Child Soldier Tells of Battle Horrors
Witness describes attack on Catholic mission, in which he said victims’ faces were mutilated.
Child Soldier Tells of Battle Horrors
Witness describes attack on Catholic mission, in which he said victims’ faces were mutilated.
“We would jump over bodies,” he said of one battle. “We had killed a lot of people.”
The witness was in primary school and about 11-years-old at the time.
Departing from usual procedure, Presiding Judge Adrian Fulford allowed the boy to tell his story without any questions from the prosecution or defence. Unnecessary court officers were removed from the court and the witness was shielded from Lubanga’s direct view.
The defendant, however, watched the witness on his computer screen, and remained stone faced throughout the boy’s testimony.
Lubanga is the former president of the Union of Congolese Patriots, UPC, political party and its military arm, the Patriotic Forces for the Liberation of Congo, FLPC.
He is charged with recruiting, conscripting and using child soldiers under the age of 15 to fight in the ethnic conflicts that raged in the Ituri region of the Democratic Republic of Congo during 2002 and 2003.
The former child soldier remained nameless until February 10, when he was given the pseudonym “Dieumerci”, which means “thank God” in French. As he delivered his testimony in Swahili, his face and voice were digitally distorted to those watching from the public gallery.
Dieumerci described a day in late 2002 when he and his five friends were kidnapped on their way home from school by UPC soldiers.
“[The soldiers] said, ‘You, children, we’re going to take you,’” he said. “If anyone tried to talk, they were beaten.”
The beatings worsened once they arrived at the camp, he said. The recruits were struck with wooden sticks for even the most minor of offences, including sickness or exhaustion, he said, and were also beaten if they could not complete a training exercise, misplaced their weapon, or tried to escape.
“Sometimes [recruits] were beaten by three people at the same time,” he said. “If [you] screamed, they beat you harder.”
The blows were such that they scarred the witness’s legs and feet, he said. Photographs of the scarring were entered into evidence, but not shown to those in the public gallery.
Dieumerci described the poor living conditions in the camp, including cramped sleeping quarters exposing them to the rain.
“They didn’t care whether we had enough to eat or not,” he added.
Dieumerci said that all the recruits in the camp, including young children, were trained to use heavy weapons and eventually given military uniforms.
He described several battles, in particular the ambush of a Catholic mission.
“We went to the mission and killed those there, also the priests,” he said. “We cut their mouths off and destroyed their faces.”
The witness remained with the militia, he said, until his father managed to find him at a market in a nearby town. The father and son returned to Bunia and settled there, but Dieumerci later was caught by soldiers in Lubanga’s militia while he was visiting relatives.
The soldiers considered him a deserter and beat him. “To beat people is their work,” Dieumerci said.
He was kept as a prisoner in yet another training camp until his father was able to pay for his freedom. After that, he went through a demobilisation process with a humanitarian aid group.
At the end of his nearly one-hour narrative, deputy prosecutor Fatou Bensouda asked how he felt on the day he recanted his testimony in court.
“A lot of things went through my mind,” he replied. “I got angry and I wasn’t able [to testify].”
A representative of victims in the case, Luc Walleyn, asked the witness about the mental and physical consequences of his experience.
“The weapon I used impaired my sight…and I have pain in my ears,” the witness said. “What is more, I’m still uneducated.”
In the cross-examination, defence lawyer Marc DeSalliers questioned details of the witness’s testimony.
DeSalliers asked about the “exact spot” where he was reunited with his father.
“It’s difficult to give you the exact address,” the young man said, adding that the events happened several years ago.
DeSalliers also asked why at the time, the other UPC recruits let him go with his father and didn’t tell the commanders.
“The same thing could happen to them,” Dieumerci said. “They could meet their family and I wouldn’t intervene.”
His evidence was corroborated by his father who on February 9 finished four days of testimony about his son’s kidnapping and military conscription.
Dieumerci’s testimony was followed by that of a former high-ranking political official in the UPC.
The official’s appearance provoked a strong reaction from Lubanga, who was visibly shaken and abruptly walked out of the courtroom.
The unnamed witness told the court that Lubanga personally used child soldiers as bodyguards.
“As president he had bodyguards. There were adults, but also young persons serving as bodyguards,” the man said. His exact role in the UPC was not disclosed.
“When you have a young person as a bodyguard, he doesn’t have anyone [else] to look after. That’s why we preferred [children].”
Rachel Irwin is an IWPR reporter in The Hague.
For daily updates from the Lubanga trial please see www.lubangatrial.org
