Sporting a red cap, jeans, a Rambo-style T-shirt and a Kalashnikov, 17-year-old Liberian rebel Jimmy, a combatant for the past seven years, is one of the many young self-proclaimed ”freedom fighters” in this west African country.
For him and his other young comrades in arms, the campaign waged by the Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (Lurd) rebel movement is just another of the many wars that have wracked Liberia for many years now.
The rules of the game are simple for the rebels who have been battling since the end of 1999 to evict President Charles Taylor, himself a former warlord who played a leading role in a previous seven-year civil war.
It’s an eye for an eye.
Lurd secretary general Joe Gbalah said: ”If a (pro-government) soldier is looting we kill him, if he kills a civilian we kill him, if he rapes we kill him, if he bites a civilian we bite him the same way.
”We have learned from our previous fights,” Gbalah said.
Composed mainly of combatants from different factions who fought each for seven years from 1989, the Lurd is low on money and materials but does not compromise on discipline.
The rebels don’t have uniforms apart from bandanas tied on their heads. Their arms are essentially AK-47 assault rifles and some rifles with bayonets. Most sport plastic sandals and tattered clothes.
The younger rebels, sometimes as young as 12-years-old, have a strong presence both in the rebel headquarters in the northern town of Voinjama and elsewhere.
They are often officers with fantastic ranks and respected despite their youth.
The Lurd also includes some 300 women serving under the Women Auxiliary Corps, who cook and act as nurses in the bush.
Nearer the battlefront, such as in Zorzor, a Lurd bastion about 100 kilometres from Liberia’s second largest town Gbarnga, the fighters are older and appear more experienced.
Amara Sannyon (52) who served in the presidential guard for two heads of state, said he had joined the Lurd ”to escape the tribalism of Taylor and its vexations.”
Ian Jackey, a former sergeant major who quit the Liberian army in 1998 after 15 years and now commands the Lurd’s 2nd brigade comprising 3 500 men, defended the use of children as soldiers.
”You cannot prevent these children from revenge because most of the time they have seen their parents assassinated and couldn’t do anything. Even if you send them to school they would come back because they want to see Taylor face to face,” he said.
Prince Seoh, chief of Lurd’s military operations, said captured government soldiers had two options — to join the rebels or face execution.
”If we capture Taylor’s soldier we consider him as a brother. We know … what they have faced in Monrovia and after a special training we integrate them in our manpower. But if he tries to leave we kill him,” he said.
The Lurd claims that most of its heavy weaponry — essentially comprising Chinese-made machine guns, rockets and anti-aircraft guns — were seized from government troops.
Though arms are severely lacking, some new weapons and explosives point to the fact that the rebels also have outside sources.
Zorzor was attacked about 12 days ago by government troops, as a few corpses floating by in a stream testify.
Jackey, the commander of the 2nd brigade, pointed to a dismembered and burnt corpse, saying: ”This one died in action, straight in action, but we don’t bury criminals.” – Sapa-AFP