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Youth, Poverty and Blood: the Lethal Legacy of West Africa’S Regional Warriors

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Youth, Poverty and Blood: the Lethal Legacy of West Africa’S Regional Warriors Human Rights Watch March 2005 Vol. 17, No. 5 (A) Youth, Poverty and Blood: The Lethal Legacy of West Africa’s Regional Warriors I. Summary ..................................................................................................................................... 1 II. Recommendations ................................................................................................................... 5 To the Governments of Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea, Burkina Faso, and Côte d’Ivoire ...................................................................................................................... 5 To All Governments donating funds to Liberia .................................................................. 6 To the Economic Community of West Africa (ECOWAS) and the African Union............................................................................................................................ 7 To the United Nations Security Council............................................................................... 7 To the United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL), United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) and United Nations Operation in Côte d’Ivoire (ONUCI)....................................................................................................... 8 To the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF)........................................................... 8 To the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) ................................ 9 To the United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), World Bank and others involved in the design, management and evaluation of disarmament exercises......................................................................................................... 9 To the Government of Nigeria............................................................................................. 10 To the International Committee of the Red Cross............................................................ 10 III. Context .................................................................................................................................. 10 The Regional Warrior............................................................................................................. 10 The Sub-Regional Dynamic of West African Conflicts.................................................... 14 Economic and Social Factors................................................................................................ 16 IV. The Recruiters, Their Promises, the Lure......................................................................... 19 Promises of Payment and the Opportunity to Loot ......................................................... 19 Recruitment in Refugee Camps ............................................................................................ 24 V. Regional Warriors and Human Rights Abuses................................................................. 29 High Level Orders to Commit Atrocities – the Liberian Security Forces and RUF in Guinea.................................................................................................... 31 Efforts to Respect the Laws of War Met With Limited Success – The LURD in Liberia ..................................................................................................................... 33 Looting on Massive Scale – Not Ordered but Sanctioned at the Highest Level........................................................................................................................... 34 VI. Current Theaters: Guinea and Côte d’Ivoire ................................................................... 36 Guinea ...................................................................................................................................... 37 Côte d’Ivoire............................................................................................................................ 41 VII. Problems in the Disarmament Programs in Sierra Leone and Liberia [1998-2005] ..................................................................................................................... 42 Sierra Leonean Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration Program (1998-2003).............................................................................................................. 43 Liberian Disarmament, Demobilization, Rehabilitation and Reintegration (2002-present)................................................................................................. 44 Payment to Demobilized Children in Liberia and Increased Risk of Re-recruitment......................................................................................................................... 47 Risks of Failure in the Disarmament Program in Liberia................................................. 49 Corruption by Commanders and DDR/DDRR Program Employees .......................... 50 Lack of Grievance Procedure ............................................................................................... 56 Inadequate job training options............................................................................................ 61 VIII. Conclusion ......................................................................................................................... 63 IX. Acknowledgements.............................................................................................................. 65 Annex............................................................................................................................................ 66 I. Summary There are some of us who can’t seem to live without a weapon – anywhere we hear about fighting, we have to go. It’s because of the way we grew up – and now it’s in our blood. A warrior can’t sit down when war is on…. – Mohammed, 24 year-old Liberian who fought in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea and Côte d’Ivoire Since the late 1980’s, the armed conflicts in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea and Côte d’Ivoire have reverberated across each country’s porous borders. Gliding back and forth across these borders is a migrant population of young fighters – regional warriors – who view war as mainly an economic opportunity. Their military ‘careers’ most often began when they were abducted and forcibly recruited by rebels in Liberia or Sierra Leone, usually as children.1 Thrust into a world of brutality, physical hardship, forced labor and drug abuse, they emerged as perpetrators, willing to rape, abduct, mutilate and even kill. Later, as veteran fighters struggling to support themselves within the war-shattered economy at home, they were lured by recruiters back to the frontlines – this time of a neighbor’s war. There, they took the opportunity to loot and pillage; an all too familiar means of providing for their families or enriching themselves. The flow of arms and combatants across the fluid borders of West Africa, paired with the willingness of governments in the region to support the actions of insurgent groups and government militias in neighboring countries has had lethal consequences, particularly for civilians. The armed groups these regional warriors are part of have a well-documented record of committing unspeakable human rights abuses against unarmed civilians and have so far enjoyed impunity for the violations they commit. Efforts by the international community to disarm and reintegrate these fighters into their home communities –including through training – have so far had limited success. At present, the armed conflict in Côte d’Ivoire and the unstable political situation in Guinea appear to be the current theaters into which these regional warriors are being drawn. 1 In this report, the word "child" refers to anyone under the age of eighteen. The U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child states: "For the purposes of the present Convention, a child is every human being below the age of eighteen years unless under the law applicable to the child, majority is attained earlier." Convention on the Rights of the Child, Article 1, adopted November 20, 1989 (entered into force September 2, 1990). The use of children as soldiers dates to the start of the conflict in 1989. Taylor’s NPFL became infamous for the abduction and use of boys in war; a tactic later adopted by other Liberian fighting factions as well as other fighting groups in West Africa, most notably the Revolutionary United Front of Sierra Leone. Between 6,000 and 15,000 children are estimated to have taken up arms from 1989 to 1997. 1 HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH VOL. 17, NO. 5 (A) The voices of the regional warriors heard in this report clearly illuminate the link between economic deprivation and the continuing cycle of war crimes throughout the region. The regional warriors unanimously identified crippling poverty and hopelessness as the key factors which motivated them to risk dying in subsequent armed conflicts. They described being deeply affected by poverty and obsessed with the struggle of daily survival, a reality not lost on the recruiters. Indeed they were born in and fight in some of the world’s poorest countries. Many described their broken dreams and how, given the dire economic conditions within the region, going to war was their best option for economic survival. Each group with whom these combatants went on to fight with has, to varying degrees, committed serious human rights crimes against civilians, often on a widespread and systematic scale. The brutal
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