"The world can learn so much from Africa"

Claude Grunitzky (0:29) Welcome to Limitless, the podcast that asks the questions that matter for Africa. We’re looking for African solutions to African problems. The Limitless podcast is supported by the US Department of State and the Seenfire Foundation.

I think this is perhaps one of the most powerful interviews I’ve ever had the privilege of doing. Victor Ochen grew up in a refugee camp in northern Uganda at the height of the Ugandan Civil War, one of Africa’s longest conflicts. It started in the mid 1980s when r...

Claude Grunitzky (0:29) Welcome to Limitless, the podcast that asks the questions that matter for Africa. We’re looking for African solutions to African problems. The Limitless podcast is supported by the US Department of State and the Seenfire Foundation.

I think this is perhaps one of the most powerful interviews I’ve ever had the privilege of doing. Victor Ochen grew up in a refugee camp in northern Uganda at the height of the Ugandan Civil War, one of Africa’s longest conflicts. It started in the mid 1980s when rebel leader Joseph Kony formed the Lord’s Resistance Army the LRA he wanted to overthrow President Yoweri Museveni and the government of Uganda. Coney’s forces have been responsible for the deaths of over 100,000 people and the abduction of at least 60,000 children. One of those 60,000 children is Victor Ochen’s brother, but government forces have also been accused of widespread human rights abuses. Civil War has left a generation dealing with the effects of violence and without a stable home. The Ugandan Government unable to protect the people of Northern Uganda from the LRA, required them to leave their homes and enter government run camps for internally displaced persons at the height of the conflict, 1.7 million people lived in these camps. Victor describes the conditions in agonizing detail, he has become a spokesperson for the people of Northern Uganda. He’s been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. His organization AYINET, which stands for African Youth Initiative Network, works to provide medical and therapeutic rehabilitation for those injured in war. They offer surgery to the distributor, therapy to the traumatized, leadership courses for a new generation. He is also a global advisor to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. His dignity and compassion are striking, but he is not full of platitudes. War is a reality in Ukraine, in Gaza and Israel, and also in South Sudan, Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Northern Uganda, where Joseph Kony and the LRA remain active. But in spite of it all, Victor still has hope in humanity. Here’s our conversation.

Victor Ochen, welcome to Limitless Africa.

Victor Ochen (3:07 ) It’s a great honor to join you on limitless Africa. So joyful to know the name alone. Africa is a continent of unlimited potential.

Claude Grunitzky (3:17) Yes, it’s a great name. We’re very proud of it. Let’s get right at it. I’d like you to tell us what it was like growing up in a refugee camp.

Victor Ochen (3:24) Yeah, it’s like I said it. You know, history sometimes makes we are growing up in the conflict zone, in the war zone in northern Uganda, it had so many, you know, challenges, which he as any other person growing up in any war zone, anywhere, the challenges derives from what to eat, where to stay, where to sleep, where to study. I got to learn so much about how life can be so difficult for far too many years and for too many people, but also then how one can struggle in the face of adversity to transform their life, their potential, their struggle, their pain, their horrific experience, into an opportunity for leadership. You taught me how horrible humanity can be, but also good humanity can be in one way or another.

Claude Grunitzky (4:17) I get it. You are one of 10 children. I believe,

Victor Ochen (4:22) Yes, I was born and raised in a family of 10 children. I’m the child number eight, like the name of the show is limitless Africa, if so, I had five brothers and four sisters. We were all struggling together, struggling to survive, struggling to be part of the daily struggle to find water to drink, to find what to eat, to try to survive the surviving every new day, surviving abduction, you know, killing and possibility of stepping on landmines and many others. So it was a very difficult journey for all of us as a family. It was even more complicated to our sisters in the camp, because women are sexually targeted, and the target doesn’t necessarily come merely from the rebel groups, but also come from, you know, the government troops. So the men in uniform would always be targeting women and girls as the most vulnerable. So I saw my brother struggling with life like I was doing. I saw my sister struggling an extra in (5:23) this process of growing up in the refugee camp.

