Reaching out to Rebels | Jeffrey Mapendere | Talks at Google

Welcome everyone.

I'm Larry Simon and I work with the dot org team here at Google. And I'm going to begin actually with a little apology because I terribly regret that I have to leave at about 12 noon myself. And I apologize to our guests already because I've had a long quarterly conference call that I chair and I cannot get out of that on a so my apologies to the distinguished speaker and to the ambassador and to all of you. It's my honor today to introduce our speaker, Jeffrey MacAndere, and it really is an honor for me. Jeffrey's just been appointed Executive Director of the Canadian Institute for International Institute replied negotiation. And he'll go to that post after having served for many years in Atlanta, where he was the senior Program associate of the Conflict Resolution Program at the Carter Center. Jeffrey's work has involved him in many countries, including Mozambique, Zambia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda, Kenya, Ethiopia, Guinea Bissau, East Timor, Jamaica, Guyana and Sudan. But lest we wrongly conclude that brutality of war is only a Third World phenomenon, let us remember that the greatest of war deaths in the past 100 years were in Europe. I myself worked in Sarajevo during the siege of that city. After experiencing wars in Central America, in the Horn of Africa, in South Asia, Sarajevo was for me an eye opener. The former Yugoslavia was not Third World. It was a relatively rich country westernized by a high standard of living. And it all collapsed into some of the worst brutality since the World War. Jeffrey is a conflict analyst, a trainer, a man who knows what it is to live in the bush, to open dialogue, to build trust, to negotiate for health care workers, to gain access to the victims of war, to get warring parties to a common table, to watch negotiations fall apart, to see war resume, to watch children recruited as child soldiers, to see them die, to try again, to try again and again and again. I know a little, just a little of the world that Jeffrey comes from. I went to Zimbabwe, his native country, just after independence at the end of a terrible war for liberation from an apartheid regime. These were the heady days for the people of Zimbabwe. Jeffrey was a commander of troops in the southern province then and knew the discipline that was needed to win against the great power of machines and money and racism and fear. I worked at that time for Oxfam and witnessed the enormous needs not just to rebuild, but to begin building out of the poverty bred of mass disenfranchisement of the black population. One of my memories was working with more disabled veterans who's in Machiavelli land, whose demobilization Pay was running out. They called their new farm cooperative in Endebelli Vugens and Get up and do it Yourself cooperative. This was quite a name for ex combatants who farmed, who farmed with missing limbs and in wheelchairs. This has always represented to me the spirit of Zimbabwe and in a larger sense the determination of people to live free and to build their own futures if given half a chance, a dream. Sadly dying in the Zimbabwe today. I believe this is what Jeffrey is about. Get up and do it yourself. And he has. From the justice of war for liberation against apartheid to the killing fields of Sudan, Jeffrey brings hope where there was none. He has said and as we quoted any idiot can make war. He has said. A single person can cause chaos. But making peace, that's where you need moral giants, real generals. And there are very few, Jeffrey has said against the 1 trillion dollar global war industry in the face of an estimated 10 African civilians who died from morally causes. For every African soldier who meets his death on the battlefield, Jeffrey brings an alternative. His alternative is also ours. For Google, I believe represents a world converging a flow of consciousness across all boundaries and divisions of man. Jeffrey, you are really in the right place.

Welcome to Google. Thank you very much, I really appreciate it. I would like to thank all the staff members Google for accepting to receive me and give me this opportunity to share some few ideas and some few experiences. These are personal experience with you and the idea is not to teach or lecture but the idea is to share stories and just personally experience of my own journey in life. And I believe it's quite useful to others just to share these ideas because it is probably that maybe you might be aware of what is happening in other countries and even though you never would never do it all the time, but something to. If I give you some political experience related to it better. So today I will just give a short presentation. When I was coming down here I was thinking okay, what should I present. Other things like that. And Google being an organization that provides information, I think now information is power and you are in a position to survives if you have information where those people are and what is happening there, what they need. So you still need to navigate your way to go and help those people. If you don't know where they are, then the help you have is useless. So as you mentioned, I just want. I really. I hate talking about myself but for the sake to, you know, just to give you context, the reason why I will tell you about myself is so that you can see where I'm coming from. And some of my own personal comments may be related to my own personal experience. It's not based on anybody's theory. I have had some experience as a rebel fighting for the independence of Zimbabwe. So I sometimes tend to use that type of lens looking at things, at situations. And I had experience of working as an army officer, especially fighting a civil war in Mozambique, helping the Mozambique government, fighting Renamo. So sometimes I use that perspective to look from the angle of a government fighting a rebel movement. Then also I have worked with the Carta center as a peacemaker. I also use that lens and I use that angle. So sometimes you might see myself loitering around and giving certain perspectives you might not find in the book. But I think I use these different angles to look at a situation. And some of the comments would lead to that. This presentation is about, you know, everybody knows about peace making. You have heard, I think most of you have heard about negotiations. Is there anybody here who can tell me a place where he heard that there were negotiations for peace anywhere in the world? Anybody? Camp David. Oh, Camp David, Exactly. That was between governments. Anybody who has had something between a government and a rebel group. Israel, Palestine, Chechnya, Uganda, Sri Lanka. Yes. Frelimo Rilamo, thank you very much. The reason why I'm asking this question is not to test your knowledge. I'm not going to give you a test, but I'm just trying to say, you know, there are differences. The difference, you know, when you talk about Camp David, we're talking about two governments facilitated by head of state, which was President Carter during that time. And you see, it was very easy for him to get in touch with the two heads of states from other countries to come here and do that. You know, if then it becomes a different issue when you're talking about a government in the rebel group or two rebel groups. Why? Because the setup