Truth, by Omission Read online

  I could see that this infuriated Idi since he knew that Gobeni was probably right—that he didn’t have a lot of options. I had noticed that the shipments we had been taking to Major Ntagura had been decreasing in size, in spite of the fact that the mining operations had grown substantially. It seemed that the harder the workers were driven, and the more dirt they washed, the less coltan they found. So, while the mine’s expenses increased, the revenue was decreasing. Idi’s men now numbered around thirty, and all of them had to be paid something to keep them loyal. Then there was also the cost of weapons and ammunition for our band. The guns that Idi provided each of the men were a key incentive to keeping them happy. We had less and less money to buy food, and our rations began to dwindle. Idi realized it wasn’t sustainable. But he was an entrepreneur, so he gathered his men one day to try to rally them.

  “This shit hole of Gobeni’s is just about worn out.” He addressed the band like a preacher rallying his congregation. “We’re going to leave here and live like we should be living. And be rewarded like we deserve.”

  A cheer went up from the men even before they heard what he was proposing.

  “We’ll go north to the mountains where the NRA wants us and needs us,” Idi shouted.

  The NRA was the National Resistance Army, a loosely organized group of freedom fighters who numbered in the thousands and were steadily growing. They were well financed and supplied with modern weapons. The group began as a Rwandan political party representing expelled refugees from Rwanda who were living in the mountainous borders of Uganda and Zaire, but it had morphed into a fighting force intent on terrorizing the Rwandan citizenry. Money flowed from the governments of both Uganda and Zaire, as it was in their interests to move the tens of thousands of Rwandan refugees back to their own homelands. None of this was known to us at the time, and probably Idi didn’t even know it. All that we knew and cared about was the fact that we had a cause to rally around, the cause could pay us well, and we were on an adventure of plunder.

  Using the guarantee of safe passage through the roads of Rwanda that Major Ntagura had bestowed on us, we set out on a march, first going east into Rwanda and then north along Lake Kivu and finally high in the mountain areas near the northern borders. It was a complete abuse of Ntagura’s deal, since we were on our way to fight him as the enemy of the NRA. For me it was a fantastical adventure, and I blindly followed, oblivious to the politics.

  When our supplies and cash ran out we simply helped ourselves to whatever we could find in any of the villages we passed through. Food, shelter, weapons, women for the men—they were all fair game and spoils just waiting for the taking. Our numbers actually grew over the month­long march as we added other impressionable young men to the group. Idi began to see himself as a military leader and tried to train and drill us into some sense of formation. But he knew nothing of organized armed conflict and we remained little more than a band of murderers and thugs.

  Eventually we made our way to one of the NRA camps where Idi negotiated tents and supplies in exchange for our loyalty. We lived as relative princes compared to what we were used to. Everyone was issued new weapons—rifles and machine guns—and some of the men were trained in the use of mortars and shoulder-mounted bazookas. I hadn’t yet turned ten years of age, but I was given my first gun, a small automatic rifle. From the main camp we were dispatched on several different missions, sometimes riding the roads in open-backed trucks, other times marching through the mountainous jungle trails.

  Engagement with the Rwandan army was the most serious of our missions, but usually we were simply sent to terrorize the populace. This intimidation took many forms, and I not only witnessed the brutal tactics of the NRA’s terror warfare, I actively sought it out, wanting to prove my worth and bolster my status with Idi. Likewise, Idi wanted to prove his worth to the leaders of the NRA and in doing so he took on an ever more savage character, referring to himself as Mwisho Simba, Swahili for “the last great lion.” It became common for us to refer to him as “Simba,” and he liked it when we did so. As Idi became increasingly ruthless, it meant nothing to him to enter a village and have his men rape the women, some as young as me, and then leave them all dead as a message to those village men who thought they might resist us.

  On one particularly violent spree, we rounded up eight men in one village that, even though they dared not raise a weapon against us, refused to help us locate the Rwandan army patrols in the neighborhood. Idi ordered that all eight men be shot, and I volunteered as the executioner. It became a joke to the rest of our group that a small boy like me would do this job, and they prepared a grand ceremony of it in the town square. Their ridicule made me all the more determined to see the job through.

