Boy Soldiers

The violence done to some of the child recruits is equally horrifying. In Mozambique, children fought both for the government and for the rebel movement (Renamo) during a 15-year civil war. Renamo actually seems to have preferred children over adult conscripts; a study conducted by the relief group Save the Children found that the average age of Renamo recruits in one region was 11 years. Renamo commanders first terrorized the boys--often by hanging them upside down from trees. They forced many to shoot or slit the throats of their parents. Later the boys would willingly terrorize others. "I killed and I robbed and I feel ashamed," says Rodrigo Novela, now in his teens and enrolled in an elementary school in the district capital of Chibuto. He says his entire unit was composed of boys as young as 10, adding, "Many died in the fighting." He has shrapnel scars on his chest and below his left eye, and his feet are flat from years of forced marches. Franice Sigauque was catatonic when he was freed from a rebel training base in 1988--at the age of 6. He had been forced at gunpoint to set fire to his family's hut. Only recently he was reunited with a family member, his uncle. Franice still speaks haltingly. "I feel bitterness in my heart, but I can't express it," he said.

Other methods of molding a boy soldier are scarcely more subtle. In African bush wars, field commanders often freely hand out drugs--mostly marijuana or amphetamines--to keep their charges pumped up. Before battle in Liberia, children are often given Valium tablets, known in the ranks as "bubbles" or "10-10," a reference to the dosage. Then there are the charms. In Mozambique, rebel commanders sometimes had their forces drink human blood, a rite that was supposed to ensure fearlessness. In rural Burma, youngsters conscripted by rebel groups rely--like their elders--on Buddha amulets around their necks for protection. Some of these recruits are so credulous that they intentionally draw fire to test how well the charms are working.

Usually there is little need for indoctrination. "Kids don't have a doctrine or ideology," says social anthropologist Brian Milne, who has studied the exploitation of child soldiers in Southeast Asia. "They are merely sucked up by one side or another and put to work." An exception is Islamist movements that have perfected the art of recruiting willing martyrs. "I am prepared to load myself with explosives against the Israelis," says Rajah Hassanein, an Arab teenager who threw his first stone at an Israeli soldier when he was 9. The mosque-based religious preparation for such would-be bombers is intense. Still, sociologists who have studied Palestinians growing up under occupation say dogma doesn't tell the whole story. For boys whose fathers have been repeatedly humiliated, the radical Hamas organization also offers discipline, self-respect-and powerful male role models.

In some places, picking up a gun is simply the best survival option available. A child soldier gets a clean uniform with bright insignia, his first pair of shoes and a weapon--symbols of power and status that few enjoyed beforehand. For the first time, these children can count on medical care and three meals a day. Hundreds of war orphans adopted into the ranks of the Ugandan Army have been fed, educated and--in a few cases-sent to university. In faction-ridden Burma, where years of war have drained villages of men, joining a rebel movement or getting drafted into a clique's army has become a way of life for boys. Ye Htut, 12, got just two weeks of training after the Karen National Liberation Army recruited him two years ago. Now he has a soft job guarding a bamboo bridge over the Moei River on the Thai border; he sleeps, fishes and plays poker with the nine other teenagers who live with him in a hut by the bridge. "My mother is worried," he says, "but I like being a soldier."

Robbed of a normal childhood, what will the child soldiers become? Samuel Bull still eats alone, keeps to himself and lives in terror that one of the other boys from a rival Liberian militia will kill him. And he's without remorse. "I liked the sound of the gun," he says. Some specialists have been amazed at the resilience boys show if they can break their military bonds- especially if they can return to their families. But the impact of relief efforts is marginal. The United Nations likely will add a protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child that recommends a new minimum age for military service: 18. Sadly, it's hard to imagine that it will be any better observed-or enforced- than any other human right.

JOSHUA HAMMER IN LIBERIA, JOSEPH CONTRERAS IN MOZAMBIQUE, RON MOREAU IN BURMA AND CHRISTOPHER DICKEY IN GAZA

© 1995