Child Soldiers Recount First Killings

Two former Congolese child soldiers in Thomas Lubanga’s militia this week told the International Criminal Court, ICC, about the first time they killed others in battle and how they are haunted by the memories.



Testifying in Swahili, both said fear of being shot by their commanders deterred them from fleeing gruesome training camps and combat situations in the Democratic Republic of Congo, DRC.



One of the unidentified witnesses told of being abducted by Thomas Lubanga’s militia, the Patriotic Forces for the Liberation of Congo, at the age of 13, and of being trained for just a month before being sent to fight.



The witness's first battle was in the town of Lipi and their ethnic Lendu opponents were armed only with bows and arrows - and the witness recalled shooting a man using his sub-machine gun, the court heard.



“Do you know what happened to the person who you hit?” asked Deputy Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda.



“When I shot at him, I saw the person fall down. I was shaking from head to toe, and I felt very cold,” said the witness.



“Can you tell us why you were shaking?” asked the prosecutor.



“Because it was the first time I had killed someone,” replied the witness.



“I continued shooting, but I don’t know if my bullets hit people.”



The witness spoke of not being aware of what the other child soldiers were doing with their guns at the time.



“In war everybody is worried about their [own] security,” the witness said. “I could not look left and right. If I had done that, I could have been shot by a bullet.”



The child soldier was shot in the leg in a subsequent battle and received rudimentary treatment before being sent to fight again. Other battles were against Ugandan troops and what the witness described as “French forces”.



Earlier, a witness, given the name of Patrick by the court, told defence lawyer Marc Desalliers how he felt the first time he killed.



“Killing someone is not a good thing,” Patrick said. “When I shot and saw I had hit someone, and he fell down, it made me dizzy. Afterwards I came to. Then I said, if I run away, I am going be in danger, so I had to continue. But it disturbed me; my mind wasn’t working very well.”



Once in battle, he said, it was hard to stop shooting, “If you didn’t shoot at the enemy, the enemy would fire at you and you would die, and that is what would give you the strength to continue.”



Patrick said he was haunted by memories of war, “I have bad memories … and that has caused great of delay in the development of my life. I am behind in my schooling. I also have the impression that my mind doesn’t work as it should.”



Patrick said he was taken into Lubanga's militia in 2002, but deserted in July 2003 after involvement in four battles.



Although girls in the military camps also received military training, Patrick said he did not see them fighting. They cooked and slept with the commanders, he said.



The other unnamed witness also said that while at the militia’s training camp at Rwampara “our commanders would take women (recruits) and sleep with them”.



The witness also stated that those at the training camps and used in the fighting were younger than 13 years of age. “Some recruits were younger than I was, some were older, and others were my age,” the witness said.



Both witnesses said they had no choice but to fight for the militia once ordered to do so.



“If someone refused to follow the orders, he would be killed,” said the unnamed former child soldier. In some instances, the witness said, those who disobeyed orders were flogged.



The prosecution suffered a setback when prosecutor Nicole Samson announced that two of its witnesses would not testify due to security concerns.



The prosecution also said it had canceled an additional two witnesses, because previous witnesses had covered the issues on which they were expected to testify.



The witnesses stated that the militia was led by Lubanga and his top commanders were Bosco Ntaganda and Floribert Kisembo.



Both testified that Ntaganda provided arms to the militia, organised transport to battle zones, and gave orders to lower-ranking commanders.



The ICC last year issued a warrant of arrest for Ntaganda, who remains at large in DRC.



Wairagala Wakabi is a Ugandan journalist covering the trial of Thomas Lubanga for IWPR-The Netherlands.