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Interview by Guida Fullana, From Open University of CataloniaFebruary 2011
Chema Caballero is a Xaverian missionary who has been rehabilitating child soldiers in Sierra Leone
since 1999. His experience there has been captured in the book ‘'Salvar a
los niños soldados. La historia del misionero Chema Caballero en Sierra Leona"
[Saving child soldiers. The story of the missionary Chema Caballero in
Sierra Leone] by Gervasio Sánchez. Holder of an undergraduate degree in
law, as well as a master’s degree in sociology from Long Island University in
New York, Caballero designed a programme from scratch that has saved more than
3,000 Sierra Leonean children.
It is hard to believe that sport can facilitate the rehabilitation and
social reintegration of thieves, murderers, rapists, torturers, etc. How does it
work?
Sport alone does not do anything. Sport as a component of a broader
victimizer/victim rehabilitation and reintegration project, on the other hand,
can be an essential tool to help the perpetrators renounce violence and channel
their energies towards consolidating peace. That is why it is so important for
any project intended to promote peace and development to have a
multidisciplinary focus.
Are all sports equally useful as tools for promoting peace and conflict
resolution? What is the star sport when it comes to peace building?
It obviously depends on the country where the work is being done. For example,
when I was in the South Bronx in New York, I used basketball to work with young
people who belonged to or had contact with gangs. However, in Sierra Leone,
using basketball to work with child soldiers or war victims would be pointless.
There, football is king. The important thing is mainly to use group sports,
because teamwork facilitates interrelation, the appreciation of joint efforts,
the building of bridges, etc.
How would you define the sport programmes used in peace operations in
countries in conflict?
It depends on the conflict: on its specific characteristics, on the parties
involved, etc. However, broadly speaking, you could say that sport can help
break the ice at the start of a peace operation, build bridges between opposing
groups and communities, convey messages, promote programmes and provide
guidelines to help resolve conflicts peacefully.
Tell us about your experience with the child soldiers of Sierra Leone. At
first glance, it seems highly unlikely that children who have been torn from
their communities and whose childhoods have been marked by extreme brutality and
death would ever be able to reconcile with the people of their villages. What
kind of physical and psychological care is needed for them to develop the
necessary skills to lead an adult life?
I think that the foundation for any disarmament, rehabilitation and
reintegration programme for child soldiers is discipline, constant activity to
keep the children distracted and the offering of alternatives to violence
through education, vocational training and microcredits. At the same time, it is
necessary to help children find the strength to talk about their experiences and
own up to them, not with a view to blaming them, but to make sure they
understand the absence of good in the actions they have committed. Hence the
importance of establishing personal relationships and agreements to motivate
children to trade violence for non-violence, thereby facilitating their
resocialization and reintegration in the community. Moreover, one must work hard
to help local communities understand that these children, despite the crimes
they have committed, are, above all and mainly, victims.
The rehabilitation process is complicated and delicate. Does everyone manage
to give up weapons and drugs forever?
It is quite difficult because we are dealing with human beings and everyone is
different. Many are not ultimately able to overcome the violence and do not
recover from the traumas and psychological scars of the time they spent as
members of armed groups. Likewise, many children are unable to quit using drugs.
However, it should be noted that well-designed and well-implemented programmes
tend to yield high rates of rehabilitation and reintegration. That is how it was
with our programme with men in Sierra Leone. In contrast, our initial attempts
with girls were not so successful. We did not realize that the girls, in
addition to being soldiers, had been sex slaves, and that aspect was quite
unlikely to come to light. As a result, once they had left the rehabilitation
centers and returned to their communities, many of them ran away at the first
sign of trouble and ended up becoming prostitutes. We ultimately had to design
new programmes to help them recover and give them another chance.
Human beings have an incredible capacity to overcome hardship and keep
moving forward. Your work in Sierra Leone is proof of that. Would you have seen
the same results had you been working with adults instead of children?
Children are often said to be more resilient to pain and suffering. However,
over the last few years, from 2004 to 2009, I also worked with adults, trying to
facilitate reconciliation and forgiveness. The approach is different with
adults, although sport continues to play a crucial role, but we have achieved
very positive results with them, too, by offering alternatives to violence.
Sport helps to foster a sense of normality in destabilized environments and
is also a positive means of channeling energy. After the football match, upon
returning to reality, is it harder to feel hatred towards the other?
That’s exactly right. Sport helps you humanize the other and to get to know him
or her. It therefore breaks down barriers, prejudices, stereotypes, etc., and
helps to forge bonds of friendship and respect. In Sierra Leone we have managed
to put together football squads in which half the players are ex-combatants and
the other half their victims. Once the initial resistance and frictions have
been overcome, the experience has given rise to forgiveness and friendship.
What advice would you give to young people who, like you, wish to devote
their lives to transforming populations devastated by war or poverty and to
building peace?
That they be prepared. It is important to have training before beginning to work
in a new culture and place. You have to have something to offer and the means
and tools to implement it. You have to be honest, above all when working with
people who have experienced so much pain and suffering. You cannot impose
anything on them; you have to respect them.
By way of conclusion, what skills will students of the Master’s Degree in
Sport as a Tool for Social Co-existence and Conflict Resolution acquire?
In the module that I have prepared, ‘Sport and peace initiatives’, students will
have the chance to learn about the different ways that sport is used in
conflict-prevention, conflict and post-conflict situations. We will also see how
sport is used in programmes for the rehabilitation, resocialization and
reintegration of conflict victims and when working with population segments
deemed to be at risk of social exclusion or of turning to violence, such as
youth gangs. All of this will be accompanied by a sizeable amount of practical
information and examples of specific projects that have been carried out or are
in the process of being carried out now and an extensive list of recommended
reading on these and other related issues, as well as films and videos that help
to illustrate them.
