UN Report on Child Soldiers

Bottom Line Up Front

There is now a report on the recruitment and use of child soldiers. It comes out while the International Criminal Court (a brand new offshoot of the UN) seeks to prove its legitimacy with prosecuting a warlord for his use of child soldiers. What is NOT stated overtly in the article is that most of the groups listed are primarily Islamic groups seeking to establish sharia law. Also, the states listed are standing UN members.

UN Report: Use of Child Soldiers Still Widespread in 2010/2011

As a UN list proves, children are still being recruited and used in warfare while schools are repeatedly being attacked and closed with a UN official saying this was "another tragic year" for the world's youngsters.

New additions to the list include the Philippines' Moro secessionist movement in the south, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), which was among the 61 rebel groups that targeted children recruitment in the 22 countries the report focuses on. Other groups such as the al-Shabab militia in Somalia, and the Afghan National Police in Afghanistan are also listed.

In Afghanistan however, the Government recently agreed to release children from the Afghan national security forces and to put in place more efficient age verification measures to prevent under-age recruitment.

The report also reveals that the UN Security Council also found the New People's Army and the Abu Sayyaf Group of being actively engaged in recruiting children as fighters.

As details of the list emerged however, the MILF repeatedly denied the recruitment of child warriors, with member Muhammad Ameen insisting his group and its military wing, the Bangsamoro Islamic Armed Forces (BIAF), do not participate in the recruitment of children and have even prohibited it.

As the use of child soldiers is still widespread, In June, the Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution which expended the criteria for listing parties to conflict in the Secretary-General's annual report, including parties who attack schools and hospitals.

The resolution strictly prohibits the "recruitment and use of children, killing and maiming, rape and other sexual violence, attacks on schools and/or hospitals."

"The promise of this resolution is very real. During my visits to conflict areas, I have personally seen the devastation -- schools completely destroyed, bombed or burnt to the ground. Attacks on hospitals are two-fold atrocities. Not only do they kill and wound girls and boys, but they leave children without access to treatment," said Radhika Coomaraswamy, the Special Representative of the Secretary General for children and armed conflict.

The annual report finds that out of 22 conflicts that were monitored, attacks against schools and hospitals were reported in at least 15, with reports of damage, destruction and closing of schools appearing to be a pattern.

 "The infrastructure of schools have been physically destroyed by armed actors, and students and educational personnel have been attacked, threatened or intimidated," the report states.

"In some situations, girls and girls' schools have been specifically targeted. The use of schools by armed elements has, in certain circumstances, compromised the civilian nature of schools and put students at risk."

Other entries on the list include Yemeni groups pro-Government tribal militia and al-Houthi rebels, both for recruiting and using child soldiers and the Iraqi groups the Islamic State of Iraq, and Al-Qaida in Iraq, including its armed youth wing known as the Birds of Paradise.

The report examined armed conflicts last year in Afghanistan, Burundi, the Central African Republic (CAR), Chad, Colombia, Côte d'Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Haiti, India, Iraq, Lebanon, Myanmar, Nepal, the occupied Palestinian territories and Israel, Pakistan, Philippines, Somalia, Sri Lanka, Sudan, southern Thailand, Uganda and Yemen.

http://uk.ibtimes.com/articles/213572/20110914/un-report-use-of-child-soldiers-still-widespread-in-2010-2011.htm

First ICC Prosecution Moving Forward

Lubamga, the criminal in this first case, has been awaiting justice since about 2006. Wow; it has only taken five years for the case to come to a point where the defense (if there is any) can say that the evidence is tainted or the witnesses irrelevant. Five years. How much longer before the victims of his crimes see this vile creature in prison? He will nto be put to death or harmed in any way. No, he will serve time in a prison cell. He will eat, sleep, drink, shower, read, and continue to live in a prison cell paid for by other people. Damn! I am so glad the UN is hot on this.

Prosecution says evidence in International Court’s first trial enough to convict Congo warlord

By Associated Press, Updated: Thursday, August 25, 10:44 AM

THE HAGUE, Netherlands — Prosecutors began wrapping up the International Criminal Court’s landmark first trial on Thursday by urging judges to convict a Congolese warlord of recruiting hundreds of child soldiers and sending them to fight and kill in his country’s brutal conflict.