is totally different governments. They have all the means of communication they want. You can send a fax, you can telephone them and talk to them and invite them, and they can talk to you. But with rebel groups, sometimes they write in the thicket inside a bush because they're hiding. And how do you get to them? And in Africa, most of the time, they wouldn't have that technology. They wouldn't have the cell phones, they wouldn't have the radios, they wouldn't have the fax. And how do you do that? Most of the time, people talk about what you see at the White House, people shaking hands after peace agreement, but they don't talk about the smallest thing. Which I believe is very important, which is the first step to peace processes. How do you get in touch with these people? How do you communicate with them? We're talking about communication here. How do you communicate with these people to convince them that they need to sit down to come out of the bush and talk? Because people tend to say, oh, well, let's go and talk with these rebels. How do you do it? So this is what I call, you know, the first brick in peace process construction. It is just reaching out to those rebels. And I emphasize on rebels because those are the most difficult groups, you know, to get in touch with governments, you have embassies. I think the ambassador is here. If I want to. If President Carter wants to send a letter, you know, to the government of Tanzania, definitely we go to him and send it through him, through the diplomatic bag, and it goes back to the Minister of Foreign affairs and then to the president. Then the channel goes on, but with a rebel, Joseph Kony. Those who know in Uganda, he doesn't have an ambassador, you know, he doesn't have a radio, let alone. He doesn't have a house. You know, every tree is his house. So where do you go? So that's the idea. So I'm going to. Setting the stage how I'm trying to situate you to understand what we do. And this comes from personal experience. I'm giving examples of what things I have done personally so that you can see how this thing starts. Before you even bring people to the table here, I'm going to give you four different types of. Of armed movements. The reason why, you see later, it's critical to know who you are dealing with. Know your enemy. It's the basic rule. But of course, as peacemakers, we don't say know your enemy. You know, you know, the parties here, of course, that was my former rebel group, which was called the Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army, ZANLA. And I think, Mr. Ambassador, you know very well, because they gave us guns, they gave us training, and during that time you were accused of supporting terrorists, Rhodesian terrorists. Yeah. So you see how terrorism can be used. So my experience is from that I can say from my youth, I was in that movement, and I have an understanding of what rebels experience and what difficulties they face. And sometimes people say, oh, this rebel is too stubborn, they don't want to talk. But sometimes it's not because they really don't want peace, but because maybe the mechanism is so complicated to them. You need to speak their language, you need to lower yourself to their level, to Understand to empathize with them. So within my own personal experience, I have learnt a lot during that time, which I also. That same information I applied in my present profession as a peacemaker. But during that time, when I left that organization after demobilization, during the transformation, I never thought that experience was useful. People will say, you know, for you to be a peacemaker, you need to go and get a degree in mediation, conflict resolution, or you have to go and be a diplomat. You have to do this and that. But nobody will tell you that being a rebel is useful. But of course, we don't want you to be rebels. But I discovered that that information, that knowledge is very critical to peace processes because you tend to understand those groups. That was me with my friend a long time ago, when I was too young. And here we have Renamo. Most of you have maybe read a lot about Mozambique. And I know there was a Civil War for 16 years between Renamo and Frelimo after the independence of Mozambique. For certain reasons, we would want to go into that. But it was a different organization. Ours were fighting for the independence of Zimbabwe. You know, it was operation and all that stuff. Renamo, totally different story. You know, of course, some people say they were fighting to spread democracy, while that's during the Cold War. People always say that, but we know Renamo was a creation of the Rhodesian intelligence and later on handed over to South African intelligence. And they continued to use them. And I really know them very well. I used to know them by names. Then I fought as a soldier, Zimbabwe national army soldier fighting Renamo. So I was looking at things from a different angle of a soldier fighting rebels. So we used to know where they were hiding, because they were hiding where we used to hide too. Then on top, we have the lra. I think many people have heard about this movement, which is spiritual. They are fighting for 10 Commandments. They are abducting children, they are killing people. They are doing all weird things. My experience with them is when I was with the Qatar center, because the Qatar center brokered a peace agreement between Sudan and Uganda in 1999. And I joined the Qatar center at the time of implementation of that agreement. And one of the pieces was to find a way to create peace in northern Uganda between the Ugandan government and the rebel movement. So I had some experience with them from that angle. Then we have the spla, Sudanese People's Liberation Army. And I think most people know that they are part of the government in Khartoum. And also they have their own government in Southern Sudan. This I had my experience also with them while even when I was still in the Zimbabwe national army, because they had a representative in Zimbabwe, because we recognized them as a genuine liberation movement. Different philosophy. They were like a government in exile. So were we during that time. Renamo. The problem was they were only an armed movement. They didn't have a political wing. That makes a difference when you want to start the peace process. If somebody is just a general, he has no minister, he has nothing. He doesn't have a political advisor. It's him, and he believes in his spirits. So when do you start negotiating with them? How would you know that the spirit today is conducive to negotiations? How would you know? You can't plan on a spirit. But at least if I have somebody like John Garang, you can plan and say, I know his strategy, I know his philosophy. So these are the different groups. You'd see that they're different in how they are constituted and also in terms of their philosophy, ideology. And that is critical. When you want to get in touch with these people, you need to know who they are. So, you know, there's a lot of information that is required. You need to know about these people. And we have done this also in several ways. You know, I'm just using John Garang here as an example, but all these things I've mentioned here, I'm not going to read that. But you really need to know who they are. What is their philosophy? For example, during the liberation war, we totally