FW: Why South Sudan’s Children Are Fighting Again?
Self-Help News
From: Self-Help News [mailto:selfhe...@ubol.com]
Sent: 15 February 2015 15:01
To: 'THELIGHT...@aol.com';
Subject: RE: Why South Sudan’s Children Are Fighting Again?
Greetings,
Your response is appreciated, which is to the point, practical, full of common-sense in many aspects, but not yet realisable. A deep cry from a wounded heart. We are members of SADA because we are of the same Movement For Change.
This, Our Collective Struggle For Change, is bigger than card-carrying and fee-paying membership. It is largely about SOLIDARITY. Once we realised that, we should recognise that Our Collective Organisation is larger than first thought. Quality and Quantity.
Yet, as we cry, because we are feeling collective pains, we must speed the process of reviewing our failures and successes of the past and present. And we must learn from them. And we must be able to answer unambiguously the questions – ‘Why we failed?’. ‘Why we succeeded?’ And we must cultivate more fully, single-mindedness for bringing about changes for good, at whatever costs. Above all, we must be able to jettison ideas and plans proven to be ineffective. Be like the purity of a flowing stream, uncluttered by useless debris, potential for toxin.
If we are serious, we must embrace a sense of Higher Mission, demonstrated by the Rt. Honourable Marcus Mosiah Garvey and his Associates, during their time. COLLECTIVITY which created strong Afrikan shoulders, for Indigenous Afrikans and our Time-tested friends, those at home on the Continent and those abroad in the Afrikan Diaspora, resident Afrikans and none resident Afrikans. Strong Shoulders on which many of us are now standing upright and strong. With self-confidence, pride and self-esteem, as we gained better understanding and knowledge of SELF.
We noted and appreciated your call for focusing our efforts on substance, based on good and pure values, rather than skin pigmentations, race and ethnicities, in spite of our anger and frustrations.
At the same time, we recognise always our undeniable Afrikan protracted experiences of injustices at the hands of others. And with a clear knowledge of history, which evidenced the fact that those injustices only shifted when we fought back collectively, based on our own initiatives, often with the assistance of our Time-tested friends.
This is demonstrated during the pervasive Institution of Chattel Slavery, which grew on our Afrikan backs. Colonisation which sucked our Afrikan blood and stole our natural heritage. Jim Crow White Supremacist Saga, which gave birth to the American Civil Rights Movement, Apartheid which caused to be written in the annals of Afrikan Liberation Struggles’ the names of Winnie Mandela and Nelson Mandela and many others, and now, New Colonisation, masquerading largely as ‘Afrikan freedom and independence’.
As the Institution of Chattel Slavery, Colonisation, Jim Crow Laws and Apartheid threw up great Afrikan collective leadership, so will our contemporary era. This is because our responses are based on needs, and today there is no greater need for Indigenous Afrikans - residents and none residents, those in Afrika and her Diaspora, to act collectively, even in diversity, for change, as was the case in the past. We must learn to learn from one another. Put away false pride and arrogance. We all have something to teach and learn from the other. Wisdom and Humility walk together because they are friends.
We hear daily the call for ‘Afrikan Unity’, coming from the Global Indigenous Afrikan Community. Can we truly believe our own call, when we are not examples of that unity. Our examples usually spoke louder than words. Can we send our soldiers into battle without clear mission plan? If we did, how would they know when they were victorious?
Lest we forget to say and ensure that it is so, ‘Never Again’, as we continue to recognise and honouring Our Afrikan Shoulder Builders’ contributions, great Pan-Afrikanist giants and our Time-tested Friends, like those listed on the following Roll Call.
