Of child soldiers and the concerns : A dry supply chain ?
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: April 19, 2012 -

A gun when fired kills and maims, whether the finger that pulled the trigger belongs to a security personnel, a rebel, a common man, a woman or a child.

So why is there a sense of deep concern when children are made to carry guns and trained to open fire with the intent to kill, maim or coerce ?

Power and authority, whether defacto or dejure, come with the understanding of a corresponding responsibility and accountability and so it is that there are laws and rules which restrain the power that the pen may wield, the power and authority that the head of a people and a State may exercise and nowhere is this felt more urgent and needed than when it comes to weapons which can kill.

Children, by biological and social conditioning, are easier to mould and conditioned to carry out the agenda hatched by adults without questioning and in the case of child soldiers they may be brainwashed into becoming killing machines, as witnessed in some of the conflict ridden places in the world such as in Angola, Burundi, Sierra Leone, Uganda, Sudan, Iraq, Colombia etc.

Apart from the valid question of robbing the innocence of the child by thrusting a gun into his or her hand, the potential to turn them into killing machines is what has kept the international community concerned and worried.

Interestingly child soldiers are not the monopoly of rebel forces as is generally understood and according to the findings of the African Research Bulletin, Government forces are known to have recruited child soldiers in countries like Angola, Burundi, Congo, Rwanda, Sudan and Uganda.

In most cases, poverty is one of the more prominent factors that drive children to don the battle fatigues and take up arms to wage a war of which they have very little understanding.

At other times, children may be kidnapped or lured under an illusion of romanticism associated with rebellion. There is yet another case when children are understood to have taken to arms after identifying with the ideology of the movement such as in the case of Palestine.

While the definition of a child may differ from culture to culture and from society to society, there is however a universal understanding of who is a child as defined by the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child and that is anyone who is below the age of 18 is deemed to be a child, not yet an adult.

Technically, Manipur may not come under the UN definition of a conflict zone, but the undeclared state of emergency or a war that hangs heavy over the head of everyone here is something that cannot be brushed aside that easily.

The militarisation of the whole place, covering every nook and cranny of the land is complete.

Military laws like the Armed Forces Special Powers Act continue to be a bone of contention between the Government and the civil society organisations and for the last four of five decades, numerous armed groups have been waging a bush war against the Government and its security forces.

It is in this situation that there have been reports of children disappearing with some pointing fingers at underground organisations of having recruited them.

Rewind a few years back and the State witnessed a series of protests and appeals to an underground outfit to release young children who were reported to have been recruited by it, either willingly or through coercion or by influencing their tender minds.

The latest is the story of three kids, all below the age of 18, who reportedly disappeared a few days back with the finger of suspicion pointed towards the armed groups of having recruited them.

If at all the suspicion turns out to be true, then it would offer certain insights.

In the latest case, all the three kids who have disappeared are reported to belong to Below the Poverty Line families. This fits in with the universal understanding of poverty driving the underaged to take to arms.

Kidnapping or brainwashing their tender minds to join the armed group also fits in well with another understanding of children donning the uniform and arms of soldiers.

On the other hand, it could also mean a drying up of the supply chain in their rank and file.

Whatever the case, the concept of child soldiers does not fit in with the understanding of revolution.

It does not speak well of the armed movement nor does it say anything good about the future of the land and the people. This much should be clear to all.