‘In order to make us much more skilled at carrying out this dirty work, our recruiters succeeded in awakening in us the animal instinct,’ a former child soldier who was sent to the front at the age of 12, made a speech at the UN Security Council.
When he was 12, Nzita Nsuami was taken as a volunteer just from the school he attended in Congo. Although the country is rich in resources, its population has been suffering for decades due to local conflicts, struggle for power and mayhem of armed groups.
“I am speaking here to you today because I lived through these torments myself. And I still have difficulty in finding the right words to describe this ordeal which stole my childhood from me. I was a victim of recruitment by the armed group that is called the Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo, which was created in North Kivu in order to overthrow the dictatorial regime of President Mobutu. I was 12 years old. I and several of my friends were recruited by force in our school and we waged war in spite of ourselves in order to overthrow the Mobutu regime.
The recruiters gave us rapid training. They sent us to the front. We killed, we looted and destroyed infrastructures which were useful to the population. We did all that was asked of us, violating the rules of international humanitarian law. We transported cases of ammunition and walked thousands of kilometers with just one belief – we must fire on everything that moves out of fear that we will be fired upon. Innocent lives were destroyed for no reason. Please allow me to reiterate my apologies for all of the harm that we caused to our fellow human beings. I continue to regret it.
In order to make us much more skilled at carrying out this dirty work, our recruiters succeeded in awakening in us the animal instinct that was slumbering in there. In the magic ceremonies, they convinced us that we were invincible, but the reality always showed us that the opposite was true.
Many of my brothers in arms are no longer with us. They were killed after climbing too high on the ladder of violence. I was associated with this group for 10 years and I waged war for three years. And the hardest was to see young children of my age playing on a football field not far from an area where I was standing guard. On a night when I was standing guard in the cold outside the gate, I saw again the image of these children who were playing and pain in my heart. My eyes full of tears, I asked softy, ‘Oh God, what did I do so that I can’t be like them’.”