Editorial Collective
Self-Help News – “Giving Voice to the Voiceless”
Roll Call of Afrikan Ancestors And Our Time-tested Friends “In honour of our Ancestors and our Time-tested friends of the Twentieth and Twenty First Century. They held A Torch so that we could see more clearly. Now We stand on their shoulders.” Dr Vince Hines. 22nd February 2015 | ||||
Folio | Name | Birth | Death | Place of Birth |
| Marcus Mosiah GARVEY | 17 Aug 1887 | 10 Jun 1940 | Jamaica, Caribbean |
| HIM Haile SELASSIE | 23 Jul 1892 | 27 Aug 1925 | Ethiopia, Afrika |
| Kwame NKRUMAH | 21 Sep 1909 | 27 Apr 1972 | Ghana, Afrika |
| Patrice LUMUMBA | 2 Jul 1925 | 17 Jan 1961 | Congo, Afrika |
| Amilcar CABRAL | 12 Sep 1924 | 20 Jan 1973 | Guinea-Bissau and Cape Is., Afrika |
| Queen Mother MORE | 27 Jul 1898 | 2 May 1978 | USA |
| Wangari MARTHAI | 1 Apr 1940 | 25 Sep 2011 | Kenya, Afrika |
| Samora Moises MACHEL | 25 Sep 1933 | 19 Oct 1986 | Mozambique, Afrika |
| Antonnio Agustinho NETO | 17 Sep 1922 | 10 Sep 1979 | Angola, Afrika |
| Moshood Kashima Olawale ABIOLA | 24 Aug 1937 | 7 Jul 1998 | Nigeria, Afrika |
| Dudley THOMPSON | 19 Jan 1917 | 20 Jan 2012 | Panama, Central America |
| Abubaka Tafawa BALEWA | Dec 1912 | 15 Jan 1966 | Nigeria, Afrika |
| Julius NYERERE | 13 Apr 1922 | 14 Oct 1999 | Tanzania, Afrika |
| Nelson Rolihlahla MANDELA | 18 Jul 1918 | 5 Dec 2013 | South Africa |
| Kwame TURE | 29 Jun 1941 | 15 Nov 1998 | Trinidad, Caribbean |
| William Edward Burkhardt DUBOIS (WEB Dubois) | 23 Feb 1868 | 27 Aug 1963 | USA |
| Muammar Muhammad Abu Minyar AL-GADDAFI | 1942 | 20 Oct 2011 | Libya, Afrika |
| Steve BIKO | 18 Dec 1946 | 12 Sep 1977 | South Africa |
| El-Hajj Malik EL-SHABAZZ | 19 May 1925 | 21 Feb 1965 | USA |
| Martin Luther KING Jr | 15 Jan 1929 | 4 Apr 1968 | USA |
| Jomo KENYATTA | c1889 | 22 Aug 1978 | Kenya, Afrika |
| Claudia JONES | 21 Fed 1915 | 24 Dec 1964 | Trinidad, Caribbean |
| Rosa PARKS | 4 Feb 1913 | 24 Oct 2005 | USA |
| Joshua NKOMO | 19 Jan 1917 | 1 Jul 1999 | Zimbabwe, Afrika |
| Robert Mangaliso SOBUKWE | 5 Dec 1924 | 27 Feb 1978 | South Africa |
| Maurice BISHOP | 29 May 1944 | 19 Oct 1983 | Granada, Caribbean |
| Hosea KUTAKO | C1870 | 18 Jul 1970 | Namibia, Afrika |
| Cornelis Gerard Anton de KOM | 22 Feb 1898 | 24 Apr 1945 | Suriname, South America |
| Abdias do NASCIMENTO | 14 Mar 1914 | 23 May 2011 | Brazil, South America |
| Frantz FANON | 20 Jul 1925 | 6 Dec 1961 | Martinique, Caribbean |
| John Garang de MABIOR | 23 Jun 1945 | 30 Jul 2005 | Sudan – South, Afrika |
| Ahmed BENBELLA | 25 Dec 1918 | 11 Apr 2012 | Algeria, Afrika |
| Leopold Sedar SENGHOR | 9 Oct 1906 | 20 Dec 2001 | Senegal, Afrika |
| Ahmed SekouTOURE | 9 Jan 1922 | 20 Dec 2001 | Guinea, Afrika |
| Lenard HOWELL | 16 Jun 1898 | 25 Feb 1981 | Jamaica, Caribbean |
| Ndeh NTUMAZAH | 1926 | 21 Jan 2010 | Cameroon, Afrika |
| Nnamdi AZIKIWE | 16 Nov 1904 | 11 May 1996 | Nigeria, Afrika |
| Huey Percy NEWTON | 17 Feb 1942 | 22 Aug 1989 | USA |
| George Lester JACKSON | 23 Sep 1941 | 21 Aug 1971 | USA |
| Ruth Nita BARROW | 15 Nov 1916 | 19 Dec 1995 | Barbados, Caribbean |
