Muna Luqman on fighting for peace in Yemen

Somebody contacted me and sent me a picture of a tank which was right in the middle of a street in the neighborhood. And then I posted it on Facebook and I said, "Could you please move this tank from this neighborhood?" I mean, I don't know what I was thinking when I did that, but these people moved the tank. They actually moved the tank. - From the Oslo Forum, welcome to the Mediator Studio, a podcast about peacemakers, bringing you stories from behind the scenes. I'm your host, Adam Cooper. With me today is the Yemeni activist and international advocate for peace, Muna Lukman. As founder and chairperson of the Food for Humanity Foundation, Muna has helped open humanitarian corridors across battlefields and negotiated safe passage for those at risk. When women were largely excluded from the peace talks, Muna confronted a minister and quite literally forced her way to the table, winning widespread respect when she later addressed the UN Security Council, laying out her vision for a new approach to peacemaking in Yemen. Muna Lukman, welcome to the Mediator Studio. - Thank you, Adam. It's an honor to be here with you today, thank you. - I want to take you back to your childhood. You grew up in England, having been born into a prominent family from the south of Yemen, with relatives in the UK, as well as in Egypt and the United States. And at the end of 1989, you returned to Yemen on a family visit. And in the capital, Sana'a, you have a moment of realization. What happened? - Adam, I was intrigued by the history and the culture and the heritage of this country. And that just took me back into a different era. And I just fell in love with it. I wanted to live in this historic Sana'a city and the villages and the rural areas around Yemen, and then the south of Yemen where I felt my origins. I think it was the history and the heritage that I fell in love with. - And then what motivated you to move back? 'Cause this was just a short visit, but then you decided this is where I want to make my home. - First of all, I felt kind of ashamed that I don't speak Arabic. I actually was lost in one of the streets in Sana'a. And I just didn't know what to say. I didn't know where to go. And then finally I was able to reunite with my father. And that was another aha moment for me is I have to stay. I have to learn Arabic. And I was already around 16, I think at the time. And I just felt kind of comfy until now that I don't know my own language. - And then you do get to know the country. You learn the language. You start doing humanitarian work. And then in 1997, you have another unexpected turning point when you're in the mountains and you have an accident. What happened and how did that impact your career trajectory? - In Yemen, the mountainous areas are so difficult. And at that time I was working with P&G actually in the private sector. And the car went off its course and I nearly lost my arm and mobility completely. I nearly got paralyzed. It changed my whole being. It changed my perspective to life. And I felt that here I am working in these rural areas for a more commercial kind of cause, but I didn't want to do that anymore. I wanted to do it for development, for humanitarian work. And then I started working with international organizations like Save the Children, which I learned a lot from. And at that time I was working with landmine victims and survivors. And yeah, it completely changed my perspective. And I really enjoyed every single moment of it. - After years of political instability, the war in Yemen breaks out in 2014. And you were working as a media advisor for the governor of Taiz, which has been called the cultural capital of Yemen. Political violence escalates. You have Ansarullah fighters in the area and the governor resides. How did that violence affect you personally? - In every single aspect, it was a nightmare truly. I'm also blessed to be a survivor speaking to you today because at that time we went through horrific circumstances of the war and many different deadly forms of war in Yemen. There's street fighting, there's indiscriminate bombings, there's targeting of the homes. My own house was partially destroyed in Taiz. The infrastructure, the hospitals, the heritage itself, which is so devastating. So I think that living in those circumstances and to add to it in the city of Taiz, we had the siege. The city was cut off from anything. We hardly had water, vegetables, nothing. And so I remember, for instance, one of the days when the bombings were in our area in Taiz, I remember describing it like an earthquake shaking and the volcano at the same time. Again, I was nearly paralyzed by that experience and it was so difficult. And at the same time, people were relying on people like myself to help them, to save them, to bring water to them. People were trapped, there was street fighting and there was airstrikes and there was lack of supplies. So in all ways, it was so difficult. - And you talked about when one of the houses nearby was bombed in an air attack. You've had more than one close call, Moona, is that right? - Yes, that's true, I'm really lucky. And also the street fighting, that means that they are right next to your windows. I remember being very terrified and we didn't have electricity or water. So you're in the dark, you have airstrikes and you have street fighting right beside your window once we had to crawl just to get to the bathroom. Because if we would stand, we might get shot by the crossfire. And this is still, until