Deputy Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda told judges that evidence in the trial that began in January 2009 gave voice to children that militia leader Thomas Lubanga had “transformed into killers; those girls that Mr. Lubanga offered to his commanders as sexual slaves.”

( Michael Kooren, Pool / Associated Press ) - Congolese warlord Thomas Lubanga sits in the courtroom of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, Netherlands, Thursday, Aug. 25, 2011. Prosecution lawyers are wrapping up the ICC’s landmark first trial by urging judges to convict Lubanga of recruiting child soldiers and sending them to fight in his country’s brutal conflict. Lubanga’s trial was the first international case to focus exclusively on child soldiers.

Bensouda said the armed wing of Lubanga’s Union of Congolese Patriots political party trained hundreds of children in 20 camps scattered across the Ituri region of eastern Congo in 2002-2003.

“They were used to fight in conflicts. They were used to kill, rape and pillage,” she added.

Actress Angelina Jolie, who is a goodwill ambassador for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, was among dozens of people who watched proceedings from the court’s public gallery. She made no comment to reporters.

Lubanga’s defense lawyers are expected to tell judges on Friday that the prosecution evidence was flawed by false witness testimony and that Lubanga in fact tried to liberate child soldiers, not recruit them.

Lubanga’s trial has been hailed as a significant step in the development of international law. It was the first international case to focus exclusively on child soldiers and the opening trial at the world’s first permanent war crimes tribunal.

However, it also was overshadowed by delays and by friction between prosecutors and judges.

The trial was put on hold in June 2008 — just 10 days before it was scheduled to start — when judges ruled that Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo had not given lawyers evidence that could have helped Lubanga. He refused to turn over some 200 documents because they came from organizations including the United Nations on condition that they not be disclosed to others.

Judges said the confidentiality agreements meant, “the trial process has been ruptured to such a degree that it is now impossible to piece together the constituent elements of a fair trial.”

Moreno-Ocampo eventually got consent from all the organizations and disclosed the material to defense attorneys, allowing the trial to get under way.

But judges halted it in July 2010 and ordered Lubanga released from custody when prosecutors defied a court order to reveal the identity of an intermediary who had helped prosecutors contact witnesses.

Prosecutors appealed the decision and Lubanga remained in his cell, but the incident underscored simmering tensions between prosecutors and the judges over disclosure of sensitive evidence.

Faced with the prospect of the case collapsing, prosecutors revealed the identity of their intermediary to the defense and appeals judges ruled that the trial could resume.

The tensions resurfaced Thursday when Presiding Judge Adrian Fulford refused to let Moreno-Ocampo answer a question addressed to one of his team of lawyers.

“Mr. Ocampo, can we please have some order,” Fulford said. When Moreno-Ocampo tried again to answer, Fulford sternly told the prosecutor: “Mr. Ocampo, not at the moment.”

Lubanga was arrested in March 2006, the first suspect to come into the custody of the International Criminal Court, which became operational in 2002.

The court has since issued indictments in high profile flashpoints such as the Darfur conflict in Sudan and the Gadhafi regime’s brutal but unsuccessful campaign to stamp out dissent.

Lubanga is accused of leading a rebel group called the Union of Congolese Patriots which used child soldiers in savage fighting in the Ituri province in 2002-2003.

While welcoming his prosecution and the groundbreaking child soldier charges, human rights groups have criticized prosecutors for the narrow scope of the trial, saying they should also have charged him for the numerous rapes that victims say members of his militia perpetrated in a region notorious for widespread sexual violence.

“It was shocking to many of us that the announcement in 2006 of the case against Mr. Lubanga did not include charges for such crimes and overlooked the suffering of thousands of women,” said Brigid Inder, executive director of a group called Women’s Initiatives for Gender Justice.

However others applauded the likely deterrent effect of the Lubanga trial.

The U.N. special envoy for children in armed conflicts, Radhika Coomaraswamy, said leaders in conflict zones have often asked her about the ICC and the Lubanga prosecution.

