iv ARMS TO PROTECT, ARMS TO FIGHT Acknowledgements This

298 Pages·2013·31.35 MB·English

iv ARMS TO PROTECT, ARMS TO FIGHT
Acknowledgements
This book is the result of wide collaboration, involving several
hundred people throughout the world. We can't name everyone
who helped in the early stages, discussing ideas, putting us in touch
with potential partner organisations and so on, nor is it possible to
mention all those who transcribed and translated hours of
testimony, but we owe them all a great deal. Others provided
invaluable comment and support for the country chapters, most
notably Vanessa Vasic Janekovic (Croatia and Bosnia), Urvashi
Butalia (India), Maria Candelaria Navas (El Salvador), Maria Holt
(Lebanon), Veronica Campanile (Nicaragua), and Barbara
Franklin, Tricia Parker and Corry Régnier (Vietnam). We are
grateful to those who volunteered to help with the long task of
getting all the testimonies typed onto computer disk: Loma
Guinness, Poonan Joshi, Sharron Mendel, Sally O'Leary, Bunny
Page, Mercedes Paramio, Jacquie Webster and especially Catherine
Sayers, who also did some research. Wendy Davies provided
valuable additional editorial support; thanks also to Barbara
Cheney, and to Heather Budge-Reid, Nigel Cross, Juliet Heller and
Steve Percy for helpful comment.
Finally, none of this would have happened without the women
who were willing to share their stories—it is to tbem tbat we owe
the deepest thanks.

INTRODUCTION
OUR WARS, OUR WORDS
The women whose testimonies appear in this book bear witness to
the experience of war in our time. Their first-hand accounts
provide a perspective on warfare that no other information,
however dramatic, can match. The reality is that nearly 50 years
after the establishment of the United Nations (UN), with its mission
to promote international peace and security, brutal conflicts
between and within nations are more widespread than before
and—as these women's stories vividly illustrate—it is civilians who
now overwhelmingly bear the brunt of the terror and the violence.
In 1993, despite hopes that the end of the Cold War would bring
more widespread peace, 42 countries were involved in 52 wars [1].
Most of these were civil wars, which is partly why the UN, whose
original mandate referred only to wars between states, has been
unable to fulfil its mission to prevent them.
Current estimates are that about 75% of those killed in war are
civilians, a proportion which has risen steadily from around 10-
15% at the beginning of the century [2]. The new "smart" weapons,
designed to inflict minimum damage on non-military targets, are
irrelevant to most wars. Even the most technologically sophisticated
countries use weapons of indiscriminate destruction such as
chemicals and mines, as well as tactics such as trade boycotts that
operate almost entirely against civilians. The tendency is for war
today to be conducted at dose quarters—as the testimonies show,
local people often get caught up in the fighting. In particular, in civil
wars of insurgency and counter-insurgency, non-combatants are
often, willingly and or not, involved in supporting fighters and then
face retaliation from the opposing forces.
Moreover, increasing numbers of people are being driven out of
their homes: in 1994, of the estimated 46 million refugees and
internally displaced people scattered around the world, as many as
40 million may have fled conflict or its consequences. If the
numbers of displaced and wounded are added to the estimated
death figure, the total proportion of war casualties who are
civilians may be as high as 90% [3]. Shocking though these figures
are, it is hearing individuals describe what displacement, death and
loss mean to them personally that really brings home the human
cost of conflict.
2 ARMS TO FIGHT, ARMS TO PROTECT
"War is what happens afterwards"
War—especially civil war—brutalises society. It also destroys
infrastructure, development prospects and families' ability to be
economically productive. In the words of Marie from Lebanon
(see page 267): "The real experience of war is not the shelling
and so on, those are just moments, though they are the ones
you see on TV. War is what happens afterwards, the years of
suffering hopelessly with a disabled husband and no money, or
struggling to rebuild when all your property has been
destroyed." It is this most damaging aspect of war—the way the
economic and social costs can last for generations—which
comes across so powerfully through personal testimony, with its
human detail and variety.
As the proportion of civilian casualties has risen, not only has
women's suffering increased but so have their responsibilities.
