|
Louko Fabien should be playing with his friends at
home or at school, or probably helping his parents with domestic chores, but he
is wielding an AK 47 gun at a tender age of 10.
Clad in an oversize military fatigue, his AK 47 and his boots are no doubt a daily burden to carry. The horrific experiences in various wars in the eastern DR Congo constitute Fabien�s childhood memories. For the two weeks I was in the north-eastern town of Bunia, about 50km from the western border of Uganda, I saw tens of child soldiers in rebel ranks of Union de Patriotes Congolaise (of Thomas Lubanga). I met Fabien almost everyday. He is one of the escorts of one of the commanders I only got to know as Ali. Ali moves in an old Toyota Land Cruiser with about seven escorts, three of whom, including Fabien, are child soldiers. �My other name is �Rambo.� I�m 10 years old. I enjoy the military. We move in this vehicle everyday with Afande Ali,� Fabien told me in a sweet tender voice. His intelligence is shocking and his respect for those around him is disarming. He is apparently happy, totally brainwashed about his (otherwise) hopeless situation. �My father died in 1999 in the war when the Lendu militias attacked our home,� said Fabien, a Hema by tribe. The Hema are traditional enemies of the Lendu. �I was only left with my mother who is very poor, so I take some little money home when I get it,� he said. So how did young �Rambo� get into the life of child soldiering? �Tibasiima (once rebel leader) took us to Kyankwazi (in Uganda) and Ugandan soldiers trained us how to fight,� Fabien said brandishing his AK 47 assault rifle with three magazines fastened to it. He was one of the 163 child soldiers trained by the Uganda forces in 2000 to fight in the multi-dimensional conflict in eastern DR Congo. UNICEF visited Kyankwanzi in February 2002 and reported that it had �identified and registered 163 children from Congo Kinshasa (DRC) who had been housed in the political education school since August 2000.� Currently in Bunia, there is a force of over 15,000 soldiers, according to rebel leader Lubanga. �Half of the force here is composed of child soldiers,� a UN military observer in Bunia said. �I even saw a child who told me he was nine.� �We have reports that these boys, and sometimes girls, are abducted and forced into armed rebellion,� said an apparently emotional MONUC officer, who preferred anonymity. MONUC is a UN military team monitoring the DR Congo peace process. The rebel commanders are elusive when put to task to explain why they have child soldiers within their ranks. Lubanga, for example, when once queried about child soldiers, asked for a list of questions in advance so he could prepare the answers; but when the response was brought back, the question on child soldiers had been deleted. �No questions out of this, please,� the MONUC official quotes him as having said. �I automatically knew he was aware of his violation of children�s rights,� the official observes. In RCD-Kisangani, another rebel faction led by Mbusa Nyamwisi, child combatants are the commonest security seals around senior commanders. One of the commanders of Mbusa�s forces, Bwambale Kakolele said, �We take the [child] soldiers back to school after the war because their parents in most cases have died, so they have no one to go back to.� But the MONUC official says this is a blatant lie because war in DR Congo has been ongoing and has not yet stopped. Actually some fighting groups like RCD-Goma and Movement for the Liberation of Congo (MLC) are honest enough not to attempt to claim any educational plans for child soldiers. The issue of child soldiers remains a real thorn in the flesh of Africa, especially in conflict areas, and no practical solution seems to be in the offing. In the ranks of the Mai Mai, the Hema and Lendu militias, thousands of children continue to serve as soldiers, spies, and sexual slaves in this unfortunate region of the DR Congo. Some children volunteer to join the rebel ranks to escape poverty. Others are lured by ethnic, religious and political appeals. But a majority of them are forced into the ranks. Nobody is sure when the conflict in DR Congo will end. As long as it lasts, the future of Fabien and many more of his kind remains bleak and blank. The Mulindwas
communication group
"With Yoweri Museveni, Uganda is in anarchy" |
