BUKAVU, CONGO (dpa) – In the war against recruitment of child soldiers, this town nestled against Lake Kivu in rebel-controlled eastern Congo is one of the front lines.
Here, the aid agency Save the Children UK runs a demobilization centre for former child soldiers. At any one time, a few dozen young boys and the occasional girl use the centre as a transition from life as a soldier to life as a child.
Save the Children operates the centre with the blessing of the Congolese Rally for Democracy, the main rebel group in eastern Congo, known by its French acronym RCD. Senior rebel officials have signed an agreement pledging to demobilise all child soldiers.
However, lower-level commanders often refuse to release child soldiers in their ranks despite the agreement, said Valery Manegabe, who manages the demobilization centre.
“Some political authorities in the RCD are encouraging this recruitment even from their own villages,” said Manegabe.
The problem of armies refusing to abide by agreements not to recruit children was highlighted this week in a new report by the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers.
The report said that while the overwhelming majority of African countries had set 18 as the minimum age for military recruitment, the rule was being breached in many cases.
More than 120,000 children are participating in armed conflicts across Africa, some as young as seven years old, said the coalition.
One former child combatant who was recently in the eastern Congo demobilization centre, Bonheur Byamungu Masumboko, said he was nine when he left his home village of Businga to join the rebel army.
“I wanted to struggle for the country,” said Masumboko, now 13. “I learned everything that soldiers should know, like how to shoot.”
He said he only saw actual combat once, and found it threatening. “I don’t know,” he said, when asked to recall his memories of the battle. “I was just shooting.”
Observers say many child soldiers are not forcibly recruited but – like Masumboko – enlist in armies because of a lack of other opportunities. In some of Africa’s most war-ravaged countries, like Somalia, Sierra Leone, Angola, Sudan and Congo, the school system has broken down and the economy fallen apart, so children have little opportunity for education and teens find it difficult to obtain work. The army – whether on rebel or government sides – can provide them with food to eat and a sense of purpose.
Save the Children’s demobilization centre tries to do the same, but without the military aspect. The children wake up at 5 a.m. and after breakfast, receive some basic schooling until noon. In the afternoon, they learn practical skills like carpentry and soap- making.
The hope is that once they return to their home villages, they will either continue with schooling or be able to take up a trade that can generate income.
However, sometimes the children aren’t welcome to return home. Manegabe said some family members or other villagers retain a lot of anger against children who joined the rebel army, which has been blamed for human rights violations against Congolese civilians.
Save the Children staff visit the villages before the children are returned to find out what needs to be done to pave the way for their return.
Children are being recruited for war because “they can be cheap, expendable and easier to condition into fearless killing and unthinking obedience,” said the coalition’s report.
The report fingered both government and rebel armies in the Congolese civil war for recruiting child soldiers. Since Save the Children began its demobilization programme8 in August 1999, 274 child soldiers have come through the Bukavu centre, said Manegabe.
