When Elephants Fight (2 page)

She founded the Kim Foundation, whose mission “is to help heal the wounds suffered by innocent children and to restore hope and happiness to their lives by providing much-needed medical and psychological assistance.” Her foundation funds projects around the world.

Kim resides in Ajax, Ontario, Canada, with her husband and two children, Thomas and Stephen. She is a living symbol of the strength of the human spirit to overcome tragedy and is a shining example of the power of love, forgiveness and reconciliation.

For further information visit: www. kimfoundation.com

For a more detailed look at Kim's life and the impact of the famous photograph, see
The Girl in the Picture: The Story of Kim Phuc, Whose Image Altered the Course of the Vietnam War
, by Denise Chong and published by Penguin.

This saying is an ancient proverb of the Kikuyu people, a tribal group in Kenya, Africa. While the source of this quote is lost in the distant past, the wisdom is as true today as when those words were first spoken, perhaps thousands of years ago. Its essence is simplicity. When the large—the strong, the dominant— fight, it is the small—the weak, the least powerful—who suffer most. Regardless of which elephant wins, or loses, the grass beneath their feet will always be trampled and destroyed.

Joseph Stalin, former Soviet leader, stated, “The death of a million is a statistic, the death of one, a tragedy.” We will start with the one.

When Elephants Fight
tells the story of five children, one from each of five very distinct conflicts around the world—Afghanistan, Bosnia, the Sudan, Sri Lanka and Uganda. We hope that these five stories will demonstrate the devastating impact that war can have on young innocent bystanders. Through these very personal accounts we hope you will not only feel the pain these children have suffered, but also both sympathize and empathize with them. After all, but for the accident of birth, this could be you. Along with each eyewitness account, we have tried to briefly present something of the history and geopolitical background of the conflicts in each country.

There has never been a war fought that was started by children—or one that failed to harm them. Children are the grass beneath the feet of the men, the tribes, the armies and the nations engaged in armed conflict. Regardless of the winner—and there is a strong case to be made that war produces no winners, only greater and lesser losers—the children always suffer.

Although it might be argued that in some wars efforts are made to spare children, this is, in fact, an
impossible task. Children must
always
suffer the consequences of armed struggle. The fact of the matter is that we live in a world with limited resources and these resources cannot be used for both the purposes of war and the provisions of peace. Every act of war steals resources that could be used to build schools and hospitals, plant fields and feed the hungry.

In every war there is always collateral damage. This is the politically correct term that describes a situation in which an intended target is missed and something— or someone—else bears the brunt of an attack. A military position is targeted, but the school or church or mosque next to it is destroyed by artillery fire, bombs or missiles. A bullet is aimed at a soldier but hits a woman or child hiding in the ditch behind him. Military experts assert that no war is possible without collateral damage—it is inevitable, and by being inevitable, somehow it becomes acceptable. Strangely, this term involves both property and people, as if one is no more important than the other.

Collateral damage can involve the destruction of a hospital, a school, an orchard or a crop. The damages done to these properties might ultimately cause the death of more people than the battle itself. A school is destroyed, and future doctors and engineers and teachers are never trained. A hospital is destroyed, and the sick die and diseases spread. A field, crop or well is destroyed, and malnutrition, deprivation and starvation take lives. In almost every war ever fought, there were more lives lost because of the effects of the war than those lost on the battlefield. Starvation and disease ultimately kill and maim more people than those claimed by direct conflict.

In some conflicts children are not collateral damage, not a sad secondary effect of war, but the
specific
targets of war. They are seen as equally valid targets of death as any armed combatant. Perhaps, by some sick and twisted logic, they are even seen as
better
targets than an armed combatant. They can't fight back.

In the greatest of human atrocities, armed combatants actively seek out any member of a group in an attempt to eradicate, eliminate and annihilate that group. We are, of course, talking about genocide. Genocide by definition is the deliberate and systematic destruction of a group based on race, religion or culture.

The genocide most known to the modern Western world is the Holocaust that took place in Europe from 1939–1945, when Nazi Germany attempted to eliminate all Jewish people and certain other ethnic minorities. This atrocity resulted in millions
of men, women and children being systematically identified, captured, transported and slaughtered.

It would be tempting to view the Holocaust as just a temporary insanity that involved one group of people. This is not the case. Within the last one hundred years alone, genocide has taken place in Armenia, Cambodia, Rwanda, Yugoslavia, Russia, the Sudan and China. It would be an underestimation to say that over one hundred million people were killed in these periods of genocidal insanity. And each of those victims, regardless of the specific conflict, was equally human and equally important, and the loss of life equally tragic.

There are times when children are not even targeted because of any ethnic, racial or religious reason, but simply because they are children. They are the most vulnerable as well as the most impressionable targets. They are removed by armed men from the safety of their homes and the care of their families so that they can be used as servants, slaves or sexual partners, or they are forced to become combatants in the conflict.