“I found that fear of the ICC a healthy development in international law,” Coomaraswamy told The Associated Press. “Nobody can measure how many children have been saved because of deterrence. That’s not something you can measure, but hopefully that will be the case.”

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/prosecution-says-evidence-in-international-courts-first-trial-enough-to-convict-congo-warlord/2011/08/25/gIQA2VnWdJ_story.html

Sudan, No Longer Terroristic But Still Genocidal

BLUF

Sudan has been a sponsor of state terror for many years. It is also guilty of conducting genocide against its own people in the Darfur region. After years of rapes, slaughters, conflagrations against the tribes in Darfur the janjaweed are reported to continue their reign of terror with the support of the Syrian government, al-Bashir. Basjir is indicted for war crimes and wanted for trial at the International Criminal Courts, but he has yet to be arrested. Coming off of the terror list is going to allow Sudan to buy U.S. weapons. Guess who else is in Sudan. If you said Iran, you are right.

Entitled “Preliminary report on violations of international human rights and humanitarian law in Southern Kordofan from 5 to 30 June 2011”, the new report underscored the gravity of the acts committed by Sudan’s army and its allied paramilitary forces in the region.

Obama wants to remove an indicted criminal’s country from the State Department’s list of State Sponsors of Terror, thus opening a possible (troublesome and expensive) route for oil to come out of South Sudan. In turn, allowing the violent government of Indicted Criminal al-Bashir the opportunity to buy US weapons and restricted technology while sitting at the table with Iran.

BACKGROUND

Presence on the U.S. state sponsors of terrorism list bars a country from receiving U.S. arms exports, controls sales of items with military and civilian applications, limits U.S. aid and requires Washington to vote against loans to the country from international financial institutions. This is certainly a good list of reasons as to why Bashir would awant to come off the list.

Clinton has started the paperwork to remove Sudan from The List. The president will have to approve the recommendation. He has already stated, not in so many words, that he is going to approve it, after having opposed it in 2008 when Bush tried to remove Sudan from the list. Obama called it “reckless and cynical” then. The whole sale slaughter and ethnic cleansing of the Darfur region and having Iran in the Sudanese room does not now amount to reckless?

The janjaweed, a tribe of marauding horsemen, are of Arab origin. The word itself is Arabic for devils on horseback. One survivor of their atrocities has described his escape

“Burnt and soaking wet, I ran into the woods and climbed a tree. I stayed there all day. From my perch, I could see the Janjaweed and the Sudanese military killing people. Young boys, they beheaded immediately. Girls they killed and dumped in the river. Pregnant women had their bellies cut open with machetes and their breasts slashed.”

Reports of rape in order to breed Arab children in the black African Darfur region have also been reported.

A new UN report has reiterated claims that human rights abuses allegedly committed during the conflict in Sudan’s state of South Kordofan may amount to “war crimes” and “crimes against humanity,” and must therefore be fully investigated.

Entitled “Preliminary report on violations of international human rights and humanitarian law in Southern Kordofan from 5 to 30 June 2011”, the new report underscored the gravity of the acts committed by Sudan’s army and its allied paramilitary forces in the region.

“If substantiated [the actions] could amount to crimes against humanity, or war crimes for which individual criminal responsibility may be sought,” the report said.

This account was reported by El-Fadel Arbab. Mr. Arbab, you blame al-Bashir for those acts that happened and still continue today. When they happen tomorrow, will the world blame Obama? They will blame the U.S. when the attrocities are committed with Western weapons

UNMIS, whose mandate was terminated by Khartoum on 9 July, recommended the establishment of a commission of inquiry or other appropriate investigative authority, including the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), to conduct a comprehensive investigation into the violence in Southern Kordofan and violations of human rights and humanitarian laws and to identify the perpetrators or those who bear the greatest responsibility, with the view to bringing them to justice. The UN Mission there was just visciously attacked not more than two weeks ago!

The ICC is already seeking to prosecute Sudanese individuals thought to bear the greater responsibility for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide it alleges were committed in the course of Sudan’s brutal counterinsurgency in the western region of Darfur, especially between 2003 and 2004.

