Category Archives: War

Effect of Armed Rebellion on Children: Innocence Scarred

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By Sidhartha Jatar
 
Introduction

There is a stark contrast between the two worlds that exist today: one world offers comfort and hope to children in an environment where their social and developmental needs can be attended to while the other deprives communities and societies of the stability required to meet these welfare needs. Children are the future of every generation and are like saplings that require sufficient nutrition, sunlight, shelter and space to grow healthy and stay rooted. Families provide their first line of defence, giving them emotional strength and inculcating in them a basic sense of trust and bonding. Communities offer platforms for wider interaction, enabling children to develop a sense of belongingness and responsibility. Thus, it is in a salubrious climate conducive to peaceful development that children find opportunities for wholesome growth.

Armed rebellions rob a child of these essential ingredients. They upset the daily routines of life, destroy the social fabric of a community and leave behind a milieu that is unfavourable to value-based cultural and social development – the effects of this being noticeable at several levels: 1) Personal – biological and psychological 2) Family and relations 3) Social networks, schools and neighbourhoods 4) Norms and value-systems.

The deprivations of war and armed conflict result in poverty, disease, hunger, lack of clothing and poor sanitation with maximum brunt being borne by children. Children become active participants in heinous crimes as well as direct victims of violence. Through thematic references one can attempt to gauge the extent and nature of the effects of armed conflict on them.

Selective themes

Child soldiers

Armed rebels and militia forcibly recruit children to fulfil their manpower shortages for both military and non-military activities. While some child soldiers are trained to kill, others are used for support functions such as cooking and spying. Child recruitment by rebels and militia is a favourable option since these children don’t require pay and can be manipulated easily. There are some deeply disturbing stories, for example, of RUF soldiers in Sierra Leone forcing children to take part in slaughter campaigns against their own families and communities in order to sever ties. The RUF is also said to have also engaged in extreme brutalities such as cutting limbs of children to prevent government forces from using them to source diamonds. The LTTE in Sri Lankan is an example of a regularised military force which inducts children into its armed forces and provides them with weapons training.

Land mines

These are one of the worst forms of weaponry with severe long-term effects. As sitting time bombs, they pose a significant threat to children who are curious and are unable to read or understand danger signs. While mines cost a pittance to make and take little time to embed, removing minefields is a costly and time-consuming proposition. Additionally, the danger posed by landmines continues well after their intended purpose has been served. Scarcity of medical aid and resources means that few child amputees have access to prosthetics. Many more are left unattended to and succumb to their injuries.

Small-arms trade

The small-arms trade has significantly increased the ability of children to participate in acts of violence. Small arms are found in plenty in conflict zones where weapons are unaccounted for and arms dealers are operative. Children can be taught to use these weapons and reload/reassemble them. Being easy to carry and handle, they form the perfect weapon in a child’s armoury.

Sexual violence

Girls are raped and forced into prostitution apart from being used as soldiers. It is said that they serve a double purpose of performing the function of a soldier by day and offering their services for enervated combatants by night. The mental trauma and debilitating physical effects on such children are but one of the many other problems they have to face. Social stigma, early motherhood, threat of HIV/AIDS all add up to cost the girl child her adolescence.

Children as witnesses/targets

As witnesses to horrific crimes, the psychological impact on children can be destabilising to their personalities and character. The brutality and violence to which they are exposed has resulted in them being termed as “lost generations”. Where communities are sought to be wiped-out through genocide and ethnic cleansing, children become primary targets.

