intervene.

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It was supposed to be an easy assessment mission. We'd be providing protection support for the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in their distribution of non-food items (NFIs). IOM delivered the mosquito nets and blankets. We made sure the little old ladies didn't have to stand out in the sun too long in one of the biggest swamps in the world.

At least it's green.

Early on in our stay, however, we were approached by the local ICRC representative, who brought us a Kenyan man and a Ugandan husband and wife. They were looking to be repatriated to their home countries after months of fleeing the conflict around Malakal.

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There are things that must remain confidential. Things we know cannot be said. Things we see cannot be reported, if for no other reason then that they might put others at risk.

The Ugandan had been a merchant. He had money. Through a very circuitous path, the Ugandan found himself beaten, a gun in his mouth, forcibly marched out to the bush.

I've read far too many stories of human rights abuses in Africa to know that his story ended in anything other than murder. In Côte d'Ivoire, outside Man, I heard firsthand that both government and rebel forces had executed men outside town. Nigeria is notorious for police and military abuses that end with a "thief" shot while "trying to escape" even if his hands were bound and the bullet went through the back of his skull.

It was suicide for our Ugandan to push and try to run. It was suicide to stay and die in the bush. His potential executioners tried to wrestle him to the ground. He ran. They caught him near the river. He slipped his shirt and jumped our fence, where he'd found the people who'd promised his safety.

Four days later, we helped extract him, his wife, and the Kenyan. We got them safely aboard a helicopter to Rumbek and a plane to Juba.

At the airport, the Ugandan and the wife thanked us with shy smiles. The Kenyan, however, hugged each of us tight. "Thank you. Thank you so much. I'll never forget you. You saved my life. I'll never forget you."

He was a driver. A young guy who'd been caught up in the violence and had been running from it since. He was finally on his way back home.

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They're safe now. The three of them. There are others who aren't so lucky, who are still trapped in a sea of violence, trying to get home.

Imagine having no access to the outside world. The network is down. You haven't spoken to your family in months. They have no way of knowing whether you're alive or dead.

That's the fate of thousands throughout South Sudan at the moment, both foreign and domestic.

With this mission, we helped three find their way home.

For me, it was my first mission, a baptism by fire, as my partner Zandro put it.

I wouldn't have it any other way.