War Don Don: New Film Puts War Crimes Tribunals on Trial

The most powerfully transformative feat of the new documentary film WAR DON DON (meaning "war is over" in Sierra Leone's Krio language) is that director-producer Rebecca Richman Cohen presents war crimes tribunals as a productive problem rather than a quick solution to armed conflicts.

After winning accolades from Human Rights Watch and film festivals nationally, Cohen's debut airs on Wednesday, September 29 at 8pm on HBO2, and if you're at all concerned with how the international community deals with war crimes beyond Naomi Campbell's wardrobe, WAR DON DON is a must-watch. On behalf of Change.org, I asked Cohen (also a Harvard Law graduate) about her experience in making the film, but a few opening remarks are in order.

The film follows the war crimes trial of Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebel leader Issa Sesay, a lifetime militant who, as the civil war in Sierra Leone was ending in 2001, put his life at risk to successfully disarm the RUF. The U.S. and U.K. invested most of the $200 million to establish and run the tribunal, which has since been used to try other African leaders. Several of the many Sierra Leoneans interviewed wondered if food, shelter and sanitation would have been a better use of the funds. The country is the third-poorest in the world.

Make no mistake, the tribunal was no Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), even if the TRC was an obvious model. The Nuremberg Trials of Nazis explicitly won on that count.

Watching self-righteous prosecutors like Stephen Rapp (who was recently appointed Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes Issues by President Obama) exhibit a stunning selective amnesia, conveniently forgetting hundreds of years of colonialism as well as current disproportionate and misdirected military action that has cost millions of lives, is deeply troubling. No tribunals have yet been held for these ongoing atrocities. If and when China and India decide to set up similar tribunals in Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam, Japan, and several South American and African countries, I would relish watching Rapp or any of the Sesay prosecutors defend the accused war criminals.

The key moment in the film, for me, comes when during an outreach session of the tribunal, a middle aged man in a small crowd beside a dilapidated building asks how the tribunal will balance Sesay's violent acts as a rebel leader with his peace work in disarming the rebel group. One of the interviewees goes on to call Sesay's mass disarmament a "small counterweight" to his crimes. The tribunal's representative explains to the crowd that these are called "mitigating circumstances," which in the guilty findings meant nothing. That they are, but they are also the circumstances that make up humanity as a whole, and especially living leaders of certain powerful developed countries.

Antony Adolf: What motivated you to make this film?

Rebecca Richman Cohen: My background is actually in law – not film.  In law school I worked on a criminal defense team at the Special Court for Sierra Leone.  It’s the same court profiled in the film -- but I worked on the trial of a different warring faction.  During that time I had a really unique opportunity to be exposed first hand to the inner-workings of the Court and I gained an intimate view of process in a way that would be difficult if I were just a journalist airdropped in to tell a specific story.

Working at the Special Court, I came to know lawyers on the prosecution and the defense of Issa Sesay’s trial.  And it seemed that both sides had some of the brightest and most impassioned lawyers I’ve ever met.  I was fascinated by the moral, political, and legal questions that their commitments evoked.  Combining my legal experience in criminal defense with my background as a filmmaker, I realized that a documentary film could capture the complexities of the issues in way that neither law review articles nor mainstream media could accurately represent.

Antony Adolf: What issues does the film raise and how does it address them?

Rebecca Richman Cohen: WAR DON DON is a film about the complexity of justice and the challenges of creating an accurate historical record through a trial. As filmmakers, we employed various stylistic devices to push certain themes.  The film’s editor/producer, Francisco Bello, was struck by the texture of the archival footage that we were amassing.  Much of the war footage was archived on badly degraded VHS tapes – to the extent that it almost appeared painterly as edges softened and colors blurred.  So it was really satisfying to see the sharpness of our original high definition footage contrasted against the fuzziness of the historical archives.  The juxtaposition of formats made a cinematic point about the decay of historical memory, and allowed us to play with structure, content and textures accordingly.  It showed that historical truth can be elusive, particularly you’re using an adversarial process to try and figure out a very complicated history.

Antony Adolf: How did you, the people you work with, and the subjects of the film transform during the filming?

Rebecca Richman Cohen: I’m not sure if people transformed per se, but my understanding of events and my perspectives on issues certainly evolved a great deal as we got deeper into the story.  My own assumptions about the war and those who fought in it were constantly tested.  In many ways, I felt like the more I learned, the less I knew.  So we decided to make a film about the difficulty of creating a historical record, instead of a film that attempts to create a solid historical record.

We did a great many rough cut screenings with different audiences – Sierra Leoneans and Westerners, lawyers and lay people, filmmakers, and students.  I knew we were done editing when different people took away different things from the film – when the film acted like a Rorschach test of sorts.  Different audiences will come to their own conclusions – and one of the greatest joys of documentary filmmaking is the debate that arises from having to sort through the tensions within and between conflicting stories.  I hope audiences enjoy having some of their assumptions tested and come to examine their own reactions to controversial issues.  Making the film certainly tested my own assumptions.

Antony Adolf: What practical lessons can be drawn from the film?

Rebecca Richman Cohen: I think we have a great deal to learn from the experience of the Special Court for Sierra Leone.  As the Court wraps up its final trial, it has a great deal of accomplishments to celebrate, but we can also look critically at some of the ways international criminal tribunals could be improved in the future.  I think we need to have more honest expectations about what these tribunals can do, and what is simply beyond their capacity.

Photo Credit: Salone Films LLC (Mongolian peacekeepers protect the Special Court.)