International Law and special protection for children during armed conflict

Since the 19th century, nations have attempted to use International Law to circumscribe the effects of armed conflicts on civilians including children. Prior to WW2, the laws of war (culminating in the Hague Convention) were the only rules that advocated maintenance of law and order during conflict and immunity of civilians including children. The devastating effects of WW2 on the civilian population, however, would provide impetus for a new legal order that expressed the resolute stand of nations to ‘humanise’ war and protect innocent persons. The Geneva Convention of 1949 and its Two Additional Protocolsthus became pillars of what has come to be called ‘International Humanitarian Law’. The Fourth Geneva Convention in particular refers to special protection of children, their need for family support and their right to adequate care, maintenance and education while Protocol I prohibits recruitment of children below the age of 15 for military purposes. In 1989, a significant step was taken through the creation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), a legal instrument that specifies rights of children. The Convention embodies a few basic principles:

o Best interests of the child shall be of primary consideration

o No discrimination on grounds colour, sex, religion etc

o Childs inherent right to life

o Child’s right to freedom of expression

The Optional protocol to the CRC on Armed conflict then recognised the rights of all persons below 18 years of age to special protection and non-recruitment for use in hostilities by armed forces and non-State actors.

The international legal framework has also been bolstered by the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court that recognises child recruitment as a war crime and a crime against humanity and seeks to ensure that egregious violations of human rights don’t go unpunished. The arrest and trial of Thomas Lubanga (leader of the rebel forces in Congo) is a decisive step towards strengthening the international enforcement machinery and deterring future perpetrators who might think that they can go on unwatched and unpunished. Political commitments made via the Paris Principles towards disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration of children associated with armed conflict have confirmed the resolve of several conflict-ridden nations and their governments towards protection of children’s rights.

In spite of these prolonged efforts at the international level, ground realities show a deteriorating condition for children in conflict-affected areas. Just over the last decade, some 6 million children have been wounded in armed conflict. Current estimates peg the number of child-soldiers at 300,000. Where has the international community failed and what is the way forward?

“Era of application” and strategies for execution

If the world community is going to witness any further success in its endeavours, the 21st Century will have to be an era of implementation. This is easier said than done considering that the nature of conflict has changed i.e. battles are increasingly being fought intra-state by non-state actors including disbanded militia and rebel forces. Additionally, terrorism has literally brought war into ‘one’s own backyard’ requiring the use of precision strikes and aerial bombings that cause collateral damage. Application of international law to such non-state actors and its enforcement remains a challenge.

Some other strategies that might help reduce the negative impact of armed rebellions on children:

  • Removal of small arms stockpiles
  • Cutting shipment lines for illegal trade in arms
  • Ending political/financial/military support to groups that conscript children
  • Certification systems e.g. the Kimberly certification scheme which imposes strict standards before which a diamond can be termed as conflict-free
  • Improved monitoring and reporting (as has been envisaged by the Security Council’s Working Group): This will help in gathering data, creating records, supporting future prosecutions of offenders etc.
  • Increasing awareness amongst families and communities regarding human rights and international norms
  • Convincing non-state actors to demobilise child soldiers
  • Renewal of support to anti-mine groups

Reintegration and Peacebuilding

Reintegration of children in society is an essential function of peacebuilding and the UN sends child protection officers along with peacekeeping forces to provide, amongst other things, training to its soldiers.  The task of reintegration is complex given the heterogeneity of experiences children face during armed rebellions.

How does one ensure that children aren’t painted with the same brush (especially through institutionalised mechanisms)?

Does the international community have an overly simplified understanding of the mental state and condition of children in conflict-zones? Perhaps there is a greater need for reintegration to be ‘age appropriate’, ‘gender focused’ and ‘community based’? A girl who has been a child soldier, rape victim and a child mother might need counselling on different fronts for her ‘double trauma’. A child soldier turned major will need a different approach to reintegration that someone of lesser age. There could be children who don’t require counselling at all and show signs of “spontaneous reintegration” whereas others might need spiritual healing for their sense of alienation, guilt and anger.

Just as the approach towards reintegration can be varied, the healing process itself could involve both institutional and non-institutional mechanisms. Through combined efforts involving political will, community structures and youth led initiatives children of war and conflict can hope to attain emancipation from its scourges.