The Hague-based court has issued arrests warrants for three Sudanese individuals, including the country’s President Omer Al-Bashir.

Al-Bashir denies any wrongdoing and denigrates the ICC as a tool of a Western conspiracy to dismantle his regime.The current governor of South Kordofan Ahmed Haroun is also wanted by the Hague tribunal.

The Security Council expresses grave concern about the ongoing violence and rapidly deteriorating situation in Abyei since the Council addressed the issue in its May

The Security Council strongly condemns the Government of Sudan’s taking and continued maintenance of military control over the Abyei Area and the resulting displacement of tens of thousands of residents of Abyei. The Council calls on the Sudanese Armed Forces to ensure an immediate halt to all looting, burning, and illegal resettlement.

The Security Council condemns the fact that two of the three main supply routes from the North to the South have been blocked,

Albashir Utilizes Forces from Iranian Revolutionary Guards in Nuba Mountains
July 27, 2011

Albashir regime in Khartoum has sought military support from the Iranian Revolutionary Guards to fight against civilians in South Kordofan.

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/worldview/100811/sudan-darfur-genocide-bashir

http://www.sudantribune.com/Sudan-slams-repetitive-UN-reports,39849

http://usun.state.gov/briefing/statements/2011/165152.htm

http://www.sudantribune.com/US-decision-to-drop-Sudan-from,39869

Obama Administration Links Sudan’s Removal From Terror-Sponsor List to Non-Terror-Related Issue

Tuesday, February 08, 2011 By Patrick Goodenough

(CNSNews.com) – The Obama administration has started the process of removing Sudan from the shrinking list of countries designated as state-sponsors of terrorism, linking the move directly to Khartoum’s full implementation of a peace agreement that ended the long civil war between the north and south.

Following the finalization of a referendum on independence for southern Sudan, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Monday the process of delisting Khartoum would now begin with the initiation of a review.

In line with statutory requirements, the president will have to certify to Congress that Sudan has not provided any support for international terrorism during the preceding six-month period. A 45-day notice period is required.

Sudan also will have to provide assurances that it will not support terrorism in the future.

But apart from those legal criteria for any country to be taken off the terror-sponsor list, President Obama last November also tied the move to an issue unrelated to support for international terrorism – Sudan’s compliance with the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), which ended the long and brutal civil war between the Islamist-ruled, mostly Muslim north and the predominantly Christian and animist south.

Both the president and Clinton on Monday reiterated that linkage.

“For those who meet all of their [CPA] obligations, there is a path to greater prosperity and normal relations with the United States, including examining Sudan’s designation as a state sponsor of terrorism,” Obama said in a statement.

For her part, Clinton said that in order to be taken off the list, Sudan must both meet the legal requirements relating to international terrorism and fully implement the CPA, including reaching a political solution with the south on the future of the disputed oil-rich Abyei region.

The Jan. 9 referendum on possible secession of the south was a key element of the CPA. According to official results released Monday more than 98 percent of ballots cast were in favor of independence.

Linking removal from the terror-sponsor list with issues not related to international terrorism has been controversial in the past.

When in 2008 the Bush administration was reported to be considering offering to remove Khartoum from the list in exchange for regime concessions on the Darfur conflict raging at the time, then presidential candidate Sen. Obama called the move “reckless and cynical.”

“[N]o country should be removed from the list of state sponsors of terrorism for any reason other than the existence of verifiable proof that the government in question does not support terrorist organizations,” Obama made that statement in April 2008.

Asked at a briefing Monday what the referendum had to do with not sponsoring terrorism, State Department spokesman Philip Crowley replied, “In our dialogue with the government of Sudan, where Sudan has made clear it wants more normal relations with the United States, this is one of the issues that is an issue between our two countries.”

“And we’ve indicated that going forward we are willing to work to resolve this – with the caveat again that there are particular legal requirements that have to be satisfied before this action could be taken,” he added.

When the Bush administration removed Libya and North Korea from the list, in 2006 and 2008 respectively, in both cases the decision was tied in part to the regimes’ undertakings on their weapons of mass destruction programs.