The legacy of child soldiers is one of the greatest tragedies of this past century. Young children are taken from their families by armed combatants. Family members are slaughtered—sometimes children are forced to take the lives of members of their own families. Young children, some younger than ten years old, become indoctrinated and trained in the ways of killing. They become efficient killers for the same reason that children can become such agents for good—they are impressionable, open and too young to understand the ultimate consequences of their actions.

One of the first steps in training for armed combat is to dehumanize, minimize and distance those being targeted from those who will do the killing. This may seem a somewhat unlikely proposition from our vantage point in the Western world. Nevertheless, we know it happens. Although we might be geographically and politically distanced from the war zones of today's world, we must never assume that we are somehow superior to people who find themselves in the midst of these conflicts.

Some readers will almost certainly claim that
When Elephants Fight
presents a biased view of the stories presented. Despite our best efforts to present the full picture, this is an inevitable reality. These criticisms will be founded not so much on the validity of our efforts as on the personal passions that these conflicts arouse. And, equally certain, since we view our world through the eyes of our own personal history, some of this criticism will be valid. We acknowledge that we enter this project with
a clear and stated bias. This bias is best put into words by former United States president and humanitarian, Jimmy Carter: “War may sometimes be a necessary evil. But no matter how necessary, it is always an evil, never a good. We will not learn how to live together in peace by killing each other's children.”

Children around the world suffer from the consequences of war. We live in a time and place where our children have escaped not only the direct consequences of these wars but even the
knowledge
of these conficts. For the future to be better than the past, better than the present, we must help equip our children with the awareness and understanding of the world around them and their ability to bring about change. Gandhi stated, “If you are going to change the world, start with the children.”

With the purchase of this book you have helped children who have suffered from war—royalties from this book are being donated to GuluWalk to help children affected by the war in Uganda. For more information visit
www.guluwalk.com
.

It is time!”

I Startled out of his thoughts, Jimmy looked up at his grandmother standing on the edge of the field, waving.

“It is time!” she yelled again, not sure she'd been heard or seen.

Jimmy waved back to acknowledge her. He looked up at the sun. He could tell from its position in the sky, starting to sink toward the trees, that she was right. It was time to go. Jimmy's brothers, Christopher, Julius and Douglas, working away in the field beside him, had heard her as well. They nodded their heads in agreement. Jimmy swung the hoe over his shoulder. For Douglas, only six and small for his age, the hoe was as big as he was, and it weighed heavily on his shoulders. Maybe Jimmy could have helped but he knew his littlest brother had to learn to bear his share of the load. There was no choice.

As they walked through the field, Jimmy thought about their crop. The field was planted in root vegetables, mainly cassava, with only the tops showing through the soil so far, but it looked like there was going to be a good harvest. He prayed for a good harvest. Without that there'd be more times when hunger would be with them.

Today the four brothers had finished weeding four rows. He knew that Christopher, the oldest at fourteen, had hoped for more, but there wasn't time. There was never enough time.

By the time they reached their home—two small huts, with the charred remains of a third beside them—their grandmother was waiting. One hut belonged to the boys. The second hut was their grand-mother's. The third used to be their uncle's home.

Grandmother had packed them a small cloth bag. Inside was a little bit of food. Not much, but enough to give them something to eat on the road,
and, if they rationed it out, perhaps a bite for the morning before they set out again. Christopher would carry the food and decide when they would eat. Jimmy didn't know when he would choose to let them eat something, but he did know it would be done fairly, each receiving his share. Maybe there wasn't enough, but whatever they did have was shared equally. That had always been the way in his family.

Jimmy poses next to the prints of his mother's hands on the wall of the room where he now sleeps
.

Jimmy also wanted to take one more thing with him. He ran into the hut and found it right where he'd set it down—on the little wooden stool that his father had made. It was a book with dog-eared corners, the cover partially ripped and the pages soiled from so many students having used it over the years. But it was important that he bring it along. There was a test tomorrow, and he'd already missed a day of school this week to sell vegetables by the roadside. He knew that he needed to study. Hopefully there would still be enough light to see the book when they arrived.

It would be so much easier if they could just stay on their land. There would be more time to work in the fields. Time to study. Time to sleep. But not tonight. In fact, not any night
for as long as Jimmy could remember. It seemed like forever since he'd been able to sleep in his own house.

There was a time, more than a year ago, when each evening his grandmother and older brother would make a decision—was it safe to stay or did they have to go? While they were at school or working in the fields, Grandmother would listen to the radio, or talk to neighbors or relatives, people who lived in the village, and find out if there had been any attacks in the area. Some nights there was no word; nothing had happened. Then they might risk staying. But it was always a risk. There were no guarantees. Jimmy knew that better than almost anybody.