today, this is still a situation in the city after nearly six years, more than six years. - So you're in quite desperate circumstance as it sounds. Give us a sense about for just ordinary people who are living in Tairiz, what it meant for a city to be besieged without water, without sanitation. What does that look like? - Everybody was trapped in the crossfire. You can't go out. If you do go out, there's so many snipers and then they started laying land mines. And then we still have the airstrikes also going on. All the electricity is cut off from the city. We were just all the time trying to ask about the others who are in the other parts of the city, which were really heavily shelled. And we just didn't know who to expect next to be killed. Houses were transformed into rubble. And this was a city, a government known for peace and culture. And just to see that happening and people fighting was really heartbreaking. But we had to go out, we had to do something. I just couldn't stay. - Amidst those desperate circumstances, you spring to action, negotiating access to the most essential necessity of life, water. First for a building full of orphans and later for others. Is it fair to say you became a mediator by necessity because you thought it could relieve the suffering of those around you? - Yes, definitely. We felt a little bit privileged that we had a generator, we had water tanks. So I felt that I could do something more for those who don't have these things. And so people were trapped, but they needed food, they needed blankets, they needed tents. We helped them to transfer to safer areas. I couldn't do this on my own. So I tried to mobilize the youth. And that was when my own life was in a threat because the Warring parties are mobilizing everybody to the battlefields. And here I am trying to take the youth back to volunteerism. So that was really something that the Warring parties did not approve of, but I continued to do it. - Help us understand what that work looks like in practice. For example, this orphanage that you became aware of, which was lacking water, was lacking food. You wanted to do something about that problem, but how did you go about it? - It wasn't something which was planned. Everything was uncertain. You just had to act, adapt and be flexible and responsive. For instance, the women at the orphanage, they contacted me and they said there are snipers on top of the building. And because of those snipers, the other side was attacking them. And that meant that these nearly 76 young boys and girls were trapped. So I had to just try to contact those that I knew in both sides in the army and also on the Salih forces. I knew them, some of them from the working with the security military and the governorate. So I tried to pull ties. I tried to talk to them. And it was very difficult and dangerous, but we managed to at least get the water trucks to the children. So I broke down the request because they did not allow us to take the children out. They did not allow any cars to come in. And we managed after three days to get the children out and move them to another city where they are safe and they are now studying and safe at least. - I'm trying to picture the situation of you calling up commanders on both sides, the snipers on top of this building. What were you saying to them to persuade them to allow in a water truck in this case? - I used every tactic possible. I try to use the normal traditions and norms that we usually use. It was still at a time where people still believed in the traditions and norms. So as a woman in Yemen, I'm very highly respected. Maybe people think that we are just a patriarchal society which we are, but we still have the respect of women. At that time, attacking a woman or attacking children is really a red line. So I tried to use that and tell me, now this is really terrible, the children are stuck. We need to just get in. So I used my own personal relations. I used the power of authority as being somebody who is in authority at the government level. I use the humanitarian part. And then I actually tried to think of other ways for them to use other places. Yeah, and I had to bring in like this guarantee then I had to go by myself. I was the guarantor to go in with the water truck to move the children. - You quickly learned that social media could be used as a conflict resolution tool, particularly Facebook. How did you use it to your advantage? - It was at the golden age of social media. One of the things that I used is when somebody contacted me and sent me a picture of a tank which was right in the middle of a very small neighbor, a narrow street in the neighborhood. I tried to modify it a little bit so that they don't know who actually took the picture from which angle. And then I posted it on Facebook and I said, "Could you please move this tank from this neighborhood?" I mean, I don't know what I was thinking when I did that but these people moved the tank. They actually moved the tank. And that was the time when I thought, these people use social media or they have people who do and they convey the messages to them. And so I started using social media for fundraising. I used it for advocating for telling people who survived who didn't, where the bombings are for everything. - What's interesting is, why would those armed groups care about what's said about them on social media? When you post a photo of a tank, it sounds like you were almost trying to kind of embarrass them into action. - That's exactly what I did actually, Adam. That's