ANGOLA-POLITICS: Child Soldiers Die in a War no One Talks About

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Louis Okamba

CUTO, Angola, May 24 1996 (IPS) - It’s a war whose echoes rarely reach the outside world but for the Front for the Liberation of the Enclave of Cabinda (FLEC-FAC), theirs is a do-or-die struggle to free their territory from the rest of Angola.

Die they do, although there are few reliable body counts. And some of the victims are child soldiers like 16-year-old Cristiano Massanga, whom IPS met in this small village of about 500 people located in the Cabindese forest.

That was on Sunday May 19. Cristiano and a few of his comrades were keeping watch as the Angolan Armed Forces (FAA), posted just about 800 metres away, fired at Cuto with 82-mm cannons.

“They are poor shots,” the youth told a group of foreign journalists, including this correspondent. “They can’t even hit the chicken coops. They shoot at us every day but people here are not afraid. Only the chickens — they hide every time those playthings (the cannon) make a noise.

“But the day we get some, things will be different because we know the bush. It’s is our territory. And we know exactly where the enemy is.”

Cristiano Massanga will never see that day. According to FLEC- FAC military operations chief Boniface Tchicaya, he and another young combattant were cut down by Kalachnikov bullets on the morning of May 20 during a firefight with an FAA unit just about 100 metres from Cuto.

“The fighting was really tough,” said Tchikaya. “Our forces defended themselves well and were able to contain the ‘invader’.”

Cabinda, a 7,200-sq. km enclave just south of Congo, is separated from the rest of Angola by a narrow band of Zairean territory. The some 300,000 Cabindans, who make up less than three percent of Angola’s population of 10.5 million, have more in common, culturally and by way of language, with their neighbours to the north than with other Angolans, a fact the rebels like to point out.

During Angola’s war of liberation from Portuguese rule, which ended in 1975, the FLEC sought independence for Cabinda whereas the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), which now governs Angola, has always opposed the separation of the oil- rich enclave.

While the 19-year war between the FAA and the main Angolan rebel force, the Union for the Total Liberation of Angola (UNITA) ended in 1994 following protracted negotiations brokered by international mediators, the conflict in Cabinda has dragged on, attracting little attention outside of the enclave.

FLEC, which later became FLEC-FAC, has stuck to its original demand. Unlike other groups that have accepted the autonomy offered to the territory by the MPLA government, it wants nothing short of independence for Cabinda and claims to have freed 340 sq. kms of the enclave, mainly forested areas such as Cujo.

But its leaders have tended to play down the fact that many of the combattants they depend on to carry on a struggle that has lasted more than two decades are children. During visits to the insurgents’ camps, IPS saw quite a few teenagers bearing arms.

“From the time they go to primary school they are educated on the need to sacrifice themselves for the ‘nation’,” explained one man who gave his name as Clement B. “As a result, they don’t baulk at anything and disregard any physical danger. Dying for Cabinda is their contribution. Moreover, their parents encourage them to make that supreme sacrifice and they’re proud of it.”

Some start at a tender age. Twenty-one year old Antoine Sita said he had been carrying out “suicide” missions since he was eleven and bagged his first FAA soldier two months after he joined up.

“I had to make up my mind to kill so as to live because the enemy was aiming at me,” he said. “Now I don’t hesitate when I put my finger on the trigger. It doesn’t make me happy, but I kill to survive and to free my country from occupation.”

Sylvestre Tongo (15) also chose to risk his life in a war decided by adults and almost lost it. He was wounded in the leg by shrapnel on the night of May 19 in Katabuanga, 150 km from Cuto.

According to Dr. Alexandre Batchi, head of FLEC-FAC’s health wing, Sylvestre needed to be evacuated to a border hospital in Zaire.

“Our health centre lacks everything and we have to evacuate the wounded boy quickly to save his leg from amputation,” Batchi said. “Naturally, since there is no road, he will be carried by his colleagues. We lost a lot of people because of the lack of health facilities and drugs.”

Many of the young people fighting in FLEC-FAC are school dropouts who felt they had little option but to join up. Raoul do Carmo Buity (18) did so five years ago. “I quit school for social reasons,” he said. “My parents are poor. I had no choice but to take up arms for my country. In the army I am looked after and I am useful to the community.”

Others continue their studies in the bush, dividing their time between the front and the schools run by the rebel group. Said 17- year-old Alphonse Poaty, “When things get rough I take up my gun to defend my country. But I have to say it’s never quiet for long here in the bush. We spend more time fighting than in school.”

While the youths spoke freely about their exploits, they clammed up when asked about living conditions in the rebel camps, most of which are villages of about 100 persons in which any male able to carry a gun is a combattant. One source did, however, tell IPS that the children usually kept watch at night, while their older companions, who did most of the fighting during the day, slept.

But one child soldier, who asked not to be named, insisted that they also took part in attacks, especially when the force needed to get more Kalachnikovs and pistols from the FAA.

“We don’t get any foreign assistance,” he said. “To get weapons we are forced to ambush the enemy. When we do that, those of us who are unlucky lose our lives and, when we can, we pick up our comrades’ bodies and bring them back to camp.”

“We children are good at ambushes,” he added.

For all their bravado, Cabinda’s child soldiers want the war to end. Each of those IPS spoke with said he wanted to live freely in an independent Cabinda and do the things young people of their age do.

They also felt anger at the international community which, they charged, had abandoned them to their fate.