SIERRA LEONE: Ex-Child Soldier Offers Training, Not Guns

By Lansana Fofana Reprint | | Print |

Lansana Fofana

FREETOWN, Aug 13 1998 (IPS) - Ivan Melvin Rogers, a former child soldier, has become one of the major campaigners against the use of children as fighters in Sierra Leone’s civil conflict, and has encouraged former fighters to seek vocational, instead of military training.

“I have been able to get together about 150 ex-child combatants to register with the Opportunities Industrialisation Centre and engage in technical and vocations training,” says Rogers, who is now 17.

The Opportunities Industrialisation Centre (OIC) runs a technical school in Freetown where the children learn carpentry, tailoring, baking, farming and soapmaking. “The children are doing pretty well and have promised to put behind them the ugly chapter of war and violence,” says Rogers.

The training also includes sessions to help psychologically disturbed children work through the trauma of war. “You know these kids had learnt nothing but the art of warfare, carrying dangerous weapons and killing people; so whatever we do for them starts with de-traumatisation,” says Frank Kpayagula, the OIC’s project co-ordinator.

Most of the children at the OIC helped the government to fight the rebel Revolutionary United Front (RUF), which has been waging a bush war since 1991.

Even as they are being counselled and de-traumatised, the children narrate horrific tales of murder, rape and mutilations they committed while in combat.

“I have lost count of the number of enemies I killed while in the war front, but I can confess to having tortured and raped,” recalls Rogers, an Rocket Propelled Grenade (RPG) expert. “Whenever I carried an RPG, I did not hesitate a second to inflict casualties on the enemy.”

Rogers says over 500 child combatants had been demobilised by the government, through a UN Children’s Fund-sponsored project, before the military coup of May 1997 which ousted the civilian government of President Ahmed Tejan Kabbah.

Many of the children however, were re-drafted when the army teamed up with the RUF rebels, after the coup, to form the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council headed by Johnny Paul Koroma.

“I felt terrible when I saw hundreds of my colleagues re-armed and taken to the frontline. That was why I decided to mobilise others who would not fight on the side of the rebels, to join ECOMOG to topple the junta, militarily,” Rogers explains. “And now I’m trying to get them to join the school so that they can be self-reliant”.

Rogers named his group the ‘Ex-Child Combatants Association’ and says it works closely with the West African Peacekeeping Force (ECOMOG) and the UN Observer Mission for the Total Demobilisation of Ex-Child Combatants.

Sierra Leone’s Ministry of Defence estimates that more than 5,000 children were conscripted by both the government and the rebels to fight in Sierra Leone’s war, that erupted in 1991.

Unconfirmed reports say the junta, which was toppled in February, has intensified its campaign of enlisting children into its fold to overthrow the government of President Kabbah.

“When they attack villages, the rebels kill the old or amputate the limbs of women. As for children, they simply abduct them and put them in combat,” says Chief Sam Vangahun of the troubled eastern district of Kailahun.

Efforts by local non-government organisations (ngos) in the tracing and demobilisation of child combatants in the north of the country is already paying off.

For example, in the northern districts of Tonkolili and Bomhali, more than 200 child fighters have reportedly been traced and demobilised ahead of the United Nations Observer Mission (UNOMIL) programme.

Marie Dainkeh of the ‘Tracing and Reintegration Programme’ says more than 100 such children have been demobilised in Tonkolili district, especially in Masingbi town, about 280 kilometres from the capital Freetown.

“Another 50 or more of these kids from Bombali district have also been traced and demobilised. We are only waiting for positive response from the appropriate authorities so that these kids will be de-traumatised and reintegrated into society,” Dainkeh says.

Some funds have already been pledged by the friends of Sierra Leone. Britain, the United States and New Zealand pledged about 30 million US Dollars for the demobilisation programme during a parley on Sierra Leone held in New York in early August.

Although the funds are yet to come, observers have expressed delight at moves undertaken by Rogers, Dainkeh and the local ngos.

“I think that these people and the ngos should be encouraged to continue the tracing and reunification of child combatants and making them positively useful to society,” says Joseph Kamarah, a social worker in the capital.