the best description for what I did. I saw so many people were on social media because the whole world was watching what's going on in Yemen. And the warring parties were, I guess, getting their instructions through WhatsApp and Facebook and it felt to me that they were really looking after their image. I mean, can you imagine these people? Militia's armed groups were actually on social media. They were building their social image and they didn't want anything to disrupt that. Well, I started disrupting it. But we had a real problem with snipers in Taz. And so as soon as we would hear that snipers were on a building, we would shame and name it on Facebook. And I led this big naming and shaming kind of campaign for many things. I think it worked. I think we were able to get water and food into areas and open lots of corridors and roads that were closed at that time through this naming and shaming or through just pointing them out or posting photos on social media. And how did you manage to publicly criticize some of these groups while also still maintaining contact with them so you could negotiate with them when necessary? I was just doing it kind of strategically in a way. I would push to a certain extent, but then pull back when needed. I had to keep that balance as a humanitarian and this is, I think, a very difficult situation that we are in, but I had to do that. In some areas, they would tell me, "No, don't work in these areas. Don't distribute food and water here because these are from the other side or these are from the enemy side." So I had to continue to do the work because I was working to support poor families. I don't care what their political agenda is for now. I mean, at the end of the day, we are here to respond to a crisis to the needs of the people. And so it was a difficult call. - Let's move forward to 2016. You are increasingly at risk. You receive death threats and you leave Yemen. What happened? - I think I was kind of pushed out of Yemen by family and friends, especially. Nobody could stop me from going out in dangerous places. I was in the mountains. I was in displaced camps. None of the international NGOs were there at the time. It was just us volunteers, women, youth and also some courageous men with us. And I think that the space was closing so much. For instance, we didn't have any more internet. It was difficult to advocate. It was difficult to be visible. And it was also difficult to go from one area to the other. And so everybody told me that you will be able to help people more when you're outside more than you can here. There's no use of you if you're dead or if something happens to you. And I think that was the turning point for me where I agreed to leave Yemen. - And so you do leave, but you continue your work even while abroad. And I want to ask you especially about al-Hamatain, an area of about nine villages with about 10,000 people where water was scarce, disputes were common, and tensions escalate between two communities who then start threatening each other. What did you do? - This is a remote area, but the water in Hamatain actually supports all the water in Taiz. And so it's a very important area where people were fighting and they've been fighting for the past two years. It started to turn into an armed conflict. They had this broken water station and they were fighting over it. We actually, when we heard about the problem, we sent two engineers to meet the local leaders and study the problem. And we found that the water station, it's not functional because of the negligence and also it needed maintenance. So what we did is that we fixed it, we fundraised. I think it was around $20,000 at the time. And the majority of funding was also from Yemeni women in the diaspora. And so it was kind of a women led, in not just the organization, but the women led funding and the women led also implementation mediation of this. And then with the support of RU, we met the community leaders multiple times. We also found that we were able to establish a community committee of 16 people. And we also included the women, which was one of our conditions. But we were afraid that if they had the water, that they will fight again. And so we facilitated an agreement, a peace agreement with them to end the conflict. And they signed it and I was so happy. And now the station feeds more than 10,000 families in nine villages. They stopped the fighting and we didn't stop there. We encouraged them to reinstate the school, the local school there, and to get those young girls and boys back to school because these were young boys and girls who were fetching water for more than two to eight hours. And so we used the water as a kind of incentive to get those girls back to school. And we have now 400 girls back to school. And since then, since the HEMA 10 project, we initiated the Water for Peace project. And now we have more than six projects and one of the greatest outcomes of this Water for Peace initiative is that it has reduced child marriage in these areas where we have been. So I'm very proud of that. - It's a very interesting case study because the war in Yemen goes on, but it sounds like you managed to create this sort of pockets of progress and stability by addressing water because it's such an important part of the kind of people's needs and the conflict dynamic in Yemen. - Yes, I agree. I think water is a really important catalyst for peace. Peace is not just a battlefield and two warring parties. Peace is a bottom-up approach. It's communities, it's the