Given concerns about proliferation to terrorist groups, however, the WMD issue was seen as directly related to international terrorism.

(North Korea’s subsequent reneging on its denuclearization undertakings, nuclear and missile tests and aggression towards South Korea, brought calls in Congress and elsewhere 2010 for it to be returned to the list.)

Terror haven

Countries designated as terror-sponsors are subject to economic sanctions including a ban on arms-related exports and sales, restrictions on exports of “dual-use” items, and prohibitions on economic assistance. The U.S. also opposes loans by international financial institutions to listed countries.

Eight countries have a various times been on the list since it was established in 1979, with Sudan the most recent addition, in August 1993.

Today’s list comprises Sudan, Syria (added in 1979), Cuba (1982) and Iran (1984). Countries previously on the list were South Yemen (1979-1990), Libya (1979-2006) and North Korea (1986-2008.) Iraq was listed from 1979-1982, redesignated in 1990 after the invasion of Kuwait, and again removed after the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003.

Sudan was added to the list four years after President Omar Al-Bashir came to power in a military coup, and a year after Sudan began hosting al-Qaeda terrorist Osama bin Laden.

Bin Laden, who had been expelled by his native Saudi Arabia, used Sudan as his base of operations until 1996, and then returned to Afghanistan. A U.S. federal court in 2007 found that Sudan’s active support for al-Qaeda during the 1990s had been critical in enabling the terror network to develop the expertise and resources to bomb the USS Cole in Yemen’s Aden port in 2000, an attack that killed 17 U.S. sailors.

The same year as the terror-sponsor designation, 1993, the U.S. downgraded its embassy in Khartoum. It was closed entirely in 1996 “due to concerns regarding the Sudanese government’s ability to adequately ensure the safety of U.S. officials.”

After al-Qaeda bombed the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, the U.S. bombed a factory in Khartoum, claiming it was being used to manufacture chemical weapons and was linked to bin Laden. Sudan denied the claims.

Relations began to improve slowly after 9/11. In 2002 the U.S. Embassy was reopened, although no ambassador has been posted and the mission is headed by a charge d’affaires.

U.S. economic, trade, and financial sanctions which were imposed in 1997 remain in place. Additional sanctions were introduced by President Bush in 2007 in response to the Darfur conflict, targeting Sudanese who were implicated in Darfur violence as well as companies owned or controlled by the regime.

Arms to Hamas

Since 9/11, the U.S. government has reported Sudanese cooperation in the campaign against terrorism.

In its most recent annual terrorism report, released last August, the State Department said “the bilateral counterterrorism relationship remains solid.”

But it also noted that members of Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and “al-Qaeda-inspired terrorist elements” remained in the country during the period under review.

In one of the classified U.S. government cables released by Wikileaks late last year, the State Department in January 2009 raised concern about deliveries of Iranian-supplied arms to Sudan, destined for Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

It instructed the embassy in Khartoum to ask the Sudanese government to stop the flights, pointing out that Iranian arms exports are prohibited under U.N. Security Council resolutions.

Six months later another State Department cable referred to a “a significant volume of arms shipments to Hamas” crossing the Red Sea from Yemen into Sudan, from where they were believed to be transported north by vehicle.

Iranian Islamists Come Help Sudan Slaughter

Posted on July 28, 2011 by Faith

What are we going to do about this?
Are we going to allow the Nuba people to be exterminated?

Press release
Sudan People’s Liberation Movement( SPLM)
Southern Kordofan/ Nuba Mountains

Albashir Utilizes Forces from Iranian Revolutionary Guards in Nuba Mountains
July 27, 2011

After militarily defeats on the ground and big numbers of Sudan Army Force (SAF) joining Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), the Albashir regime in Khartoum has sought military support from the Iranian Revolutionary Guards to fight against civilians in South Kordofan.

SPLM’s sources yesterday monitored the arrival of 200 officers from the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, accompanied with 10 advanced tanks to Kassala airport in Eastern Sudan. High security measures were on place by the time the Iranian Guards arrived to the airport. Kassala airport has previously witnessed the arrival of some Somali’s Islamic militia who was seen heading to South Kordofan two weeks ago.

