A Long Way Gone

Ex-child soldier tells horrors of warBy TIM COLLIESouth Florida Sun-Sentinel

How did it feel to kill someone?

Did you ever shoot other children?

How was your family murdered?

The questions came fast Friday as he stood before a group of South Broward High School students. They were trying to understand how the slight, well-spoken young man standing before them once killed dozens as a young teen.

"Shooting just one person damages you," Beah told a rapt audience of about 300. "You're never the same."

At 26, he is a former African child soldier, rap singer, diplomat and overnight literary sensation. Beah spent two hours reading from his memoir, A Long Way Gone, and answering questions from dozens of students.

Beah was forced into the army at the age of 13 to fight for Sierra Leone's army against a rebel group. By his own account, he killed dozens of people over two years, until he was rescued by the United Nations child protection organization. His family - parents and two brothers - were killed in a massacre during the war. After being counseled and schooled in Africa, he was adopted by a family in New York City, where he attended school. In 2004 he graduated from Oberlin College.

Since then, he has worked with the United Nations and Human Rights Watch to bring recognition to the plight of child soldiers not only in Africa, but also in Latin American and Caribbean countries such as Haiti and Colombia.

Once in an army, the children were drugged - most inhaled a mix of cocaine and gunpowder called brown-brown - to make them more manageable and numb them to the carnage, Beah said.

"We'd go out and kill all day and then you'd come back and do drugs and watch videos, listen to music," Beah told the students. "You didn't ever cry. The children who cried . . . they were shot.
"There weren't any uniforms - we were just kids with T-shirts, without shirts, wearing flip-flops or bare-footed," he said. "The youngest soldiers I knew were 7 years old. Their AK-47s were taller than they were so they had to drag them."

The Hollywood students, a diverse group of blacks, whites, Hispanics and Asians, seemed only vaguely aware of events in Africa.

"I don't think many of us know what's going on there, except for maybe what's happening in Darfur," said JoAnn Soero, 15, an officer in the school's Amnesty International club. "It's just incredible how he was able to go through something like that and come out of it like he has. He's my new role model."

Latasha Ducktant, 17, a junior, said she planned to read Beah's book and others about Africa.
"American teenagers, we just live in this very protective, isolated world. We don't have any idea that anything like this is going on," she said. Like many students, she had only heard about Sierra Leone and the diamond trade through the songs of hip-hop superstar Kanye West.
Yoni Anijar, 15, a sophomore, attended two sessions of Beah's readings because he was so fascinated with Beah's descriptions. He had seen the movie Blood Diamond, a film that Beah said offered an accurate depiction of the Sierra Leone war, and wanted to learn more.

"I want to be a lawyer and a judge and get involved in helping people in situations like this," said Anijar. "This is happening all over the world . . . I think it's important that the word get out about this."

And that's exactly what Beah wanted to hear.

"What I wanted to get them to understand was that people are driven to this, that they started out with normal lives, and they get caught up in these circumstances and forced into this," he said.

"I think they're beginning to understand that now."

Beah's book is available at Starbucks, A Long Way Gone.

Rebuilding Zimbabwe's Economy

Is anyone familiar with non-profits promoting economic development in Harare, Zimbabwe?

Crisis Group Board Calls for New Zimbabwe Compact

Vancouver, 26 March 2007: An urgent regional initiative to produce a settlement for the conflict in Zimbabwe is needed to save the country from its deepening crisis.

At a meeting of its Board of Trustees on the weekend, the International Crisis Group expressed its outrage at the state-sponsored violence against Zimbabwe’s political opposition. If more violence is to be averted, Zimbabwe’s ruling ZANU-PF party and opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), together with the international community, must urgently agree on joint political strategy that will restore the country to democracy. South Africa and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) should play a leading role.

The government’s latest campaign of violence and repression is deplorable. But the regime is not succeeding in cowing the opposition into submission. Zimbabwe’s political opposition has emerged determined and re-energised – and now needs all the support it can get.

Over the last two weeks, the government has spearheaded a brutal crackdown on opposition groups. On 11 March, riot police disrupted a rally organised by a coalition of political, religious and civic groups in a Harare suburb, shooting dead one opposition activist, Mr Gift Tandare, and leaving dozens of others injured. Some 40 opposition leaders, among them MDC leaders Morgan Tsvangirai and Arthur Mutambara, were detained and severely beaten in police custody.
The regime’s brutal tactics come against a backdrop of chronic food shortages, staggeringly high inflation and unemployment, and increasing government repression against all forms of dissent. All Zimbabweans are suffering as a result of this deteriorating economic and political situation.
Powerful elements within the ruling ZANU-PF party, recognising that the end-game for President Robert Mugabe is near and their own political survival is at stake, are exploring options for a post-Mugabe Zimbabwe. But a deal that in effect maintains the status quo minus Mugabe would not reverse the country’s dramatic downward slide.

Zimbabwe requires an inclusive transition process, resulting in a democratic leadership chosen in a free and fair election that will offer a real chance for economic revival. The ruling ZANU-PF, opposition and civil society groups must now come together to hammer out such a negotiated solution to the crisis.The international community should actively support the process – including by facilitating Mugabe’s exit; mediating between the parties; and defining a clear sequence of benchmarks that would lead to genuine democratic reform.Events of the last few weeks show that the situation in Zimbabwe is dangerously unstable. The international community – and regional actors, in particular – must step in to prevent the country imploding by supporting a negotiated settlement. It is high time to stop the suffering of the people of Zimbabwe.
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Contacts: Andrew Stroehlein (Brussels) 32 (0) 2 541 1635 media@crisisgroup.orgNick Grono (Vancouver) 32 485 555 945 ngrono@crisisgroup.org
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The International Crisis Group (Crisis Group) is an independent, non-profit, non-governmental organisation covering over 50 crisis-affected countries and territories across four continents, working through field-based analysis and high-level advocacy to prevent and resolve deadly conflict.

The International Rescue Committee is one of my favorite relief organizations. They are focusing on ending violence against women globally. Check out their podcast report by an IRC staffer on the ground in Africa.

http://ircblog.org/archives/1930_1321467639/216664

Look at the petition to end violence against women on their website as well!