Gunplay Part II

With the help of aid agencies, child soldiers in the eastern Congo are leaving the ranks and reuniting with their families. But the memories and the nightmares are never far behind.

(Note: This is the second of two parts. Names of the children in this story have been changed and their faces have been obscured to protect them from kidnappings or reprisals.)

EASTERN CONGO - This was Claude's mistake: His brother had been killed by antigovernment rebels. When he began asking questions about it, they forced him to join their uprising.

He was only 11. After three months of training, they sent him to the front lines to a place called "Gamina" to fight.

"I never accepted it," he says. "I never believed in what I was being told to do. I'm not a killer, but once others are shooting at you, you have to shoot back."

Claude, now 19, may not have wanted to become a killer, but in his seven years under arms -- first with the rebels that toppled dictator Mobutu Sese Seko, and later integrated into the Congolese army -- he became a very good one.

His young face is tired and drawn. His words are sad and deliberate.

I ask him how many men he has killed. Five, he says.

"But when I killed it was because of the drugs."

A concoction of hashish, khat (a plant stimulant) and a small amount of gunpowder, Claude tells me, is what they used to smoke.

"It takes away your fear," he says. "Once you decide to hurt someone, you hurt them. Once you decide to kill someone, you kill them."

But one killing specifically stays in his mind, one that he can't escape. It was not during a firefight; it was simply murder.

"As soldiers, we often didn't get paid," Claude says, "so my friends and I would use our guns to rob people. One night we robbed a very rich man. We took his money, his watch, his jewelry. Everything we wanted. Then we shot and killed him."

Claude pauses, then says, "It's that one I see at night. I see his face. He comes to me in my dreams asking for his things back."

I ask him what he does to try to make the nightmares stop.

"My father tells me to go to the maribou [magician] and ask for help, but instead I ask him to take me to the church where I pray during the day and where I sleep every night."

It's only in the church, he says, where the spirit of the man can't get to him.

The aid agency International Rescue Committee (IRC) has already helped 800 child soldiers like Claude begin their transition back to civilian life through a nine-step program that includes everything from foster care to vocational training.

The IRC has placed Claude in an apprenticeship program in auto mechanics, giving him an identity and a purpose that may help him transcend the nightmares that come from living half his life as a soldier.

Andrea De Domenico, the IRC regional coordinator for part of the eastern Congo, says skill training is an essential part of successfully reuniting these child soldiers with their families.

"One of the difficulties we see after reunification," says De Domenico, "is that the families can't afford to feed another child and so they may not want them back. They need a skill that will help them, as well as help their families, otherwise they could become a street kid or even go back to being a soldier."

Fifteen-year-old Pascal is working as a carpenter's apprentice for his uncle who says he sees a big change in the boy.

"He used to refuse to do things when he was asked," says Leon Yuma. "But now he volunteers for everything. Our shop is open at half past seven in the morning. Pascal is here at six."

Despite trying to lose himself in the hammering and sawing, Pascal still shows signs of being a hard case.

He shrugs with nonchalance as he tells me of joining the Mai Mai, a group of fierce fighters who use magic spells they believe will make them impenetrable to bullets.

He is detached, unemotional as he explains how he avenged two deaths in his mother's family by killing two men from a rival militia.

"When you see your enemies, you must kill them. Otherwise you will be killed."

But the violence hasn't escaped his subconscious. "I dreamed of the fighting for a while," he says, "but not anymore."

"How long did you dream about it?" I ask.

"Just a month," he shrugs, again. "I only left because I wasn't getting paid," he says of the Mai Mai. "I would've stayed if the money had been better."

In another part of town, while his brothers and sisters play outside, 17-year-old Paulin is in his house talking with his parents, something he had not been able to do for three years.

On his way to school one day, Paulin was kidnapped by Uganda-backed rebels operating in eastern Congo. He was made to do everything from cooking beans and porridge for the soldiers to guarding their camp.

When

"The first time I saw him I burst into tears," says his mother. "For us Africans, the joy is always mixed with sadness."

His father says he will make sure his son doesn't end up a soldier again.

"I will talk with him and ask him to go to school," he says. "That will help for the future, not the military. The military is death."

But for some child soldiers, living with their families again may not be possible.

"My family has rejected me," says 13-year-old Antoine, sitting in one of the classrooms at the IRC's youth center.

He had been raised by an aunt but fled her home at the age of nine, he says, after she burned his hand with wood from their cooking fire -- a punishment for stealing.

Antoine was taken in by the ethnic Hema militia and spent three years as a soldier, exposed daily to drugs and violence. He was even shot in the forearm by a member of his own group.

Again, through help from the U.N., he was able to leave the militia and was placed in the care of IRC members who tracked down his extended family.

One of the IRC's case workers, Bibiche Lulu, says at first things went very well. "They were very happy to see him and everything seemed good. But when we followed up a month later things had changed."

The family felt Antoine was a burden, another mouth to feed when they could barely afford to feed the children they already had.

"It's a nightmare scenario," says De Domenico. "But even after all the time and effort, you have to keep working, maybe looking for other family members that will take him."

Inside the bare, brick walls of the youth center, Antoine clucks his tongue sadly. "Sometimes when you're in a good place, you make good decisions, but when you're in a bad place you make bad decisions."

He drops his head into his chest. "Going back with the soldiers would be a bad decision, but my family has rejected me. I don't know what else to do."

He seems on the verge of tears, this boy who once carried a gun as large as himself.

De Domenico gathers him in a hug, comforts him, touches the scar on his arm and assures him there will be more to his life than just the violence he has known so far.

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