"young Blood" : Child Soldiers In Sierra Leone

“Young Blood” CHILD SOLDIERS IN CONTEMPORARY WARFARE

based on Armies of the Young, by David M Rosen and Children at War, by P W Singer

by TAN, Marian Felicity HI 307 Prof. Nolan 29 November 2007

On January 2, 2002, Sgt. Nathan Ross Chapman, the first U.S. casualty in the war on terror, was killed in an ambush by a 14-year-old Afghan boy. This boy is not alone; an estimated 300,000 children are active combatants in wars currently being waged around the world, and another half-million serve in armed forces presently at peace.1 But the use of children as combatants is hardly a new concept. Whether one considers their presence an aberration or not unusual in warfare, child soldiers have played active combatant roles throughout history, including during the American Revolution and Civil War, as well as in the first and second world wars. It is in the last 20 years, however, that their numbers have surged to ten percent of all combatants worldwide, up from near-zero just a few decades ago.2 This change in the face of warfare to that of a child’s is most likely caused by a change in its very nature. Karl von Clausewitz wrote: “Politics is the womb in which war develops.”3 This held true for most of history, but the collapse of colonialism in the second half of the 20th century ushered in a crisis of failed states where political ideology has become irrelevant. And despite evidence of preexisting cultures of youth violence, it is the amoral vacuum created by the breakdown in post-colonial states that has generated a fertile breeding ground for the child soldier phenomenon.

Sierra Leone is generally accepted as the epicenter of the child soldier phenomenon. The poorest country in Africa, it was embroiled in civil war from 1991-2001 and is barely recovering today. The actual number of child soldiers who served in the ten-year war is disputed; estimates range between 5,000 and 10,000 underage combatants fighting on both the government side and the rebel faction, the Revolutionary United Front (RUF). But most studies concur that about 80 1

P.W. Singer, Children at War (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2006), 30-31. Ibid., 30. 3 Ibid., 51. 2

percent of those who fought in Sierra Leone were between the ages 7 and 14, the age range for about half of the RUF’s manpower base.4 Anthropologist David M. Rosen thinks the numbers, though shocking, are not indicative of an unprecedented crisis. In Armies of the Young, Rosen asserts that warfare is an extension of the pre-war status quo in Sierra Leone where children were “already integrated into an exploitive and violent system.”5 In other words, he suggests that the presence of children in Sierra Leone’s battlefields is an inevitable result of the country’s culture and history, and that children are themselves to blame. One will see, however, that Rosen’s proposition is sorely lacking. Rosen’s thesis is rooted in what he calls the “global politics of age,” 6 which begins with a dispute over the very definition of the term child soldier. According to the Cape Town Principles, a child soldier is “any person under 18 years of age who is part of any kind of regular or irregular armed force or armed group in any capacity.”7 This definition follows the Straight 18 Proposition, a commonly held view that sets the legal age of maturity at 18 in terms of warfare.8 But Rosen rightly points out that there is no single, fixed age at which “young people enter into...the rituals of war.”9 Various groups hold different ideas of childhood, and those notions should not be confused with childhood in cultures more familiar to us.10 The Straight 18 Proposition, then, extends the concept of childhood beyond the empirical age limits of growing

4

Singer, Ibid., 15-16. David M. Rosen, Armies of the Young: Children in War and Terrorism (New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 2005), 60. 5 Rosen, Ibid., 90. 6 Ibid., 90. 7 UNICEF, Cape Town Principles and Best Practices on the Recruitment of Children into the Armed Forces and on Demobilization and Social Reintegration of Child Soldiers in Africa, 1997. 8 Rosen, Ibid., 3. 9 Ibid., 4. 10 Ibid., 62.