| Amy Ashwood GARVEY | 10 Jan 1897 | 11 May 1969 | Jamaica, Caribbean |
| Amy Jacques Garvey | 31 Dec 1895 | 25 Jul 1973 | Jamaica, Caribbean |
| Forbes BURNHAM | 20 Feb 1923 | 6 Aug 1995 | Guyana, South America |
| Norman MANLEY | 4 Jul 1893 | 2 Sep 1969 | Jamaica, Caribbean |
| Alexander BUSTAMANTE | 24 Feb 1884 | 6 Aug 1977 | Jamaica, Caribbean |
| Obi Benu EGDUNA | 18 Jul 1938 | 18 Jan 2014 | Nigeria, Afrika |
| Hubert Nathaniel CRITCHLOW | 1884 | 1958 | Guyana, South America |
| Clement Osborne PAYNE | c1904 | 7 Apr 1941 | Barbados, Caribbean |
| Maya ANGELOU | 4 April 1928 | 28 May 2014 | USA |
| Elombe BRATH | C1937 | 19 May 2014 | USA |
| Elijah MUHAMMAD | 7 Oct 1897 | 25 Feb 1975 | USA |
| Ben Ammi BEN-ISRAEL [Ben CARTER] | 12 Oct 1939 | 27 Dec 2014 | USA |
| Hugo CHEVEZ | 28 Jul 1954 | 5 Mar 2013 | Venezuela, South America |
| Mao TSE-TUNG [Mao ZEDONG] | 26 Dec 1893 | 9 Sep 1976 | China |
| Grantly ADAMS | 28 Apr 1898 | 28 Nov 1967 | Barbados, Caribbean |
| Mary Eugenia CHARLES | 15 May 1919 | 6 Sep 2005 | Dominica, Caribbean |
| George PADMORE(Malcolm Ivan Nurse MEREDITH) | 28 Jun 1903 | 23 Sep 1959 | Trinidad and Tobago |
| Samuel MAHARERO | c1856 | 14 Mar 1923 | Namibia, Afrika |
| Walter Anthony RODNEY | 23 Mar 1942 | 13 Jan 1980 | Guyana, South America |
| Fannie Lou HAMER | 16 Oct 1917 | 14 Mar 1977 | USA |
| Thomas SANKARA | 21 Dec 1949 | 15 Oct 1987 | Burkina Faso, Afrika |
| Mohammed Abdullah HASSAN | 7 Apr 1856 | 21 Dec 1920 | Somalia, Afrika |
| Tubal Uriah “Buzz” BUTLER | 21 Jan 1897 | 20 Feb 1977 | Trinidad and Tobago |
| Cyril Lionel Robert JAMES[ [C.L.R. JAMES] | 4 Jan 1901 | 19 May 1989 | Trinidad and Tobago |
| Dorothy HEIGHT | 24 Mar 1912 | 20 Apr 2010 | USA |
| Robert Francis “Bobby” KENNEDY | 20 Nov 1925 | 6 Jun 1968 | USA |
| Joe SLAVO | 23 May 1926 | 6 Jan 1915 | South Africa |
| Anton Theodor Eberhard August LUBOWSKY | 3 Feb 1952 | 12 Sep 1989 | Namibia, Afrika |
This is a list of Indigenous Afrikan Ancestors and Time-tested friends, included in the Afrika and Diaspora Global Festival of Arts and Cultures (Adgfac) Presentation, chaired by Dr Vince Hines, to be given on Sunday, 22nd February 2015, at the Vince Hines Foundation HQ Building, Everyone Active Acton Centre, 44 High Street, London, England.
The Foundation is hosting the Event, as one of the members of the Global Collective supporting Adgfac Mission for Namibia in 2017, and consistently at three-four year intervals, over thirty years, with an option to extent for another twenty years. Namibia government endorsed and welcome this great Afrikan initiative.
This event marked the formal public launch of Adgfac Project, after which the Presentation will be available on video format for distributions globally. Expressions of interests are welcome. Any inquiry to: cm...@adgfac.com www.adgfac.com
Zulu MultiMedia for Adgfac © 2015. E-mail: zu...@ubol.com | ||||
From: THELIGHT...@aol.com [mailto:THELIGHT...@aol.com]
Sent: 14 February 2015 23:42
To: selfhe...@ubol.com;
Subject: Re: Why South Sudan’s Children Are Fighting Again?
