Child soldiers call ‘No tag-backs’ after attack on Ugandan troops
Kampala, Uganda— Standing among the smoldering remains of fuel trucks and personnel carriers, 11-year old Ogwambi Sumwego, a commander in the Youth Corps of the Lord’s Resistance Army, screamed “no tag-backs” to the fleeing government soldiers.
According to the small-statured Sumwego and his band of pre-teen freedom fighters, the proclamation was meant to assure there would be no retribution for his unit’s swift and brutal attack on Ugandan Army troops and supplies.
“I called it,” Sumwego announced while high-fiving his vicious but socially awkward preadolescent soldiers. “We will see no retaliation from these government dogs. We’ve got dibs on this hallowed ground.”
Violations of international rules of war have been raised amid eyewitness reports that Sumwego ignored cries of “time out” from disoriented soldiers. Reports have surfaced that he may have even commanded his unit to fire on soldiers who had designated a nearby matoke tree as “base”.
It is unclear whether Sumwego’s “no tag-backs” proclamation will even last according to international observers as he failed to invoke “infinity” after his announcement, leaving some uncertainty as to the duration of safe operations.
Colonel Robert Sibanda, a United Nations military observer assigned to the Ugandan war zone, has some doubts as to whether the fleeing army personnel could even hear Sumwego’s prepubescent voice over the secondary explosions and death throes of the government soldiers.
“If they can’t even hear what you are saying, then it shouldn’t count,” Colonel Sibanda said.
After a long campaign of guerrilla attacks on government supply lines and paramilitary patrols, Sumwego stands poised to lead his troops into the port city of Jinja by sometime in early autumn. Upon learning of his approach to the prized center of trade for southeastern Uganda, Sumwego’s parents, who are being held in a government work camp, were asked about their son’s rise to power and recent achievements.
“We are so very proud of Ogwambi,” his father, Ojore Sumwego said. “I didn’t lead my first insurgency until I was 23.”
Sumwego senior was quick to point out, however, that young Ogwambi had much to learn about how to properly conduct a revolution and was concerned about what his son will do once the city is taken.
“He won’t appreciate how good a strategic resource he will have in his small hands,” said the young partisan’s father.
“Oh sure, he’ll hold on to the city for a while, toy with its inhabitants,” Sumwego senior said, “but then he will just get bored and move on to something else. Even that new machete we gave him for his birthday last year just sits in the garage. There is no pleasing the boy.”
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© 201o by JB Goodbody. All Rights Reserved. First published in TheChicagoDope.com.