believe that we are a liberation movement. We're fighting for the independence of Zimbabwe. Our tactics, we were trained mostly by the Chinese, and Chinese tactics, of course, in the Tanzanians, they trained us very well, and we respected what we called human rights, but not in the same way we say human rights, but here to respect, you know, all the Mao Zedong's doctrine. You know, respect the masses, you are like fish in water, things like that. Each time you destroy something, you go to repay it. You know, if you borrow something from a village, you take it back. This is really basic public relations with the population because we really had to, you know, we had no logistical plan. The people were our logistical plan. We had no medical evacuation. The people were our medical evacuation plan. We didn't have any rescue plan. The people would rescue us and hide us in the cave if you're injured, so you better treat them well. So that was our philosophy, and we looked at ourselves as a government in exile. So if you wanted to get in touch with somebody, you go to Maputo and you Would find some of maybe Mugabe there or senior officials there. You can talk to Samora and he can give you access. Or you go to Tanzania, our friends will tell you, oh, yeah, we know where they're hiding. Come and talk to them. Them. So you need to know all these things then. Another thing is that after having known the side of the rebel movement, you need to understand. After having known the rebel movement, you need to understand the government side. I'm just using myself as an example. When we were in Mozambique during the Civil War from 1985 to 1992, there was a Kenyan diplomat, now he's quite a reputable mediator called Ambassador Kipler Gatt. He was very instrumental in initiating contact between Frillimo and Renamo to start the peace process. And we as Zimbabwean forces were fighting Renamo, as soldiers, as the military, we really didn't care about that. In fact, we didn't want it to happen because as a soldier, as an officer, my promotion comes from fighting, not from the table. Only the politicians benefit from the table. I benefit from the ground. So I was looking at the next battle to fight in order. If we had to kill the kama, definitely I was going to be made a general, definitely. So when this man was trying to initiate peace, we were busy looking for any aircraft that will come to try to pick up the kama to go anywhere and would shoot it down. And one time he told me, I bumped into him in Kenya. We invited him to give a talk at one of the trainings we had when I was in the Qatar center. Then we started talking about this and he said, oh, you were in the Izimagu National Army? I said, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, you guys nearly killed me. Then I said, I don't know that. He said, no, there was a time when I was supposed to come and pick up Jacama and we had a small aircraft from Malawi flying down into Tete and we were told maybe through South African intelligence that the base where Jacama is being attacked right now. So we made a U turn. Then I said, oh, that's interesting. But because he didn't know what we were doing, if they were starting following us and maintaining a close contact with intelligence on us, knowing our movements and our battle plans, they could have known that it was the wrong time to try to contact that rebel group. So it's critical. This is life and death. So it's a very risky business. Then as the third part, for example, we're talking about the Carta center or anybody in the future can be a mediator. Never believe that working where you are, you will never be involved in a peace process. You are always involved in this peace process. And at any time, some people who initiate these things are ordinary people who are not even politicians because they have a friend who comes from maybe a certain country where there is war. He talks to his father, said, oh, you know what? If you can contact so and so, you can do it. Then you start making all those telephone calls, and before you even know it, you are already in the business of peacemaking. So as a third party, you are the peacemaker. What is it that you need to know? Peacemakers, sometimes they make mistakes. And your mistakes can jeopardize the whole process. Your mistakes can cause death to the rebels, can cause death to the government. For example, if you go to meet with the rebels, then on your way back, then you tell the government where they were and what they were doing. You are giving them intelligence. And then the next thing they go and attack them. And that, you know, you lose your credibility. Then at the same time, also, if you are talking to the government, you go and feed that information to the rebels. You have a problem. Let me give you an example. In this picture here. This picture was taken in 2003 by somebody. The gentleman here was a civilian, Northern Uganda. When Uganda, trying to talk to the lra, what you see are LRA rebels. So local guys would always go to the bush and, you know, talk to them. Some of their brothers, they know them. And the guy happened to have been a rebel himself. But eventually he was injured, then captured, you know, recovered. But now he was just an ordinary man. So he would go in and out of the bush, talking to them and back. But what we heard is that he came. He's the one who gave me this picture. I wasn't there in the bush. He came with me and said, oh, Jeff, you know, if you want to talk to the rebels tonight, I can go. I've been there. Here's the picture. So send me. Let's go together. Then I said, oh, no, I can't do that. And then what happened is we were supposed to meet with the rebel sometime, and we understand he went somewhere where he met with the rebels, came back, but the rebels believed that he sold the information to the government of Uganda. Then what happened is that the rebels, where they had congregated that day, they were attacked. And nobody knew about that except him. So some of them were killed, then some survived. And what happened is eventually they invited him again. They were using cell Phones because of technology. They called him, said, can we meet? Then he went to meet with them and he thought everything was fine, but they were suspecting him of spying. What happened next is that they killed him. They killed him and I was still there when he was killed. And he was positioning himself as an intermediary. But at least we don't know the truth. But you know the rebels, you never know the truth. Maybe it's true. In my own movement, it used to happen. There are people who would be going both ways and then they end up in trouble. So as a third party, this is what I'm talking about. You just have to understand such type of dangers. It's a danger to yourself, it's a danger to the rebels, it's a danger to everybody. So you better walk a very fine line. And you have to know exactly what you're doing and trust others and trust yourself. Then as we go along trying to reach out to these rebels, the Qatar sent away some problems. After the Nairobi agreement that was signed in Nairobi, the problem was that these rebel movements were not part of the negotiations. It was a bilateral negotiation between governments. But however, it was penalizing them because the two governments had agreed to disband these rebel movements. The lra, the Lord Resistance army, was