  The townspeople were forced to gather for the executions, but every one of them closed their eyes and turned away as I emptied my weapon into the backs of the eight men. As each one fell, our own men cheered louder and louder, encouraging me on. I became caught up in the frenzy and made a flamboyant show of taking the innocent lives of the last of the eight. When they all lay crumpled on the ground, Idi ordered their heads removed, and I took my ivory-handled hunting knife and did my part by hacking through flesh and bone until I had a trophy to dangle by the dirty bloodied hair. We then took all eight of the heads and mounted them on the four canopy posts of two jeeps, where they remained for many months to come. Maggoted and rotting, pecked by birds, the innocent former sons and fathers and brothers and husbands became warnings to others when we drove into their villages.

  When we arrived back at the main camp of the NRA for the first time with the decapitated heads affixed to our jeeps, the other troops cheered, and we gave our small band the title, “the Heads of State.” We became known throughout the north of the country by this name, and even the Rwandan army, who hunted us, referred to us by it.

  At one point we were able to add to our collection. While away from the main camp we often had to provide for ourselves, hunting food where we could. But game was rare in the lush misty mountains where we were operating, and the most we could hope to find in these parts were several different species of small monkeys. However, one day as we traipsed through the jungle Idi stopped suddenly and motioned for silence from the four of us behind him. Creeping cautiously ahead, we peered from the underbrush out into a small grassy clearing where a clan of mountain gorillas lounged and chewed casually on bamboo shoots. Several large females were harassed by just as many youngsters, and to one side a massive silverback minded his own business.

  As Idi silently motioned for each of the other men to aim their rifles at one of the females and indicated that he would himself shoot the great male, a flush of sadness went through me. It felt odd how, after becoming immune to the killing of human beings, I was moved to care about the deaths of these wild animals. But I didn’t have much time to think about it as four triggers were pulled in synchronization. The entire clan darted for the bush, scurrying in different directions. It took us most of the day but, eventually, we tracked three of the injured gorillas, including the silverback. When we found him he had already died from Idi’s well-placed shot through the lungs. But the other two females were panting and near death when we came upon them. They both looked us all right in the eyes, urgently appealing for something more from humanity.

  After we dispatched them with bullets through the hearts, we had to contend with three young babies no bigger than monkeys that clung to the bodies of their dead mothers. One of the youngsters even climbed from the mother to me and clutched me as I used to hang on to Auntie Nyaka for security. It was desperate, terrified, pleading to me when Idi stripped it from the cradle of my arms and with one sharp blow with the handle of his machete to its head rendered the baby dead.

  Our haul was impressive, several hundred pounds of meat that took us numerous trips back into the bush to carry out. And more importantly, according to Mamba, several organs which would command a good price in the
black markets of Kigali, twelve severed paws representing well over a thousand US dollars when properly cured and sold, and three more nice severed head trophies for another vehicle belonging to the Heads of State.

  Our unfettered reign of terror carried on for two full years in the mountains of northern Rwanda until just after the New Year’s celebration of 1990, when a group of twenty-four of us Heads of State, Mamba and Idi included, along with me, rode our jeeps into a village in search of Rwandan army patrols that we knew were operating in the area. But instead of finding a cowering populace, as we had become accustomed to, we were caught unawares in an ambush by the army forces.

  I lay flat in the back of the jeep and covered my head with a sack of beans as bullets whizzed by. Several tore through the metal walls leaving star-shaped holes just inches from my face. The tides of terror had turned, and I was frightened for my life. I wasn’t used to such situations. Until then I’d been riding a wave of cockiness, gleefully following Idi as we easily bullied our way through the countryside. But suddenly we faced real weapons and real trained forces—a lot of them.