Claude Grunitzky (5:28) You actually showed early leadership, because I think you were only 13 years old when you formed the peace club, and you actually helped to lead a movement that would campaign against child soldiers recruitment during the war in northern Uganda. Can you tell us about those years being born in that situation, growing up, you have seen it all.

Victor Ochen (5:50) Your witness, the suffering, the horror. And we, by 13 years, had already known we were not immune from abduction, from killing, and everybody was struggling. So then we also realized already what losses look like, because we had friends that sometimes we play with their friends like now and then in the next few minutes, they are taken up, they are taken away, or they are killed. I want that in the midst of conflict, when would this come to an end? That was the question asked myself. How much longer time do we have to keep on fleeing, to keep on running, to keep on surviving. So this was the big question that came in me. But then the other big question also came, where are we? The picture of change. If we want peace, we want stability. Because my age of being 13 years was even already old enough to be abducted to be recruited as a child soldiers. So I saw my inmates, my friends, being taken or out of despair, looking for survival. Some voluntarily accepted to be abducted as child soldiers, and then, because somebody lacked even just clothing to wear, we didn’t have boots, we didn’t have any shoes to wear. So when they saw potential for military uniform, a lot of young also bought enticed to join rebellion because or to join forces because they, you know, they didn’t have anything to wear except the potential for them having military attire. So myself, it was a very difficult moment when I saw my friends taken. War was getting stronger, abduction was getting closer, and all we wanted to do was to survive. But then I saw out of despair, my friends went and accepted to be abducted. Some of them volunteered to join the National Army as auxiliary forces, and that kind of made it very difficult for anybody to be willing to stay home. Then for me, what I did, I remember, out of anger, I went and formed a peace club. And I formed that peace club when I was only 13 years old, primarily to help me mobilize my friends to not join forces, whether it be on the government side or whether on the rebel side. So the movement was purposely to counter the child soldiers recruitment in northern Uganda.

Claude Grunitzky (8:09) Can you share with us perhaps one key lesson that you learn in those teenage years as a young activist?

Victor Ochen (8:20) Well, I think when I look back my life then and I I do not see any better options of what I could have done better, other than deciding to choose peace in the in the first of war. So the biggest lesson I learned when I was a child was, yes, there are moment when you know life is not only difficult, but your life is the one that is difficult. And war is not on a distant reality or suffering not a distant reality. Suffering is you. Suffering is within you. And there comes a moment when they are not looking for any other person to take, but they are looking for you to take. You reach a point of saying, What can I do? The whole essence of me saying, let me turn around and transform my pain, my trauma, my suffering, internal opportunity for leadership. Of course, I knew it was important to spark conversations around the need for peace in the community, around the need for stability, but it was so difficult for people to buy the idea for peace. The ideal for peace was a dream that not anybody would buy, because they lived only in conflict. They had not lived in peace. They didn’t know what peace looked like. I think from that moment when I took it upon to say that in the face of adversity, I want change to come, but I also, before I seek for change to come, I need to answer the question, Where am I in the picture of change? Where am I in the picture of peace? Because I knew for sure, even though the rebels are fighting with the government forces, these so called rebels were children abducted maybe a week ago, a month ago, days ago, and then why? What would it make for the, you know, for the for the young people to join the government troops to go and fight their brothers and sisters were abducted yesterday, and I saw that will the environment created for us was just to for us to fight ourselves, and that’s why I thought that, to me, it would be best to be wise that let me not add fuel already burning conflict, let me choose a different direction, however unpopular it was, I then realized that sometimes it doesn’t have to be popular, it doesn’t have to be safe, but you have to do it because, you know is the right thing to do if you want change to come.

Claude Grunitzky (10:45 ) The reality is peace has been the main driver of your action since you were a teenager, and in 2005 you founded the African Youth Initiative network, better known as AYINET. Tell us about the work that you’ve been doing with AYINET, and what some tangible results you can point to.

