Child Soldiers

international | rights, freedoms and repression | news report Wednesday February 15, 2006 00:15 by Liam Mullen - Freelance Journalist

Children as young as 12 are fighting in the Darfur region of Sudan according to Leslie Leskow, a spokeswoman for the watchdog ‘Human Rights Watch’.
She explained that, “rebel movements and the central government in Khartoum are locked in a devastating campaign against farmers in the Darfur area, and there have always been differences between these two groups”. It is unclear if the children are recruited directly to participate in the conflict, but concerned observers are closely monitoring the situation. Many are orphans whose parents have been killed in the fighting.

The Sudanese government’s hiring of the Janjaweed rebels – local tribal militias with a “nomadic nature”, and who “traditionally have some tension” with their farmer neighbours, has rendered “large parts of Darfur barren of people” and has exacerbated the situation. Many have fled the region –“specifically driven out” – or have gone to neighbouring Chad. Millions have been killed and displaced.
The African Union has approximately 1,800 peacekeepers in the Darfur region and Leskow agrees they “have to be given credit”, but she also stresses the impossibility of policing “an area the size of France”. She also states that the proposed UN force of 10,000 peacekeepers might not make a difference to the Darfur region, as it is envisaged that they will be sent to the south Sudanese area to monitor another conflict in the country that has been raging for at least 20 years, and where a cease-fire arrangement was recently brokered.
“A window of access” was opened by the Sudanese government last year, which allowed humanitarian workers to be issued visas, including members of ‘Human Rights Watch’, and journalists, Leskow points out. However, this “window” has since been closed, and she says that since last November, “the Sudanese government have once again been restricting access and clamping down”.
She agrees that all parties to the conflict are in breach of the Apr 8th 2004 Humanitarian Cease-fire Agreement and states that her organisation believes that “ethnic cleansing” has occurred in Darfur, and that a “genocide” has occurred of the people living there. It is hoped that people who have committed war crimes will be brought before the International Criminal Court (ICC). Leskow argues that the “ICC was designed to investigate and prosecute cases like Darfur,” and she makes the point that it would send a very “strong signal” to those committing abuses that they can’t get away with it.
Meanwhile, the UN Security Council is dragging its heels over Darfur. Leskow states that the “US administration has been quite strong in denouncing what is happening in Darfur, but on the other hand it has displayed strong ideological opposition to the International Criminal Court,” and “seems willing to sacrifice the interests of the victims for their own political interests”, and she adds that this would be “a very sad day for international justice if they don’t support it in the end”. She agrees that intransigence within the Security Council is causing further bloodshed and that delay means death.
She adds that “violence is continuing, not on the same scale, but women are still being raped and people are being attacked and killed when they leave the displaced camps”. Leskow says a “big difference” would ensue if the EU, UK and US got more involved.
Asked about the possibility of arraigning war criminals before the tribunal set up in Arusha, Tanzania to investigate and prosecute alleged war crimes during the Rwanda “genocide”, Leskow opposes this vigorously. She outlines a number of potential problem areas such as the length of time taken to “recruit the staff and judges, waiting yet another year for investigations to even begin”, and states emphatically that this would not be “responsible or justified morally where abuses are occurring on a daily basis”.
She emphasises the “incredibly devastating campaign by the government,” and the “amazing brutality of the campaign,” and puts the blame for the fiasco at the feet of the people responsible, claiming that the “bulk of the atrocities were committed by the Sudanese government.”