respect and values and the ethics of the culture. It's so many other things that these women and youth are working on. The women, for instance, have been working to release detainees, reintegrate children who have been involved in hostilities, contributing to ceasefire campaigns and alleviating the suffering, but not only alleviating the suffering by responding to humanitarian needs, but also through development projects. And this is something that we are advocating also for more sustainable projects. - In season one of the podcast, Sanam Naragi-Andalini, the CEO of the International Civil Society Action Network, talked about the key role that women, particularly the abductees' mothers' association, had in securing the release of hundreds of detainees when the UN couldn't. Tell me about your work to support these women on the ground. - These are courageous women who have been advocating for the release of abductees and kidnapped persons in Yemen. Many of the mothers of these abductees have lost their own lives, waiting for their sons to come out. So what they do is they protest, they use so many different tactics, and they manage. They manage to release more than 1,000 at the beginning before the UN even let process was able to release even one person. And what we did is that we supported them with my colleagues at the Women's Solidarity Network and Peace Track Initiative and others. We advocated for them to be at the peace table because they knew what it means to release detainees much more than the UN. But they were not at the negotiation tables and they were not involved in any of the mediation processes for releasing detainees. And we really thought and we still think that they should be there. And I think the world needs to listen to women like these. And we have these women, not just in Yemen. We have them everywhere. We saw them in Sri Lanka. We saw them in Colombia. We've seen them in Cameroon. These women are the local actors who are really keeping the community together. And also, at the same time, advocating in the real local way, which is the right way because we can't just come and impose this agreement on these people while overlooking so many of the traditional and local issues on the ground and grievances. - There's an episode for which you've become famous, which is a verbal confrontation with a Yemeni minister because of the exclusion of women from peace talks. Tell us about what happened. - So, first of all, when we went to Geneva, we were not invited. We claimed our space with the help of Peace Track Initiative. We went for women delegation to Geneva, it was the Geneva 2 peace talks. And we were able to meet the diplomatic missions and meet the government delegation and others. And one of the frustrating moments for me was that, here we are bringing a roadmap for peace to Yemen, bringing in really excellent confidence-building measures which are still used until today. UN also relied on many of our recommendations. And then they told us that it's not the time for women right now. If we have the women now, we'll have to open up a whole, you know, a row of other people also who want to join. The responses were so frustrating that I just blew up and said, while you guys were in these lavish hotels and getting VIP treatment around the world, it was us, the women who are keeping this community together, we were one of the first responders. We still are. We're the ones who are talking and mediating with all the warring parties and putting ourselves at risk. And you haven't even had an airstrike on your, you know, you haven't even gone through that experience. And so if somebody doesn't need to be at the table, it's you. But we're going to be there. And if you like it or not, our voices will be reflected at the negotiation tables. - You've said before that men with guns get to participate in peace talks because they're the ones fighting in the war, but women who are working to end the war continue to be excluded. What would that more meaningful participation look like to you? - We've rewarded warring parties. We've rewarded men with guns. We've rewarded violence. We're not just calling for the inclusion of women. We're calling for an inclusive process, a comprehensive peace process in Yemen that reflects the needs of the people who are fighting and the people who are victims of this fighting. So in the South, nobody would listen to them. They were not included. They kept on telling us this is not the time for the South right now. We have to deal with this. So the Southerners, they took up arms. They started using it by violence. And at the end, they started listening to the Southerners. And that, you know, shows you that we are rewarding violence. It's not effective. A real comprehensive peace process would reflect the issues and grievances that the people have, which they are fighting over. A real peace process would reflect on natural resources such as water and land, which are people fighting over. We have more than 4,000 deaths per year over just water disputes. And so we need something that really reflects on a bottom-up approach that really looks into the needs and grievances and drivers of conflict. But what we're doing now is just a handshake and a photon and then the next day they fight again is not reasonable and it's not effective. - And I'm curious how you create that political will for a better approach. - I really think that everybody is complicit to the war in Yemen and including international organizations. And whether we like it or not, everybody has a role