supported by Sudan. You know, so the Sudanese government, they said they were going to disband them. So we were trying to position ourselves. The Qatar center had met. Some of my colleagues had met with the rebel leader before. But after that they no longer trusted us. So we really wanted to pursue peace. So we were going to re establish communication with them. And how do you do it? We used to do it through Sudan because the Sudanese used to host them. But now the Sudanese was no, no, no, no, we can't host them anymore because they are labeled terrorists. After 2001, when they were put on the international tourist list, nobody could touch them. But now we had to pursue still. So we tried through northern Uganda to go and talk to them all. What we did here, my colleague and I, we just go into the bush to meet with the rebels, to deliver President Carter's letter. That goes back to my first point. How do you communicate with the rebels? You might believe that the sophistication of President Carter, former president, you would maybe send a fax or some diplomat, but now you are dealing with a rebel. So how do you deliver the letter to. This is a serious operation. I'm telling you serious. How do you deliver Jimmy Carter's letter to Connie who is in the bush? There are so Many problems. One the Ugandan military wouldn't want you to. They will not be comfortable with you going in there and meeting the rebels, coming back, because they don't know what you're doing. And sometimes you can't disclose too much. Although we had a letter from President Museveni that we should contact them. But you cannot reveal that information too much, because we. We had seen so many things happen. When you review the information, we go back to my point. I told you, when I was in the military, we were not worried about. We didn't care about the peace process between Renamo and the frelimo. We were concerned about our promotion. Personally, I'm telling the truth. I was really concerned about my promotion. When I'm going to become a major, then my commander tells me, jeff, if you go out in the bush and you kill Lakama straight from here to State House for a medal, and you are getting your brigadier, so that's important. Same with the Guardian Army. You need to know them. You need to know their motivation. They wouldn't worry about you going there and say, you know, we want to talk with lras. They'll tell you lras, they're sick. They are, you know, we just shoot them. So you might be caught in a crossfire. So it was difficult to deliver the letter, but we had to. But sometimes you can send couriers, small boys who are trusted. But how do you know that they are the real stuff? And how would you know that the people they gave to is the real lra? Because the military intelligence would also be playing their own tricks. They might have some fake rebels in there. Then you give a letter, it goes to their fake guys, it comes back to them. Then you sit and say, oh, Jimmy, Kada's letter has gone to Corney. It's not there, so you have to do it yourself. But how do you do it? It's like walking in a minefield. You have the rebels themselves also. They need to trust you, because if they become suspicious, you're not coming back. That's the truth. I saw it in my own movement. People would come, and we suspect them of having given a radio, some secret radio by the Rhodesians. They're not going back, and that's a given. This is risky business, because if you let somebody go and he sells that information, you are dead. So you better keep him. That is, if you are lucky. Sometimes they don't keep you a logistical burden. They just kill you. So on this particular day, we arranged to go there and meet with the lra. What do you think were the logistics we took into consideration going there? Just imagine, I've given you all these scenarios about the dangers. Now, this particular day, we wanted to go and meet with them. What logistics did we put together? What consideration did we make anybody Water? Yes, of course. Uganda is very hot. 41 degrees Celsius. That's true. Very good. Unknown place somewhere where nobody knows except you and the rebels. What else? Very critical. You must have been a rebel before. Time of day. Very critical. Because we thought, okay, well, let's go at night. Because it has to be a concealed operation. What are the dangers of going at night? One, most of the time, the military would also have their ambushes at night because the rebels would also move at night to go sit in places if they know the government is patrolling during the day because they use aircraft. So you might fall in that ambush and you're dead. That's it. Okay, but however, the advantage is, there's concealment of darkness. You can go there at night. Nobody's seeing you from afar, so you can just go around as long as you know where to go. Then during the day, it's the opposite. During the day, you can be seen. Then if you are seen, you are not going anywhere. They have some roadblocks or whatever it might be. But the advantage is at least you can see the danger in front of you. And most of the time, everybody is moving around. Even the civilians are also moving around. So you can mix with them and go, okay, we decided to go during the day. What was the problem? Think of another problem. A logistical burden. We were two. It was me and my colleague, the gentleman you see there from Australia. Very good. My partner was the problem. He was white. He's white in the middle of these black people. So to be seen a white man walking in the bush, people say, we've seen a madman because what is he doing there? Because it's only the locals who see in the bush. It's either they're cutting firewood, they are weeding. Some are, you know, hunting and doing their own things, or maybe, you know, taking some information. The rebel. But if you start to see a white guy walking northern Uganda in the bush, you know there's something wrong with him. And he wouldn't go far. He wouldn't go far. Even the villagers would stop him. Not only the military, the villagers would stop. What's wrong with you? So we decided, you know, what do we do now? To hide? Chris. Chris was a problem. I wasn't a problem because, you know, I could just see of course I wouldn't wear like this. I would just wear the local things and just, you know, walk around. If it required walking barefooted, I would do that. And they would just mix and just go. But Chris was a problem. So what we did is we said, borrowed a shirt. That shirt is wearing borrowed from somebody, long sleeved shirt. Then we said, okay. Another thing, transport. What means of transport? We talked about the place. The place was farmed maybe 10 miles away in the bush. How do we go 10 miles away? And you know, you have to do that in time. So we had a motorbike, we rented a motorbike from somebody, said, can we have your motorbike? Don't ask where here is the money gives us a motorbike, then a bicycle. So Chris took a motorbike. We had to give him a helmet to cover the face, long sleeved shirt so that when he goes on the bike nobody sees exactly his complexion. And he was driving fast. Of course, he had some. You can't. In northern Uganda, you can't ride a motorbike by yourself. You can't do it because it's a means of transportation. You need to have a passenger. So he had one or two guys behind him, so they drove off. Then we and my other colleague