Keitetsi - Child Soldier

I would like to dedicate this book to all child soldiers who are still alive, and those who couldnt make it. May God rest your souls in peace.

I would also like to take this opportunity, and say goodbye to my sons father; late Lt-Colonel Moses Drago Kaima. And to Major-General Fred Rwigyema, Uncle Caravel, my sister Helen, my sister Margie, my sister Grace, my mother; Lt-Colonel Bruce, Lt-Colonel Benon Tumukunde, Major Moses Kanabi, Major Bunyenyezi, Captain Kayitare, Afande Ndugute, Corporal Kabawo, Private Sharp, and all the other brave soldiers of the NRA, who decided to give their lives for the sake of Ugandas people. It is so hard that you all have gone, but I just have to stay strong and try to prevent this from happening again.

Child Soldier, China Keitetsis heart-rending story of her early years, is told entirely in her own idiom. The language she spoke as a child was Kinyankole, and she learned English after she escaped from Uganda to South Africa.

I am China Keitetsi, a former child soldier from Uganda, in East Africa. My country is bordering Kenya, Tanzania, Sudan, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. In 1999 I was resettled in Denmark by the United Nations. My story is about my life as a child soldier in Yoweri K. Musevenis National Resistance Army (NRA) now known as the Uganda Peoples Democratic Front (UPDF).

This is how it all started for me writing this book. The head of the integration office of my Danish Commune, Birgitte Knudsen, suggested that I wrote down all the pain that I felt, assuring me that that was the way to help myself through. She said this, because every time I was sad and frightened of the nightmares, I always called her, and it did not matter whether it was at night or the weekend. I did as I was told and, as I wrote, tears seemed to run with no end. I wrote as I cried. The more I wrote, the more I felt a little bit relieved, and I could not stop. When the pages were more than 150, I told Knud Held Hansen, the man who is like a father to me. He said, Oh! You are writing a book, and for the first time I realised, that it actually could become a book, but one question remained. I could not imagine that I, China, who looked upon myself as something that didnt matter, like an unwanted piece of paper that you wouldnt want to read and would just throw away, could write a book. I didnt think about the book, I just wrote for the sake of emptying myself of the stones that I could feel breaking my shoulders.

The book has helped me come to terms with my past, and helped me come closer to myself. Because of this book, now I see so many things that I always passed without noticing. Even the plants in my home made me realise the innocence of the trees and the grass that I have left behind in a place that I once walked as a soldier. This made me feel good, because now I hoped that in my dreams, I might begin to dream the dreams of the innocent: the dreams of a normal child.

The reaction I have got [after publication of my book in Denmark] is beyond my expectations. Actually I never felt any reactions at first. People write to me from around the world through mail, e-mail, or by signing the guest book at my website. Everyone seems very touched and ready to save someones child from walking along the same long road as mine. My story seems to reach everyone disregarding rank in society. So far I have met presidents, actors and top national governments and UN officials, like the Secretary-General of UN Kofi Annan, Olara Otunnu of Children in Armed Conflicts, Nelson Mandela, Bill Clinton, Whoopi Goldberg, Harrison Ford, Robert De Niro, even Graca Machel, and Queen Sylvia of Sweden. My meeting with Nelson Mandela was unforgettable. When I entered I found myself holding my mouth, speechless, and my head dropped to his chest, and my tears had already begun to drop. I cant find more words to describe how I felt at that moment but the answer is felt by my heart. Mandela said: I have written a poem for you (for my friend Ishmael and me). Now you have to listen as I read it to you. I watched him as he read words of love and peace and my tears just dropped. And now I couldnt work out whether I was extremely happy or whether I was remembering my every pain. They were feelings that might have remained inside of me for ever, feelings that I could not express in writing, because me and the pen had been kept apart.

In Denmark, life is treated differently. Every living thing has rights. When I arrived here, I learned my human rights, but still I was afraid to say: No! I thought I would be punished as before, so I had to say: Yes, sir without a question. Later my psychologist and doctor helped me to stop calling people sir. Now Im no longer ordered who to kill or hate, as in the army, but the most beautiful of all, is that I no longer had to live my life for others, and no force makes me act against my will, but most of all, I didnt miss my gun, because everything in Denmark is peaceful.

Despite all this new freedom, my fear seems to be permanent. I still feel the abuse and humiliation, scars which my body still carries, scars that sometimes make me feel like washing off my skin. It feels like a mark for life. In my sleep, I still see the shadows of my fellow child soldiers and friends, who ended their own lives with their gun in order to escape the torture of the enemies, the torture of suspected civilians, and the unmarked graves of my fallen comrades. I still see the dark rooms of the military police and those we tortured there; I still see their eyes. The dreams are real. I still see the same gun, the same uniform, and the same faces; the fear I had to carry every day of the desperation I saw in almost any soldier. That desperation often betrayed the innocent, as everyone struggled to find favours among their superiors.

Now I am like a child who needs nice stories before falling asleep. Im sure that my dreams will never be free before the 300,000 other child soldiers are free from the orders of their creators. The love I have is mostly for the kids, because innocence is love to me. Now Im left in the world to count the loss. Its us who lost our childhood, and the dignity of a woman, and its us who lost our clear dreams, its us who remain hating our skin and its us with no thoughts of a child; or grown-up thoughts, yet we are already mothers and fathers to the child given to us by men the same age as our fathers. I used to smoke with my friends, but here I am smoking alone, and the cigarette doesnt taste the same. My eyes look up in the sky, and all that I see is the moving clouds, and not my friends, and those that I loved. My childhood is long forgotten. Sometimes I feel as if I am six years old, and again its like I am 100 years old. With the love of the world, let me hope for a day where I will dream, and feel, as you.

C.K.

(Email: )

2003

My gratitude goes to: The Danish people and their government, my new family the Hansens, United Nations staff in South Africa, N. Omutoni, Richard, Robert, Emanuel, Lucky Dube, Thor Kujahn Ehlers, Jens Runge Poulsen and his family, Melissa Stetson, my teacher Sren Jesperson, Birgitte Knudsen, Eskil Brown, Sren Louv, Pia Gruhn, Dennis Hansen, Kenneth Hansen, Lisa and Kenneth, my doctor Lill Moll Nielsen, Lars Koberg, and my late mother.

C.K.

2003

My Birth Mother

Madness in the House

The Lions Mother

Mother

Dangerous Mind

The Bees

Four Beautiful Kids

From Far-Off Dreams

Holding on to the Rope

The Truth about Mother

Impossible Fight against Unwanted Eyes