My name is Gakuba Pierre Celestin, I am 50 years old and I am from Burundi.
When I was 12 years old in 198, my country faced civil war where some military guys want to take over the country and formed a military resistance army but we used to call them rebels. I was in primary six, I looked older than my fellow students because I was the taller and strongest among other students. One day around 5:00 PM, the rebel that was against government came to my school and took all of us under their control. Then they choose all boys with the height and body that they want alongside our teachers. They took us into their cars.
We left our home without saying goodbyes, we didn’t know what they are going to do, we didn’t have any choice on decision that they are making. Girls and small boys contacted our families about what happened and our families considered us as dead and never thought that we could be alive.
On our way in the middle of the forest, they took all teachers who were women, there were 5 and raped them in front of our eyes. We cried for them but we couldn’t do anything. After that we headed to East of Democratic Republic of Congo by crossing Rusizi River. We were 30 in Total, we have been taken into the forest and told that we are officially army. We met there with other boys and girls, men and women from different parts of DRC and Burundi. Women were in charge of cooking and medicine plus having sex with rebel leaders. After 2 days of our arrival we started joining company and start military exercises.
In order to not break or exile each one of us had a personal guard with a gun while we had to carry sticks used during training. During the night, we had to sleep in a locked big room and we were guarded by guns. After seeing all those I accepted my faith and decided to be one of them. I did good in military and passed as the best after 1 year of full training. They have trained us to the extent where all humanity was released from us. Whoever feels pity or showed emotions was killed. We were trained like wild animals, we spent days and nights without eating, we have contaminated with different diseases and survived on the last chance.
We started going in different villages to steal food in the field or their home, animals in the farms and shelter to be able to keep on living. I remember the first woman that I killed wanted to fight with me when I took all the money that she had and I shoot her in the head, that image of hers is always in my mind.
After 4 years in forests of DRC, our chief in command told us that it’s time for us to attack Burundi and take over the country. He has promised all of us good lands, houses and good positions in different ministries and organization despite the level of our education. I was 16 years old when attacked Burundi, I was in the company that invaded directly to the capital city of Burundi as it is nearby DRC. We had a really taught battle that lasted 5 days, the government had heavy guns, helicopters and more soldiers than ours but we resisted until our leader was hit by machine gun.
We ran as sheep without a shepherd, we were badly defeated not only our company but the entire army. After like 30 minutes running from government soldiers I took some clothes that were hanged somewhere, I wore them joined the clouds that was heading to refugee camp, I saw my Mother, she recognized me instantly and started crying. She held my hand and started walking with me, she was wise she didn’t want to tell or ask me anything. Arriving at the camp, we met with some of my family members, I told them all things that happened to us, how we were forced to do things that we didn’t want to.
Time went by until he came back home and I joined government army to be able to fight rebels that use people for their own interest sometimes without those people’s choice. I am now a Colonel in Burundi national Army, we had fight for the country and it is peaceful nowadays no more civil wars.