Women hold families and communities together, often playing a
key role in food production and other economic activities, and
caring for the children, the elderly and the sick. War distorts and
disrupts these patterns and responsibilities, making them
infinitely more difficult to fulfil, just when they are even more
essential because of the breakdown of community structures. The
pressures on women are even greater when they are forced to
flee with their dependants: more than 80% of the displaced are
women and children. Women are also vulnerable to rape and
sexual exploitation which are common features, if not actual
weapons, of war. This type of suffering can leave deep
psychological wounds, which may remain hidden but can
severely undermine the capacity of both women and their
communities to recover.
And women are crucial to the recovery process of both their
families and the wider community. Increasingly, aid and
development organisations, faced with the fact that in more and
more countries armed conflict is becoming the major threat to
development, are seeking ways of alleviating the impact of war on
women, so that they can emerge from trauma and loss, and help
rebuild their societies.
The individual voice
Women have generally been under- or misrepresented in stories of
war, and are most often seen as grief-stricken, powerless victims.
And although development and relief agencies largely recognise
the importance of women's active roles—economic and social—in
helping communities survive conflict, there is still a tendency to
INTRODUCTION 3
categorise and generalise. "Women and children" are still often
seen as one unit, for example. Such labels, if they are used to
influence policy, can be limiting and even damaging. The term
"refugees" conjures up an image of a featureless mass of people
queuing to be fed, whereas time and again in the interviews Panos
collected, women describe how the worst aspect of being a refugee
is precisely the humiliation of losing one's identity and having all
options for independent action curtailed.
Indeed, a primary motivation behind Panos' oral testimony
project on women and conflict was to offset the tendency for
generalisation. The aim was to contribute to the process of helping
individual women speak for themselves, to gather anecdote and
personal experience, to communicate perceptions as well as "facts",
and so to complement more quantitative or academic studies. Thus
Panos did not set out to analyse a particular aspect of women's
experience, or advance a particular argument, but simply to record
the individual voice. Above all, these testimonies reflect the great
diversity of women's experiences and reactions: from deepened
prejudice to hard-won imderstanding, from faith in the future to
cynicism or despair, from a growing belief in one's abilities or
powers of survival to a heightened sense of vulnerability and fear.
This selection makes no claim to be representative: it is a
collection of personal stories from some 85 women. (Over 200
testimonies were gathered in total—for a more detailed description
of the project, see page 24.) Of the conflicts in which they were
involved, all but two (the communal conflicts in India) would be
classified as wars, and the majority as civil wars, although in many
cases there was a high level of foreign intervention. We did not
seek to cover the full range of political allegiances; our aim was to
cover as wide a range of personal experience as possible. The
women interviewed are from varied backgrounds and experienced
conflict in different ways. Some bore arms or actively participated
through, for example, feeding or sheltering fighters; some
supported or initiated peace actions; others were fully employed in
ensuring their family's survival—at home, in hiding, or in camps.
Most took on new organisational, economic or social
responsibilities.
In the rest of this introduction, we have tried to pull together
some common and contrasting threads in the testimonies. Many
women are quoted, but the detail of their stories and the
background to the conflicts in which they were involved are to be
found in the chapters which follow—this overview is no substitute
for reading the women's words.
4 ARMS TO FIGHT, ARMS TO PROTECT
OVERVIEW
Women's participation
Women's identification with and participation in war, and ability
to deal with its consequences, are much influenced by the nature
of the conflict. In Uganda, the women interviewed regarded the
war as a senseless battle for power between men, motivated
primarily by greed. They described those who caused the war as
"power hungry", wishing only "to get rich by force". Women
found themselves caught in the middle—looted, abducted and
raped by soldiers of both sides—so that it felt as though "instead of
fighting each other, [the soldiers] turned to fighting members of
the community" (Culina).
In contrast, the Tigrayan women interviewed, who all
participated in the struggle against the Ethiopian government, saw
themselves as fighting for political justice and social progress—
including equality for themselves. Moreover, they were victorious,
and felt pride in their suffering and their achievements.
Psychologically, they appeared to be stronger post-war than those,
like the Ugandan women, who had survived a war which they
viewed as pointless butchery.