in this war and everybody has a role to stop it. And I think that once we start pressuring the warring parties with more accountability measures and their guarantees or their supporters, because most of them are proxies in Yemen, that's one thing that I would push for. And I think that this happened during the national dialogue and it worked. The international community was united during the national dialogue. And that's why I think it was very successful. The international community over Yemen right now is in a dispute itself. The messages that are getting to the warring parties are not consistent, but at the same time, we still need a UN accountability measure that could hold people to their actions. And I think another point is, like I said, I will keep saying that we need to be more creative and think out of the box. - And I'm curious if I were to put you on the spot and say you are designated the UN Special Envoy, what's the first thing that you would do? - I think first of all, we need to adhere to alleviate the suffering on the ground. So first of all, bring an emergency ceasefire to allow at least the aid workers to be able to be safe and open some of the corridors. I think that it's a very tough job. And I do think that there is possibility for peace and prospects for peace in Yemen. I think one of the things that we need to start working with right now is to stop the invasion of Marib. This is a city where more than 1 million people are displaced. We lost three young children there because it was so cold in the displacement camps. I think the people need to realize that military action is not going to bring us anywhere. It's hurting everybody. It's even hurting the warring parties. So I would work on the inclusion of the civil society and let them lead local dialogues on the ground. I would also give more space for the tribal actors because they are really the ones who are mediating on the ground. They have really achieved a lot, especially in prisoner swaps and releasing detainees. I'd like to ask for a few reflections on your work in Korea. Having been caught in the crossfire more than once and when you're exposed to so much suffering of others, how do you personally cope? Yeah. Well, I think I have more than one coping mechanism. I really didn't think about myself, people like myself are always thinking of other people and then they get stuck in burnout. So I try to keep myself busy, reading a lot, playing with my birds. I think pets in my life have been a joy and have kept me also really at least the same. I think in a world where we really feel that everybody is pulling us to one warring party or the other, trying to mobilize us to work with them, it's really important that we also keep our sanity. Swimming is one of my great mediation, meditation hobbies that really keeps me also sane. I don't write as much as I should, but I think when I do, that's also something that really keeps me motivated. As a women peace builders, we just naturally just respond to crises. Even in the street here in Egypt, if something happens, I just immediately want to help. There's something that I read once by Sonia Johnson. This really reflected well on me. She says, "I'm a warrior in the time of women warriors. "The longing for justice is the sword I carry." And I think this has been my reality in Yemen and in my life for many years. Whether it's poetry verses or other things, what motivates you to keep going despite that violence and when you think that a situation can feel hopeless? I really think about the young children all the time. And I think that I really want them to have a different reality to what we have right now. And this is really something that really motivates me all the time. And of all those who you've met over the years, who have you learned the most from? Also from children. The way they are very selfless and think all the time, just to be happy and without any constraints. And their smiles are just such a motivator for me. We've seen children become so responsible in the community at such a young age that that in itself reflects to me that we as adults should do more to keep this community alive and better for them. On that note, Muna, thank you so much for being my guest in the Mediator Studio. Thank you so much, Adam. It's places like this and spaces like these that we need to alleviate the suffering of the people and to also amplify the voices and messages that local actors have. So I really appreciate all the work and efforts that you have done, you and the team behind the scenes. There we must end this edition of the Mediator Studio. To get new episodes as soon as they're released, make sure you subscribe. The Mediator Studio team loves hearing your feedback and suggestions. If you have a moment, please fill out our very short list and survey. You can find the link in the show notes and on our website. You can also get in touch with me on Twitter at AdamTalksP. The Mediator Studio is an Oslo forum podcast brought to you by the Center for Humanitarian Dialogue and the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Our managing editor is Christina Buchold and the show is produced by Christopher Gunness. Research for this episode was done by Evie Krasner and Jason Nemerovsky. Neither peacemaking nor podcast happen without lots of work behind the scenes. My thanks go to our whole production team in Geneva and in Oslo. I do hope that you'll join us for the next episode of the Mediator Studio. Until then, that's all from me, Adam Cooper. Thank you for listening.