Africa, Development & Aid, Headlines, Human Rights, Population

RIGHTS-AFRICA: Despite ‘Peace’, Children Still Making War in DRC

Miriam Kagan

WASHINGTON, Sep 10 2003 (IPS) - Although peace exits on paper in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the reality of war continues to plague its children, says a report released Tuesday by Amnesty International (AI).

According to the report, although the Traditional Government of National Unity has been established in the DRC, thousands of children in the east African nation, formerly Zaire, are still involved in armed conflict, either joining voluntarily or though forced recruitment.

The report, ‘Democratic Republic of Congo: Children at War’, documents the plight of thousands of child soldiers in the Great Lakes region of the DRC.

"The ruthless exploitation of Congo’s children by leaders of armed forces to further their own material and political end is the most egregious example of human rights abuses in the entire Congo conflict," said Krista Riddley, Africa advocacy director for AI-USA, in a statement.

Children have been used as foot soldiers since the beginning of the conflict in the DRC.

The country fell into political disarray in the early 1990s. In 1996, an opposition force lead by Laurent Kabila took over leadership from Joseph Mobutu, who had ruled Zaire for over 30 years.

Once in power, Kabila was unable to keep his coalition together, and in 1998, war broke out between the leader and other factions in the country’s east.

Since 1996, thousands of children have been pressed into the army and various other militias in the DRC.

Although some voluntarily joined, many were forcibly recruited. Children have been abducted in the streets, from classrooms, refugee camps, and even taken from their homes at gunpoint.

They are used as soldiers on the front lines, as servers and handymen, decoys, and bodyguards in the various armed groups.

According to the report, girl soldiers almost always experience some kind of sexual exploitation, including rape and sexual slavery.

After a peace accord signed in 2001, President Joseph Kabila (the son of Laurent Kabila) named a transitional government in June 2003 that intends to lead the DRC until elections two years from now.

On paper, the peace agreement and new government were to signify an end to conflict, and especially an end to child soldiers. Most of the parties in the DRC committed themselves to end the recruitment and use of children as armed fighters.

Last December, the United Nations for the first time singled out states and rebel groups that recruited or used child soldiers. Both the DRC government and armed groups in the country were on the list.

That report was ”a bold step forward in global efforts to render unacceptable the exploitation and victimisation of children during times of conflict,” said U.N. Under-Secretary-General Olara Otunnu, special representative for children and armed conflict, at the time.

But in its report, Amnesty International decries a vast discrepancy between public commitments and actual attempts made by various government and armed groups to protect children from being used as combatants.

"The recruitment of children under 18 in armed conflict is not only abominable, but constitutes a war crime," said William F. Schulz, executive director of AI-USA, in a statement.

"Until sham demobilisation efforts designed to deceive the international community are abandoned, the welfare, and, in fact, the very lives of these children, continue to be gravely at risk. Those armed rebel leaders responsible for such actions should be prosecuted for their offences."

According to Joel Charny, vice president of policy at Refugees International (RI), despite the proclaimed peace, "the eastern Congo war is still continuing".

"The difficulty in Congo," said Charny, whose organisation has sent several missions to the DRC, "is that the war has lost its political rational and degenerated into gangs; armed groups of gangs, rather than coordinated soldiers, are roaming the countryside."

Because of the total "lack of a government, education and social system", for many Congolese boys, the only "viable option is to pick up a gun", he told IPS.

The fate of decommissioned child soldiers is not much better than that of their still-armed peers, adds the report.

Some former child soldiers told Amnesty they were afraid to return home because they had previously been forced to participate in crimes against their communities and were afraid of retribution or non-acceptance.

For the decommissioned children, "there are no options", says Charny.

"We have seen cases of children, who literally have been decommissioned, gone through two or three months of vocational training, and been re-recruited at the front door of the training centre."

The economy offers them no opportunities, he adds, so once released, many former child soldiers find they have no way to support themselves except to rejoin the army or armed rebel group that initially recruited them.

Only international cooperation will solve the problem, according to AI.

"The international community should bring pressure on all parties involved in the DRC conflict to hold those responsible accountable for their acts and to bring them to justice at the international and national levels," said Riddley.

The DRC also must do more than make paper commitments, concludes the report.

"Economic development and peace-building efforts must be addressed, so that demobilisation and rehabilitation of former child soldiers can be sustainable."

"If not addressed properly, its legacy for the DRC, and for its children who witnessed and committed crimes, will be profound and enduring."