  After a few frighteningly long minutes the barrage finally stopped. I lay silent where I was; the bag of beans still covered my head. A body had fallen on top of the rest of me. The soldiers shouted in Kinyarwanda and then in Swahili for us to drop our weapons and stand up. I clambered out from beneath the bag and the body and carefully raised my hands in the air, lifting myself up to my knees and looking around. Several weapons pointed in my direction and when I looked to the other jeeps I saw only two others of our group moving, both of them with bloody injuries. Looking down at the body I had just rolled off me, I saw Mamba, a gangly heap with at least two dozen bullet wounds to his body, several of them in his head. It dawned on me that he had saved my life by falling on me and taking the bullets that would have surely hit me in that spot in the truck.

  I began to weep for the only real friend I had in the world. I wanted to reach down and touch him, but a rifle muzzle was shoved firmly to the back of my head and a voice said from behind me, “If you move one inch, I’ll kill you.”

  We had brazenly gone into the town as a group of twenty-four. I counted sixteen dead bodies that were pulled from the three jeeps and piled on the side of the street. Four others emerged with various wounds and were being tended to by the Rwandan army medics. That meant that three others had survived the short battle and escaped. I couldn’t make out Idi among the dead and I hoped he was safe.

  The soldiers took me inside one of the small homes that they had commandeered as a command post and offered me an ice-cold can of Coca-Cola. The can sat on a table in front of me, condensation beading on the outside and dripping down, pooling on the table around it. I had tasted Coke before, but never cold. One of soldiers broke open a bag of potato chips and dumped it into a bowl beside the Coke.

  “Go ahead.” He motioned toward the offerings. I wanted to drink that Coke so badly but resisted as a petty stand of defiance.

  He took a handful of chips and began to munch on them. “Suit yourself,” he said. “I’m First Lieutenant Paul Rwigyema. My men call me Wigy. You can call me that, or Paul, or Lieutenant. What should I call you?”

  I looked at him as boldly as I could, but it didn’t seem to faze him. He took another handful of chips and pushed the bowl closer to me.

  “I’m not going to hurt you. I just want to talk with you. Can you please tell me a name I can call you?”

  When I didn’t answer he picked up the Coca-Cola, snapped it open, and took a long guzzle from the can.

  “Should I call you Azi?” he asked. I wondered how he could have known this.

  “I am Mwisho Simba,” I said, puffing out my chest and raising my chin.

  He tried to remain professional but couldn’t stop himself from smiling. “You’re not Mwisho Simba. You’re barely a little kitty.”

  This insulted me tremendously but, admittedly, it gave me an opening to back down my bluster. He must have sensed it and he retrieved another can of Coca-Cola from the other room, setting it before me.

  “Do you know where Mwisho Simba is? Do you know where he would have gone?”

  “You’ll never find him.”

  “Mwisho Simba.” The lieutenant laughed. “The last great lion. Do you know how many lions are left in this part of Africa, Azi? None. We will hunt him down like every other lion that ever lived in these parts and we’ll kill him.” He paused for a few moments and pointed to the new Coke can, which had started to sweat. “Do you know how many of your friends died today, Azi? Eighteen. Two more have died just since we came inside here. Do you know how many have died this week? Sixty-seven. One hundred and eighty-two last week. So far this month? Two hundred and ninety. Do you know how many have lived? You … maybe a handful of others. Drink the Coke. It’s all over, Azi. They’re all dying.” He paused for a moment to let me think about this. “How many will be left six months from now? Can you multiply two hundred and ninety times six? Have you ever been to school?”

  I was insulted again. Of course I’d been to school. I’d attended the village school, four years earlier. I could count to two hundred and ninety, but I couldn’t multiply two times nine. I felt the sting, or perhaps it was shame.

  “How old are you, Azi?”

  “How do you know my name?”

  “It was on the knife we took from you. What is your full name?” He pushed the bowl of chips a little closer, and I took a few, ignoring his question.

  “How old are you, Azi O?”

  I wanted to exert what little audacity I had left so I answered him. “I’m sixteen. I am a full man.”

  Once again, he couldn’t keep himself from chuckling at my answer. “You’re barely a little kitty. How old are you really, Azi?”