Between those two extremes there are many variants. In El
Salvador, many women actively supported the struggle for social
and political justice and some took up arms, although within the
guerrilla movement there was no clear political commitment to
social progress for women. In Nicaragua, the experience of being
part of a revolutionary movement left some women with a
stronger sense of their own rights. "It was a wonderful fight,
because those who fought and died did not die in vain, they taught
us how to fight for our rights," claimed Maria. Others, such as the
women of Somaliland, identified with the war as a justified
struggle against oppression, and participated in a number of non-
violent ways. The subsequent descent into more fragmented
rivalries, however, is now making their sacrifices much harder to
bear.
Where conflict is primarily along ethnic or religious lines, women
are likely to identify with one particular side, but not necessarily to
play an active role. Of course, ethnic or religious difference does not
inevitably entail conflict—Muslims and Hindus in India, Tamils and
Sinhalese in Sri Lanka, for example, all spoke of having lived in
harmony together in the past—but escalating tension and open
conflict quickly force people to declare allegiances.
For many of the women this was a deeply painful decision.
INTRODUCTION 5
Those who belonged to two sides through intermarriage faced
family splits and divided loyalties, and sometimes had to suppress
part of their identity to protect children or husband. In other cases,
women were reluctant to subscribe to the idea of ethnic or
community identity as paramount because they held a broader
view of personal identity. "Joseph and I are Catholic but we gave
our children Arab names which do not show their religious
identity," explained Laure (Lebanon). Many women, looking back,
expressed concern that in accepting an ethnic or community
identity, whether voluntarily, or under pressure, they had
contributed to the polarisation of their society.
Communities which have sustained a harmonious multi-ethnic
existence are particularly traumatised by its disintegration and by
the experience of neighbours, friends and relatives turning on each
other. The closer the bonds which have been betrayed, the harder
they are to rebuild. "My friends were shooting at me, at us. Do you
know the feeling when your very soul hurts?" asked a Bosnian
refugee. "A lot of them were my very good friends, people with
whom I have shared both sadness and happiness. I lost them for
ever, in the most unacceptable way...."
Joining in
Even when the women interviewed strongly identified with a
community or a cause, the majority participated in conflict only
when their families or~ homes were threatened or attacked—which
may be a frequent occurrence, as the stories from Uganda show.
Women were sometimes excluded from a more active role
because they were fully occupied with family responsibilities, or
were expected to be so. For those who wished to contribute more,
their scope for action was often defined by the roles with which
they had been invested by society. During the communal riots
prompted by the 1947 Partition of India, Sikh, Hindu and Muslim
women clearly identified with their own communities.
Representing the honour and purity of their religion, they were
targets of attack by the hostile communities, and used as symbols
by their own. As the testimonies show, this role was seen as more
important than their individual survival and many were
encouraged to take their own lives rather than suffer abduction,
rape or conversion. This is an extreme example of constraints on
women's active participation, one where the only act of resistance
available was to turn their capacity for violent action in on
themselves and commit suicide.
Women had far greater scope for action in the Tigrayan rebel
6 ARMS TO FIGHT, ARMS TO PROTECT
movement, which encouraged, or at least allowed, them to become
combatants alongside men, thus demonstrating the equality the
movement professed. More often, especially in insurgency
movements, women are encouraged to participate because their
labour, skills and relative ability to move around unnoticed, are
needed. Their roles are usually to provide support and care for
male combatants and victims, but also to work as couriers and in
intelligence. As Xot, a supporter of the Vietcong, put it: "There was
one thing about being a woman which favoured her participation
in the struggle: it was easier to get close to the enemy.... The enemy
looked down on us but we infihrated their ranks more easily than
the men."
These tasks can involve as much physical courage and
endurance as actual fighting, but do not overtly challenge gender
stereotypes. When support includes building roads and laying
mines, there is no clear line separating support trom combat—but
there is still an ambivalence, felt by most women as well as men,
about women using violence in cold blood, or inflicting brutality.
As other studies have shown, even when male-dominated fighting
forces accept women as fighters, they rarely give them equal
responsibility for inflicting actual physical damage on the enemy
[4]. And judging from Panos' interviews, few women demand this
ultimate equality.
