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| Child Soldier’s Stories When Ishamael Beah was 14, he was recruited into the Sierra Leone Army. He remained a soldier for almost three years. In his testimony, read today by Samekelo Mokhine, he described his first experience at the front line. He is now studying in the U.S. “When we got there we were in an ambush, the rebels were attacking where we were in a bush. I did not shoot my gun at first, but when you looked around and saw your schoolmates, some younger than you, crying while they were dying with their blood spilling all over you, there was no option but to start pulling the trigger. I lost my parents during the war, they told us to join the army to avenge our parents.” Franz Kruger, “Child Soldiers Active in 41 Countries,” Radio Netherlands, June 12, 2001. http://www.rnw.nl/hotspots/html/childsoldiers010612.html In Uganda, children are caught in the battle between Uganda’s People’s Defense Force (UPDF) and the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebel force, which is committed to overthrowing the Ugandan government and to this end rounds up children from villages it children from villages it raids and forces them to join with them. One 16-year-old girl testified to the cruelties she endured when a boy tried to escape: “One boy tried to escape, but he was caught. They made him eat a mouthful of red pepper, and five people were beating him. His hands were tied, and then they made us, the other new captives, kill him with a stick. I felt sick. I knew this boy from before. We were from the same village. I refused to kill him, and they told me they would shoot me. They pointed a gun at me, so I had to do it. The boy was asking me, “Why are you doing this?” I said I had no choice. After we killed him, they made us smear blood on our arms. I felt dizzy. They said we had to do this so we would not fear death, and so we would not try to escape.” -Susan, 16 Human Rights Watch, The Scars of Death: Children Abducted by the Lord’s Resistance Armys in Uganda, Human Rights Watch Report, 1997, http://www.hrw.org/reports97/uganda/1ra.htm “The first time I went into battle I was afraid. But after two or three days they forced us to start using cocaine, and then I lost my fear. When I was taking drugs, I never felt bad on the front. Human blood was the first thing I would have every morning. It was my coffee in the morning… every morning.” -Ibrahim, 16 Youth Ambassadors for Peace, Voices and Stories, Free the Children, 2001, http://www.freethechildren.org/peace/voices.html “I was in the front lines the whole time I was with the [opposition force]. I used to be assigned to plant mines in the areas the enemy passed through. They used us for reconnaissance and other things like that because if you’re a child the enemy doesn’t notice you as much; nor do the villagers.” -Former child soldier from Burma/ Myanmar Human Rights Watch, The Scars of Death: Children Abducted by the Lord’s Resistance Armies in Uganda, Human Rights Watch Report, 1997, http://www.hrw.org/campaigns/crp/voices.htm#N_4_. “They beat all the people there, old and young, they killed them all, nearly 10 people…like dogs they killed them…I didn’t kill anyone, but I saw them killing…the children who were with them killed too…with weapons… they made us drink the blood of people, we took the blood from the dead into the bowl and they made us drink…then when they killed the people they made us eat their liver, their heart, which they took out an sliced and fried…And they made us little ones eat.” -Peruvian woman, recruited by the Shining Path at age 11 Peruvian woman, interview by R. Brett and M. McCallin, Children the Invisible Soldiers. Stockholm: Radda Baren, 1996 “ I was recruited by force, against my will. On evening while we were watching a video show in my village three army sergeants came. They checked whether we had identification cards and asked if we wanted to join the army. We explained that we were under age and hadn’t got identification cards. But one of my friends said he wanted to join. I said no and came back home that evening but an army recruitment unit arrived the next morning at my village and demanded two new recruits. Those who could not pay 3000 kyats had to join the army, they said. I (my parents) could not pay, so altogether 19 of us were recruited in that way and sent to Mingladon (an army training centre).” -Zaw Tun’s BBC World Service, “Zaw Tun’s Story,” in Children of Conflict: A human Rights Issue, BBC World Service, http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/people/features/childrensrights/childrenofconflict |
Innocents Lost: When Child Soldiers Go to War
Jimmie Briggs
Basic Books
Hardcover
188 pages
June 2005
This was a difficult book to read, not only because I kept imagining my own sons wearing scant clothing
and bearing AK-47s. Sadly, the author’s style of prose does not lend texture, authenticity, or a newly
detailed level of reality to his subject matter. While Jimmie Briggs is an obviously dedicated reporter
and researcher, he did seemed confused as to whether he was writing a memoir or a current history of
the problem of children soldiers. He did do a good job portraying the lack of simple answers, the blurred
boundaries between good guys and bad guys. One thing that comes across clearly from this book: there
are no clear solutions.
Briggs partitions his book into several chapters; each deals with a specific troubled country: Rwanda,
Colombia, Sri Lanka, Uganda, and Afghanistan. Within these chapters he generally provides a short
history of the conflict and several personal stories of children who have served on the frontline. We
meet Francois Minani, a Hutu Rwandan who, at the age of sixteen, was given the choice to either kill his
four young Tutsi nephews or be killed himself. Sebastiana Figerardo tells the story of her daughter, Ida
Carmelita, another sixteen-year-old, who was coerced into joining the Tamil Tigers for three years, fled
from the guerillas, then suffered rape, torture, and death at the hands of soldiers from the Pallimunai
Army a few weeks after her escape. These are only a couple of more than a dozen examples in the book
of children damaged by war.
Among the stories of horror and deprivation, examples of hope spring weakly. Most of the countries
portrayed in Innocents Lost have some resources devoted to helping the kids who escape the violence –
group homes, counseling, education or training. Sadly, all the facilities seem insufficient in the face of
such tumultuous political and social unrest. Saddest of all, global efforts to halt the heinous
phenomenon of children soldiers are often derailed by countries with the most power, influence and
money – namely, our own.