In the light of this development the SPLM South Kordofan is now certain that the NCP regime is utilizing and deploying militias from outside the country in their ethnic cleansing war. In addition to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards that are heading to the area, the regime has already brought the militia of Peter Gadet from South Sudan, Somali’s fundamentalist groups and Janjweed militias from Niger and Chad.

The SPLM in South Kordofan condemns and denounces such irresponsible practices which will put the conflict in the area in a dangerous phase by deploying terrorist groups against the people of South Kordofan. The SPLM, once again, call upon the United Nation Security Council to form an international committee of inquiry to investigate crime against humanity and ethnic cleansing, and in particular to investigate the military deployment of these exported militias of terrorist groups.

The Struggle Continues.
Gamer Delman
Media adviser to SPLM South Kordofan
July 27, 2011

http://freesouthsudanmediacenter.com/2011/07/28/iranian-islamists-come-help-sudan-slaughter/#comment-1050

Somali Aid Stolen

BLUF

Millions of people are starving to death. Food and money has been, and continues to be, sent into Somalia. I presume into the Mogadishu port facility. In spite of alleged rigorous monitoring and control by the UN WFP up to half of the food aid that comes in ends up being stolen.

My opinion is that the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) is the largest money making scheme in history. Bernie Madoff could not have had a better plan. It is time for the world to require Somalia to stand up as its own country. Push the bird out of the nest.

BACKGROUND

After the end of the Siad Barre bloody and violent regime fell, there was a famine. In 1992 the UN and the US went into Somalia under Operation Restore Hope, although, I seriously doubt there was any real hope.  The purpose for being there was to ensure the safety of food and aid going to the people of Somalia. The world sends in help and gets thanked with RPGs, machine guns, and grenades.

Fast forward 15 years, and nothing has gotten any better. In 2007 muslim fighters for al-Shabaab shot down two aid planes, one was incapacitated the other spread over two miles of desolate Somali ground. During the 15 year spread the TFG was established, spent most of its infancy living and “ruling” (ha!) from Kenya, and was forced (yes, kicked out of Kenya forcibly) to move into  Somalia to rule. Since then, they have been corrupt, weak, backstabbing, in-fighting, nepotistic opportunists.

Now, 2011, nearly 20 years after the world’s last attempt at helping Somalia and its people, nothing is better and nothing has changed. The World Food Program (WFP) now acknowledges that there has been some theft of aid. They have been investigating this for two months. I have been watching this go on for years via the internet and newspapers.

As officials claimed and news reports persisted the UN could no longer deny that its aid was being stolen.  It appears that the UN found its WFP supplies being sold at Bakara Market. This also happens to be one of the largest open air gun and goat markets in the region. At one of the sites for stolen food aid, about a dozen corrugated iron sheds are stacked with sacks. Outside, women sell food from open 110-pound (50-kilogram) sacks, and traders load the food onto carts or vehicles under the indifferent eyes of local officials.

It turns out that at the TFG run Baidoa Camp, a refugee camp located outside of Mogadishu, the management of the “camp” required a 50% kickback of supplies given by the WFP. If the kickback was questioned or sneered at in any way that person and his family was ejected from the camp, and this was probably not done in a sweet or gentle manner. As horrific as the camps are, they are preferred over the war zone that is Mogadishu.

Working in the region giving aid is dangerous. There are numerous ways to be killed for simply having food to give out. WFP has had 14 employees killed in Somalia since 2008. As a result of these and earlier deaths (including the machine gun execution of all members of a WFP convoy in mid 2007) the UN is calling for greater steps and assurances of security from the TFG and its allied organizations, transitional federal institutions (TFI). Aid will be allotted based on the TFI achieving certain benchmarks of security, but what those are is unclear at this time.