Victor Ochen (11:05) we started this organization called African Youth Initiative network, which was actually intended primarily to help us mobilize and support young people and communities in promoting Peace and Justice, and the target was to support rehabilitation of former child soldiers and also providing medical and psychosocial rehabilitation to victims of war as well those who have been mutilated, victims of rape, victims of gunshots, who needed critical medical attentions. And also the other bigger picture was, how do we engage youth to become leaders and players, or in peace building or in conflict resolution? Because we knew that young people were the major force, the major energy in fighting on both sides of the war. So then we formed the initiative, primary developers, assemble and inspire youth leadership, but also address the victims needs, because we realize we can talk about peace, we can talk about justice, we can talk about human rights, we can talk about development, but development justice human rights and peace means nothing if it does not address the physical and emotional needs of individuals were impacted by conflict since then, to date, my organization has provided reconstructive medical rehabilitation. I mean, those whose lips, nose, ears were cut off, the victims of rape, two or 25,000 of them in the northern part of Uganda, because we talked about addressing the physical and emotional needs of individuals, then people started opening up the need for historical healing. Not until people heal physically, emotionally, it will always be difficult for people to heal historically. So reconciliation is impossible in the absence of peace and justice made a reality, and that’s why we’ve been key players now in promoting peace and reconciliation in the region, population started accepting us.

Claude Grunitzky (13:09) It’s been remarkably tremendous job that you have done in the community. Well, how do you know that the work that you’re doing is actually working? I mean, you mentioned the fact that the communities have accepted you and perhaps even embraced you, but how, how do you actually measure success?

Victor Ochen (13:23) I can say is a lot of authority that my work, or our work, which our choice to do the work in the community was never inspired by research. We never researched about what we’re doing. We never studied about what we’re doing. We lived it, we survived it, and we are the living witnesses of the injustice that we have been through. So transformation that we talked about in the society also started from within ourselves. The question is, how transforming is our intervention in our own lives, like for myself, after years of being caught up in this turmoil of conflict, it is so happened that I started finding peace and satisfaction every time I gave somebody opportunity to look and appreciate life, a man calls me and said, My son, come thank you for helping my daughters, who are sexually abused, they have been living with fistula, chronic wounds due to rape, due to gunshots, but now they have healed. You have treated the wound. They have healed. This is peace I was looking for. This is justice I was looking for. We can make actually peace and justice a reality. So not just conception, but make it a reality. And of course, this has been critical in terms of us thinking around and saying, if we can transform life and people regain their functionality and resume their productive daily life in their communities, towards that is success. Somebody has been crippled, unable to walk, unable to dig, can can today walk free. Kids are going back to school. We have seen so many children went back to school because we have surgically released their hand, which was burnt during the attacks in the camps, or some of them were tortured. Some of them were mutilated. We had so many lips that were cut off, but we provided them plastic surgeries, and they are looking better. They are going back to school, they have resumed their normal functional life. This is what success look like to us. Also, if we can heal emotionally, we can address the history, because we know history is one of the most dangerous weapons. We knew what it means to be displaced. We knew what it means to be bombed. We knew what it means to be marginalized, and we know what it means to go through without food, without medical care, without education. So these are the kind of life that we live. Is not what we study, is what we lived, and is what we are.

Claude Grunitzky (15:55) Well, a lot of it, as you said, is based on lived history, and this lived history, and these results have actually taken you all the way to the United Nations, and you actually work with the High Commissioner for Refugees. Can you tell us a little bit about that role that you play as a global advisor?

Victor Ochen (16:14) Well, I was appointed the United Nations one of the tenant Global Advisors to the United Nations High Commission of refugees on gender forced displacement and protection. So my role was to help bring in the victims perspective to the table of United Nations High Commission for refugee because usually when you look at it, the institution is so dominated by elite forces, you know, those who are well educated in Harvard, in other schools around the world, but majority of them have never lived real life conflict situation. So my coming on board alongside that, celebrities, actors and all those things, they were really wonderful people to be with. But each time I brought in that perspective, experience from the grassroot, from living, having lived the life of that nature, I think it gave a different perspective of life. My role has been unique. I travel. I’ve seen so many people in different parts of the world, in Syria, in Jordan, in other places in Africa. So I’ve been instrumental in advancing the voices actually trying to to amplify the victims voices.

