ugnet_: HIDDEN RISE IN CONGO'S CHILD RECRUITMENT

[Mulindwa Edward]

By Rory Carroll Africa Correspondent The Guardian - UK 9-9-3 Armed groups in the Democratic Republic of Congo have stepped up their recruitment of child soldiers in expectation of the civil war continuing despite the peace accord, Amnesty International says. Boys and girls as young as eight are being mobilised in their thousands to murder and plunder -undermining the hope that after five years the conflict is winding down, its report, Children at War, says. The various demobilisation initiatives which have been welcomed as auguries of peace are merely public relations stunts by commanders who continue using children as cannon fodder, sex slaves, porters and war criminals, it adds. "In the course of 2003, the rate of child recruitment has in fact gathered pace in some areas in the east, in part due to the militia trying to compensate for the official, though in reality incomplete, withdrawal of Rwandese and Ugandan troops." A series of peace deals in the past year has prompted neighbouring countries to withdraw their forces from Congo and the to the formation of a power-sharing government in Kinshasacommitted to ending the war. But Amnesty's reportpaints a grim picture of the failure to disarm tens of thousands of children who have suffered - and inflicted - atrocities at the behest of myriad groups vying for territory and mineral wealth in the anarchic east. "While in a period of supposed transition to peace, all parties continue to recruit combatants, including a large number of child soldiers," it says. They may be ordered to do anything, including torture and executions. "[They are] forced to kill, to rape, to kill own families; forced into cannibalism and sex acts with corpses; given drugs and alcohol to numb/ cloud feelings." The report, based on interviews with civilians, child soldiers, commanders, workers and politicians, details the systematic recruitment of youngsters. Some are kidnapped, others join voluntarily, lured by the promise of loot and prestige or the chance to defend their communities. Andrew Philip, an Amnesty International campaigner, said that many commanders preferred child recruits, because they were easier to indoctrinate. "They know it's a war crime, but they seem to believe they'll never be brought to justice. There is a sense of rampant impunity." The international criminal court should prosecute them, he said. Britain and others should be more "robust" with Uganda and Rwanda, two countries popular with western governments despite allegedly backing armed groups which use child soldiers. The report documents the use of child soldiers by three groups, RCD-Goma, RCD-ML and the Mayi-Mayi, and dismiss as false their claims to have started demobilising fighters under the age of 18. "Many battles are fought, and won, on the basis of simple numerical supremacy, and so the more children that a militia can recruit, the better it considers its chances of military victory. The more direct way of expressing this is that the children they recruit are often used by the militia as cannon fodder." Children comprise more than half Congo's population, and form the bulk of some armed factions, though their proportion in the government army is said to have dwindled since Kinshasa stopped recruiting them three years ago. But the report criticises government demobilisation and rehabilitation initiatives as "tokenistic" efforts which have left many children to slide into crime, prostitution and drugs. The scale of DRC's child soldier phenomenon, and the implications for building a stable society, were terrifying, Mr Philip said. "I don't want to come across as pessimistic, but I think in many ways it's an insurmountable problem." Young lives blighted by torture and terror Jeanne was abducted at the age of 11 as she was walking home. "I was recruited in Goma on my way home from school. I came across some soldiers who were pretending to mend their broken-down vehicle, but in fact it was a ploy. They called me and some other children over, and when I went up to them, they grabbed me, threw me into their vehicle and took me off to a training centre. I was trained there and then we began the march towards Kinshasa. Because we were taken just like that, on our way home from school, our parents had no idea where we were. To this very day I don't know if my parents are alive. And even if they are, they don't know what's become of me." Thomas, who was recruited at the age of 13 together with his eight-year-old brother, has been permanently scarred by the "military discipline" in the training camps. "The scars I have all over my back come from my camp commanders beating me 40 times with a rifle butt every time I did not perform the daily exercises successfully, like the adults, or if I fell asleep while I was on guard. Being new, I couldn't perform the very difficult exercises properly and so I was beaten every morning. Two of my friends in the camp died because of the beatings. The soldiers buried them in the latrines. I am still thinking of them." Gaston, who was recuited at the age of 10, was forced to kill another child. "We were frightened because we were young children and we didn't know anything about the army. Even on the shooting range, when they tell you to fire, you're always very scared. For me to overcome that fear, I had to kill someone at the training camp. They brought someone to me one night when I was on duty guarding an entrance. It was a child, whose face they'd covered, and they told me he was a rebel, an enemy, and that I had to kill him. That's exactly what I did. On the spot. With my knife. That night, after doing that, I couldn't sleep." - Accounts collated by Amnesty International Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003 http://www.guardian.co.uk/congo/story/0,12292,1038166,00.html               The Mulindwas Communication Group "With Yoweri Museveni, Uganda is in anarchy"             Groupe de communication Mulindwas "avec Yoweri Museveni, l'Ouganda est dans l'anarchie"