  “Fourteen.”

  “You’re not fourteen. You haven’t even got a lick of fuzz on your face. What’s your birth date?”

  “May 3, 1977.” I lied by a year, trying to preserve some last bit of dignity for myself.

  He looked at me for a long minute, trying to decide whether I was telling the truth.

  I relented and pried open the can of Coke. It was one of the nicest things I had ever tasted.

  “Okay, that makes you twelve, Azi.” He let me maintain my little lie.

  By the time I was shipped south two weeks later, Wigy had coyly broken me down with patience, respect, and kindness, all traits that I had vaguely recognized from another life a long time ago. I gave nothing away about where I thought Idi might be or where the NRA’s camps were, but I had conceded, to Wigy and to myself, that my life was headed toward sure and soon death. I had to admit that I had no idea why I was fighting the Rwandan army or any of the villagers. I never admitted to ever killing anyone and Wigy never asked me. But he certainly must have known. There were many witnesses to the atrocities that I had publicly committed and, although there were many youths in the ranks of the NRA, there were no other children my age. I was considerably younger than the others and would be easily identified. But instead of threatening me with punishments for my crimes, Wigy spent the time convincing me of the possibility of a future.

  At that time I had no sense of contrition for the crimes I had committed, no feelings of guilt. If they had put me in front of a psychologist, I might have been diagnosed as a psychopath. But the corruption I had undergone over the previous four years was not a matter of the wiring in my brain or the genes that controlled it, rather it was the result of an assimilation into a culture of lawlessness and savagery. Surely some of those around me must have been true psychopaths—probably Idi and several of the other leaders. And they attracted many other like-minded miscreants. But I now know, in my heart, that I was never really like them.

  And even though in those first few days around Lieutenant Wigy I wasn’t yet experiencing remorse, I must have felt the first caresses of it because I distinctly remember t
rying to make sense of what Mamba had done for me. He had saved my life by lying down on top of me and giving up his own life—or perhaps that’s just what I wanted to believe, so I did. It was a concept that was foreign to our group. For us, it was every man for himself, survival of the fittest at all costs. The kindness of the army toward me, particularly Wigy, edged me to begin reassessing my belief that there were no good people left in the world. These were good people. And beyond that, just a few days in the army camp—sleeping on a real mattress, eating healthy rations of food, bathing in a tub of hot water, and eating potato chips and drinking Coke—made me realize how miserable my life had been with Idi.

  The army took me to a detention center north of Kigali, a city I had only heard rumors of. There they processed me by taking my photo and rolling my small fingers over an ink pad, one by one, and then rolling them again on the official form containing all my statistics.

  name: Azikiwe Olyontombo

  age: 12

  height: 147 cm

  weight: 41 kg

  eye color: Black

  identifying marks: Numerous scars on back, several scars on both arms, multiple scars on buttocks, one long scar and one circular scar on sole of left foot

  A week later I was driven through the city, seeing for the first time concrete towers that stretched ten stories or more in the air, smooth paved roads, homes with solid roofs, and stores with goods in them. The soldier took me to the southern edge of the city, to a calm-looking compound surrounded by a hedge of azalea shrubs. The center of the grounds was dominated by a rectangular one-story church in a typical Central-African style, with a sloping roof of corrugated steel and a simple cross affixed to the apex on the near gable end. On one side of the church sprawled four low-rise dormitories and an administrative building. On the other side were four more single-story school buildings with windows thrown wide open to let the breeze inside.

  I had been given clean pants by the soldiers, a shirt that buttoned up the front, socks, and shoes, all of them new and even the correct size. They also gave me a rucksack, two bars of soap, enough head powder to treat my lice for another two weeks, a toothbrush with toothpaste, an extra pair of socks, and two pairs of underwear, something I had never worn in my life. These sundries were stowed inside the rucksack along with my ivory-handled knife, which Wigy had kindly realized was my only possession in the world. This was how I was when the soldier left me in the office of the convent school.