Briggs refers several times to his own traumas, the results of this self-assigned journey. He feels guilt
over leaving his young daughter for dangerous places where his own death is a distinct prospect. He
develops post-traumatic stress syndrome and depression from listening to story after story of abuse.
These occasional mentions of his own suffering detract from the power of his subject matter, instead of
serving as a supplement; his empathetic afflictions seem more calculated than spontaneous, a plot
device as opposed to real, sudden emotional reaction. I’m not suggesting he didn’t feel anguish and
manifest symptoms accordingly; those symptoms just don’t feel organic in the context of this book.
Equally distracting was the writing. While Briggs’ style of prose might be fine in short essays or articles,
to stretch into a full length book takes more strength, structure, and attention. He repeats himself in at
least one place and is often either careless or sparing with details. Some paragraphs take multiple
readings to fully understand, due to awkward sentence structure. Luckily, his chosen subject matter is
so important and inherently gripping that I could forgive him enough to finish the book. I wish, though,
that he had stuck to straight, eager, front line reporting like Mark Fritz in Lost on Earth, or had switched
whole-heartedly to memoir, like Alexandra Fuller in Scribbling the Cat. As it stands, Innocents Lost is a
tepid read about a sizzling subject.
© 2005 by Andi Diehn for curledup.com.
Jimmie Briggs
Basic Books
Hardcover
188 pages
June 2005
This was a difficult book to read, not only because I kept imagining my own sons wearing scant clothing
and bearing AK-47s. Sadly, the author’s style of prose does not lend texture, authenticity, or a newly
detailed level of reality to his subject matter. While Jimmie Briggs is an obviously dedicated reporter
and researcher, he did seemed confused as to whether he was writing a memoir or a current history of
the problem of children soldiers. He did do a good job portraying the lack of simple answers, the blurred
boundaries between good guys and bad guys. One thing that comes across clearly from this book: there
are no clear solutions.
Briggs partitions his book into several chapters; each deals with a specific troubled country: Rwanda,
Colombia, Sri Lanka, Uganda, and Afghanistan. Within these chapters he generally provides a short
history of the conflict and several personal stories of children who have served on the frontline. We
meet Francois Minani, a Hutu Rwandan who, at the age of sixteen, was given the choice to either kill his
four young Tutsi nephews or be killed himself. Sebastiana Figerardo tells the story of her daughter, Ida
Carmelita, another sixteen-year-old, who was coerced into joining the Tamil Tigers for three years, fled
from the guerillas, then suffered rape, torture, and death at the hands of soldiers from the Pallimunai
Army a few weeks after her escape. These are only a couple of more than a dozen examples in the book
of children damaged by war.
Among the stories of horror and deprivation, examples of hope spring weakly. Most of the countries
portrayed in Innocents Lost have some resources devoted to helping the kids who escape the violence –
group homes, counseling, education or training. Sadly, all the facilities seem insufficient in the face of
such tumultuous political and social unrest. Saddest of all, global efforts to halt the heinous
phenomenon of children soldiers are often derailed by countries with the most power, influence and
money – namely, our own.
Briggs refers several times to his own traumas, the results of this self-assigned journey. He feels guilt
over leaving his young daughter for dangerous places where his own death is a distinct prospect. He
develops post-traumatic stress syndrome and depression from listening to story after story of abuse.
These occasional mentions of his own suffering detract from the power of his subject matter, instead of
serving as a supplement; his empathetic afflictions seem more calculated than spontaneous, a plot
device as opposed to real, sudden emotional reaction. I’m not suggesting he didn’t feel anguish and
manifest symptoms accordingly; those symptoms just don’t feel organic in the context of this book.
Equally distracting was the writing. While Briggs’ style of prose might be fine in short essays or articles,
to stretch into a full length book takes more strength, structure, and attention. He repeats himself in at
least one place and is often either careless or sparing with details. Some paragraphs take multiple
readings to fully understand, due to awkward sentence structure. Luckily, his chosen subject matter is
so important and inherently gripping that I could forgive him enough to finish the book. I wish, though,
that he had stuck to straight, eager, front line reporting like Mark Fritz in Lost on Earth, or had switched
whole-heartedly to memoir, like Alexandra Fuller in Scribbling the Cat. As it stands, Innocents Lost is a
tepid read about a sizzling subject.
© 2005 by Andi Diehn for curledup.com.
| ORGANIZATIONS/AGENCIES Amnesty International 322 8th Avenue New York, NY 10001 Phone: (212) 807 8400 www.amnestyusa.org/children/soldiers/ CDI's Children & Armed Conflict Project Center for Defense Information 1779 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W. Washington, DC 20036 Phone: (202) 332-0600 www.cdi.org/atp/childsoldiers/ Program from the Center for Defense Information regarding children and war. Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers International Secretariat 2nd floor, 2-12 Pentonville Road London N1 9HF United Kingdom Phone: 20 7713 2761 http://www.child-soldiers.org/ International coalition of NGOs dedicated to ending the use of child soldiers worldwide. Human Rights Watch 350 Fifth Avenue, 34th floor New York, NY 10118-3299 Phone: (212) 290-4700 www.hrw.org/hrw/campaigns/crp/ Human Rights Watch campaign against the use of child soldiers. International Federation Terre Des Hommes 31 Ch. Frank-Thomas 1208 Geneva, Switzerland Phone: 22 736 33 72 http://www.terredeshommes.org/ International Red Cross/Red Crescent Movement Children Affected by Armed Conflict Program P.O. Box 372 CH-1211 Geneva 19 Switzerland Phone: 22 730 44 22 http://www.ifrc.org/ |
| RESEARCH GUIDE FOR THE CHILD SOLDIERS GLOBAL REPORT 2004 |
Child Soldiers
www.MickMaurer.com
Facts About Child Soldiers
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