For the
sake of truth
By
China
keitetsi
Excessive
love and unsatisfeable urge for power brings arrogance and carelessness as
demonstrated by the language used when talking about me, my kids, and
those who try to stand for the truth. This hate came only and after I
wrote a book about the wrong and abuse they committed against other
child-girl soldiers and boy child soldiers. Before I wrote the book, who
ever cared in the NRM government of AfandeYoweri Kaguta Museveni to tell
that I, China Keitetsi sold away my own blood: I mean my daughter? Now
they can tell you so much about me, but when I was being trained as a
child soldier, no one cared to ask about my back ground, or my age. How
could they have used a bad soldier as they say I was? How could they use a
bad soldier like me with hundreds of civilians that I used to escort
everyday from Karuma to Pakwach in the convoys? A good soldier and later a
good platoon sergeant I was. But now and today, the whole world is being
told that I am a bad former child soldier, and they only could tell you
this information now because of the book I wrote. Or who really ever cared
if I was a live and living, or dead and forgotten as it has happened to
many other former child soldiers. Who ever cared to know if my son was
okay since his father is dead, and I was no longer in Uganda. If I died,
no one today would have known about me or my name. After my book was
launched, then Uganda
government hurried out to tell how much it knows about me! I know Afande
Museveni will use anything and everything to make me look bad. Who would
love a girl who sells kids? Me too I would hate that girl. And that�s what
Afande Museveni wants you to think about and hate me!
They have
difficulties finding any lies in my book, and that�s why they have to use
my kids just to hurt me. The only way out is for them to twist the facts
in my book. In South
Africa and in
Europe no one is
allowed to sell and buy kids or even older people. It is a big crime and
you can�t even sell, and buy animals. I think that Afande Museveni thinks
that Ugandans are stupid people who don�t know the laws of
Europe. A
country like South
Africa their laws is the
same as in Europe. These
countries are much civilised, and everything that moves are protected, and
believe me, NO one will dare to buy a kid. Here they only allow adapting
children, and this too takes a lot of time to be proved by the Government.
Un like in Congo, and many
parts of Africa where
Children�s lives have become a waste. If you look at
Northern
Uganda, I am sure that many
people there might believe the story about me and my daughter, because of
so many deaths of their Children it could seem to them that a child�s life
is worth nothing to Afande Museveni.
I am
happy to say that my heart is happy, for I have stood and spoken about
what happened and what is still happening to thousands of other child
soldiers. I am only a girl who has stood firm with the truth, hoping that
one day my deceased comrades and those hundreds of girls and boys who I
last saw in Bombo women wing, Mubende Casualty wing, will see the light
through us who have and will continue to stand firm against those who arm
and use children to kill.
I wish
to tell you that I am in contact with the South Africa Embassy who is
helping me get my daughter. I never sold away my daughter. Even this
sentence to write it down makes my heart bleed. Afande Museveno and his
special team appointed to destroy me and my kids seem to take the lives of
children so low, they are not even ashamed to lie using my kids in such
words that can easily tear apart a mother�s heart. Afande Museveni thinks
that people are running around buying and selling children, and you can
even feel it in the tone of his voice. Recently after 200 were massacred
at Barlonyo in Lira, I was shocked to hear him say: The number was exaggerated, it was
only 80. What if it was four people killed, does the number really
matter. If he can say this about the 200 dead, then Afande Museveni can
also say I sold my daughter. It seems to me that Afande Museveni doesn�t
understand the feelings and limit of pain. Afande Museveni and his
committee formed to campaign against me should stop one thing, and that
is: leave my kids out, and alone from the media. I ask that nothing
whatsoever happens to my kids. Those lies about my kids will in future
disturb them, and this in my view is child abuse. My kids have a right to
their private life, until they are 18 years!
I am a
lonely mother, but also a child inside. Both my parents died. My mother
died in 1998, my father died in 1997, and now they are trying to change
the year of my dead father. They know that he is dead, so they can write
and tell anything about him, because he can�t talk. My three sisters died, one in 1991,
the other in 1994 and the third in 1999. Maggie left three children, and I
am proud and happy that I am looking after them, my kids and the children
of the world. I am doing everything in my right to see that every child do
not go through, nor see what I saw and what I went through. Every plan and
future of my kids, I have to make them as careful as I can because I am
alone, and this is not easy for a former child soldier girl with two kids
living without either father, because their father died while serving in
the army. I am so sad that Afande Museveni and his team keep on reminding
me of years and dates of my dead family members and those that I loved.
The knife that I still carry in my heart is enough to keep the wounds
fresh.
I am
also so surprised and hurt seeing the government of Uganda use a lot of
money and time to make the team fighting me travel around the world, while
so many children and women are dying every day of hunger, some in the
camps and others kidnapped for eighteen years, but when my book came out,
the time and money they have used in an attempt to destroy me would have
saved hundreds of children in the north of Uganda. If a government doesn�t
care about entire district in their country, would they care whether my
two kids grow up without both parents? Afande Museveni cannot even use the
money he is using to campaign against me to help the 300 girl soldiers who
were sent together with their children which they got from the army to
Bombo women�s wing and to those boys and girls who were sent to Mubende
causality wing.
In the
past they called me names such as Sarah which belonged to the child
soldier girl who died, they are even trying to rename my father and mother
too, going on to change everything of my past including the time and years
of my dead families, reminding me the loose of those that I loved but
lost. After reading and hearing all that the government says about me, it
seems as if Afande Museveni wants you the people of
Uganda and the
world to think of me as some kind of red eyed hairy elephant with red
horns. I am just me, one among the survived former child soldier of Afande
Musveni.
I end by
saying that I can write many pages, but at the end of the day it is what
will come for everyone to see, which will prove the love and the future
that I will give to my kids and other kids if only those men who have
destroyed hundreds and thousands of children will one day treat every
child as their own. Otherwise, no matter what you call me, no matter how
many knifes I am going to carry in my body, I will carry on working for
children until the last drop of my blood with the memories and the abuse
of my past, which has left me feeling like I am a hundred years old, yet
when I was ten I already had blood on my hands. How can anyone expect me
to stop just like that because of the ugly words used against me? The
memory of my past pains me more, than the baseless ugly words used against
me. If what they say was true, I would have long time ago given up. It
would not be easy to have a stand off with any government when armed with
lies. I hardly recognise my self when I saw the Documentary they made
about me. They show photos of me in military uniform, but all seem to be
computer graphic made up of a China Keitetsi.
For God
and my Country
China
Keitesi
