“Young Blood”

CHILD SOLDIERS IN CONTEMPORARY WARFARE

based on

Armies of the Young, by David M Rosen

and
Children at War, by P W Singer

by

TAN, Marian Felicity

HI 307
Prof. Nolan
29 November 2007
 On January 2, 2002, Sgt. Nathan Ross Chapman, the first U.S. casualty in the war on

terror, was killed in an ambush by a 14-year-old Afghan boy. This boy is not alone; an estimated

300,000 children are active combatants in wars currently being waged around the world, and

another half-million serve in armed forces presently at peace.1 But the use of children as

combatants is hardly a new concept. Whether one considers their presence an aberration or not

unusual in warfare, child soldiers have played active combatant roles throughout history,

including during the American Revolution and Civil War, as well as in the first and second world

wars. It is in the last 20 years, however, that their numbers have surged to ten percent of all

combatants worldwide, up from near-zero just a few decades ago.2 This change in the face of

warfare to that of a child’s is most likely caused by a change in its very nature. Karl von

Clausewitz wrote: “Politics is the womb in which war develops.”3 This held true for most of

history, but the collapse of colonialism in the second half of the 20th century ushered in a crisis of

failed states where political ideology has become irrelevant. And despite evidence of preexisting

cultures of youth violence, it is the amoral vacuum created by the breakdown in post-colonial

states that has generated a fertile breeding ground for the child soldier phenomenon.

Sierra Leone is generally accepted as the epicenter of the child soldier phenomenon. The

poorest country in Africa, it was embroiled in civil war from 1991-2001 and is barely recovering

today. The actual number of child soldiers who served in the ten-year war is disputed; estimates

range between 5,000 and 10,000 underage combatants fighting on both the government side and

the rebel faction, the Revolutionary United Front (RUF). But most studies concur that about 80

1 P.W. Singer, Children at War (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2006), 30-31.
2 Ibid., 30.
3 Ibid., 51.
percent of those who fought in Sierra Leone were between the ages 7 and 14, the age range for

about half of the RUF’s manpower base.4 Anthropologist David M. Rosen thinks the numbers,

though shocking, are not indicative of an unprecedented crisis. In Armies of the Young, Rosen

asserts that warfare is an extension of the pre-war status quo in Sierra Leone where children were

“already integrated into an exploitive and violent system.”5 In other words, he suggests that the

presence of children in Sierra Leone’s battlefields is an inevitable result of the country’s culture

and history, and that children are themselves to blame. One will see, however, that Rosen’s

proposition is sorely lacking.

Rosen’s thesis is rooted in what he calls the “global politics of age,” 6 which begins with

a dispute over the very definition of the term child soldier. According to the Cape Town

Principles, a child soldier is “any person under 18 years of age who is part of any kind of regular

or irregular armed force or armed group in any capacity.”7 This definition follows the Straight 18

Proposition, a commonly held view that sets the legal age of maturity at 18 in terms of warfare.8

But Rosen rightly points out that there is no single, fixed age at which “young people enter

into...the rituals of war.”9 Various groups hold different ideas of childhood, and those notions

should not be confused with childhood in cultures more familiar to us.10 The Straight 18

Proposition, then, extends the concept of childhood beyond the empirical age limits of growing

4 Singer, Ibid., 15-16. David M. Rosen, Armies of the Young: Children in War and Terrorism (New Jersey: Rutgers
University Press, 2005), 60.
5 Rosen, Ibid., 90.

6 Ibid., 90.

7 UNICEF, Cape Town Principles and Best Practices on the Recruitment of Children into the Armed Forces and on

Demobilization and Social Reintegration of Child Soldiers in Africa, 1997.

8 Rosen, Ibid., 3.

9 Ibid., 4.

10 Ibid., 62.
up. In most cultures, the end of childhood begins with adolescence, when young people become

“rational human actors” with a mature understanding of their surroundings.11 That is, at some

point well before the age 18, young people become moral agents with the capacity to exercise

power as effectual members of society who can make active and independent decisions --

including participation in violence. As one primary-school student and child soldier elucidates,

“We killed them, put tires over them and burned them….We were shouting, we were happy, we

were clapping.”12

Rosen attributes the gravitation of Sierra Leonean youths toward violence to a spillover

from a preexisting culture of youth thuggery. Traditionally, Sierra Leoneans depended on cultural

“big men” for protection, while young men provided big men with muscle.13 The practice is

evident in urban street gangs that attract disenfranchised children -- the very risk group that

comprises most of the child soldier population. Rosen compares the social dynamic in those

gangs to Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist, where “big brothers” provide “little brothers” with food,

money and protection in exchange for criminal favors.14 The relationship between child soldiers

and their adult leaders is similarly patterned.