up. In most cultures, the end of childhood begins with adolescence, when young people become “rational human actors” with a mature understanding of their surroundings.11 That is, at some point well before the age 18, young people become moral agents with the capacity to exercise power as effectual members of society who can make active and independent decisions -including participation in violence. As one primary-school student and child soldier elucidates, “We killed them, put tires over them and burned them….We were shouting, we were happy, we were clapping.”12 Rosen attributes the gravitation of Sierra Leonean youths toward violence to a spillover from a preexisting culture of youth thuggery. Traditionally, Sierra Leoneans depended on cultural “big men” for protection, while young men provided big men with muscle.13 The practice is evident in urban street gangs that attract disenfranchised children -- the very risk group that comprises most of the child soldier population. Rosen compares the social dynamic in those gangs to Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist, where “big brothers” provide “little brothers” with food, money and protection in exchange for criminal favors.14 The relationship between child soldiers and their adult leaders is similarly patterned. Rosen’s main argument, thus, is that the ten-year war in Sierra Leone was “an extension of peacetime violence.”15 This seems to be true in part. He does not, however, elaborate on why the war broke out when it did, if it was after all precipitated by a longstanding culture and history. Rosen points to the struggle over Sierra Leone’s rich diamond fields as the catalyst for

11

Rosen, Ibid., 17. Ibid., 57. 13 Ibid., 59. 14 Ibid., 66-70. 15 Ibid., 132. 12

all-out war, the RUF creating a “zone of terror” to shield its criminal actions.16 But although the war did in fact begin with the rebel invasion of the diamond fields in Kono District, warlord politics is hardly a satisfying answer, when disputes over control of Sierra Leone’s single major resource began as early as the 1950s.

The crisis of post-colonial states The crisis of failed states is endemic to post-colonial states such as Burma, Colombia, the Middle East and Africa -- all regions where the child soldier phenomenon abounds.17 Rosen, however, thinks there is no justification in drawing a “bright line between ‘old wars’ and ‘new wars’ at the end of colonialism”; he argues that child soldiers have always been present on the battlefield.18 But the impact of colonialism on the child soldier phenomenon does not merely rest on considering whether child soldiers were present in pre- and post-colonial wars; what is telling is the effects of post-colonialism on the state, its economy and its children. After gaining independence from Britain in 1961, Sierra Leone struggled for ten years to become a republic. Still it failed to create even a façade of a working democracy, and coups and government executions plagued the next few decades. Militant groups slowly filled the void left by a failing government.19 The country’s troubles were further augmented by the final collapse of colonialism at the end of the Cold War. Ironically, with the disarming of Germany as mandated by the Peace Dividend came a small arms boom in the black market, making such weapons not only accessible but also cheap enough for armed factions to sufficiently arm themselves.20 16

Rosen, Ibid., 13. Countries where child soldiers were active combatants. Map. Children at War, 2006. 18 Rosen, Ibid., 12. 19 Singer, Ibid., 96. 20 Ibid., 47-48. 17

Rosen disputes the significance of the proliferation of small arms to the rise of the child soldier phenomenon. He argues that the AK-47, the child soldier’s weapon of choice, has been around since 1949 and are heavier than the weapons used in the Civil War.21 However, he fails to consider the weapon’s ease of use and its newfound affordability (they cost as little as $5 in Africa and can be bartered for food).22 He also fails to consider all the other “new toys for tots”: grenades, light machine guns and land mines -- “man-portable” weapons that are also “childportable,”23 meaning that armed forces could now provide small arms for small hands. The weakening of the state, the rise of small-arms trade, and the increasing power of rebel factions coupled with Rosen’s theory of youth violence seem to create the perfect storm for the breakout of a civil war in Sierra Leone mostly in the hands of the young. But in the end, as military advisor P.W. Singer suggests in Children at War, it is the economic strife borne out of the crisis of post-colonial states that pushed Sierra Leone’s children over the edge.

A playground of lost children Widespread poverty ensued from the collapse of the Sierra Leonean government, creating a mass of hungry, unemployed and unemployable youth. Faced with few real prospects, Sierra Leone’s children became open to “anything...that offered a hint of economic opportunity.”24 The government began to mobilize them, and when it failed to satisfy the children’s needs, the RUF began to proselytize, not only promising to protect their young recruits from a government that had abandoned them, but also depicting the RUF as an escape from poverty.25 A 12-year-old 21

