Emmanuel Jal - musician and former child soldier HARDtalk

Now it's time for HARDtalk.

Welcome to this special HARDtalk

with me, Zeinab Badawi, recorded in front of an audience

coming to you

from the BBC Radio Theatre as part of our Freedom Season.

The acclaimed South Sudanese singer and political activist

Emmanuel Jal was just a boy during the Sudanese civil war

when he was captured and forced to work as a child soldier

in the 1980s.

He escaped and went on to see his people gain independence

in a referendum three years ago.

But now, South Sudan is once again in conflict

as rival tribes descend into ethnic violence that has killed

thousands since December and left nearly a million displaced

and at risk of starvation.

When will the people of South Sudan enjoy peace and freedom at last

and is Emmanuel Jal himself free from the traumas

of being a child soldier?

Audience, please welcome Emmanuel Jal t oHARDtalk.

Emmanuel Jal, Sudan as it was then at war for five decades,

nearly 2 million people died from starvation or disease.

You yourself in your young life really only knew conflict.

I was born in violence so peace was robbed from my childhood.

In the beginning.

You were not only robbed from peace, you were robbed

of your mother, who died in the conflict.

All my aunties died during the war, my mum too.

Also all my uncles as well, except for two.

And that is what I saw what war did, it robs people's souls.

You are interesting because your father is from the Nuer

tribe and your mother was a Dinka.

Tell us the circumstances of the death of your mother.

I know it was a very sad occasion, you were about six or seven.

What actually happened, there were several village raids

so we were running from one place to another.

Because my mother was pregnant, I thought maybe she got shot.

Recently my grandmother told me she died of exhaustion,

giving birth because she ran and that is how she died.

And your father joined what was then the Sudan People's

Liberation Army, fighting for independence from Sudan.

You really didn't see him because he was just off fighting

the whole time.

He was off fighting and he was in charge of the whole

area at the time when we left the town.

He was the one who collected hundreds of kids that

were sent to school.

He gave me up because the villagers were going to war.

That is how I was taken to Ethiopia.

So your father allowed you to be recruited as a child soldier

when you are only about seven or eight?

So I do not know if he knew if we were going to be soldiers

because it was made attractive that we were going to go to school

and learn how fly planes and make guns.

All the things that people go to school for.

So you thought you were going to get an education.

You followed thousands of other South Sudanese children.

You went in the border of South Sudan and Ethiopia then.

What happened to you at this school that you thought

you were going to get an education, what happened?

A lot of things.

First, when we took off, we were put on a boat and the boat

capsized and 250 young people were put in a small boat.

Only 50 people survived.

My dad did not allow me to stay so they collected hundreds of young

people and we had to walk to Ethiopia.

Arriving there, we actually went to school for a while.

What was really disturbing is seeing six,

seven years old burying their own dead.

We were not strong people, we were starving.

Diseases are attacking us.

Then we got trained.

And you said the commander at the school said, from now on,

the gun was going to be your mother and father.

Yes.

That is what everyone is told, the gun is your father

and your mother.

Even your dad, if he come along, you can put a bullet in their head.

We are taught about the importance of because that.

And you felt in a way, that you had a family again?

It is like a big family because, the thing is, I did not know

what the war was all about.

I had my reasons why I wanted to be trained.

My desire was to kill as many Muslims and Arabs as possible

because that is what I thought the war was.

I did not know what the war was about.

In your book, you talk about one raid on a village

where there was an old woman and you just raised your stick

and you said, I started hitting the old woman again and again

until my arm ached.

This was in a place in Ethiopia, we had just finished training.

What happened was we used to go to the rivers and steal

their goats, their chickens.

We were trained and then what happens, these people don't

know where their animals disappeared to.

We would raid their places where they make their maize

and steal their mangoes and bananas.

Their way to fight back is they would put spears

on the riverbanks and so what happens is when the kids come

and jump in the river, just to swim and have

fun, they would stick down there.

We used to think it was crocodiles but when somebody, one of the kids

survived came out and they found the spears down there,

it created anger and that is when we invaded their village

and burned it down.

And you told that old woman to lie down or you would cut off her head?

Then you started hitting her.

When you look back at that period, how does that make you feel?

The fact that you actually, not only fought but killed?

But what happens, I was not alone.

There were many of us.

When you are in a group, anything can happen.

You can scream.

Things like this, it is hard sometimes to digest.

It is sometimes disturbing for me.

But do you feel that you became dehumanised by these actions?