We thank you for the brief summation of our efforts. There are few people who will spend time to analyze our efforts the ways you have presented them. God bless you and join us during this wonderful VALENTINE DAY to all humanity: black race, red race, the yellow race and the white race.
May the Almighty God and all the Gods of Africa and India bless us to live for another unproductive year. May be next year, the spirit of our ancestors will enkindle us to invigorate the principles of SADA in all Africans to be productive as other people, especially B' Nai Brith and LARAZA.
Yes, we are few and will remain few for the rest; the masses of our people are truly oppressed. Living is never easy for our folks. But those of us who are willing to sacrifice our time and energy to try to continue the struggle must continue to find a way to UNITE. Join SADA
We are so degraded in our numbers that we cannot even know that we are slaves; and all slaves must figure out what to do to emancipate publicly and spiritually. We have presented SADA since 1970.
Initially, the response was encouraging until an agent called "the original man" came to our meeting and we drove him out because of his utterances against white. We are not against white and Arabs. We are for humanity; especially, the descendants of Africa.
After 500 years of stay with the West, we are part and parcel of the West. When you add our history in North Africa, we are more Westernized than Europeans.
We brought almost everything the West knows. The West learnt everything from our ancestors only they do not give us credit but I have met some men and women in the West who acknowledge and accept the fact that without Africa, this world as we know it could not be the same.
So, please, join SADA and let us continue to educate the world because outside Africans, the rest of humanity are too violent and war mongers. So do not be afraid.
Join us at www.sadainc.org and www.sada54.org
Kofi Agyapong
In a message dated 2/14/2015 11:42:38 A.M. Eastern Standard Time, selfhe...@ubol.com writes:
Greetings, SADA. We hear you.
If the Masses don’t want to come now, let’s walk on. Some will come later, and those who are left behind, they probably deserved the consequences of their decisions.
Is not the Sowers’ duty to sow seeds. Can she be held responsible for those seeds which laid dormant, while others of the same quality, in the same soil grew and flourished. Where in history we noted the Masses making changes in human development, without the effective leadership of the few?
Is it not the few, working collectively, who brings changes to Humanity, and the Masses followed later?
Today, only an handful of entities are attempting to push the World away - out of complete balance, from Divine Values. All done in the shadows. It is not inevitable that they will succeed. It becomes ‘inevitable’ when nothing effectively is done to counter. They do not have greater strength and authority for their actions than we who are pushing back, insisting that MAAT Wise Principles and associated benefits must govern for the good of all.
The real weakness of our current Global Afrikan Personality is lack of self-belief. We are endowed with strength to defeat completely those who would aspire to prevail over us. Their ‘victory’ is not part of the Celestial Script. How would the Human, Animal, Vegetation and Mineral Kingdoms function if we allowed Our Global Values dominated by greed, arrogance, mendacity, larceny and slothfulness, now being generated by a minority without proper care and respect for these Kingdoms.
All the Kingdoms are threatened. The struggle to retain balance is not only the duty and responsibility of the Afrikan People. Since we are the Father and Mother of Humanity, Palaeontologists say, and so, we have a special responsibility in this regard. Science and Technology arguably have limitations in this regard in understanding and interpretation.
Ironically, many of us look for our source of strength not from within, but without, to the source of our problems. This is our cul-de-sac and the effectiveness of “THE DECEPTION”. But even the best magical spells eventually fade and weaken.
It is, therefore, not about NUMBERS but QUALITY of purpose. Let us work with the few available. We are often surprised what a few well-focused and dedicated individuals can achieve in the name of Natural Justice.
The era of mass movement is probably gone. People are pre-occupied with their smart devices and social sites. Science and Technology have changed the way we conduct social engineering.
Let SADA operate with what it has available until it gets more. We are only part of The Solution. We can only do what we can. Leave the rest to others. We are not the only conscious ones. To think and believe that is a form of arrogance and fly in the face of Our Ancestors. Make the best with what we have got.
Editorial Collective
Self-Help News – “Giving Voice to the Voiceless”
From: THELIGHT...@aol.com [mailto:THELIGHT...@aol.com]
Sent: 13 February 2015 02:45
To: selfhe...@ubol.com; Subject: Re: Why South Sudan’s Children Are Fighting Again?
