Saving Sierra Leone’s Ex-Child Soldiers

The crackle of gunfire, the pride of being in charge, the experience of attacking a village and being allowed to keep some of the spoils. This is what used to give David Samai a thrill.

He ran away from home in 1997 when he was just 12 to join forces fighting to overthrow the government of Sierra Leone. By the time he was 14, he had been promoted to sergeant, primarily in charge of other young combatants and fighting alongside some of the toughest, most notorious rebel commanders in one of Africa’s cruelest conflicts.

“It was fun to be in the bush,” recalled the scrawny, deceptively reserved teenager with deep-set eyes, now unhappy living with his adoptive parents. “I liked being a sergeant.”

Sgt. David, as he was popularly known, is among thousands of children who either volunteered or were forced to join the ranks of the rebel army during this West African nation’s eight-year civil war.

Sierra Leone is not the only place where children are fighting. The United Nations says about 300,000 children under age 18 are serving as regular soldiers, guerrilla fighters, scouts, laborers, human shields and sex slaves in conflicts raging in about 50 countries. In Africa alone, child soldiers have fought, or are fighting, in Angola, Liberia, Mozambique, Rwanda, Sudan, Uganda and Congo, in addition to Sierra Leone.

The war in Sierra Leone is over for now, but thousands of civilians suffered brutal amputations as the rebels spread their terror. And the future remains perilous.

The government of President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah and rebel leader Foday Sankoh of the Revolutionary United Front have signed a peace agreement. The guerrillas have agreed to lay down their arms, beginning Wednesday, in exchange for--among other things--representation in a new government and a general amnesty. But it is uncertain whether the two sides can put the bitter conflict behind them.

The peace pact calls for the new administration to address the special needs of child combatants as it tackles disarmament, demobilization and re-integration.

Weaning child soldiers, who committed some of the war’s worst atrocities, from a diet of indiscipline and violence and bringing them back into society is one of Sierra Leone’s most difficult and pressing challenges.

The country’s infrastructure is a shambles. Education is a privilege. Employment is a luxury, even for adults in this nation of 4.7 million people.

Many residents fear that if the child soldiers are not educated and quickly absorbed back into society, the country will be burdened with a generation of illiterate, restless and violent youngsters.

“There’s going to be so much trouble in Sierra Leone if these boys are not taken care of,” said Arthur Tucker, a local social worker who counsels David and scores of others. “We need to get them to do something immediately.”

“In terms of child soldiering, Sierra Leone is among the worst,” said Olara Otunnu, the U.N. special representative for children and armed conflict, who recently visited this nation. “In order for us to reverse this trend, we need to raise the [minimum] age limit to 18 and lean on those who are recruiting children.”

Government officials said children rescued from rebel captivity were sometimes recruited into the national army to teach them discipline.

While some children, like David, volunteered to join the insurrection, others were kidnapped by rebels and forced to fight, kill and commit atrocities, said human rights observers.

Last January alone, about 3,000 youngsters between the ages of 5 and 18 were reported missing during a rebel offensive against Freetown, the capital, according to human rights officials. They maintained that the children had been kidnapped.

The majority are still missing. Rebel leaders say many of them volunteered. “In a situation of war, children will attract themselves to that sort of military exercise,” said Solomon Rogers, a rebel leader.

Those lucky enough to have been released, or those who escape, find shelter at a center funded through UNICEF, where they remain until family members can be traced. A foster family program also has been organized.

The U.N. agency offers counseling, education and training in social skills. It has encouraged the practice of traditional cleansing rituals as a way of absolving the children of their crimes.

In addition, communities are taught about the need to reassimilate the youngsters. “The child that left is not the child who’s coming back,” said Roisin De Burca, a UNICEF officer based in Freetown. “They have a lot of baggage. Just saying ‘welcome back’ is not enough.”

Older children may be eligible for a program that will provide some financial compensation and vocational training to former combatants.

“They need to be demobilized very rapidly,” said Otunnu, the U.N. special representative. “It is very important to have alternate ways to preoccupy these children.”

After his release by the rebels in July, David began to fight a new enemy: boredom. All he could think of was returning to the bush.

“He was disobedient . . . and troublesome when he came back home,” said Agnes Samai, the boy’s adoptive mother. “He kept fighting with other children. He didn’t listen to me or his father.”

David, who has never been to school, believes it is too late to start. Instead, he thinks it might be fun to learn a trade such as car mechanics.

In many cases, families do not have the resources to take back former child combatants, and some parents fear that the young ex-soldiers might be a bad influence on other children.

“Many of these young people have lost the sense of the meaning of life,” said Kingsley Amaning, a representative in Sierra Leone of the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.

Local observers believe that education is the key to saving such lost young souls.

“The youth have been marginalized by successive governments,” said Paul Kamara, editor of For Di People, a Freetown daily. “Education had been a privilege, not a right, and this created a youth body who, because they were illiterate, have been used on both sides of the divide.”

Under the terms of the peace agreement, the new government is obliged to provide at least nine years of free and compulsory education.

The only thing Abibu Gandoh learned during his eight months in rebel captivity was how to assemble, dismantle and shoot an AK-47 assault rifle.

Nicknamed “Short but Old,” the illiterate 10-year-old was kidnapped from his home and forced to lug ammunition to the front and fight.

To numb his nerves, he was given marijuana and hard liquor before each attack.

“Sometimes we would kill some [soldiers] or capture their weapons,” recalled Abibu, whose parents were killed by rebels earlier in the war.

But the youngster missed his grandmother and hated the diet of dog meat soup, wild snails and snakes--the likely cause of his bout of intestinal worms.

Abibu, who was released by the rebels, wants to become a mechanical engineer--a dream likely to come true only if the government can make child welfare a priority.

Still, kids like Abibu give child protection workers hope that they might eventually succeed. “That they have chosen to leave [the rebel forces], that’s a major step toward their re-integration,” said De Burca, the UNICEF official.

*

ALBRIGHT ON AFRICA TOUR. Secretary of State’s visit will focus on free markets. A6