went to get a bicycle. And you can't ride a bicycle by yourself. It's either carrying firewood or you have a passenger. So we had this local boy cycling. I was, you know, these are big bicycles with some frame in between and then a seat at the back. So one was sitting there, another one saw the three of us on the bicycle. So it was quite normal. So we went, we managed to go through, but we didn't know exactly where we were going to be stopped because the rebel said he knew the place would just see somebody stopping us, then he will lead us away. So we did and we managed to continue that. So those were the logistics. But however, still, besides that, you also need to understand the context, the local context. Whilst we're doing that, the local leaders and other people were also trying to meet with rebels. And on this particular day, there was a huge, huge operation where the religious leaders, I'm talking about bishops and traditional leaders, the chiefs had organized a meeting with the second man in command, Cony Joseph Cony, the rebel leader's deputy, who had accepted to meet with them in the bush. And even President Museveni's brother in general wanted to go there to meet with them. So to strike a deal, they declared a unilateral ceasefire. On that same Particular day we were trying to meet with them. Everybody's trying to meet with them. So you need to take that into consideration. How do your activities fit into that? Because you don't do things in isolation. So this is just sort of a strategy for that type of stuff. So we talked about means of transport. I told you, Chris took a bike, a motorbike. But when we got in the bush, you have to hide it. So you get on the road, you're stopped, then you push it into the bush, you hide it somewhere so that nobody sees it. Then off you walk some other more kilometers laid by the rebels themselves. They have their own perimeter, you know, security. You know, you don't see these little guys hiding in the bush, but they see you. So you go in case maybe we are coming with the military behind us. So that's Chris trying to retrieve the bike and also the communication with the rebels. What else are you going to use to communicate with them? This I'm just giving you as an example here. There are so many ways I told about leaflets, letters and other stuff going face to face. So we were trying to go for this for face to face. That's what we were trying to do. But in other places, people can use the helicopters to distribute messages. The helicopter you see, this was during our time in Zimbabwe when it was Rhodesia, but sometimes in sophisticated areas. For the example, the picture you see there, that was John Garang organized a rally in Southern Sudan in 2002. And we were also invited to this rally. But he's a sophisticated guy. You can see the level of communication. So the communication goes both ways with the rebels and the rebels to you. But, you know, in southern Sudan, the SPLA was so developed that they were now working like a government, organizing civil society, having their own organizations and even addressing rallies. So you need to know all these activities. What's going on. This one is just part of this propaganda. Okay, here we are again on the same process. As I was talking, you know, we decided to go and see them face to face. We'd organized our transport. We had organized everything. So now we arrived at the place we met with the rebels. And thus a letter present, Carter's letter being given to the local commander, Lieutenant Colonel. Wait, come there. But. And you can see this guy, how he's posing with his gun. All rebels want to pose for pictures. You saw my picture there before. I was also going like this. Any rebel. Any rebel go to Sri Lanka. If you are a photographer, you meet the Tamil Tigers and say, no, can I take a picture you go like this, it doesn't matter where you go. They love this stuff. So that guy was posing. This boy here asked, he was 13 years old, is a rebel child soldier, what we're talking about. This one, 16, is a bodyguard to the commander who is a lieutenant colonel, but he's 21, you know, if you see a lieutenant colonel at 21, you know there's something going on. Well, he's an adult. But if you see a 16 year old with an AK, something is wrong. If you see a 13 year old, something's wrong. This is where you get depressed. I saw these kids, you know, personally, and my heart decided to sink. And this is older than the other guy I saw. I think this boy, when we were leaving, he was hiding somewhere in the bush. We didn't see him, only as we passed, he stood up because we had a camera. So he also wanted a picture, you know, he wanted a picture. Can you take me a picture? This boy was not older than 12, to be honest, because the jacket was going down like that and even the AK was too big for him. So you start to see the problems. But as a peacemaker, what do you do with that? Should you run away from there straight away to go to a human rights organization and say, go and arrest them, I saw the way they are. Or to the army, go and bomb them? It's a moral dilemma. You can't do that because if you do that, you know they are coming to bomb a little kid who is a victim of abduction and now he's also tending to kill her. But what do you do? All you can do is try to trust your heart and say, we are going to move forward with the peace. If we can stop the war, then all these things will disappear. But if you want to go and fight, then all you are doing is you are murdering these little boys. And I personally am not for that. And this is what we are doing as the Carta center. And we don't believe in that. Well, in doing this business also you need to create rapport with these fellows, you know, because you can't just do this. These people. It's risky to do this business. It's very difficult. You don't see this in reports that are written to donors or whatever because it's something very small and people don't talk about it. But it's the most important thing. It's risky business. So you need to create, use your own personal skills of networking, creating friendships. And at the Carter center we do, we create friendships from the top to Bottom from the president to the last person, Organizations and everybody and even you can be a partner in this thing. But here, at our level, at that lower level, when you're meeting at the grassroots, how do you create friendship with these guys? You know, this is a picture I took of the rebel leader's parents in Uganda. You take these pictures where you used to give them food. You know, just. These are old people. The father, the child. That time, the father was 75. The mother, I think, was 73. They were working manual labor on a tea plantation in Uganda. And that's pretty difficult. And the money was nothing. So sometimes we'd go to give them food, and we take pictures or record whatever message they have sent to their son. Then we send them that information to the son. And the son said, oh, the cadastine. At least they know my mother is leaving. He is there, she's there. And you send that information. He hears the voice. It will change him bit by bit, and he will start to trust you. So for these guys, you know, you give them gifts and other things when you go. But, you know, this is very tricky. It becomes very difficult. You know, what type of gifts would you give to a rebel? If you are visiting a