Sudan's children of war

John Kon Kelei hates to talk about it. But the experience of being a child soldier in Sudan is one he shares with anyone who will listen.

“You just keep hammering on about what you don’t like to talk about,” says Mr. Kelei, wrenched from his family by an armed group when he was just five years old. Too little to be of use in battle, he was put to work cleaning weapons, gathering firewood and acting as a look-out.

A co-founder of the Network of Young People Affected by War (NYPAW), Mr. Kelei is at Dalhousie for two days of workshops with the Child Soldiers Initiative, managed by the Centre for Foreign Policy Studies. Participants will be looking for ways to ease the transition for Sudanese youth who come to live in Canada and are often sucked back into violence and crime.

If you go WHAT: Emmanuel Jal in performance. With El Jones and Saa Andrew. WHEN: Thursday, Sept. 23, 8 p.m. WHERE: Rebecca Cohn Auditoirum HOW MUCH: Tickets are $30 or $25 for students. Call the box office at 494-3820.

The Child Soldiers Initiative at Dalhousie is a project founded by Retired Lieutenant General Romeo Dallaire to generate the global political will to end the use and recruitment of child soldiers.

Joining the participants  (Sudanese youth, police, immigrant settlement workers, academics) for the workshops will be Mr. Kelei’s friend, rapper Emmanuel Jal.

Called an artist “with the potential of a young Bob Marley” by Peter Gabriel no less, the musician will also talk and perform some of his original music at a public event, Thursday, September 23, 8 p.m. at the Rebecca Cohn Auditorium. Also performing are spoken word artist El Jones and dance-hall reggae performer Saa Andrew.

"It was afternoon and I had left the village with my friend Biel to go fishing.  We were walking back home when we heard the deep blast of a big bomb. It was close. We looked at each other quickly before running to the top of a slope. Below us was our village. There was smoke and fire, people running in different directions like frightened chickens. Government soldiers were attacking.   The savanna grass crunched beneath our feet as we started running down the hill. As we neared the road into the village, we saw two SPLA soldiers lying on the ground ahead and stopped. Hiding ourselves in the long grass, we poked our heads high enough to see about twenty villagers gathered by the side of the road surrounded by soldiers pointing guns at them. Other troops were beating a family.  “You’re keeping rebels here, aren’t you?” they screamed. “You’re giving them food.”  Children cried as they watched while the rest of the crowd-men and women, babies strapped to their mothers’ backs, and elders-looked on with fear in their eyes. - from War Child, a memoir by Emmanuel Jal

The two Sudanese men knew of each other while at the same refugee camp in Ethiopia but didn’t properly meet until years later, as adults in London, England. Mr. Kelei says he thought of Mr. Jal as “the kid who likes to talk with the whites.”

The two have much in common. For example, they can only guess at their own ages. Mr. Jal estimates his birth as January 1, 1980, although he doesn’t know when or where he was born. Mr. Kelei gives his age as 27, “but I don’t really know,” he says with a shrug. Neither the government forces or the rebels took much notice of birthdays.

Both men have emerged as advocates for child soldiers, kids who are forcibly recruited or enlisted in hostilities throughout the world. While there are international laws and policies prohibiting the use of child soldiers, enforcement is lagging, says Shelly Whitman, deputy director of the Centre for Foreign Policy Studies. It’s estimated there are 250,000 child soldiers today.

For Mr. Kelei, the realization that “keeping quiet is not an option” came to him as a scared 17-year-old boy who had made his way to the Netherlands after fleeing the Sudan.

He recalls his first night in asylum in Amsterdam, where he was shown a spartan room, furnished with a single bed covered by a white sheet.

“It was,” he recalls, “the most luxurious place I’ve ever been.”

As he lay awake that night, starring at the ceiling, he was plagued with guilt over the boys still bearing arms in his homeland while there he was, “tasting the best of life.”

That’s when he made his resolution: “I will talk about my past ... Keeping quiet is not an option.”

LINKS: Child Soldiers Initiative | Centre for Foreign Policy Studies