Claude Grunitzky (17:24) You’ve had experience with refugees because of war, and there’s also refugees who are dealing with climate change, and there are many different kinds of refugees now. How do you define a refugee today based on the work that you’ve done and what you’ve seen?

Victor Ochen (17:41) Well, I think the world has become very complicated right now, to be honest, the economic migrants, I would say, and there are also no refugees who are fleeing because of conflict. There are man made and natural disasters all over the world. Uganda, where I come from, like in the region where I come from, we have over 1.5 million refugees right now in my home area, and we are working to support them. Also. We have different camp refugees. And then there are modern, you know, the urban refugees settings and the hula to flee to other parts of the world, but the majority who cannot flee so far away from their homes because of economic inability. It’s a popular term that everybody wants to be seen to be working with a refugee. It’s also everybody’s wishes. Want to be testing their newly developed applications, their newly developed technologies. I see the floods of innovations and, you know, development initiatives, everybody coming from different parts of the world, coming to test their newly developed whether being in toiletries or in, you know, in education or a whether financial literacy system or something, they are bringing it to to the refugee settings, which is good, but I’m also wondering, I think it’s important that we, we do not commercialize refugee migration in a way that we don’t create the refugee community or the refugee camps to become a testing ground For our new devices. I am I’m critical of that because I’ve seen a lot of people with mobilized resources, and that is checking the amount of resources that is spent on administering the process. And if you you know it’s not comparable to what they’re living on the ground. So then you find that there’s a huge commercial interest attached to to the suffering that I don’t like it, to be honest.

Claude Grunitzky (19:44 ) All right, not many people talk about that. I’m so glad you’re actually focusing on this issue.

Victor Ochen (19:50) I’m seeing it. People raise money resources to come and put a sign post, and then they walk back. So the commercial interest behind the refugee response probably undermines the humanitarian spirit, which is critical we need to maintain humanitarian spirit behind or in the in the space of refugee response and also politics, when I See how the you know the society have made force migration to become a culture. You just create ash environment so that those who are giving you a fleece out of the country, this marginalization, and, you know, discrimination of particular ethnic communities or particular, you know, races, that doesn’t work at all, that you know, we should understand that we are in a world of many people, many color, many religion, many way of life. We should learning to live and coexist with one another.

Claude Grunitzky (20:51) That’s so relevant what you just said, and obviously you’re one of those people who are often talked about as a potential future Nobel Peace Prize recipient. We hope it happens one day. But if we look at the conflicts that the whole world is talking about right now, which are the conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza, what do you think what you saw and were able to accomplish in Africa can actually teach us about how to deal with the consequences of that war in Ukraine and also the war in Gaza.