rebel, Then you'll be arrested. What type of president can you bring? I am a rebel. Then you say, jeff, can I come and see you? Then I said, please come. What type of token of appeasement can you bring me? Something small, just as a friend. Cigarette? Yeah, yeah. Clothing, then it can be tricky because if the government catches you with that clothing, these guys, sometimes they operate in uniforms. Some don't have uniforms. So whatever clothing giving you are aiding the enemy. It can be tricky. And I've seen in northern Uganda, I remember one priest who was shot by the government. Fortunately, he didn't die, but he was delivering medicine to them. Some of them were wounded. He was giving some painkillers. This is not sophisticated medicine. Painkillers, bandages and all that stuff. And he was shot because. And he was caught. They said, no, this guy was going to try him because he was aiding the enemy, you know, trying to, you know, heal their wounds so that they can fight again. So definitely you can't escape that. So you have to be pretty careful. And, you know, you look. Yes, there's some bags here. These boys also were local boys. They brought them something, you know, some food, whatever. I and Chris said, you know what? We have to walk a fine line here. We brought them something. We brought them toilet paper. What's the significance of toilet paper? For a rebel, just imagine, toilet paper. We all know toilet paper. Yes. Rebels don't have a toilet paper. There is no supermarket there. And how important is it to them? It's important, but not very important. So here the idea is that you take something. You try to be naive. You take something which you believe is important, but. And yet you know very well it's not important to them. So that even if you are caught, nobody can say, oh, you were aiding the enemy because you brought them toilet paper. Oh, come on. Even in court, I think the judge would understand that. Mr. President Museveni, you're saying the Carter center was aiding the enemy by Jimmy Carter sending a toilet paper to Joseph Coney? You know, people will just say, ah, come on. So we brought that and, you know, a little bit of gum. Then they said, you know, why would you bring toilet paper? They said, oh, we thought you. We thought you wanted it. You know, we thought it was necessary. Oh, come on. They started laughing. Come on. But they believe. No, genuinely, these guys, we really, you know, trying to give them something. But at least they said, next time when you come, bring us something. And then they'll say, okay, can we give you some films to develop their pictures? Then we take them pictures. Would you send us some back? Oh, sure. It's his picture. Take him picture. Then you send them back, and to them, those pictures are very, very important to a rebel because you always want to keep a record of yourself, and it's very difficult to keep that record. When we were fighting, we're not allowed to take pictures. We're not allowed to take pictures because if you take your pictures and start leaving it behind, you can be identified in future, and it can be taken by the government. Then they take it and put it on television. Who knows this guy? Then it will be traced back to your parents. Then your parents are going to be arrested or they're going to be killed. So it's a security risk. But still, they want to have those. Before I close, there are some very important things a person needs to know, because you really need to read the science so that when danger is coming, you know danger is coming and you can withdraw pretty fast. Don't become too familiar with these rebels. It doesn't matter where. I don't know whether you are in Colombia, whether you are in Afghanistan, whether you're. What you don't become familiar with these fellows. You might be a journalist, you might be a peacemaker, you might be a human rights person. If, yes, you have access to them, you go and meet with them, but be careful. Don't be too familiar with them. Oh, I know, Commander. Commander, so. And so is my friend. You can just continue to be very careful. And when you start to see them changing their attitude towards you, you better just stop. If they had promised to meet with you on a particular day and they tell you, oh, no, it's no longer necessary. Don't force yourself. And if they say. And also listen, when you go to a bar, it's very important to go to these bars and listen to the locals as they talk. Your activities, if your activities are no longer appreciated, just stop and do something else. So these are some of the things that happen at that stage, you know, when there are opportunities for cooperation, you know, you do it. That is John Garang. When we were down in southern Sudan, we always worked with him. We do other things. Training, mediation, training in negotiations. We would give them that training for negotiations. That is really good aid to a rebel group. They are building their capacity to go to the table to negotiate. And we did that. Well, sometimes you go to little things like just negotiating a meal. You know, how much are you going to pay for a goat or a chicken so that you can have lunch? So all those things, you blend with the community, be part of them. But if you isolate yourself and they are continuing to eat at the hotel and all this stuff, you lose a lot of information. You go there, you sleep where they sleep, you know, listen to the villagers. You get a lot of intelligence from them which you would use to plan your peace operations. So these are some of the things I just wanted you to introduce you to, the type of work we do. And just at this micro level, however, it builds onto a lot of stuff. Right now, the war is still going on. The Sudanese are helping to mediate between the Ugandan government and the lra, and it hasn't stopped. Even former president Chisanu is there of Mozambique helping. So you can see how complicated these things are. And this was in 2003 and 2007. But do you stop? No, you just continue persistently. Thank you very much. Any questions? If there are any general questions, I wouldn't mind. Hi. So I lived in Lebanon during the whole civil war. And one of the things that happens in negotiations is when do these negotiations have a chance of succeeding? Obviously, they don't have a chance of succeeding when somebody thinks they're going to win. So what is critical about when, during the whole process of the war, when the Carter center can intervene? That's a very important question. You know, most people Believe that you have to intervene when there's a chance of success. But in this, you're dealing with human beings. There's so many things you can predict, but you cannot predict a human's reaction to your action and how they're going to react when they get on the table. I've seen people sitting down and planning mathematically and say, well, I know if he makes this move, I've got to make that move. Yes, there's a business model for negotiations, but when you go to politics, it's totally a different world. And also some people have argued that, you know, there's some theorists who say there is a time for ripeness. You can tell when the conflict is ripe for intervention. So that's the only time a third party can go and you are guaranteed success. And what is the meaning of success? And what is the value of success and what's the morality of success? Because success