Women as supporters and perpetrators of violence
Many of the women interviewed spoke with pride of having
encouraged or incited men to acts of violence, but Kokila, a Sri
Lankan Tamil, is relatively unusual in her proud acceptance of the
value for women of violent action: "[Participating in the struggle]
is the need of the time. Instead of dying screaming, being raped by
an aggressor army, it is a relief to face the army with [your own[
weapon." Women speak about bearing arms in a number of
testimonies but only a few, most notably in Lebanon and Vietnam,
also describe being involved in killing.
It was striking how often people claimed women combatants
were more brutal than their male counterparts. This could have
been due to a certain self-selection by the women who took up
arms. It could be more perception than fact, stemming from a
feeling that it is "unnatural" for women to use violence. In Liberia,
it was said that women combatants are unwilling to talk about
their experiences, except among fellow combatants, because of the
feeling of shame. Agnes, a young Liberian whose own war
experiences have left her deeply cynical and distrustful, said, "If I
INTRODUCTION
was one of [the combatants], I would definitely be ashamed. A Tamil Tiger, Sri
woman is supposed tQ be somebody [with a] soft spot... to be able Lanka
to analyse, to love and care for little ones.... But they were very MortJnAdter/PonosP'Klures
harsh and aggressive, even towards babies and children."
Clearly, no conclusions can be drawn from our testimonies, but
the indications are that it is a small number of women who join
men in using violence. The extent to which this is because society
does not encourage them to do so, or because they have
internalised a taboo, or because they are "by nature" less likely to
join in premeditated brutality is unclear. "I never believe anyone
who says 'I could never kill anyone'. There are times when I would
have shot people if I had had a gun... I don't think women are any
different from men in that way," was the view of one Lebanese
interviewee (Marie).
Sexual violence and exploitation
Sexual violence and rape has always been a feature of war.
Violence against women, for example, may take a specifically
sexual form; a number of the women had witnessed women's
breasts being cut off and the disembowelling of pregnant women.
But there is now a clearer recognition that sexual violence can be
an actual weapon, rather than expression, of war.
8 ARMS TO FIGHT, ARMS TO PROTECT
The threat and the act of rape is often used as a weapon against
community identity, especially where ethnic or religious purity is
at stake. Defiling women is a way of violating and demoralising
men—rape is often performed in full view of family and
community. In this sense it is an attack on everyone, although it is
the women who suffer physically, and bear the burden of shame
and social ostracism. The use of rape as a weapon of war in Bosnia
has drawn the attention of the West because of its scale and
organisation, all of which has strengthened the argument that rape
should be regarded as a war crime. For some, well aware that rape
has been similarly used in other, non-European conflicts, this
recognition is somewhat belated.
More often rape is part of the general violence and suspension
of normal behaviour during conflict, sometimes even seen as one
of "the spoils of war". Refugee women, often living without male
relatives or partners, in make-shift homes, are particularly
vulnerable to rape or sexual exploitation—sometimes by the very
people supposed to protect them, such as guards or police.
A different kind of sexual violence—licensed by military leaders, if
not deliberately planned—is the abduction of women to supply
sexual services to fighters. This was commonly practised by the rebels
in northern Uganda where, since the 1980s, the spread of HIV/AIDS
has added a further terrible dimension to the consequences of forced
sex. Indeed, war and instability has been identified as one of the
factors in the spread of AIDS, because even if forced sex is not an issue
(and it often is), there is almost always disruption to family and social
life, and increased movement of populations [5).
There are many other ways in which conflict distorts normal
sexual relations and increases the possibilities of men sexually
abusing or exploiting women. In a war-torn society, becoming a
prostitute or a camp follower may be a woman's best economic
option to support herself or her family. Some have no choice but
to live by servicing soldiers: more than one interviewee had been
rejected by her community after suffering rape.
A variant on this distortion of relationships is illustrated by the
story of the young Liberian woman who has struck a bargain with
a soldier of the (non-Liberian) peacekeeping forces (ECOMOG).
Like most of her contemporaries, Agnes' relationships are now
based entirely on economics. "We just believe in the barter system
that started during the war. You get the pleasure of my body, I get
the pleasure of your pocket." Her actions reflect the distorted post-
conflict national economy, in which the pay packets of the
ECOMOG soldiers are almost the only source of income. Liberian