You talk about how you just wanted to kill as many Arabs

and Northern Sudanese as you could and there was a man

wearing the jalabiya, the white kaftan, and you just

raised your machete and smashed into him.

And you said with one of your fellow child soldiers,

you just were laughing.

Well, the guys were not wearing the jalabiya.

This was on the battlefield.

In a situation where the soldiers were still killing us.

This was in Juba.

Sometimes when you capture people like that, you feel...

You want them to feel the pain.

So you don't want to shoot them easily.

You called what they wear traditionally, the jalabiya,

a reference to the Northern Sudanese.

It is not the dress.

Jalaba is the name of the Arab.

To explain to us, why do you not see them as human beings

when you are on the battlefield, fighting?

You see them as being just the enemy, the oppressor.

Because of experience.

One time I saw my mother beaten in front of me and got humiliated

and then my uncle tried to stop and then he was beaten as well.

That time as a kid, I jumped to bite one of the soldier's foot.

And then, he pressed my neck and then I blacked out.

And so then, remembering that and seeing my mother beaten in front

of me and our food got taken by force and one of the soldiers

saying, it is God's will.

That these people are going to be slaves and they have started a rebel

movement, they will never win.

These were seeds that were planted in my head.

That these were terrible people.

I did not have a word to put in now, but now I could say I was bitter

and had a hatred for that time.

So that is what went on in your head when you

were killing the enemy?

All these thoughts would come cascading back?

You use these thoughts to justify situations.

You use them to make yourself brave.

For example, when you are scared, you remember how your village

was burning and your mum was screaming.

And you also remember how my auntie was raped as a kid.

You use that anger to hold you to stand so that

you do not get afraid.

Did you feel better?

Did the pain subside once you felt you had carried out these vengeance

attacks, for what had happened to your family?

Only for five minutes and then after that,

the ghosts follow you for a long time.

Human life is not easy.

Maybe those who are used to it.

If it is your first time, it is different when you have got

somebody in cold blood.

You are then one of the estimates, today there are still something

like 250,000 to 300,000 child soldiers,

somewhere in the world.

You are now in your mid-30s.

Do you still feel haunted by what happened to you when you

were a child soldier?

At the moment, I was very bitter so I managed to forgive myself

and also forgive those who have harmed me and opened my mind.

I came to the world and realised what was killing us was not Muslims

and Arabs, it was a bigger than what I thought.

I realised it is economical.

And mostly activated by political situations.

In that process, I had to let go.

That is when my healing began.

You managed to escape and you were 11 when you managed

to fall into the hands of Emma McCune who was a young

British woman, married to Riek Machar, from the same tribe

as you, the Nuer, the vice president who has gone on the run

in this recent conflict.

Being with Emma McCune, she tragically died in a car

accident in Nairobi soon after, how far was that as part

of the healing process?

Emma rescued over 150 child soldiers.

I happen to be one of those.

She smuggled me into Kenya and put me in school.

I did not know if she even knew that I was related to Riek.

That was her passion, helping a child.

My thoughts, even when I was getting rescued, my reaction was different.

I did not want to leave my gun, I wanted to come back to war.

I am going to this white woman's country, I thought I will learn how

to steal a plane and then come back to war.

I became a different soldier.

So, now we come to what is going on now.

You say that you are related to Riek Machar, but you're not

related,

you are from the same part of South Sudan as he is.

So three years ago, South Sudan votes for independence,

it gets it and now look at it.

In the midst of another conflict.

10,000 killed since December, maybe more.

Do you think everybody knows what is going on now

in your country?

Not everybody knows because it depends on who is putting

the message out.

The government has their own propaganda, speaking out.

The people in the oppositions have their way of putting out

but as I can put a perspective on what actually happened

was a political situation.

One party, party members asking the President

to democratise our party.

We have to make it accountable.

We have to make things transparent and transform our country

to be democratic.

That is how the battle began.

As you say, President Salva Kiir won the election and we are talking

about President Salva Kiir from the Dinka tribe and Riek Machar

broke away from the government and is now fighting his former allies.

You have very clearly blamed Salva Kiir for this.

You said on your Facebook in December last year,

President Salva Kiir wants to pocket our freedom.

I am not going to keep quiet.

Yes, I actually said that.

Because what is peace?

Peace is when there is food on the table for children.

When they have school, shelter, medical.

It is when conflicts are managed in a mature manner

and violence is prevented.

The situation that happened, the political situation,

it should not come and kill people.

It should have been sorted in a political way.

