The December 2002 issue of National Defense carried a brief
article, prepared by Sandra I. Ewin, on children as soldiers and included
summary data of a report by the Marine Corps’ Center for Emerging Threats and
Opportunities, which described possible tactics for engaging forces employing
child soldiers. The full text of the
article follows with supplemental comments:
“In more than 30 wars being
fought around the world today, at least 300,000 soldiers are under the age of
18. The budding presence of so-called ‘child
soldiers’ should be a concern for U.S. forces as they
prepare for future conflicts say the experts.
“Child soldiers can be just
as effective and dangerous as adult fighters and, in some cases, they can pose
an even greater threat than seasoned combatants, because they have grown up
fighting wars and are more battle hardened.
“These findings were the
subject of a June 2002 seminar sponsored by the Marine Corps’ in-house think
tank, called the Center for Emerging Threats and Opportunities. The CETO was created two
“Experts who participated in
the seminar, titled ‘Child Soldiers: Implications for U.S. Forces,’ concluded
that the United States needs to prepare its military services to tackle issues
such as the rules of engagement when troops encounter child fighters and to
explore new tactics for combating them.
“For U.S. military
leaders, ‘the child soldier issue clearly is an emerging threat,’ said Col.
Frank A. Panter, Jr., commander of the Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory,
which oversees CETO.
“‘There is little question
that U.S.
servicemen will encounter child soldiers sometime in the future,’ said
Panter. ‘Indeed, this topic is of
increasing importance not only for policy makers but, most importantly, for U.S. service
members.’
“The ongoing conflict in Afghanistan
offers a compelling case in point. In
January 2002, U.S. Special Forces Sgt. Nathan Chapman is reported to have been
killed by a 14-year-old Afghan boy.
Although this was not confirmed by the Defense Department, the ‘incident
was noteworthy,’ said the CETO seminar report, published last month.
“In September 2000, British
Special Forces rescued a six-man patrol of the Royal Irish Regiment, who had
been captured in Sierra
Leone by a rogue militia made up almost
entirely of children, according to Maj. Jim Gray, a Royal Marine staff officer
who participated in the CETO seminar.
“The report cited statistics
by the United Nations, who estimated that 300,000 boys and girls under the age
of 18 are fighting as soldiers, but also serving as spies, informants, couriers
and sex-slaves in more than 30 conflicts going on today. Human Rights Watch said the biggest recruiter
of child soldiers is Burma,
with 70,000 in its ranks, 10-15 percent of whom are younger than 15 years
old. African armies that heavily use
children include those of the Democratic
Republic of the Congo, Uganda and Rwanda.
“A former child soldier from Sierra Leone,
Ishmael Beah, told the CETO seminar that commanders often gave kids addictive
drugs to weaken their inhibitions. ‘You
were always drugged, and you pretty much fought constantly,’ said Beah. ‘And when you were not fighting, you were
using drugs.’
“The CETO report noted that
advances in technology are among the ‘greatest enablers that facilitate the use
of child soldiers.’ Light arms, such as
the ubiquitous AK-47 assault rifle, are light enough and relatively easy to
handle. ‘There is no extensive or
complicated training necessary to teach children how to fire an AK-47,’ the
report said.
“U.S. forces, particularly, need to
become more aware of the child-soldier phenomenon, said the report, because
fighting against children can create moral dilemmas. ‘Battles that involve killing children often
have a very demoralizing on professional combat forces from countries where
children are protected and their rights are valued.’”
“Experts at the seminar
suggested that U.S.
forces consider developing unconventional tactics for engaging forces with
child soldiers. Examples include:
fighting at a distance and firing for shock, eliminate the recruitment zones,
use non-lethal weapons and psychological operations to convince child soldiers
to stop fighting.”
Prepared by Sandra I. Ewin
for National Defense, December 2002 issue.
Supplement
The suggestions by the
experts at the seminar appear to ignore or overlook some military and
population trend facts originated with the United Nations and reported in the
Encyclopaedia Britannica, to wit:
“The International Labor
Organization estimated in 1996 that as many as 200 million children under the
age of 15 were out of school in less developed nations and working to support
themselves and their families. Working
youngsters in African cities, many of them ‘street children,’ represented as
much as 20% of the urban child population.”
In three countries alone, there existed an estimated 500,000 child
prostitutes.
“The HIV/AIDS pandemic not
only caused the death of large numbers of parents in the less developed world
but also affected those who might otherwise provide substitute care for
orphans. According to the World Health
Organization, by the year 2000, 10 million children would be without one or
both parents as a result of AIDS. In Uganda alone,
at least 150,000 children were orphaned by AIDS.”
Britannica goes on with a
1996 Special Report on the future in which it states, “The conditions that
caused children to live in especially difficult circumstances did not appear
likely to diminish, and few new resources would be devoted to remedying such
problems.”
The Britannica Year in Review
2001 notes that “Wars between nations and within nations convulsed a large
swath of Africa stretching across the
continent from Ethiopia
to Sierra Leone…In
May the UN adopted an optional protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the
Child that set 18 as the minimum age for combat service.” By the end of 2001, only three states had
ratified it. Ten ratifications were
needed.
Also reported in 2001 was
that the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) found
there were 22.3 million refugees around the world in 1999 of which
approximately 41% or about 9.1 million were children under 18 years old. And these figures do not include the
humanitarian crises that occurred in 1999.
What does all this mean and
what does it have to do with children soldiers?
Consider the lonely and
hungry child. No parents or foster parents
to take care of him, living where he can
-- mostly in the streets, fighting to stay alive. Along comes his benefactor who promises food,
companionship and shelter. All that he
is expected to do is to fight for his new master, something he was doing anyway. Now multiply this one child by the tens of
thousands of others, and you have the child army.
Add to this the battle
techniques used by warring countries: Iran in the recent Iranian-Iraqis War
where they marched child soldiers in advance of the regular army to help clear
mine fields; Hitler’s Germany where they conscripted children, especially
during the final stages of the war; North Korea where they used refugee columns
of women and children to hide their combat soldiers; and , of course, the Vietnam
War where children were used for all conceivable military purposes. And we must not forget the use of poison gas
by Iraq
against their own people.
Having said all this, go back
to the suggestions of the experts at the CETO conference. Fighting at a distance. Will the child soldier cooperate and keep his
distance? Doubtful, especially if he
infiltrates the area; Fire for shock?
How does one shock the drug-soaked combatant? Eliminate the recruit zones? This has merit, but from what I read in the
newspapers our activities are increasing the recruiting of terrorists and child
soldiers. The use of non-lethal
weapons? Israel has used rubber bullets and
leg-crippling devices with limited success, why should we expect to be more
successful. Psychological
operations?
Why not?
We used psychological warfare
in the Pacific War against the Japanese and there could hardly have been a more
determined foe than the Japanese were.
What I am suggesting is that
killing the child-soldier is applying our strength to the wrong end of the
stick.
It would be a lot cheaper in
lives and dollars, let alone morality, to correct the population problems described
in the Britannica articles. It would
also eliminate the possible demoralizing effects of our troops having to kill
children. But don’t expect any thanks
from any of the other nations of the world, East or West. With few exceptions, our past
charitable
activities in similar situations have been selfishly criticized.
2002
LFC
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