Eduardo and Omar
Eduardo is 13 years old. He runs. He’s very agile. No one can stop him. Through alleys, up hills or over rooftops, he’s the best. He wears only sandals and knee length shorts. An AK47 dangles from a leather strap around his neck. His small dark hands are always holding it, caressing it. Eduardo named the weapon: Manuela. Don’t bother asking him why. He won’t tell. A friend said something about a broken heart. The weapon is part of his body, an extension of his arms. It sleeps in Eduardo’s bed; it stays by his side when he is eating and even when he is bathing in a nearby river. It’s never more than a step away.
Omar, 21, lived many years in Canada but resides, for now, at the Guantanamo Base in Cuba. He is in prison because, when he was 14, he was accused of throwing a grenade that injured one and killed another American soldier in Afghanistan. His father, a close friend to Osama Bin Laden, was what is called a “freedom fighter”. He died in the battlefield. Omar’s brother lost a leg fighting the coalition forces near Kabul, and his mother and sister, who live in Toronto, openly preach war against westerners, mainly through suicide bombers. The young the attacker, the better.
Eduardo lives with an “aunt” and her boyfriend in a 3 by 4 meter cement box. There is no bathroom. No toilet. There is only one bed. The “aunt” is a transvestite and the boyfriend a pimp. No one knew Eduardo’s father, and his mother died in an armed robbery at the market where she worked as a cashier. The “aunt” and the boyfriend frequently molest Eduardo, sometimes at the same time. They have already found a way to take pictures and distribute them on the internet.
There is evidence that Omar was tortured in prison. Rumours are that he has a dislocated shoulder. His cell is 3 by 4 meters; he has a bed with clean sheets that are changed once a week, his food is edible, he can shower everyday and has his own toilet.
Eduardo lives in Santa Marta, one of dozens of slums that encroach Rio de Janeiro, and that are called “favelas”. He has already killed two enemies from another gang, a cop, and Aristides, his best friend, during a practical joke with a grenade that went terribly wrong. Eduardo is one year younger than Omar when he was in Afghanistan.
The “Canadian boy’s” situation has divided public opinion and created a tremendous uproar in almost all the media outlets in the country. Even cartoons published in newspapers have portrayed him as a kind of hero that should be welcomed with opened arms. The government should take care of him, feed him, clothe him and put a roof over his head. Praise to Omar, the “child soldier” who suffered so much.
Eduardo almost certainly will die horribly under his “aunt’s” boyfriend’s sweaty and heavy body, after snorting one cocaine line too many. Or he might perish in a police ambush, or under a hail of lead from the enemies of the neighbouring favela. Let’s not forget the possibility of practical jokes with automatic weapons and grenades.
Next week, when Harper and Obama meet in Ottawa, Omar will be there, at least as part of the negotiations between the United States and Canada. Omar is the “child soldier” who will eventually come home.
In Brazil, Eduardo is only one more abused kid that works for food and was “adopted” by a drug lord in a favela of a big Brazilian city. Eduardo is neither a soldier nor a freedom fighter. There’s no glamour in his life, and his death will be unfairly anonymous. He is a line in a statistics spreadsheet. He is not even a child, because a number doesn’t have a soul.