Victor Ochen (21:27) Well, the war in Ukraine has been devastating, to be honest. Let me begin with the Ukrainian and actually, as heart breaking as it is two months when war started in Ukraine, we were approached by our institution in the Ukrainian government. They reached out to us and said, we are looking for institution that can provide us some skills to in order to support response in in care of women and children who are caught up in conflict. And then he looked for a team who provide, who can provide psycho support. How do we help women and children are caught up in conflict? And then they said, We looked around the world, and unfortunately, these skills exist in Africa, because this is what Africa has been going through for so long. And then they said, when he looked around and your organization came very prominently as an institution working to support victims of war. So we’re asking, is there any way we can provide support to the teams of psychologists and psychiatrists who are providing response to situation in Ukraine? And then said, yes, my organization started coordinating groups of expert psychologists and psychiatrists from different parts of Africa, and then we were providing virtual training for the Ukrainian hundreds of Ukrainian psychologists and psychiatrists, including providing police training the police can provide special handling of cases of women and children and others who are caught up in conflict. So they reached out to us. We started providing this support, and then we realized things, the nature of atrocities committed, again, as women in Ukraine, was also is the same thing that we’ve been having here in in Uganda, in Congo, in other parts of the continent, and let’s say, for instance, a case in ant we had these cases where we had two boys, of which one of the boys, of the two boys, their father was a Russian and their mother was a Ukrainian. So when war broke, the father picked up the weapon to fight on the Russian side, and the mother picked up the weapon to fight on the Ukrainian side, and these two boys found themselves left alone by the two parents who are fighting each other in the battlefield. That’s crazy. So then, how do we support this kind of situation? But then this is the kind of situation we have seen before. We have had in Uganda, where some parents were forced to kill their own children or kill their family members, and they were taken by the rebels, and I would offend another parent, will pick up the weapon to fight on the government side. So you found that whatever was happening in Ukraine was happening here, and then talking to these young people canceling them, they told us they don’t want we asked them, would you want? What will your parents to come back? They said, If our parents were to come back, we would not like them, because they left us at a point when we did them the most. And then and asked, What if one of them came back? They said no, because we will assume that if one of them came back, would assume that yes, if she will have killed other parents. And then we ask them, so what’s the way for it now? They say the only way for it is for us to not learn anything to do with Ukraine. We don’t want to learn to speak Ukrainian or Russian language. We want to learn the French or English so that we leave this country and go away. So this is one, then another one is the situation with the four girls, who were all reps. They were all pregnant, and then you they ask us, How do you do because you have so many cases of child murders in northern Uganda, we have these four girls who are all pregnant, but they are impregnated by the forces who they regard as enemies. And all of them say that they don’t want these children in their tummy. And we asked them, Do you want to abort the children? They said, No, we don’t want to abort the children because our religion does not allow us to abort. And then we ask them, What do you want to do now? They told us that they will want to commit suicide. Suicide was the best option for the four girls who are pregnant, impregnated by the men in uniform. So we have been supporting, providing that support to the Ukrainian psychologists and psychiatrists. And that has been remarkable what we did, and we continue to do that.

(26:10) So coming to from the similarity between that and the one of the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. You know, history, as I said it earlier on, history is a very powerful weapon depends on how it is used and when it is used, and I the most painful history is always renewed by what what when we fail to manage the situation, let’s say the ongoing conflict between Israel and amass, or the war between Ukraine and Russia, whether it’s all similar to the war in south in Sudan in DRC, it gives us The fresh reminder of what we lived in for decades in northern Uganda. And it’s also to miss very tough seeing families who are crying out loud in pain for their abducted family members. And whilst it also breaks my heart seeing how the innocent civilians are being killed on both sides of the conflict. But of course, at the end of the day, our experience on this side having lived in conflict, we know what it means to be bombed. We know what it means to be displaced. We know what it means to have family members abducted. To be honest with you, nothing hurts more than having a member of your family taking and you can’t do anything about it. And my brother, on my own, brother was abducted. He’s now 20 years since he was gone, but whenever I see my dad, who is now 83 years is worried. He’s not so sure he’s going to see his son again, and he has waited for 20 years. He’s one of the over 30,000 people of Northern Uganda who are still waiting for their family members who have died and they have never come back. So to me, the test of human patients is when you come and take away a family member and you know nothing taste good, no water taste nice, no food taste nice. Knowing that you are here eating, you are drinking, you are showering, yet your family member might have not drank a water for the last three days, or crying or injured. This kind of feeling, this kind of powerlessness, it can only be paralyzed the amount of pain, the amount of powerlessness, the amount of anger that consumes your your bones, your blood just burning with, you know, inexcusable kind of you know, the feeling that the rage, is just difficult. It’s so difficult to to understand. That’s why some people feel like, you know what? Death would have been better if they were killed. War. War is bad, but war that leads to abductions of innocent civilians, children, the whole and the weak. I don’t think that is war that anybody should even in and everything that’s a good war. So to me, a lot that the world can learn from Africa. We don’t offer weapons, but we can only offer experience. What we lived in northern Uganda is happening in Gaza. It’s happening in Israel. It’s happening in Ukraine. It breaks my heart to see so much that we could have avoided continues to happen.

Claude Grunitzky (29:31) Thank you, Victor for sharing such a series of personal stories with us. It was very moving hearing your story and your perspective. We really want to thank you for your time, for your patience, and for the work, this very important work that you’re doing to create peace and understanding. Thank you. Thank you, Victor, thank you. I hope to meet you soon.