Rosen’s main argument, thus, is that the ten-year war in Sierra Leone was “an extension

of peacetime violence.”15 This seems to be true in part. He does not, however, elaborate on why

the war broke out when it did, if it was after all precipitated by a longstanding culture and

history. Rosen points to the struggle over Sierra Leone’s rich diamond fields as the catalyst for

11 Rosen, Ibid., 17.

12 Ibid., 57.
13 Ibid., 59.

14 Ibid., 66-70.

15 Ibid., 132.
all-out war, the RUF creating a “zone of terror” to shield its criminal actions.16 But although the

war did in fact begin with the rebel invasion of the diamond fields in Kono District, warlord

politics is hardly a satisfying answer, when disputes over control of Sierra Leone’s single major

resource began as early as the 1950s.

The crisis of post-colonial states

The crisis of failed states is endemic to post-colonial states such as Burma, Colombia, the

Middle East and Africa -- all regions where the child soldier phenomenon abounds.17 Rosen,

however, thinks there is no justification in drawing a “bright line between ‘old wars’ and ‘new

wars’ at the end of colonialism”; he argues that child soldiers have always been present on the

battlefield.18 But the impact of colonialism on the child soldier phenomenon does not merely rest

on considering whether child soldiers were present in pre- and post-colonial wars; what is telling

is the effects of post-colonialism on the state, its economy and its children.

After gaining independence from Britain in 1961, Sierra Leone struggled for ten years to

become a republic. Still it failed to create even a façade of a working democracy, and coups and

government executions plagued the next few decades. Militant groups slowly filled the void left

by a failing government.19 The country’s troubles were further augmented by the final collapse of

colonialism at the end of the Cold War. Ironically, with the disarming of Germany as mandated

by the Peace Dividend came a small arms boom in the black market, making such weapons not

only accessible but also cheap enough for armed factions to sufficiently arm themselves.20

16 Rosen, Ibid., 13.

17 Countries where child soldiers were active combatants. Map. Children at War, 2006.
18 Rosen, Ibid., 12.

19 Singer, Ibid., 96.

20 Ibid., 47-48.
 Rosen disputes the significance of the proliferation of small arms to the rise of the child

soldier phenomenon. He argues that the AK-47, the child soldier’s weapon of choice, has been

around since 1949 and are heavier than the weapons used in the Civil War.21 However, he fails to

consider the weapon’s ease of use and its newfound affordability (they cost as little as $5 in

Africa and can be bartered for food).22 He also fails to consider all the other “new toys for tots”:

grenades, light machine guns and land mines -- “man-portable” weapons that are also “child-

portable,”23 meaning that armed forces could now provide small arms for small hands.

The weakening of the state, the rise of small-arms trade, and the increasing power of

rebel factions coupled with Rosen’s theory of youth violence seem to create the perfect storm for

the breakout of a civil war in Sierra Leone mostly in the hands of the young. But in the end, as

military advisor P.W. Singer suggests in Children at War, it is the economic strife borne out of

the crisis of post-colonial states that pushed Sierra Leone’s children over the edge.

A playground of lost children

Widespread poverty ensued from the collapse of the Sierra Leonean government, creating

a mass of hungry, unemployed and unemployable youth. Faced with few real prospects, Sierra

Leone’s children became open to “anything...that offered a hint of economic opportunity.”24 The

government began to mobilize them, and when it failed to satisfy the children’s needs, the RUF

began to proselytize, not only promising to protect their young recruits from a government that

had abandoned them, but also depicting the RUF as an escape from poverty.25 A 12-year-old

