War memoirs - To Captivity
After lining us up in pairs, we were made to sit on the ground as the adults and the elderly were lined adjacent us. From all round us, stood rebels wielding guns and if anybody harbored hopes of escape, those were sooner diminished.
It was as if we were in a cinema hall and soon the movie shooting was started as gun wielding individuals stood in a coached readiness to respond to anything or to an order from the dread-locked giant of a man by whose swagger and acts, left you in no doubt as to who was in charge.
By his side constantly stood and followed another dread-locked fellow whom I realized was his-besides the other rebels-his personal body guard in the stature of a man whose entire body looked fortified, covered by rounds of ammunition running right from his neck to toe. I wondered how he managed to walk under that weight.
Always behind the commander, not one word ever escaped his mouth. He acted almost oblivious to everything else. Almost as if nothing was happening around him. He was probably trained to understand only just one thing: the protection of his commander.
The only time I saw him swing into action was during those moments that the commander occasionally directed him to finish off a dying victim or to align us.
For some long time, quiet reigned as the commander who stood between the lines of captives, looked in consultation with the other rebel officers. And a moment later, they seemed to come to a conclusion. The others walked over to where the adults sat.
That was when the true drama of madness started.
One by one, a child or an elderly person was picked and transferred to the center- to the open-see; whoever was picked didn’t return in one piece. I fact, none returned in any piece.
One after the other, they were butchered, mutilated and not by the burst of a bullet but by the swift, silent, almost innocent slice of a machete.
Watching against my personal will, I appreciated being considered an adult and in particular a youth.
I didn’t cry, and it was not because our captors had warned of dire consequences upon anybody who even winced at the sight of their actions, but because I wasn’t sure if it was all happening.
The sounds, surging between the mocking laughter of a rebel slayer and the agonizing yell of a departing soul were sickening.
During the time of that madness, as we pained, the rebels reveled and enjoyed their acts and even asked their victims questions, providing options from which, according to them, the victims were free to choose the most fitting they wished for.
“Which one would you prefer; to laugh all your life or to be annoyed your entire life?” they would ask before proceeding to grant your wish.
If you chose laughter, they sliced off your lips so your mouth cavity revealed in a fashion depictive of a joyous pose and if you opted for annoyance, they stretched your lips and punching with a knife-end a hole in between your lips, and fastened a padlock to them
All that time as the infants and the elderly who were deemed surplus were butchered, I stared; others either lowered their eyes or squeezed them shut in evasion of the evil scenes that left no trace of respect for sanity.
Earlier on, the commander had warned us to closely watch and register every scene. “For those of you who will be lucky to live-“he had started “-you must watch because you must begin to learn how to do it”
Passing his stern gaze over us the youth as if to draw our particular attention, he had not been finished.
“You must watch so you will give to your God, an accurate witness report of what really happened”
In different forms and with different types of machetes, the butchering transpired. From dismembering extremities, through slicing off flesh from hapless individuals, scooping eyeballs to sticking machetes into skulls; it was apparent our captor’s primary objective was not in the inevitability of death but rather on the manner at which that would be achieved. They were more obsessed with the means rather than the end.
When moments later they were finished, less than half of the captives were whole; only the youth to be exact. The only other persons who still breathed were those who either were annoyed or who laughed!
It was after the killings of the children and the elderly, that I discovered why we had been paired up. The logic was simple and the commander made it clear to us. Each member of a given pair was responsible for the other and that if for example, one escaped, the other was to answer and the penalty, well you didn’t have to ask.
Finally after the madness of slaughtering the elderly and the infants, the commander addressed we who had been lucky to survive, and who, in his words, would now be taken captive to join their honorable ranks
“You will do as you are told-“he started, and looking away to the East, continued “by the time the sun rises, we’ll be a long way from here”. He paused, and after a short break, meant, it must have been, to allow us digest his words, continued
“We shall be gone to a place where you will be given instruction and training to start a new life” he finished.
After his address we were arranged in three straight columns, sandwiched between that of armed soldiers.
The commander and his escort, cutting lone figures outside the columns, then walked over to the front and the commander in an imposing and triumphant voice gave his final order.
“We go!”
