March 30, 2004

The Times Law Section

KABBA WILLIAMS is thought to have been Sierra Leone’s youngest child soldier. He was one of about 10,000 children forced to fight in the 11-year conflict by rebel or army troops and spent almost his entire childhood in their hands.

Kabba, now 19, fell captive to the Revolutionary United Front rebels 13 years ago, when they took over the village where he lived with his uncle. Both his parents had died.

He did jobs for the rebels — carrying water and weapons and ironing their uniforms. One day, after seeing one of the rebels being killed, he decided to escape, and survived in the bush for a week before falling into army hands. He was then 9. The army wanted to kill him but decided that he would be more use as a soldier. Six months later he started fighting. “I was introduced to something I never thought of,” he says. “It was the time to enjoy my childhood, but I was deprived because of their selfishness.”

They gave him drugs, injecting him at the end of each day. “I lost consciousness and then regained it after some time. It was an unchildly childhood. We would hunger for the drugs — for the whole way of life. Some commanders said they would send me to school. I was yearning to go but I never got the opportunity.”

One day in particular is etched on his memory. At the age of 12 he was given a group of captives to kill. “I had the nickname ‘Hungry Lion’. I was given a bayonet. They were tied up, six of them. I stabbed them repeatedly with the knife. The first time I felt good — they (the soldiers) said I had done something very good, done it for my country. But by the end I thought, if I continue to kill innocent people like this, the time might come when it is my turn — it will come back to haunt me.”

He was rescued when Unicef went into the war zone and brought out about 3,000 child soldiers. He went to a home and then for the first time to school, but the other children jeered because he could not read or write. With the help of a friend, Abdullah, who encouraged him and studied the Bible with him, he persevered and now, as a pupil at Sierra Leone Grammar School, he is about to take his exams to go to college.

Kabba devotes his spare time to working as a co-ordinator for the Children’s Forum Network, a group run by children that he helped to found and which has the backing of Plan UK, a charity that works with hundreds of children living on the streets. “These children are suffering silently and their fears and tears are only known by God,” he says. He also works with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which was set up in 2000 to gather testimonies from people about the reality of the war — both victims and perpetrators. He has helped to produce a child-friendly, version of the report to help the young victims to reintegrate with their communities.

“If we hold hands together we can save some of our colleagues,” he says. But the special court that will deal with war criminals is also crucial, he believes. “Justice must prevail. If it does, it will serve as a springboard. Without justice there will be no peace, and without peace there will be no justice.”

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