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Sunday, March 28, 2010

Return From the Mainland [Today's News Poem March 28, 2010]

Return From the Mainland [Today's News Poem March 28, 2010]
“LRA combatants specifically searched out areas where people might gather — such as markets, churches, and water points — and repeatedly asked those they encountered about the location of schools, indicating that one of their objectives was to abduct children. Those who were abducted, including many children aged 10 to 15 years old, were tied up with ropes or metal wire at the waist, often in human chains of five to 15 people.”
--Arthur Bright, Christian Science Monitor, March 28, 2010
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/terrorism-security/2010/0328/Human-Rights-Watch-says-Lord-s-Resistance-Army-rampage-killed-321-in-the-Congo
“One girl refused to have sex with her assigned rebel and she became an example to the others. As the other children watched, she was beaten to death. To magnify the horror of the “execution,” the other children were forced to beat the child’s dying body... Frequently, some of the abducted children were forced to participate in unspeakably barbaric rituals involving the bodies of slain combatants.  These cannot be described here.”
–MIKE HINKLE The Edmond Sun
http://www.edmondsun.com/opinion/x58345176/Terror-remains-for-Uganda-s-child-soldiers

“And every time I neared a nervous lapse,
I thought of you; regained my urge to fight.
The boy was one of many native traps:
A spell they cast to gull the few who right
The awfulness of murder—it's obscene.
I testify his death was fair and clean.”

“The zombie myth we tell is not a lie.
Our lovely children: fear their vicious ways—
With wickedness a golden age did die.
This platform on the sea is home to praise
Of clans and nurture. Faith is never lost
If innocence survives—and damn the cost!”

“The books before the fall refer to crimes
In distant lands. The citadels of wealth
Ignored the spreading plague until the times
Infected them, by means of cunning stealth:
And every murder they allowed, a prayer
That God abandon us: why should it care?

The boy was only twelve, like some of you.
He had a gun, but also had a tome:
A bible book, I saw he'd read it through.
I buried him at sea—he sleeps in foam.
I needed self-redemption, some small act
To show I know that any death detracts

From every living being that loves to grow:
I buried him for me and not for show.”

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