Witnesses Speak of Training Camp Floggings

Two former Congolese child soldiers told a trial in The Hague this week of the severe punishments meted out to them during training at militia camps in the east of the country.



They were speaking in the trial of Thomas Lubanga, the former president of the Union of Congolese Patriots, UPC, militia who faces charges of recruiting, conscripting and using child soldiers to fight in the inter-ethnic conflict in the Ituri region of the Democratic Republic of Congo, DRC, during 2002 and 2003.



The witnesses, whose identities were protected with voice and face distortion, said they were routinely flogged in the UPC camps. The flogging was meted out regardless of age or gender, they said.



“They punished us by putting us in ... holes and you had to keep standing,” said one of the witnesses. He added that recruits who committed offences were forced to roll in dirty water.



The defence questioned the witnesses about the circumstances surrounding their capture by militiamen.



One of the victims testified that UPC fighters abducted him and took him to a prison and then to a camp, where he underwent military training under brutal conditions.



He said at the training camps they were taught how to assemble and dismantle sub-machine guns, and those who failed these exercises were whipped. Those who did not obey commanders' orders were also whipped, he said.



The other witness said that he was abducted while he was returning home from school and taken to a training camp near the town of Bule. The witness said the militiamen refused to say where they were taking him, and instead simply insisted that he go along with them.



There was some confusion over dates, when Marc Desalliers, Lubanga's lawyer, asked one of the witnesses whether he was indeed abducted in the second part of February 2003 as he had told court earlier.



"Today we are in 2010. It would be impossible for me to say whether it was at the end or the beginning [of the month]," the witness said. "That question seems to be difficult for me and I can't give an answer, except an erroneous one."



The victim could also not recall the month and date he left the militia, nor could he tell how long he spent with the UPC.



"We understand obviously that with questions about dates and ages particularly years ago you are not going to remember easily," Judge Sir Adrian Fulford said. "Don't be embarrassed when this happens... obviously do your best and answer questions the best you can, but take all the time you need to answer Mr Desalliers’s questions."



The witness said neither his abductors nor his trainers ever asked his age. He said the same punishments were meted out to recruits in UPC training camps regardless of their age or gender.



Prosecutor Olivia Struyven asked the witness the ages of the trainees at the camp. He said he could not tell their ages, except to say that some were his age and others were older. The witness did not give his age in public session but described himself as having been a child soldier. Much of his testimony was in private session.



The witness told the court that, during an attack on the town of Bunia, he and some other boys worked as scouts and indicated the position of the UPC's enemies to the rest of the fighters. He said he was shot in the foot during the Bunia battle.



In another battle at Mongwalu, he said he was tasked with carrying bags containing ammunition to the battlefront. He said some boys of his age carried guns to the Bunia and Mongwalu battles and took part in the fighting. He did not say whether he ever fired a gun while he was with the UPC.



IWPR's weekly updates of the Thomas Lubanga trial are produced in co-operation with the Open Society Justice Initiative of the Open Society Institute, OSI. Daily coverage of the trial can be found at www.lubangatrial.org.