YES, SHE IS GONE TO ASAMANDO. NO MORE WITH US BUT SHE DID ALL THAT SHE COULD WHILE WITH US AND NOW SHE IS MOBILIZING OUR YOUTH TO UNITE AS AFRICANS UNDER SADA:
In a message dated 2/12/2015 9:36:07 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, THELIGHT...@aol.com writes:
Yes, the children will continue to fight as long as we, the African adults in America who have attained freedom since 1963 have in our minds that we are not Africans hence we are the Negroes, the Blacks and now African Americans which is closer than all the other names to being called African.
And as long as we refuse to understand the words of our national anthem, we are doom forever. The last stanza says "TRUE TO OUR GOD; TRUE TO OUR NATIVE LAND". What is the native land of the Africans? It is Africa. Are we true to Africa? No, then we are in a quagmire for the next five hundred years.
Unless we are true to our God. Not the God in heaven but the God on earth YOU, who is in jail, homeless, miseducated and etc:
Song title: Lift ev'ry voice and sing
Also known as: The Black National Anthem
Also known as: The Negro National AnthemLift ev'ry voice and sing,
Till earth and heaven ring.
Ring with the harmonies of Liberty;
Let our rejoicing rise,
High as the list'ning skies,
Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.
Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us,
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us;
Facing the rising sun of our new day begun,
Let us march on till victory is won.Stony the road we trod,
Bitter the chast'ning rod,
Felt in the days when hope unborn had died;
Yet with a steady beat,
Have not our weary feet,
Come to the place for which our fathers sighed?
We have come over a way that with tears has been watered,
We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered,
Out from the gloomy past,
Till now we stand at last
Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.God of our weary years,
God of our silent tears,
Thou who has brought us thus far on the way;
Thou who has by Thy might,
Led us into the light,
Keep us forever in the path, we pray.
Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met Thee,
Lest our hearts, drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee,
Shadowed beneath thy hand,
May we forever stand,
True to our God,
True to our native land.
Read more: James Weldon Johnson - The Black National Anthem Lyrics | MetroLyrics
Do you know how many times I have read comments like the email below and nobody does anything even when we know we have to do something.
We prefer to go and pray on our collective lack of will than to make a will to respond to the works in this email calling for a meeting to ORGANIZE our people.
Even to organize ourselves to server our people we have refused. Yes, refused. Come and see a firm on Malcolm X on Sunday at 1:00 p.m. at Daniel Library at Georgia and Rhode Avenue N.W. Washington, DC. Kofi Agyapong of SADA is inviting you.
Kofi Agyapong
SADA
In a message dated 2/12/2015 8:58:47 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, selfhe...@ubol.com writes:
Greetings All,
What is the reality of African Unity? The journey is very long and difficult. Yet it must be travelled triumphantly.
Those who know better must teach others how to do better. While we fight among ourselves, there is a far bigger Foe which is unlikely to show mercy and compassion, when it comes to our neighbourhood to kill us and take what we have got.
The Predator will not take from one warring side and leave the next. It has no favourite. It will take from all sides, leaving us poor, weak and helpless.
We have a far better chance in defending our heritage when we stand in unity. Leaders who betrayed their children and send them to death, must know that they will have to be accountable in the future.
We can’t eat money. Power and glory are fleeting. And above all, the Foe – roaming Predator, will be defeated, perhaps by its own internal contradictions. Those of us who are able to learn from human history will be able to understand.
AFRIKA WILL BE FREED AND RISE TO ITS ALPHA STATE. WE MUST NOT WISH FOR THAT; BUT ORGANISE FOR THAT. STRONG AFRIKANS AND A STRONG GLOBAL AFRIKA MEAN STRONG HUMANITY. Balance.
We are Our Own Liberators – in Spirit, Mind and Body. If others were our Liberators, we would not need liberation.
The process starts with simple individual actions daily. We should not expect to make big changes, when we have left the small ones undone. Each of us is important player in the process to realise collective change.
Charismatic Leadership is redundant, too susceptible to negative ego. Collective Leadership is probably more suitable for Our challenges of the 21st Century, which require us to lay on the pillar of sacrifices, from time to time. We do this without hate, envy, arrogance, greed and selfishness. Don’t ask others to do what we won’t do ourselves. Avoid complaint cultures. Let us do more to realise personal and collective change.