A Report on the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda

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BY Shardul Singh

Rwanda is small hilly and densely populated African country surrounded by rivers and lakes. It is said that god comes to rest every night in this beautiful country.

In Rwanda three ethnic communities live, Hutu,Tutsi and the Twa. Rwanda was a colony of Belgium. They severally segregated the population of Rwanda into three ethnic communities. Belg regarded Tutsis to be more educated, taller and having a lighter skin colour. Hutus are the majority tribe. Twa constituted a very small minority.

The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda was established at Arusha, Tanzania in November 1994 by the Security Council acting under Chapter Seven of the UN Charter. Genocide in Rwanda took place between 6th April 1994 and 17th July 1994 after the plane of the former President of Rwanda was shot down. Military effectively took control of the country and committed mass scale murders. One estimate says that 500,000 people were massacred in three months

Apart from being beautiful Rwanda is also a country with the most well organized administrative setup in comparison to the rest of the African countries. It has Prefectures (Provinces), Districts which are divided into Secteurs. Each Secteur is further divided into Cellules. Cellule is the smallest administrative unit in the country which implements governmental policies at the grassroot level.

Since I have been working with the OTP (Prosecution) and coming from a legal background, I would keep my article on the legal side rather than on the political, however there are areas where International Politics does have its impact on the working of the Tribunal. I would discuss Political factors as briefly as possible.

Principal Organs of the UN ICTR

1. The Registry- It assists the judges. It is also the place where all the filling of documents and signing and sealing of the documents is done, much like in India, it also performs certain administrative functions.
2. The OTP-Short for Office of the Prosecution. Office of the Prosecution decides which perpetrator is to be indicted. Since OTP selects the targets, it becomes a very important organ of the UNICTR
3. The Chambers and the Appeals chambers

A) OTP (office of the Prosecution)

The Head Prosecutor is Mr.Justice Hassan B Jallow , from the African nation of Gambia. He is the headmaster for all the other Senior/Assistant Trial Prosecutors. He represents the prosecution and reports its progress to the Security Council and the General Assembly

The OTP is divided into small trial teams headed by a Senior Trial Prosecutor which has an investigator. Translators are provided to translate documents from Kinyarwanda to English and French.

Prosecution has good resources at its disposal when compared to Defense. Prosecution has investigators in Kigali which interview witnesses. Their task may also extend to collecting relevant documents from the Gacaca courts in Rwanda and other normal Rwandan courts. Based on the decision of the office of the Prosecutor, investigators focus their attention on obtaining evidence and witnesses against the accused.

My observation has been that some times investigators snub the witness from giving evidence against many other people purely because they were told to concentrate against a certain accused. This leads to huge chunks of information missing from the chain of evens, making the courts task very difficult.

B).Defense

I have been fortunate to come across Lawyers working for the Defense who have impeccable careers in their municipal jurisdictions and they are masters of criminal law to say the least.

Defense has its own investigators which are not on the pay roll of UN-ICTR; these investigators are on the look out to collect evidence to contradict the prosecutions case.

Defense is also paid by the UN-ICTR depending upon the number of hours put in by them, but they are not a part of UN-ICTR. They do not have an access to the huge collection of documents in the data bases provided to the Prosecution.

There are times when the defense depends on the Prosecution’s office to provide them with certain documents. I humbly submit that, if the defense is also allowed to reach these archives it would better serve the cause of Justice

C).Court Practices

i) The trial in the court rooms remain much like the way trials are conducted in India. Exchanges have to be much slower since the court is working in three different languages simultaneously. The rules of Procedure and Evidence are very similar, if not exact, to the Code of Criminal Procedure in India.

The interesting aspect of the trial is the blend of both Civil law and Common law practices. Some Civil law Judges will aggressively takeover the role of the Prosecution or the Defense during Examination in chief or Cross Examination. Common law Judges act like umpires whereas the Judges from Civil law countries will be active players along with being a referee.

