Child to Soldier: Stories from Joseph Kony's Lord's Resistance Army by Opiyo Oloya

Author:Opiyo Oloya [Oloya, Opiyo]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Tags: SOC047000, SOC008000, PSY004000
Publisher: University of Toronto Press, Scholarly Publishing Division
Published: 2013-04-02T04:00:00+00:00

Separation: Goodbye Home, Hello LRM/A

In the course of the night of her abduction, Jola Amayo was initiated into the violence that characterized the dozen years she would spend with the LRM/A. When one of the many burglaries in which she was forced to participate went awry, she survived a shootout between the NRM/A and the two rebels. Although she had an opportunity to attempt an escape, she chose to stay calm, reasoning that she could easily be killed by bullets from the opposing armies. She also witnessed up close the execution of a village catechist whom she knew well. The man had refused to open the door, but when he finally did, he was immediately shot dead. His widow, who had just given birth, was abducted along with the baby and released only miles away from home. The killing would haunt Jola years after she returned to her village, with some accusing her of orchestrating it. At daybreak, as the rebels passed her compound, Jola asked to be freed, but the men refused. She had walked all night, and most of the morning, without resting, but the rebels pressed on, taking her to their jungle hideout. When they finally stopped to rest near a stream in late afternoon the following day, Jola Amayo was battered, bruised, and bloodied, but not bowed. Survival, she knew, depended on remaining alert and strong, not in playing victim. She was still as sharp-witted as in the beginning:

The man left guarding me lay sleeping. I thought he was sleeping, but he was not; his eyes were open. When I got up, the river ran across this way; he was lying higher up the bank, and went to drink some water; he craned his neck to see if I was entering the river to escape. I drank water and returned back to resume sitting. He said, ‘Had some foolish notion taken over your senses to attempt running away, I would have killed you.’

I said, ‘I am not going to escape, my feet are sore, I cannot walk.’

I am not going to escape, my feet are sore, I cannot walk.

Jola Amayo, tantalizingly, is not ruling out the possibility of attempting to escape later. However, she is mature enough to know that her chances for escape range from very slim to none. She assesses her situation and determines that, in her current state of pain, she cannot possibly get far in an attempted escape. She states the obvious to the rebel guarding her. I am not going to escape, my feet are sore, I cannot walk. By stating openly her desire to remain where she is, Jola attempts to construct and establish an important element of survival – trust. Knowing that her very life depends on the rebels trusting her and dealing with her on the level of trustworthiness, she has to be completely transparent, open, readable, and, most important, believable. Anything that suggests the possibility of deception, cunning, or opposition, the very antithesis of being trustworthy, would jeopardize her chances of survival.

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