Rosen, Ibid., 14-15. Singer, Ibid., 48. 23 Ibid., 45-46. 24 Rosen, Ibid., 80 25 Ibid., 85. ; Singer, Ibid., 66. 22

child soldier echoed the rationale of numerous other child soldiers: “I heard the gunmen at least were eating, so I joined them.”26 An impetus even more hard-hitting than poverty and famine was the spread of disease and AIDS in particular. With almost three-quarters of the world’s AIDS victims in Sub-Saharan Africa, the disease created a massive pool of orphans, which constitutes much of the identified risk groups targeted by recruiters.27 Singer posits that, together with other street urchins, AIDS orphans searched for “a sense of control over their chaotic and unpredictable situations,” and did so by joining the armed factions on either side of the growing conflict.28 This is much the same concept as disaffected youths in the United States joining street gangs, participating in street and drug wars instead of military wars absent in their immediate environment. By 1992, Sierra Leone was so in shambles that the only way to earn a living was to join the army.29 Having seen their parents die and forced to fend for themselves, AIDS orphans and others like them seemed to have nothing to lose by entering the war, thus creating a “roving orphanage of blood and war.”30 Together with other factors, the AIDS epidemic swept away much of Sierra Leone’s adult population. Only 28 percent of the United States population is 19 or younger, whereas the same age group comprises almost 60 percent of Sierra Leone’s population.31 The brunt of the country’s socioeconomic problems, therefore, fall on the young.32 It is no wonder the majority of Sierra Leone’s soldiers are children.

26

Singer, Ibid., 45. Ibid., 42, 45 ; Until Thereʼs A Cure Foundation, Vital Statistics. accessed 25 November 2007 http://www.until.org/ statistics.shtml. 28 Singer, Ibid., 45. 29 Rosen, Ibid., 85. 30 Singer, Ibid., 42, 44. 31 Ibid., 41. ; Rosen, Ibid., 62. 32 Singer, Ibid., 39. 27

Or else mama dies Both Rosen and Singer agree that Sierra Leone’s “social bomb”33 sucked children into warfare. Rosen, however, argues that children took up arms as a voluntary response to their predicament, while Singer contends they were forced to exchange their innocence for guns because they had no other choice. Child soldiers, Rosen argues, are not vulnerable individuals exploited by adults because they are cheap, expendable and malleable “weapons of war,” but instead have made the conscious choice to join armed forces. 34 Some join to defend their homes or exact revenge, while others feel safer as armed fighters rather than as defenseless civilians.35 As one military theorist puts it, “The least dangerous place to be in war today is the military.”36 Whatever their reason, underage combatants tend to defend their choices proudly as militia activity offers them the chance to make their mark in the world.37 Rosen also cites claims that children were not forcibly abducted, but were among the first to join armed forces and should therefore not be viewed as victims.38 Singer opposes this assertion. He defines abduction as “an act of violence that rips terrified children from the security of their families and homes.”39 Indeed, children who resisted recruitment were often beaten or killed, or were forced to watch their loved ones die.40 One child soldier recounts:

33

Singer, Ibid., 40. Ibid., 132. 35 Ibid., 61. 36 Ibid., 17. 37 Ibid. 38 Rosen, Ibid., 17. 39 Singer, Ibid., 61. 40 Rosen, Ibid., 16. 34

They killed my parents in front of me, my uncle’s hands were cut off and my sister was raped in front of us by the commander…. After all this happened, they told us...to join them. If not, they were going to kill us. They had something which I did not: a gun. We had no parents any longer, and my sister was in pain...and my own toe was cut off.41 Recruiters justify their actions by pointing out that their recruits could not legally prove they were underage and so they took who was available for the war effort.42 This mirrors Rosen’s almost depthless thesis. Recruiters’ motives run deeper than mere fulfillment of numbers drawn from a young population;43 instead, children are deliberately chosen precisely for their youth. Children are considered children because they are incapable of understanding the consequences of their actions and are indeed plunged into a world where they are unprepared for such consequences.44 To young people, Singer argues, death is a meaningless concept; children have not yet developed a sense of mortality nor have they an understanding for the value of life.45 As such, the youngest child soldiers were by far the most feared.46

And the war goes merrily around And so child soldiers wreaked havoc, spreading “unspeakable fear throughout Sierra Leone.”47 They raped thousands of women, further spreading the disease that landed most of them in the battlefield in the first place. They created a vicious cycle of retribution, where, suffering from survivor’s guilt, children sought vengeance for the massacre of their families: I was persuaded...to be part of the army and kill those people who were responsible for killing my parents. [But] I was also creating a circle of revenge where I killed somebody 41

