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DSP
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Posted: Monday May 21st, 2007 04:40 |
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Liberia's child soldiers take up arms again - for the movies
Samuel Zezey is patrolling the oldest bridge in Monrovia. He has an AK-47 slung over his shoulder but he's wearing a baby blue tracksuit with a picture of a teddy bear on it. He's 17 years old.
As I walk up to him he greets me with a cheeky smile and shakes my hand the Liberian way, clicking his fingers against mine as he pulls away. "Over there," he says, pointing at a beach coated in rubbish. "That's where I killed my uncle."
Samuel fought with the armed forces of President Charles Taylor during the last stretch of Liberia's brutal 13-year conflict. He was 12 when he was recruited as a child soldier.
When the war ended in 2003, he realised that Taylor's Anti Terrorist Unit (ATU) had become a substitute for his family. As a child soldier, he had been taught - indoctrinated even - to fight against rebel forces, no matter if they had once been his friends, brothers or uncles. As the ATU disbanded, he looked around. He had no family left.
Samuel slept in gutters, on friends' floors and in alleyways for years. He spent nights in the local video club, a makeshift cinema of sorts, where violent and erotic screenings are open to all. Then, one fine day in April, he was approached by a pretty French film producer who said she wanted to make Samuel into a film star.
Sounds like something that could only happen in the movies, I say. Samuel laughs. "I know. But then I was picked up, and asked if I wanted to move into a house and go to school in the evenings." He said yes of course.
Our conversation is interrupted by a call from the director. "Samuel! We need you on the bridge" he shouts. Today, Samuel is the ultimate method actor. He's one of the stars of the film "Johnny Mad Dog", based on Emmanuel Dongala's novel about child soldiers in Democratic Republic of Congo. The movie is being filmed in Liberia, and 20 to 30 ex-combatant children have been recruited.
"We found the actors in the ghetto," says Elisa Larriere, the executive producer. "Some of them were so badly affected by the war that they couldn't even cry about it. So we offered them board and schooling, liaised with their families if they had one, and we pay them a little bit of pocket money. We can't pay too much, because they might spend it on drugs - they are still very heavily influenced by what they have seen and done."
I lean against the director's truck and watch a scene where the kids fight over a teddy bear. There are children dressed in Winnie the Pooh T-shirts, children in red bandanas and spandex pants, children in gold chains and tight ripped jeans, in wedding dresses splattered with fake blood and fairy wings. During Liberia's long conflict, many child soldiers wore drag as a mark of distinction - or to put distance between themselves and their actions.
As the director calls, "Cut!", a little boy with a pink, ripped shirt and the longest eyelashes I've ever seen - he can be no older than 13 - picks a fight for real. Fifteen minutes later, he is escorted off the set. "This happens all the time," one of the cameramen whispers.
As the kids storm off set - shouting out such screen names as "Baby Boy", "Coco", "Scar-face and Snake" - I catch the producer and ask what will happen to the children when filming is over. The movie set has become home.
She tells me that a foundation has been set up in the film's name, to pay for their education and inspire them to embark on whatever career they choose.
For Samuel, Scar-face and Snake, that really is the stuff of movies.
The children's names have been changed to protect them.
Reuters AlertNet is not responsible for the content of external websites.
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Apedemak
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Posted: Monday May 21st, 2007 09:57 |
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As I walk up to him he greets me with a cheeky smile and shakes my hand the Liberian way, clicking his fingers against mine as he pulls away.
Snap.
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