How To Fight, How To Kill:  Child Soldiers in Liberia need help by UN Wire 10:00am 3rd Feb, 2004   February 2, 2004    Liberia's fragile peace will not hold unless the country disarms and rehabilitates its estimated 15,000 child soldiers, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today ahead of a U.N.-sponsored donor conference scheduled to begin Thursday at U.N. headquarters in New York.    How to Fight, How to Kill:  Child Soldiers in Liberia documents how both government and rebel militias abducted children as young as 9, beat them, gave them little training and sent them to the front lines in units that were often made up entirely of children.     "Much of the Liberian civil war consisted of children shooting and killing other children," said Tony Tate, an Africa researcher in the Children's Rights Division at Human Rights Watch.     Girl soldiers were recruited alongside boys and given the same responsibilities, but in addition they were raped, in some cases by many soldiers and for many years (Human Rights Watch release, Feb. 2).  Collectively known as "wives," they were often assigned to commanders.  The group reports that some older girls escaped sexual abuse by capturing other girls for sexual slavery.    Children were both victims and perpetrators of atrocities (Human Rights Watch report summary, Feb. 2).  They told researchers that commanders handed out drugs — it was not clear what kind — before every battle.  "The medicine was for protection," Samson T., whose age was not available, told researchers in October.  "If a bullet hit you, it would bounce right off.  After I took that medicine, it made me feel bad, it changed my heart."    Children fought naked or dyed their hair bright colors to frighten the enemy.  Some told researchers that they were afraid; others claimed they were fearless.    "I was not afraid," said 12-year-old Patrick F., who commanded four girls and five boys in a government unit.  "When I killed LURD [Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy] soldiers, I would laugh at them.  This is how I got my nickname, 'Laughing and Killing'" (Robyn Dixon, Los Angeles Times, Feb. 2).    Many of the children who fought in Liberia's most recent three-year civil war, which ended in August with a peace deal, had also fought in the 1989-96 civil war.  Fewer than one-third of those turned over their weapons in a 1997 disarmament campaign, according to Human Rights Watch, and, with no education or money, ended up fighting again when hostilities renewed.    The use of children under 15 for combat is a violation of the Geneva Conventions.    Human Rights Watch warned that failure to demobilize the child soldiers this time would doom Liberia's prospects for peace.    "The fragile peace in Liberia today cannot be solidified unless they [the children] are disarmed and rehabilitated," Tate said (Todd Pitman, Associated Press/Yahoo! News, Feb. 2).    The rights group urged all donor countries attending the reconstruction conference on Liberia Feb. 5-6 to prioritize demobilization and education for child soldiers, many of whom expressed to researchers the hope of returning to school and making something of their lives.     U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan and  U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell are co-chairing the Liberia reconstruction conference (Human Rights Watch report summary).  According to an assessment by the United Nations and the World Bank released Jan. 29, the country will need $487 million in aid over the next two years in order to become stable.  Disarming Liberia's estimated 50,000 fighters is high on the agenda.  A disarmament campaign that was supposed to start in the capital Monrovia in December was delayed when fighters began rioting over the terms of the disarmament (Somini Sengupta, New York Times, Feb. 2).    In a new report titled Rebuilding Liberia:  Prospects and Perils, the International Crisis Group warns that failure in Liberia will destabilize all of West Africa.  Therefore, the group says, donors must be prepared to make a long-term commitment when they meet this week in New York.    "There is no quick solution here," said International Crisis Group West Africa Project Director Comfort Ero.  "Donors need to realize that Liberia's reconstruction requires serious lasting commitments.  Liberia is a collapsed state that has effectively become a U.N. protectorate, so the international community will have to be here for the long haul" (International Crisis Group release/allAfrica.com, Jan. 30).
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