Singer, Ibid., 61. Singer, Ibid., 146. 43 Rosen, Ibid., 62. 44 Singer, Ibid., 80, 109. 45 Ibid., 81, 83. 46 Rosen, Ibid., 83. 47 Ibid., 18. 42

else’s parents, [and] he’s going to be persuaded by a different group...saying, “Okay, join the army and kill this person who killed your parents.”48 “And to revenge,” according to another child soldier, “is only to have a gun.”49 Child soldiers publicly killed family, friends and neighbors, in effect alienating them from their communities, making reintegration next to impossible. They are reviled by their former communities and are left to their own devices. Hungry and alone, they are the potential ingredients for a new war.50 Singer calls this endless cycle a “culture of impunity,” where soldiering takes away a child’s very childhood, paving the way for future strife.51 Half of all ongoing conflicts are fought by a second generation of fighters; thus, children are growing up surrounded by violence and see it as a permanent way of life.52 War, then, becomes “the framework through which they understand society and life itself,” and children find it difficult to imagine what peace is like and how they should function in it.53 And because they are taken so young, most have no other viable skill other than killing; they do not know life without a gun.54 Robbed of hope and wanting skill, they “become a potential pool and catalyst for the next spate of violence.”55 More dangerously, Rosen rightly points out that international law immunizes children from prosecution for war crimes. They can get away with the worst atrocities, and will not know any better. They will become the new generation of warmongers, devoid of morals, devoid of ideology, stealing their lost childhoods from the next generation of youths living in the amoral vacuum they had no hand in creating, just as the generation before them had none.

48

Singer, Ibid., 57. Singer, Ibid., 65. 50 Ibid., 115. 51 Ibid., 109, 210. 52 Ibid., 43. 53 Ibid., 44, 109. 54 Ibid., 110-111. 55 Ibid., 109. 49

A new military revolution? The civil war in Sierra Leone speaks out to a chilling new turn in total war. Old wars were struggles over power as afforded by territorial control, sovereignty, and most importantly, ideology. But with the political and socioeconomic collapse brought about by the end of colonialism, warfare in Sierra Leone centered around “profit-seeking enterprises” at the expense of the innocent. Singer asserts: “Resource and population exploitation rather than mass production drive the new ‘economy of war.’”56 Sierra Leone’s war was aimless, formless, and had no real purpose other than its own continuity.57 A post-war survey shows that nobody knew what the rebels wanted; in fact, RUF leader Foday Sanokh began his reign of terror by murdering his group’s theorists.58 Indeed, the war needed no ideology. Fueled by child soldiers, ideology became irrelevant because children are too young to understand such things.59 And so they redefined the idea of senseless murder 100 thousand 60 times in Sierra Leone. With no limits and no consideration other than survival, the children of Sierra Leone have unwittingly created a new kind of military revolution, one that self-perpetuates and where an entire generation is selfdestructing as adults egg them on.

56

Singer, Ibid., 52. Rosen, Ibid., 11. 58 Singer, Ibid., 100. 59 Ibid., 99. 60 Silvia Aloisi, “Sierra Leone War Crimes Court will Hunt Guilty Everywhere.” Global Policy Forum 18 March 2003. accessed 26 November 2007 http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/liberia/2003/0318court.htm. 57

Bibliography

Aloisi, Silvia. “Sierra Leone War Crimes Court will Hunt Guilty Everywhere.” Global Policy Forum (2003). 26 November 2007. Doughty, Robert A., and Ira D. Gruber. Warfare in the Western World: Volume II: Military Operations since 1871. Boston: Houghton Mifflin: 2001. Rosen, David M. Armies of the Young: Child Soldiers in War and Terrorism. New Jersey: Rutgers University Press: 2005. Singer, P.W. Children At War. Los Angeles: University of California Press: 2006. UNICEF, Symposium on the Prevention of Recruitment of Children into the Armed Forces and on Demobilization and Social Reintegration of Child Soldiers in Africa. Cape Town Principles and Best Practices. Cape Town: 1997. Vital Statistics. 2007. Until There’s a Cure Foundation. 25 November 2007.