At the UN-ICTR elements of both Civil Law and Common Law systems find themselves in the court room since Judges from both these system constitute a bench.

ii) Quick disposal of Cases- The Tribunal has been extremely good when it comes to disposal of cases inspite of the fact that in a single accused case, there may be more than 25 witness on the either side of the court room. The reason for that is that the same bench sits for the entirety of case’s duration, without breaking. This means courts hears and records evidence without frequent adjournments.
After the prosecutions case is over six weeks are given to the defense to prepare its case.

Criticism of the Tribunal

a). I was deeply privileged to exchange views with Prof. Lennox Hings , the Lead Defense council for Colonel Ephrem Setako

According to him, Justice was not done by the Trial court in the Media case where Barayagwiza was detained for a long period of time without any specific charges being brought against him.

It is a human right violation since he could not defend himself. He was not told the grounds for his detention, making his detention illegal. The Appeals Chamber acknowledged that fact and held that under such circumstances no fair trial can take place and Barayagwiza should me released. Before Barayagwiza could be released the Rwandan Government threatened the Tribunal by saying that it would if Barayagwiza is released we will shut down the Prosecutor’s office in Kigali and we will not allow any witness to appear before the Tribunal. The Appeals Chamber took a complete U-Turn and decided to try Barayagwiza. They would adjust the number of days illegally spent in the prison with the total sentence, if found guilty .

This clearly shows how Political considerations play a large role on International Criminal Tribunals

Prof. Hings gives another reason why Judges cannot remain independent. Judge have been sitting for a long duration of time and have various cases. Judges have made findings of fact for e.g. was the genocide actually committed etc; same question may crop up successive trials. Judges, in short, are unable to put on the blinders.

What is more troublesome is that the Judges have heard same witnesses in successive trials. It becomes very difficult for them to start afresh when it comes to attaching weight or ruling on the credibility of the same witness.

b). Effect of Gacaca courts-Gacaca has contributed in a major way to the court room confusion at the Tribunal. Gacaca is a system of courts in Rwanda which convicts people for Genocide at the Cellule level; there is Gacaca court at the sector; and one for appeal at the level of each remaining sector . Popular Judges are elected by the people who are often illiterate and lack legal education .These courts sit weekly. They don’t have any specialized procedure .It will not be wrong to say that it is an informalized way of sentencing.

There were tens of thousands of suspects who were awaiting trial in the prisons, and so Gacaca was seen to be cheap and effective to deal with the volume of cases. There may be over 1,000,000 cases to try .

Gacaca doesn’t recognize suspect’s right to defend himself or the right to prompt trial . Gacaca has enormous sentencing power as well. It can award life imprisonment without testing the veracity of the accusation . I remember a witness being sentenced to 30 years in 30 minutes by Gacaca, for merely lying.

What is most surprising is that no judgment is handed down to the convicted person nor are any reasons given for convictions. I have come across a witness who was sentenced by Gacaca in his absence! Appeal is allowed but the suspect doesn’t even know the grounds of his appeal!

How does it affect The Tribunal?

Often the witness’s credibility is impeached by confronting him with his Gacaca proceedings. It is the usual practice followed during the Cross-Examination of the witness. The idea is to confront the witness with the finding of the Gacaca but if the Gacaca proceedings are faulty in the first place then, wood for the trees is lost. Tribunal cannot effectively dispense justice.

Conclusion

There is inherent weakness with these International Courts. They are far from reality and depend on the states for co-operation. UN-ICTR and UN-ICTY alone cost about 20 percent of the total budget of the United Nations and so there is an added pressure on these Ad-Hoc Tribunals to complete their mandates.

Hybrid courts have lesser problems and function more smoothly. They are Municipal Courts with international participation for example Special Court for Sierra Leon.

UN-ICTR has convicted over 35 high profile suspects of Genocide. It is the only International Tribunal which has convicted Head of a State and continues to try high ranking officials and ministers who planned and perpetrated the killings of innocent people.