Any sacrifice we need to make for the good of others, must be based on reason and not sentimentality. Justice is blind, they say, and our sacrifices might also benefit us and others, many of whom will have been from other ethnicities and communities. Right is right and wrong is wrong, wherever they are found. No utopia. Just reality.
CHANGE IS UPON US. Come in Number One. Your time is up. The curtain is drawn and light comes in. We can see now.
South Sudan you need not to fight anymore. The price has been paid in blood in the past, that is why you became Sovereign Southern Sudan. That is what you asked for and that is what you got. Time for a long period of re-construction and construction. Not destruction. Members of the Afrikan Diaspora – indigenous Afrikans, none Continental residents, want to come and help you. But this can only happen when you are embracing peace.
Those who made sacrifices and gone on before us would not have been pleased with the current state. Give our children a chance to live and benefit from the promises a New South Sudan offers. Let their blood remain in their veins and not spilt on the earth.
Editorial Collective,
Self-Help News – “Giving Voice to the Voiceless”
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humanitarian news and analysis
Why South Sudan’s children are fighting again
NAIROBI, 12 February 2015 (IRIN) - Thousands of children are fighting with government and rebel forces in South Sudan, reversing a painstaking demobilization program and fanning calls for war crimes trials as a better way to protect minors from recruitment.
To mark the International Day Against the Use of Child Soldiers, this article examines the dynamics of recruitment and the prospects for sustainable demobilization.
Many thousands of children have been killed, wounded, orphaned or displaced since December 2013, when a power struggle between President Salva Kiir and his former deputy Riek Machar split the ruling Sudan People’s Liberation Movement and Army (SPLM/A) and triggered a conflict that still shows little sign of ending.
Doune Porter, a spokeswoman for UNICEF, said armed groups including government troops and allied militias as well as an array of opposition forces are currently using more than 12,000 children, and that recruitment is ongoing.
“There had been enormous progress made by the government of South Sudan and the (army) in the release of children and in not recruiting further children. But of course that was all reversed when the conflict started,” Porter told IRIN. “We have reports that recruitment is continuing in many parts of the country and we are extremely concerned about that.”
The figures are a serious blow to the UN-sponsored demobilization effort begun before the country seceded from Sudan in 2011, and raise serious questions about the effectiveness of such programs: Why was the earlier progress so easily reversed? How can future programs be strengthened? Would high-profile prosecutions deter recruitment? Or are they counterproductive?
Naming and shaming
The UN has led efforts to combat the use of children in armed groups around the world since the turn of the millennium, with mixed results.
From 2002, the UN secretary-general has ‘named and shamed’ offending governments and non-state groups in a high-profile annual report on children and armed conflict. Subsequently, the UN Security Council has required those on this list to implement action plans to release children and prevent their future use, as well as to end other “grave violations” of children’s rights, including sexual violence and the armed occupation of schools.
Under its 18-point plan, South Sudan deployed over 1,000 child protection officers throughout the armed forces; trained 30,000 military officers on the subject; and ordered commanders to comply with the process or face sanction.
By December 2013, the SPLA had released 955 children and rejected 450 who had tried to enlist. UNICEF helps the demobilized children find their families and begin the often troubled process of returning to school and civilian life. According to Porter, only about 500 children were still serving with the SPLA when the latest conflict broke out.
“As long as there is no peace in South Sudan, children will be seen carrying weapons.”
South Sudanese officials insist they are still committed to the process.
In October, the government adopted the UN-sponsored “Children, Not Soldiers” campaign to end the recruitment and use of children by government security forces in armed conflict by the end of 2016.
In January, a former rebel militia released 250 children under the program, eight months after making peace with the government. More than 2,000 more are expected to demobilize from the group – the South Sudan Democratic Army Cobra Faction - in the coming months.
(The challenges involved in providing effective reintegration support to demobilised children in remote parts of South Sudan will be the subject of a future IRIN article.)
But no more children have been released from the SPLA’s own units.
Breakdown
Oluku Andrew Holt, who heads the children’s section of the government’s demobilization commission, said identification and release of children from the army had “slowed down in some areas due to insecurity.”
Photo: UNICEF
A former insurgency now allied with the government released 250 children from its ranks in January.
He insisted most of those who remain are cooks, porters and cleaners rather than front-line troops, and said he was optimistic the demobilization process would eventually resume: “The South Sudan army wants to get its name removed” from the list, Holt told IRIN.