ASSESSMENT

Theft of aid will continue. Violence will continue to strangle efforts to aid the people of Somalia. Until the realization is made that the people and government of Somalia have to stand up and behave in a civilized manner, nothing is going to change. As a result, and as harsh as this sounds, all aid to Somalia needs to stop. The UN has said that there are benchmarks to be reached in order to get more aid, and I agree with this, in principle. If Somalia can meet certain benchmarks of civility, security, and common good they can receive assistance. But they have to stand up and calmly walk to the help. We should no longer bring it to them so they can kill us for it.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/aug/15/un-says-food-aid-stolen-from-famished/

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jHWXfuZeqBsx7UP1Bjegr1JFKHcw?docId=CNG.1f469d987692eedad6d66fb6bb381964.531

http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_18684679?nclick_check=1

Child Soldiers In Somalia

Reports coming from the Horn of Africa indicate that al-Shabaab, one of the more influentially destructive forces to humanity in the region, has long been taking children and using them as soldiers. The name “al-Shabaab” is Arabic for “The Youth”. Amnesty International, other human rights groups, and I are finally being heard in this disgusting act of war on the most innocent of the world, its children.

Let’s put the point of Youth into perspective for the Western World readers. Somalia has an average life expectancy of 48 years for males. This is nothing new. The environment is harsh and unforgiving. Life there is also hard and unforgiving. If you are not harder than the environment, you die. Again, the average life span in Somalia is 48 years. What is middle age in this culture? Mathematically it comes out to be 24. In Western cultures this is just out of college and still in the phase of heavy drinking every weekend. By age 24, in most parts of Africa, children have been tending the herd, minding the store, and hunting to help support their brothers and sisters and mother and father. They do not have anything that we could really call a childhood.

Al-Shabaab started off as the militant wing of the Islamic Courts Union in Somalia during the ICU reign in 2006 and into 2007. ICU left and al-Shabaab remained. They said from the start that they would fight to the death. Children were used as disposable items if they did not meet the standards set for them. This use of children is despicable, illegal, and utterly disgusting.

It is not just in Somalia. Myanmar, the country formerly known as Burma, has its share of child soldiers, also. Chad has only just put together a plan to demobilize its child soldiers. The Philippines just passed a bill against it after muslims rebels talked with the UN about weaning their child soldiers from war. Yemen uses child soldiers regularly.

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2011/08/11/Al-Shabaab-conscripting-child-soldiers/UPI-52341313077780/

http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/08/11/myanmar.child.soldier/

Child Soldiers in Yemen

Since the beginning of the popular uprising, Yemen’s government has had to intensify its military recruitment campaign. With the recent waves of defections and the opening of several new fronts, the army is in great need of fresh blood. But most importantly, the government is trying to gather new loyalty under its banner in order to face the threat posed by Sheikh Sadeeq al-Ahmar. Although only a tribal leader, Sheikh Sadeeq has managed over the years to build up a militia quite capable of challenging the Yemeni army.
In response to this, the Defense Minister decided a few months ago to reopen the doors of its training camps, hoping that the promises of a steady income and a state pension would encourage many Yemenis to sign up. Officers close to defected General Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar are saying that al-Islah and the 1st Armored Division are also following suit, trying to enroll more men to their cause, promising them a resemblance of financial security.

In a country where over 40% of the population is out of work, finding a government job is pretty much what everyone is after. Although the salaries are no more than 25,000 YER, about $110, many are attracted by the guarantee of a lifetime income. And if this tactic is pretty much “old school” when it comes to the military, a worrying trend is starting to emerge, as many of the new recruits are actually children.

Lambs to the Wolves

Young Ahmed Iryani, for example, is only 15 years old; he was hired by the 1st Armored Division just after General Mohsen decided to side with the revolutionaries, severing ties with the government. “It is better for me to work for 25,000 YER a month than stay home without anything to do,” he said. With a gun bigger than him, Ahmed is proudly manning one of the checkpoints around “Change Square”, not realizing that if a conflict were to break out, he would be standing directly on its frontline. “Those kids are meat for the Regime and al-Islah… they are posted where it is most dangerous. It’s sad,” said a Sana’a resident.
Child rights advocates are now warning against the trend, adding that if Yemen were to sink into war, many of its children would be sacrificed on the battlefields, innocent victims of a vicious system which preys on the most vulnerable.