UN-ICTR has undoubtedly contributed richly to International Criminal Law. Jurisprudence evolved by the Tribunal will form the foundations of International Criminal Court.

(Image: Wiki Commons)

The Impact of War on Children

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The Pentagon boasts that the sun never sets on its military but conventional War has its consequences: child soldiers, refugees and internally displaced children, the child victims gender-based violence that war breeds, the threat of landmines, the disruption of food supplies, healthcare and education, as well as the spread of malnutrition…

“The Pentagon boasts that the sun never sets on its military. That is a deplorable truth. The forces of the world’s mightiest superpower stretch from pole to pole, from east to west and west to east,” as Bob Aldridge, the author of ‘First Strike – The Pentagon’s Strategy for Nuclear War’ and ‘Nuclear Empire’, commented in the introduction to the latter book. Most of us have been hearing about little in the news recently apart from reports about the War in Iraq. Our E-mail Inboxes often contain at least half a dozen mails from various organisations telling us about various peace initiatives like the recent peace march in London, or else reminding us that, “The US administers a nuclear empire which is global in scope. The protection of that empire rests in the US military…”

To a number of people here in India who receive E-mails from friends in the West asking whether George W Bush’s plans affect everyday living, the whole issue seems slightly ridiculous. Post September 11 sympathy for the US of A is dying down fast and it seems to be becoming apparent that extreme actions are not the sole domain of Islamic fundamentalists.

And amongst the most vulnerable in a wartime situation are children. In recent years, the imposition of economic sanctions has been increasingly seen as a viable and less damaging alternative to conventional warfare but at the end of the day, it isn’t military and political leaders who suffer due to the sanctions but the most unprotected sections of society, usually the poor and the young. For example, studies from Cuba, Haiti and Iraq following the imposition of sanctions each showed a rapid rise in the proportion of children who were malnourished. “In Haiti after 1991, for example, one study indicated that the price of staple foods increased fivefold and the proportion of malnourished children increased from 5 to 23 per cent,” says Richard Garfield in “The Impact of Economic Sanctions on the Health of Women and Children”, New York, Columbia University.

But conventional War has its consequences that many would say are even more excruciating: child soldiers, refugees and internally displaced children, the child victims gender-based violence that war breeds, in addition to the threat of landmines, the disruption of food supplies, healthcare and education, as well as the spread of malnutrition, not to mention the sheer psychosocial impact of violence on children. And as such, the question we’re left with is what on Earth does anyone hope to achieve by waging or supporting a war of any kind without fully exploring all the other non-violent alternatives such as weapons inspections, especially since even non-violent alternatives such as the imposition of economic sanctions are in no way Childs play?

The UN says, “Children may become so familiar with mines that they forget they are lethal weapons. In northern Iraq, children have been known to use mines as wheels for toy trucks, and in Cambodia children have been seen playing “boules” with B40 anti-personnel mines, even beginning their own collections of landmines.” It isn’t the environment any of us would ever want our children to grow up in. Certain administrations might have us think differently, but we don’t have the right to inflict such an environment on anyone else’s children either. Maybe we should be looking more closely at Zero Conflict – A Technology of World Peace instead.
Note: All the information is not authoritative. This write up has not been cross-checked with sources except those mentioned below, and anyone who wishes to use it should cross check it, treating the notes here as an invitation for further research.

Sources:

1. lnternationalism And Peace Movements

2. United Nations Department for Policy Coordination and Sustainable Development (DPCSD); United Nations Distr. GENERAL A/51/306; 26 August 1996; Original: English; Fifty-first session; Item 108 of the provisional agenda* A/51/150; Promotion And Protection Of The Rights Of Children, Impact of armed conflict on children

3. Garfield, Richard, The Impact of Economic Sanctions on the Health of Women and Children, New York, Columbia University, April 1996, p. 9

4. Zero Conflict – A Technology of World Peace

5. San Jose Peace Centre