is it success about you as a mediator so that you have something under your belt that, oh, look at me, I mediated this and it became successful. I broke at this. So is it about your ego or. Success is a moral issue that is about those people, if they are going to succeed themselves, not your success. Is it the success of the mediator or the success of those parties? And how do you operationalize success? Because that's why I called a peace process. It starts where I was told, you know, this type of presentation to weigh up when people shake hands, but to reach there. There are so many steps, these attitudinal changes in a peace process, it's not about an activity. It's about a process of changing attitudes. So that when you go to the table, the point, the position you had before, that you were not going to budge, you have changed after two days or three days of negotiations. Ah, well, I can give in this, I can give in that. But if you wait for the right time for ripeness, and people sometimes operationalize this to say the right time to intervene is when people have been fighting and they are exhausted. Your brother is fighting with his wife and said, let me wait until they are exhausted so that when I go to be little work just to separate them, then you are no longer useful. If people have bled to death, then he said, there is no longer any more blood to spill, then that's the time you come in. Why are you coming? What's the purpose of peace? Blood is to save life. And we are talking about human rights. The most important human right for anybody is the right to live. I saw a picture I can't remember which organization took it. I think unhcr. After a little African girl, you know, asked a question, what would you want to be when you grow up? The little girl said, I would like to be alive. That says a lot. It means in a high environment, life is the most important thing. It's not about being a doctor because not many kids live up to the age of five. So if you are a peacemaker, you wait until somebody dies to intervene. I believe you intervene wherever you, you can intervene if there's an opportunity to go there. Take risks at the counter center with your policy that a failure is acceptable. We really accept failure. We can go in and even if we fail to strike a deal with these people, that's fine, but at least we did something. Next time when they come, we said, you remember that time you guys had the courage to come here, but however, let's move on from where we left or somebody else can do that because changing attitudes requires a lot of steps and you cannot do it by yourself. So there is no. I cannot pinpoint the right time. But I think as long as people have invited you, if they've shown some commitment to say, yes, we are coming to the table, go there with them to the table. But of course, I know other organizations about money. You know, who is going to sponsor that and are they going to sign a deal or maybe give them a timetable? That's where there's a problem when you give them a timetable, you know, because it's attitudinal changes. Any question if there are no questions or. Yes. Hey. So in the beginning you talked a little bit about how technology influences these certain things. And we've all read stories about like terrorists posting what they're going to do online. Talk to us a little bit about how like, you know, at Google as a company also technology might influence us going forward. I didn't get the last part. Yeah. Talk to us a little bit about how technology might influence some of the modes of communication. Oh, yeah, there's quite a lot I can tell you. Technology is changing things even within rebel movements in peace process. But I think not enough is being done to utilize it for peace. There's a lot of technology being used for war, but not much of it is being used for peace. And I strongly believe given opportunity, there's something creative we can do. Okay. Basically I was talking about the rebels in northern Uganda. When we fought, we didn't have radios. It's critical we didn't have radios. Just a simple example. One of our Friends, you know, when he was still a rebel, they were sitting and one went to the bathroom and, you know, as Reb was in the bush when he called batsman, just behind a hill or behind a bush, so he went there. When he was there, another guy also decided to go out to relieve himself. And so he was walking quietly, you know. Then the other guy looked through the bushes, he saw these legs going like this, and he thought, well, it was the Rhodesian forces. He started running. And the other guy had the other one running and he started running. Those in the base had people running and they started running. So everybody ran away. And you know, when rebels are running away, I'm not talking about 100 meters. When you are a rebel, you're running away. You have to go at least 10 miles to be safe. Because if you are going to be attacked, you know, they can come with helicopters. You have to go outside the orbiting zone of the helicopter for you to start to say, I can start breathing. So people ran almost half a day, then meet a certain place and said, okay, so what happened? I don't know, I saw you running. Then the other one says, oh no, I saw you running. Then they discovered they were running from themselves. But because they didn't have communication, if they had radios, they would have said, no, I didn't see anything. You know, Then they started communicating. But now their cell phones, the LRA is what we're talking about now, they are using cell phones to call to the local radio with cell phones and say, hey, I'm commander so and so. Can I speak to so and so? You are accusing us of killing those civilians? We didn't do it. It was the government. Then somebody comes in and they talk and even talk to their own parents, and it changes them. Some are lured by civilians to come out of the bush because of that technology. And some, we started creating friendships with them because when they have their cell phones in the bush, they can't charge those cell phones. They lose batteries. They say, can you help us because you want to communicate with us for peace process. But the batteries are flat. Can you buy us a charger? We're looking all over for a solar charger for a cell phone. We couldn't find it. A solar said, that is the only thing that is sustainable. You can use it in the bush. There's a plant of sunshine, but there was no solar charger. Just those small little things that communication is required. And I believe also that there is a lot of intelligence we are losing. There is intelligence which is passed to the Governments to use to fight the war. But we need intelligence in order to fight for peace, to wage peace, you need to know what is going on out there. You know, you can collect that information and give it to a peacemaker so that they can act. You know, there are three things. You can prevent the conflict by knowing all those indicators. You know what's going on. If you can collect information and have that information available. So I think technology, I don't know what it is that we can create, but I think if people sit down, technicians and peacemakers, and we tell you where our problems are and you say, okay, this, I think how we can solve it through information, I think that can be done. Technology plays a very important role. Thanks, Ambassador Yu.

