INTERNATIONAL
Suffering of child soldiers
The children had nicknames based on
their grimmest deeds — like “Castrator” or “Laughing and Killing.” Some dyed their hair bright orange. Others fought naked to terrify
the enemy. Some girl soldiers fought in their underwear because they
thought it would make them magical and bulletproof. They carried the scars of secret initiation rites and wore neck
charms that they believed would protect them from enemy bullets, though
one 17-year-old, Isaac T., conceded that the magic did not work against
larger artillery.
The commanders in Liberia's four-year war deny recruiting child
soldiers. But, according to the accounts of child soldiers interviewed
by the New York-based organization Human Rights Watch, the government
and two rebel groups abducted children as young as 9 and turned them
into combatants during the past four years. The kidnappings occurred
when children were on their way to school or from camps for displaced
persons, said the group, which protected the children's identities.
The use of child soldiers under the age of 15 is a violation of the
Geneva Conventions.
The commanders sent the children to the front line first, to fight
the most dangerous battles — presumably because they were the most
expendable. Girl soldiers were used as sex slaves, repeatedly raped,
often by groups of fighters.
A Human Rights Watch report, which was to be released Monday, paints
a chilling portrait of the suffering of child soldiers in Liberia and
the atrocities they witnessed and committed. It highlights the problems
faced in Liberia, and other African countries, in demobilizing thousands
of child soldiers and returning them to communities where they may have
committed atrocities. The United Nations has estimated that 15,000 child
soldiers have taken part in fighting in Liberia since 2000.
The Human Rights Watch report was being released ahead of a donors
conference on Liberia in New York this week, when the United Nations
will seek to raise $400 million to help rebuild the country.
According to the report, many children demobilized after an earlier
conflict from 1989 to 1997 got little support from the international
community, could not afford to go to school or find work, and ended up
idle in cities and towns. When the civil war restarted in 2000, many
went back to fighting.
Samson T., whose age was not available, fought with former President
Charles Taylor's rebel National Patriotic Front of Liberia, or NPFL, but
later for the forces who opposed him, Liberians United for
Reconciliation and Democracy, or LURD.
Before every battle the commanders passed out drugs, tablets that the
children considered magical. “The medicine was for protection. If a bullet hit you, it would
bounce right off. After I took that medicine, it made me feel bad, it
changed my heart,” Samson T. said in an interview with Human Rights
Watch observers on Bushrod Island in Liberia last October.
Solomon F., who was grabbed by Taylor's NPFL forces in the 1990s on
his way home from school, told researchers that children were given the
drugs because “you need the drugs to give you the strength to kill.”
Taylor was elected in 1997 after a cease-fire. Facing international
war crimes charges, Taylor stepped down last August and accepted asylum
in Nigeria. An interim Liberian government is now in power. Human Rights Watch said that although many children left their units
after U.N. peacekeepers moved into Liberia, some in areas outside U.N.
control were still in fighting units. It called on the international
community to fund the demobilization of child soldiers so that they did
not cross borders to fight in other West African conflicts.
Boys as young as 10 fought on the front lines, the study found. They
received a couple of weeks of training before being sent into war.
Robert L. described training ordeals such as having to crawl through
barbed wire while LURD commanders shot at him and other boys.
“During the fighting, I was very afraid. I killed many people. I saw
friends dying all around me — it was terrible,” said Robert L., who
fought with LURD for a year.
Patrick F., 12, spent 18 months fighting in a government unit of
child soldiers and commanded four girls and five boys. “I was not afraid. When I killed LURD soldiers, I would laugh at
them. This is how I got my nickname, ‘Laughing and Killing,’ ” he said.
Captured enemy soldiers were killed ruthlessly — either decapitated
or tortured to death. One child soldier watched as three suspects were
dragged from a car: Their hands and feet were severed and then they were
forced to crawl back to their car, where they bled to death.
Some children said they fought to feed themselves and their families.
James T. joined government forces at 15 to buy protection for his
family, who were being abused by those same soldiers.
Francis R., who worked for LURD rebels, refused to
fight. “LURD would
promise (the child soldiers) cars, money or mattresses,” he said. “But
in the end, they got nothing at all but death.”
By Robyn Dixon
4 February 2004
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0202ChildSoldiers02-ON.html
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