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Rebel Armies Asks Journalists To Own Up By DAVID TOWNSEND
It's 3 a.m. and the usual crackle of gunfire can be heard in the early Kampala morning. Probably some drunken soldier just being reckless, but it could be serious. Once the sun goes down, the men with the guns control the streets. Between the army enforcing the curfew and the guerillas pushing their way into the capital, getting caught in the crossfire means instant death. Lying in bed, trying to sleep, you don't start at the sound, as you did when you first came here, six months ago. Six months. It feels like six years…
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| Playwright Mark W. Lee (Photo by Robert Landau) |
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The electricity is out in your hotel, again. Without the fans, sweat streaks down your body, soaking the sheets. A bevy of huge nocturnal cockroaches scurries around your bed: in and out of the walls, across the ceiling. At 6, you'll have to get up and stand in line to get your meager two-gallon ration of water for the day. At 7, the first of your local informants will drop by to report what new atrocities are going on in the outer provinces. But for now, you try to shut your eyes, and get some much-needed rest.Meanwhile, across town, Frank, the only other Western journalist left in Uganda besides you, has just been woken up by soldiers, dragged downstairs in his underwear and thrown into a jeep. They will take him out to the desert, and leave him to find his own way to the Kenyan border.Back in your shabby little room, an especially fat cockroach scurrying across the ceiling above your head slips, losing his grip, and falls directly in your gaping mouth. You bolt up in bed and spit. "Arggghhh!" You groan with disgust. So much for rest … Good morning, Kampala!Mark W. Lee, author of Rebel Armies Deep Into Chad, the fourth-year drama production that opens this month, spent many nights like this as an international correspondent during the mid-'80s in Kampala, Uganda, working for the London Telegraph as well as all the major newswires. Uganda during that time was a very dangerous place to be—and he did, in fact, know a man who was "expelled" to the desert, as described above."In my line of work, I am often in places where I am the only journalist there, which means you are under extreme pressure. As a journalist, you are given an intense responsibility to report things which would otherwise go unnoticed, as if they never happened," Lee said in a recent conversation. He describes his experience in Kampala as "a turning point" in his life. "I still dream about Uganda. It is still intense in my memory."Uganda, the East African country Winston Churchill once dubbed "the pearl of Africa," was devastated throughout the '70s and into the '80s. After 20 years of civil war—eight of those years under the vicious dictatorship of General Idi Amin Dada—the country was tentatively trying to put the pieces back together. Unfortunately, the chaos of restoration was just as dangerous as life under Amin.Post-Amin, there were two civilian governments and another military regime. With a corrupt police force and several guerilla factions all vying for control, the capital was especially unstable. Official elections finally took place in 1980, which returned Milton Obote to the presidency, the man Amin had deposed back in 1971. Citizens were distrustful of President Obote, though, with good reason. Innocent civilians continued to be arrested and tortured in prison for weeks, or just disappear completely due to "mopping-up operations." According to Lee, "Responding to resistance from the Baganda tribe, the army adopted a policy of genocide that resulted in the death of more than 200,000 people in the area around Kampala." A New York Times article from the era reported a priest as saying, "It's worse now than in Amin's days."Rebel Armies Deep Into Chad is the story of an idealistic stringer, Neal Bateman, who has been working in Uganda, and is suddenly expelled for being a "disappointment" to the government. We meet Neal on the night of his expulsion, in Nairobi, the capital of neighboring Kenya, where he is spending his last night in Africa before heading home to the United States. In those turbulent times, reporters could be expelled for any number of reasons, but Neal seems particularly on edge. What has he seen? What necessitated his immediate removal? Charles Richardson-Dove, Neal's boss and host for the evening, wants to get to the bottom of the story, and find out what really happened to Neal in Kampala. He tries to get Neal drunk and invites a couple of "female escorts" over to loosen him up. One of the escorts is a Ugandan refugee, though, and when she gets in the mix, the clash of cultures pushes everyone to face their demons—but at what cost?
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Mark Lee, Rebel Armies Deep Into Chad
Drama Theater
Thursday, Dec. 9-Monday, Dec. 13
For time and ticket information, please see
the calendar.
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Director Regge Life says Rebel Armies takes a stern look at "the ethics of documenting the history of our world." Life is no stranger to Juilliard, having previously directed Riff Raff by Laurence Fishburne and The American Clock by Arthur Miller for the Drama Division. Life spent time in Nigeria in the '60s, and says, "I'm enjoying the opportunity to reconnect with my own experiences and to learn about Eastern Africa." Agreeing with Lee about the role of a journalist in developing nations, Life says, "It is a huge responsibility to represent a non-Western culture to the Western media. Journalists are called upon to be the town criers, in a way, who let the rest of us know what is going on in these remote places. However, the question of accountability for the ancillary effects of media coverage in these developing nations is often overlooked."When asked how he came to write Rebel Armies Lee says, "I wrote it as an attempt to understand the depth of my experience in Uganda for myself, as well as to try and explain it to others. Uganda has achieved a degree of stability in recent years, but the issues the play raises about journalism, developing countries, and moral responsibility seem even more relevant today." Lee has also written two novels related to the subjects of Africa and war correspondence: The Lost Tribe and Canal House.Life says, "With our culture's demand for instant coverage and very few alternative news sources, we should be asking deep questions about who and what we believe, how it is being represented, and what effect it has on the world at large."Fourth-year drama student David Townsend plays the role of Neal in Rebel Armies Deep Into Chad.
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