lt lt For the Chief Musician. To the tune of Silent Dove in Distant Lands. A poem by David, when the Philistines seized him in Gath. gt gt Be merciful to me, God, for man wants to swallow me up. All day long, he attacks and oppresses me.

Be merciful unto me, O God for man would swallow me up he fighting daily oppresseth me.

According to oral tradition, the first Mwene was a warrior prince named Nyatsimba Mutota from the Kingdom of Zimbabwe sent to find new sources of salt in the north.

When you shall besiege a city a long time, in making war against it to take it, you shall not destroy its trees by wielding an axe against them for you may eat of them, and you shall not cut them down for is the tree of the field man, that it should be besieged of you?

When thou shalt besiege a city a long time, in making war against it to take it, thou shalt not destroy the trees thereof by forcing an axe against them for thou mayest eat of them, and thou shalt not cut them down (for the tree of the field is man's life) to employ them in the siege

On the first day I became the soldier teacher, a tiny girl with a sweet voice and that lovely southerner modesty came to meet me. She took my hand with her tiny one, encircled with a green bracelet to ward off evil, and showed me Kalou's new school a school that had no walls and stood just a few steps away from the sea.

Of the estimated 91,220 combatants recently demobilized in Liberia, 11,780 (12 per cent) were child soldiers, and 11,673 of them (99 per cent), have been reunited with their families, including 2,378 girls about 30 of those demobilized child combatants have been repatriated from Liberia.