Now what is happening is that the people in jail

are the founding fathers.

You are talking about those who are put in jail early last year

because Salva Kirr thought they were plotting against him.

It is not tribal.

It is used to cover up and get support.

This is not a tribal war.

It is a battle between one party not wanting to be democratic.

The President wanting to stay in power.

You say it is not tribal, but many say it is.

A governor in the north-east part of South Sudan says that we see this

as a tribal fight.

If you look at it, you have the whole government,

all the resources used to fight one tribe, bringing the Ugandans

and the Congolese.

But it is political.

Who are the people in jail?

The reason why they are fighting is because when the incident

happened they killed civilians.

The family members from the villages were angry at the government.

But you are very much pointing the finger of blame at Salva Kirr.

The UN Assistant Secretary General for human rights has said in January

that we have received reports of mass killings,

sexual violence, recruiting of child soldiers from both sides.

The reason I point at the President, because when you are at the head

you enjoy everything.

Riek Machar was the vice president.

He was running for his life.

None of them picked up arms until they were forced.

Civilians should not be targeted.

Two of my brothers got killed.

Some of my family members, I do not know where they are.

They are civilians.

What happens now could have been solved easily.

You are influential.

You have a high international profile.

When you put the message on Facebook in December,

it gets a negative response from this South Sudanese man.

He says that you send out mixed messages.

Please stay out of politics.

Another one said, you are very disappointing, you should be a man

of all people and not taking sides.

My side is justice, equality and freedom for all.

My side is justice, equality and freedom for all.

That is the side I take.

When I take that and say the truth, people who feel that the way

of getting their bread is threatened, they fight back.

I only fight for justice and equality.

Riek Machar's fight is different.

I cannot say, I am on your side, he is a politician.

What if he gets power and starts doing it the same?

I am against what Salva Kirr is doing, not him.

I was beaten by police.

You are talking about 2012.

You are beaten by police because they knew that

you were Nuer.

Why do they have to target my family?

What does my family have to do with this?

5 million people do not have food.

1 million people are displaced.

Thousands of people have died.

They need assistance.

We have refugees in the camps who do not have proper assistance.

The head of the United Nations Mission in South Africa has been

sounding the alarm bells.

He says that the clock is ticking.

Do you think that the international community should be doing more?

An appeal has been put out for $1.3 billion in help for South Sudan.

Only 25% has been achieved.

The international community can do a lot by pressuring both sides

and making them accountable.

We do not need to allow leaders to get away with murder.

It should be referred to the ICC.

They should be held accountable.

Every person that has died does not have to die.

I feel ashamed by being party to this.

It is one party bringing the entire country to suffering.

What about African solutions for African problems?

As you mention, we have Ugandan forces supporting Salva Kirr.

The East African community group is brokering the peace talks.

Shouldn't it be better than going off to the ICC?

Uganda saw two brothers fighting and picked one brother.

That is not the way forward.

That is not an African solution.

That is an economical solution.

Everybody is after their interests.

The only thing I see that is better is the United Nations peacekeeping

force.

It should be strengthened and allowed to move freely

so that the civilians can be protected.

What about America?

Very close to South Sudan, helped it to independence,

provides it with $300 million of aid every year.

There are people like Congressman Chris Smith

of New Jersey who is urging Barack Obama to pick up the phone

to Salva Kirr and say, look, this has got to stop.

Could Obama be doing more?

He could.

When there is peace, a lot of people want to make money.

People are making millions.

Civilians are dying.

Land is getting sold cheap.

Deals are being signed.

It is really difficult.

We need a higher conscious awakening.

We need to give people the peace they are looking for.

It is tragic.

Only 10 million people, and yet the country is still underdeveloped.

Only 30% of the population can read or write.

People do not have jobs.

And suffering continues.

I am very optimistic that things are going to change.

South Sudan is going to pick it up.

At the moment, things are changing slowly.

The war is not tribal.

People in South Sudan are saving each other.

If you go now to any village, if there is no army,

nobody would be touched.

There is a lot of evidence of killing at communal levels

on the basis of ethnicity.

You have a charity that means "strength" in Arabic,

scholarships for children and trying to make sure

that they have an education that you feel that you never had.

Why are you doing that?

I was given a chance to go to school, education opens your mind

and makes you understand things differently.

When I was educated I was able to equip myself and see the world

in a different way.

Otherwise I would have been locked in my own world.

Because of education I am able to open my ears.

My ears are open.

I read and I get to learn.

Thank you for coming on HARDtalk.