The pilot dips the plane’s wing under the horizon as we circle Faradje to get a better look at the destruction below.  Dozens of blackened huts line the road cutting its way across the forest from Dungu, empty circles scorched black inside.

It is at the Catholic Parish here in Faradje where I first meet Joseph, a 19 year old Congolese teenager captured by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) near Dungu six months ago.  He sits quietly across from me in a wooden chair and continues the story that began with him being captured and taken to Joseph Kony’s base in Garamba National Park.  Today Joseph is free; the last time he was in Faradje was as a slave to the LRA, and an unwilling witness to the horrors that were brought to a quiet village on Christmas day.

In the aftermath of the operation against the LRA at their base in Garamba Park on December 14th, Kony ordered his soldiers to send a message to the world and the Congolese people, who he accused of supporting the attacks against him.  The message was simple.  If you want war, we will do it on our terms.  We will bring it straight to the people. 

A group of a hundred rebel soldiers and a dozen porters including Joseph marched east from the park until they came to the outskirts of Faradje.  The rebels split up and fanned out, moving towards the center of town, burning homes and killing quietly as they went.  They used machetes and clubs to save bullets and maintain the element of surprise.  It was here on the outskirts they tried to kill Roger, a farmer and carpenter with dull scars on the top of his head, who described to me the moment he saw the LRA enter the village:

At about 4:00PM I was at my house and saw a column of soldiers splitting up into groups, one going on the road and the other arriving right behind my house.  A soldier knocked on the door.  I came out and said hello, asking them what they wanted.

He hit me in the head with wood from behind my house until they thought I was dead.  A neighbor saved me, crying out “stop, you have already killed him!” They left after hitting my father and also leaving him for dead.

When the LRA arrived to the center of the town, while Joseph and the others were tied together under guard, they turned the celebrating village into a killing field.

Marie, a teenage girl Joseph’s age from Faradje, was captured during the attack and tied up next to Joseph.  During an interview at the parish she described the chaos of the LRA’s attack:

I was at home with my family when I saw them.  I ran with the others, but the LRA caught up and hit me in the head with the butt of a rifle.  I was taken to the market and tied up with at least a hundred others.  We saw them killing people in front of us with machetes and clubs, one by one.

Joseph had already been tied up outside the parish, the same building in which I was now conducting the interview.  He describes seeing homes burned, children captured and tied up next to him, and a man killed on the doorstep of the parish itself.  The LRA even killed the town’s doctor and his child, burning them alive in their house.  His wife they took into the forest.

During the attack on Faradje, according to a report by Human Rights Watch, the LRA murdered at least 143 people and abducted 160 more, mostly children.  Hundreds of others were killed and captured in simultaneous attacks on other villages near Doruma and Duru west of Faradje.

At 10:00PM, after the killing stopped, Joseph, Marie and a hundred and sixty others were forced to march from town through the forest, carrying heavy loads of looted food and supplies.  Marie recounted life with the LRA:

For the next month we marched from place to place.  The LRA would attack a village while leaving us behind, guarded.  During that month, I saw them kill four boys, beating them to death.  If you were sick, or too tired to walk, they killed you.  They didn’t kill the girls, but did rape at least two of them.  I was scared the whole time.  They communicated only with gestures and we couldn’t understand what they said.

After a month of bloody attacks on nearby villages, hard marches and constant abuse, Marie and Joseph escaped.  By this time the groups had split up into several smaller ones.  Joseph woke up one night to relieve himself and found his guards asleep.  He slowly crept away through the forest, and ran the entire night.  He walked for days until he reached a Congolese military post near Faradje, and was brought here.  Marie was rescued later with six others after Congolese soldiers caught the group trying to pillage the village of Tadu, unaware that the army was nearby.  The LRA was pushed back, leaving a group of porters behind, and Marie was able to flee to the center of town.

Joseph and Marie were lucky.  For many this enslavement lasts months, or years, and most who try to escape the LRA don’t succeed.

At the end of our interview, I learn that Joseph has been trying to get home to Dungu for months, but the road is too dangerous.  I am flying back the next morning, and tell him I will do my best to find him a seat.

Joseph shows up at the airstrip the next morning, and my heart is in my throat.  He is wearing a smart red tie on a crisp white shirt, and khakis several sizes to large.  He owns nothing, yet has managed to make sure he looks sharp for his homecoming.

The Canadian pilot Jean calculates fuel and nods; we have just enough for another passenger. He gently buckles Joseph into his seat, and soon we are airborne.

The tiny six-seater plane dashes through a carwash, Jean calls a dark cloud full of rain, fat streaks charging backwards up the windshield, defying gravity.  We do a final pirouette over the Kibali river and abruptly fall from the sky, wheels touching down on the grassy red clay of Dungu’s airstrip.

Having defied the LRA’s own brutal gravity, Joseph is finally home.

Posted By: Michael Graham | June 09, 2009 | Comments (3)