Meanwhile, the recruitment of minors has resumed.
“There has been a lot of difficulty getting the messages down into the more remote command areas and so some units have been recruiting children, despite the direction from the central command not to do so,” UNICEF’s Porter said.
While neither the UN nor the government are providing any detailed figures, the problem may well be greatest on the opposition side.
Last May, Machar signed a commitment with the UN to immediately end all violations against children. Many opposition commanders have been through the same education process in the SPLA before they rebelled. However, Machar has repeatedly stated that he doesn’t have full control over opposition forces. These include the so-called White Army, a loose collection of ethnic Nuer militias believed to include thousands of minors.
Some observers argue that, for powerful historical, cultural and economic reasons, the setback over child soldiers was inevitable once conflict re-surfaced, and that only a patient co-operative approach will bear long-term fruit.
Thousands of children were recruited into the SPLA and other groups who fought in the decades-long civil wars that ultimately led to the independence of South Sudan.
South Sudanese minors are often familiar with weapons, including boys routinely sent off to guard livestock against raids from rival communities; and both boys and girls are widely viewed as adults once they reach the age of 15.
“Children growing up in these (pastoralist) communities, they actually start using guns as young as 11 or 10,” Holt said. “For them, a gun is just like a stick.”
Accountability
While those factors could take a generation or more to overcome, the action plan agreed by the government also includes a commitment to investigate and hold accountable perpetrators of grave violations against children – a measure aimed squarely at commanders and leaders and meant to deter backsliding, whatever the circumstances.
“The promise of the Action Plan is that children will be protected from recruitment and use and other grave violations at all times, including during periods of instability or conflict”, Leila Zerrougui, Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict, said last year. “Accountability is key. If those who recruit, kill, maim and rape boys and girls, attack schools and hospitals never face justice, no lasting peace will be possible.”
To that end, the UN has helped train SPLA judges to stiffen the army’s internal justice system. Children’s rights have been enshrined in law.
However, rights groups complain that South Sudanese legislation proscribing the recruitment and use of children remains weak and that no high-profile commanders have ever been prosecuted in either a local or international court.
Skye Wheeler, South Sudan researcher with Human Rights Watch, said that lack of accountability represented a fatal weakness.
“No commander in South Sudan has ever had to pay any kind of serious cost for the use and recruitment of children. There’s never been any justice,” including for a string of pardoned former rebel leaders integrated into the SPLA, Wheeler told IRIN.
“So of course it is unsurprising that, when you get a conflict (and) commanders are under pressure to recruit large numbers, as well as forcibly recruiting thousands of young men and middle aged men, they also take hundreds if not thousands of children,” she said.
Asked if high-profile prosecutions such as those against former militia commanders in the Democratic Republic of Congo would have helped, Wheeler said: “Absolutely yes.”
Isabelle Guitard, Africa Program Manager for Child Soldiers International, a U.K.-based rights group, said the earlier experience of DRC had demonstrated that “impunity and integration of those responsible for child recruitment into the armed forces has simply led to more rebellions and further child recruitment.”
“Where amnesties must be used for the sake of peace, stability or demobilisation efforts, we recommend that they exclude war crimes, including the recruitment and use of children in hostilities,” Guitard told IRIN by email.
She said Child Soldiers International’s partners in eastern Congo were finding that the 2012 conviction of militia leader Thomas Lubanga before the International Criminal Court was persuading commanders of some armed groups to release children from their ranks in the hope of avoiding prosecution.
In South Sudan, the prospect of political or military leaders facing legal consequences for the use of children or other crimes committed during the current conflict appears remote.
Most recently, rights groups have criticized a decision by the African Union to delay the release of findings from an AU investigation into crimes committed in the first months of the conflict – apparently out of concern that it could upset efforts to mediate a peace agreement that would see Kiir and Machar share power.
“This bodes badly for accountability writ large, including for the commanders who are using children to fight in this conflict,” Wheeler said. “You need very clear messaging that there will be repercussions for commanders who use kids or who recruit kids, both from the government and from the international community.”
But for Holt, who has spent more than a decade trying to return young fighters to civilian life, the only real hope for South Sudan’s children is an end to its chronic instability, so that minors can go to school and avoid the pressure to pick up a gun.
“As long as there is no peace in South Sudan, children will be seen carrying weapons,” he said.
sg/am
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