When journalist Agnes Fallah Kamara-Umunna returned to her native Liberia in 2003, she found a country that was a shell of its former self. As the nation sought to rebuild, ordinary Liberians, traumatized by the war, struggled daily to survive. In the meantime, the nation embarked on the tough path to reconciliation. Former fighters could not go back home because of the atrocities they had committed, and many young girls who were raped during the war had to raise the babies that resulted.
Kamara-Umunna, author of "And Still Peace Did Not Come: A Memoir of Reconciliation," hosted a radio program called Straight from the Heart which collected stories from both victims and perpetrators and started a conversation around the issue of post-conflict trauma in Liberia. She served on Liberia's Truth and Reconciliation Commission and is currently the executive director of the Straight From the Heart Group, a post-conflict, healing and reconciliation center in Monrovia. Among other things, the center trains local journalists to collect their communities' stories as part of this reconciliation process.
Kamara-Umunna recently spoke with AllAfrica's Trevor Ballantyne and Mahmud Johnson about working with victims and perpetrators of the war, and the process of collecting their stories.
In post conflict Liberia, how is the government dealing with the psychological effects of the war?
People are not dealing with trauma in Liberia. The government is not dealing with it. As a result, mental health is getting worse and worse. One cannot deal with trauma by just opening two-week or six-month programs. How can somebody live through the war for 14 years - got raped, fought the war - and you say, 'Oh, let's do counseling for six months?' That's not going to help.
Can you give us an example of one or two cases of post-conflict trauma you have come across?
In my book I write about a woman I met. Her husband used to work for [former Liberian president Samuel] Doe. During the war her family was trying to escape along with their four girls. The rebels raped and killed three of her daughters in front of her, and killed her husband as well. One of the daughters escaped and [the mother] ran to Sierra Leone and then to Ghana. All these years she thought the fourth daughter had died. When [the mother] returned to Liberia my boss asked me to go to the airport. At the time, refugees were coming back from Ghana. My boss asked me to receive them and see if they have stories [about the war to air on my radio show]. So I got in touch with this lady and drove her to her house. She saw that the house had been renovated so she wanted to see who was in there. It turns out that it was her daughter who had escaped. But her daughter was married to one of the rebels that killed her three daughters and her husband.
The woman is there in Monrovia and she doesn't want to talk to her daughter and the husband. The daughter said it was the guy who saved her, and they are married with two kids. I know she is traumatized and I try to get her to tell the story but she doesn't want to, so I don't force her.
So to help Liberians deal with post-conflict trauma you collect their stories?
I ran a radio program called "Straight From the Heart." It ran from 2004-2007 on UN radio based in Monrovia. I started to hear stories from victims - that was what my boss wanted. But as we were going along my boss said, 'But all Liberians are not victims; there are Liberians who are perpetrators and witnesses as well. So why can't we get stories from them?' And so the show's focus shifted to air survivors' stories, hearing from different people.
But my approach was not to immediately ask what happened to people during the war; I wanted to know where they were before the war, as a springboard to discuss their war experiences, because it is difficult for people to directly tell you what bad things happened to them.
So I first start with: 'What were you doing before the war? Were you happy? Were you safe?'
But I also found out that they had other things that are more important to them. For me, collecting stories wasn't the most important thing, so I left my stories and tried reach out to them on a personal level.
Is that why there was a need for a trauma healing and reconciliation center?
Yes. First I took them to [St. Joseph's] Catholic Hospital in Monrovia, but it was expensive. However, then there was a UN Jordanian hospital. They helped me to treat some of the kids and women. The women that were having STDs (sexually transmitted diseases) were tested and treated. The hospital also gave us medicine, antibiotics and everything. But with the need I saw I decided to set up a center to provide a space for the women who were prostituting to at least lay their heads and get some food to eat. Eventually, it became a place where they could sit and talk about the past and the future.
Do you only work with women?
I work with ex-fighters - that's where I started. I have a few that I helped that are in school; some even have stable jobs now. But through collecting stories I realized that there are women who were raped and became fighters - strong fighters. And so, I started working with women as well. It's not that I left the young boys, but I focused on these women because I think that they needed more. Most of them became sex workers after the war. Having been raped during the war, most of them came back and their families did not accept them in their communities. So they had to live in ghettos. And so I started to work to take the women off the streets. I work with boys and girls but now my focus is the women because I think if I help them they can help their husbands. That's the direction I want to go.
How do the people you work with deal with trauma?
I tried to tell them: 'Keeping it to yourself is not how to do it. There is a way to go about healing yourself.' Of course, some of them had their own ways of dealing with the trauma of their past - doing drugs and drinking liquor to ease their pain. Some are into prostitution. Really, I am not going to force them to get to where I wanted to get them. I know that if I have money I can do more, but it's difficult. I am presently paying school fees for 12 kids. They are not my kids but I don't want them to be in the streets and I don't want them to go on prostituting to pay school fees for themselves. Some of these kids were raped during the war; they fought during the war and now do prostitution to take care of their kids. I cannot look at it. There are so many of them, I can only help a few of them.
In dealing with trauma it seems that victims are confronted with two options: seek reconciliation or remain in denial. Your thoughts?
You don't force a victim to forgive; you don't force a victim to heal in a particular way. Let them heal by themselves. And you can give them so many solutions, but they have their own. And for each victim it's unique; everybody is different. I have two women in the house, they both were raped and both fought during the war. One is stronger than the other, but sometimes I want to tell her, "You have to learn from Rita." Then there are times where I can say, "No, Rita is different in her own way, you are different in your own way." So you don't force anybody how to heal, just as you don't force a victim to forgive a perpetrator. And you don't ask a perpetrator to ask for forgiveness.
"You don't ask a perpetrator to ask for forgiveness." Does the same principle apply to other countries?
Right, the Liberian war is different from the Rwandan war. The South African situation is different. So the government has to talk about this issue. And one of the major things I said to [President] Ellen [Johnson Sirleaf] when she came to the United States was to listen to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. While the commission's recommendations have prosecution as part of it there are other recommendations that need to be implemented: providing reparation, mental health treatment, counseling, trauma healing. But just because they are focusing on prosecution they are forgetting about the healing part of it for these women. These issues are very political, but they should not allow politics to overshadow the good side of the truth commission.
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Does this advice on how to deal with trauma apply to NGOs?
Yes, take ex-fighters to other communities - they have so many things they can help with. They can be trained in masonry, carpentry to rebuild the mosques, the churches, build doors, kitchens, etc. They can farm, clean up the roads, build latrines and so forth as a way of reconciling and seeking forgiveness in the long term.
But usually when they talk about women's issues, it is only from the top. Those discussions and policies don't trickle down to the grassroots. That's why I'm working to set up a community radio station. I can talk about a rape issue in English, but it'll mean very little to a Kpelle (one of Liberia's 16 ethnic groups) woman who doesn't understand English very well. On the other hand, if a Kpelle woman can talk about rape in her language her peers can understand and contribute.
We did a pilot program where we went out and spoke English, said, 'Let's talk about rape.' Nobody spoke. But when a lady spoke Kpelle, everyone around there who was raped spoke about those things. We recorded the conversation and it's available online.
That was where the idea of training these women to be local journalists occurred to me. The women can talk about issues like rape, domestic violence and malaria. So I set up an NGO and I named it 'Straight From the Heart.' And under that NGO I am trying to get a radio station to have all female survivors to be local journalists ... 30 I have already talked to and I have already collected their stories to train them. It was difficult because I didn't want any degree holder to be a local journalist - I wanted real, real local journalists.