Yes.

Yeah.

Well, thank you very much for this presentation. To give a much more complete picture, can you try to explain to us the complexity of the process from establishing contact with the rebels to mediation, to negotiations and to a peace agreement? I have in mind where sometimes the initiative can be a multiple process involving several actors and how those actors can coordinate among themselves until you eventually get some kind of a peace agreement. Take the northern Uganda, where the Qatar initiative has played a very significant role. Then by the time it reaches a certain stage, maybe it's taken over by a regional organization and eventually reaches probably the United Nations. You know, this multiplicity but complementary processes that are brought to bear on a successful agreement, peace agreement, maybe even on unsuccessful peace agreement.

Thank you very much. I think Ambassador, read my paper. You used complementarity. There is a paper, I can get it on the Internet on the culture of peace. Online journal talks about take one and a half diplomacy. That's how we operationalize what we are doing at the Qatar center, as you mentioned. Yes. You start with that little contact, then maybe you manage to do something, maybe to talk to them a little bit. For example, northern Uganda. I can give you a very good example. The process, we didn't start with it ourselves. The religious leaders and the local leaders have been doing it, try to negotiate with them, but they couldn't. They didn't have the power to pull President 7 to say, do something. It's difficult. He's a head of state. But however, we had that bit of credibility with heads of state because of President Okada's presence. You talked to President Museveni and he had mediated between President Museveni and President Al Bashir. So he knew these people before. And President Museveni appreciated President Carter and he has great respect for him. So he had given us that green light to Go ahead. If we could establish conduct with Kony, President Museveni was prepared to send his team to negotiate. So all what we're doing is to reach out to him and say, yes, we have a letter from President Museveni. He says he wants to negotiate with you. Can you accept that? And to come out, we can decide of a venue. But that never happened. But, however, after we discovered that things were not moving well because cone was running away deeper and deeper into the bush. And also the war was starting. The second time, you know, with Operation Iron Fist, which was initiated by the government of Uganda through their bilateral relations with Sudan, they went in. So we discovered, you know, we were our. You know, we're spinning our wheels. Then, however, we had a local woman, former Minister Betty Bi Gombe. She came in and with a lot of influence, respect, she comes from the north, and she initiated a peace process. The other picture I showed you of the lra, it was her with them out in the bush. Even some NGOs, some embassies went even into the bush. Cows were slaughtered to have lunch. And she was. So it means that complementarity. And we would help her with the. Any information we had from our previous intervention. They said, you know what? This is where we ended. This is what we can use sometimes also they call us. Sometimes they just do their thing. But as she did that, she reached a point where they couldn't move any further, and it slowed down. And now it was taken over by the government of Southern Sudan and Vice President Riak Mashal is doing it. And Taiz is started negotiating with the lra. And up to now, yes, we can talk about small obstacles here and there. They negotiate today, tomorrow they break away and they go into their different directions. They come back again. But at least there is a process. Now what has happened, you know, this is like playing soccer. You know, you don't have to score the ball to be a player. As long as you can pass intelligently, then somebody can kick it in, then that's. That's what they're playing right now. The United nations has added a component. They appointed a special envoy who is former President Chisanu of Mozambique, because these people had reached a stalemate where the LRA said, we no longer trust the mediator. We think he sides with the Ugandans, and we no longer feel safe within Southern Sudan. So the venue becomes a problem and the mediator becomes a problem. So how do you continue? Which means they had to stop for maybe, I think maybe two months. But now I had maybe this week as I'm talking, maybe they're talking because President Chisan was tasked by the Secretary General of the United nations to go in between the Ugandans and the lra. The LRA proposed to go to Kenya or South Africa. I don't know the reasons. Maybe there's good shopping malls or whatever. Oh, yeah. Look, for those little things also, you need a little bit of comfort, you know. But it didn't happen. Those leaders said, no, stay where you are. So now the UN had the special envoy who mediated between these two persons accept the mediator and the venue. So I don't know now how they are proceeding, but I think that's where you see how these things go. And it's not yet resolved. It's still going to continue. Another example is the Machakos. That happened for Southern Sudan, you know, we didn't play a role in that, but I think it was incremental. The cutest made with both sides. We trained the SPLA negotiation team in Nairobi. We trained the Sudanese negotiation in Nairobi. And because the re establishment of bilateral relations between Sudan and Uganda, President Museveni met with Al Bashir and for the first time invited John Garang to Kampala to talk. And from there, that's when they started, let's say, let's go for a serious talk. So that's how these things go. We can talk for the whole day, but I'd appreciate. But if you go to Culture of Peace online journal, you see an article there about complementarity. Because we say we do track one and a half diplomacy. We have Track one diplomacy, which you are doing at the highest level. Then we have track two diplomacy, which is done by NGOs, small NGOs at the grassroots level. But we sort of fit in between there because we can give the agility to go down to talk to the local people and take that information up to the highest level and try to link these things for implementation. Another question. I think we're a little short on time. Anybody have anything pertinent? All right, thank you, Jeffrey, very much. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you very much.