Since March, most of the men enlisted are well below the legal age of 18. The recruiters are being told by the government to turn a blind eye and to falsify the army documents, making the new recruits appear older. “Two months ago, my 14-year-old cousin got an ID card showing he is 18 and he joined the Republican Guards,” Hamid al-Ghurbani, a high school teacher in Sana’a, told IRIN. “Last week, I saw him carrying a gun.”

Once the military IDs have been issued it is almost impossible to verify whether the soldiers are truly of legal age. To make matters worse, most of the recruits’ families, when they have any, are accomplice to this charade, preoccupied only by the new source of income.

On both sides, whether it be the government or the tribes, the same phenomenon is taking place. A retired general revealed that the “tactic” had been used systematically for several decades by Saleh’s regime. The Army usually targets orphans and runaways, offering them shelter and money against their undying loyalty. “Those kids were alone, without parents or guardians to look after them. The Army became their home, and President Ali their father,” said the general. But the government and Gen. Mohsen are now going one step further in child abuse. They are using the young recruits as bait to calculate the opposition’s reactions.
In Hasaba and in Arhab, those kids are sent as scouts to spy on the enemies’ positions or are used as decoy. Back in May, Hameed al-Ahmar used them to secure the area around his house. With only a few sand bags to protect them, they were asked to hold their positions no matter what. Residents reported that the children were so terrified that they did not dare look up from their shelter and were shooting blindly.
A recent report from the UN estimated that at least 15% of the tribal militia affiliated with the regime are children.
Human Right Watch rang the alarm bell as well, confirming that over the past few months they had come across several dozens of soldiers who appeared to be well below the legal age requirement. According to the organization so far this year 500 “child soldiers” were killed in action.

http://foreignpolicyblogs.com/2011/08/08/child-soldiers-in-yemen/

UN aid convoy looted in Mogadishu, "casualties" reported

Hillary is pleading? Wait a moment, I thought we already beat the Barbary Coast Pirates? Why are we pleading with a bunch of thugs? Casualties here means that the AID workers, most likely UN, were killed. The gear that the UN workers had is going to be used by Shabaab to commit further atrocities.


Johannesburg/Nairobi (dpa) - Several United Nations trucks carrying food aid were looted by gunmen on Friday in Mogadishu, as workers tried to hand out relief supplies to victims of Somalia's drought.
According to some reports, several people were killed as the attackers made off with the food.
'This incident highlights the challenges humanitarian aid agencies face in trying to deliver assistance in this difficult environment,' said Susannah Nicol with the UN's World Food Programme (WFP).
She added that 'casualties have been reported' in the incident, which took place at a camp for displaced people. The WFP was still investigating the incident.
Over 100,000 displaced Somalis have flocked to the capital in recent months, largely owing to the natural disaster striking the country, which comes atop 20 years of conflict.
The latest violent incident in the war-torn capital comes as the UN warned that nearly half of the Somali children fleeing the war and drought in their country and arriving in refugee camps in neighbouring Kenya are suffering from malnutrition.
'Reports of children dying along the way from Somalia or just as they arrive at the camps are disturbingly common,' said the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF).
The overall number of Somalis seeking help in Kenya was on the rise, with 1,500 new refugees arriving daily, compared to some 1,300 a day last month.
Dadaab camp in Kenya, one of the largest refugee encampments in the world, now houses more than 400,000 people, according to the UN, though it was built for just 90,000.
The United States aid agency, USAID, believes 29,000 children under five have died in the last three months in southern Somalia, according to recent testimony before Congress.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Thursday made a rare direct appeal to the Islamist al-Shabaab militia in Somalia to give full and free access to relief workers trying to aid civilians hit by the worst African food crisis in decades.
The al-Qaeda-linked al-Shabaab bans most aid agencies from operating in the southern and central areas of the country it controls. The people fleeing the regions say those left behind are desperately in need of relief supplies.
Also impeding aid efforts was a 'critical shortage of funds,' according to the UN Refugee Agency, which said it was lacking about half of the money it needed to help refugees.
The UN has appealed for 2.4 billion dollars for relief work, with over 12.5 million people affected by the drought in Somalia, Kenya, Ethiopia, and Djibouti. Five regions of Somalia, including areas around the capital Mogadishu, are officially seeing famine conditions.