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Blog Post:  Posted July 21, 2010, 7:16 am by Lisa Inks

After the bombings in Kampala, learning from survival

Country: Uganda

Topics: Peaceful Change, Conflict & War

When I prepared to come to Uganda this summer to do a peacebuilding evaluation with Mercy Corps, I prepared for danger. I was going to the northeastern region of Karamoja, where armed warriors raid cattle and ambush vehicles in a conflict punctuated by extreme poverty and marginalisation. Some colleagues clucked their tongues when I told them where I was headed: “Be careful,” they said. “Always wear shoes you can run in.”

After five weeks conducting an assessment in Karamoja without incident, I came back to Kampala to write my report. I took a break from work to meet friends at a restaurant on July 11, where we settled in to watch the World Cup final alongside dozens of other exuberant football fans.

Right at halftime, a huge blast knocked me out of my chair. I was running without thinking, through a spray of particles and smoke, my eardrums throbbing to a shrill pitch. Before reaching the exit, I turned back. Where people had been laughing and cheering one minute earlier, they were sprawled on the ground or in their chairs, dead, nearly dead, or screaming.

I began to feel the burden of luck — I was completely unscathed but for several bruises — even as we checked bodies for pulses and carried out a man clinging to life through spasmodic gasps for air.

Kampala was supposed to be a respite from danger, a peaceful city far from the violence that has sown terror in the north of the country. But after the bombings, Ugandans started speaking of a new era. Barely catching its breath from a brutal 20-year conflict in the north with the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army, Uganda is wrestling with the newest manifestation of another old conflict.

The particular conflict I came to examine — where tribal warriors wielding AK-47s rustle cattle and goats, burn homes and abduct villagers — seems like a far cry from terrorist attacks in the capital city. But I can’t say that they don’t somehow share commonalities: both destroy the lives of innocent people, both bring trauma to those who should be free to live without fear.

In Karamoja, our team assessed the level of insecurity to see whether “no-go” areas had decreased since the start of Mercy Corps’ Building Bridges to Peace programme. We found that people in Karamoja are freer to move about, during the day and the night, than they were one year ago. Indeed, community members can use farmland and forestland they once avoided, they can walk down roads that were once “death zones.” Things are changing, it seems, for the better.

In Kampala, however, the “no-go” areas just expanded exponentially. Fewer people venture out late at night. We are advised to stay away from crowded places. Kampala now feels like a battlefield.

In order to make people more secure, Mercy Corps goes to the places that are most insecure. That’s what makes Mercy Corps effective. And in Karamoja, I can see positive effects of a comprehensive peace programme that improves livelihoods for communities that have been in conflict for decades, where Mercy Corps staff members have been dedicating their energy for years.

When I started interning with Mercy Corps in the Cambridge office last January, the Conflict Management Group fastidiously pieced together theories of change, indicators, and survey questions, trying to pinpoint causes of conflict and map out a road for peace.

Truthfully, I have scant more intellectual insight now than I did sitting in that office. As peacebuilders, we can point to factors that lead people to commit violent acts, and sometimes we get close to telling the story of conflict. But there is still a gap between knowledge and understanding, and never have I appreciated that gap as fully as I did when I was looking at the half-blown out face of a man in shock. The old adage is true: the more you learn, the less you seem to know. But there’s more still. One experience can call everything you learned into question.

What insight I have gained, however, comes in the form of a heightened emotional consciousness, a bit more dogged determination, and, ultimately, a stronger belief in the work we are doing.