21 Rosen, Ibid., 14-15.

22 Singer, Ibid., 48.
23 Ibid., 45-46.

24 Rosen, Ibid., 80

25 Ibid., 85. ; Singer, Ibid., 66.

child soldier echoed the rationale of numerous other child soldiers: “I heard the gunmen at least

were eating, so I joined them.”26

An impetus even more hard-hitting than poverty and famine was the spread of disease

and AIDS in particular. With almost three-quarters of the world’s AIDS victims in Sub-Saharan

Africa, the disease created a massive pool of orphans, which constitutes much of the identified

risk groups targeted by recruiters.27 Singer posits that, together with other street urchins, AIDS

orphans searched for “a sense of control over their chaotic and unpredictable situations,” and did

so by joining the armed factions on either side of the growing conflict.28 This is much the same

concept as disaffected youths in the United States joining street gangs, participating in street and

drug wars instead of military wars absent in their immediate environment. By 1992, Sierra Leone

was so in shambles that the only way to earn a living was to join the army.29 Having seen their

parents die and forced to fend for themselves, AIDS orphans and others like them seemed to

have nothing to lose by entering the war, thus creating a “roving orphanage of blood and war.”30

Together with other factors, the AIDS epidemic swept away much of Sierra Leone’s adult

population. Only 28 percent of the United States population is 19 or younger, whereas the same

age group comprises almost 60 percent of Sierra Leone’s population.31 The brunt of the country’s

socioeconomic problems, therefore, fall on the young.32 It is no wonder the majority of Sierra

Leone’s soldiers are children.

26 Singer, Ibid., 45.

27 Ibid., 42, 45 ; Until Thereʼs A Cure Foundation, Vital Statistics. accessed 25 November 2007 http://www.until.org/
statistics.shtml.
28 Singer, Ibid., 45.

29 Rosen, Ibid., 85.

30 Singer, Ibid., 42, 44.

31 Ibid., 41. ; Rosen, Ibid., 62.

32 Singer, Ibid., 39.

Or else mama dies

Both Rosen and Singer agree that Sierra Leone’s “social bomb”33 sucked children into

warfare. Rosen, however, argues that children took up arms as a voluntary response to their

predicament, while Singer contends they were forced to exchange their innocence for guns

because they had no other choice.

Child soldiers, Rosen argues, are not vulnerable individuals exploited by adults because

they are cheap, expendable and malleable “weapons of war,” but instead have made the

conscious choice to join armed forces. 34 Some join to defend their homes or exact revenge, while

others feel safer as armed fighters rather than as defenseless civilians.35 As one military theorist

puts it, “The least dangerous place to be in war today is the military.”36 Whatever their reason,

underage combatants tend to defend their choices proudly as militia activity offers them the

chance to make their mark in the world.37 Rosen also cites claims that children were not forcibly

abducted, but were among the first to join armed forces and should therefore not be viewed as

victims.38

Singer opposes this assertion. He defines abduction as “an act of violence that rips

terrified children from the security of their families and homes.”39 Indeed, children who resisted

recruitment were often beaten or killed, or were forced to watch their loved ones die.40 One child

soldier recounts:

33 Singer, Ibid., 40.

34 Ibid., 132.
35 Ibid., 61.

36 Ibid., 17.

37 Ibid.

38 Rosen, Ibid., 17.

39 Singer, Ibid., 61.

40 Rosen, Ibid., 16.

 They killed my parents in front of me, my uncle’s hands were cut off and my sister was
raped in front of us by the commander…. After all this happened, they told us...to join
them. If not, they were going to kill us. They had something which I did not: a gun. We
had no parents any longer, and my sister was in pain...and my own toe was cut off.41

Recruiters justify their actions by pointing out that their recruits could not legally prove

they were underage and so they took who was available for the war effort.42 This mirrors Rosen’s

almost depthless thesis. Recruiters’ motives run deeper than mere fulfillment of numbers drawn

from a young population;43 instead, children are deliberately chosen precisely for their youth.

Children are considered children because they are incapable of understanding the consequences

of their actions and are indeed plunged into a world where they are unprepared for such

consequences.44 To young people, Singer argues, death is a meaningless concept; children have

not yet developed a sense of mortality nor have they an understanding for the value of life.45 As

such, the youngest child soldiers were by far the most feared.46

And the war goes merrily around

And so child soldiers wreaked havoc, spreading “unspeakable fear throughout Sierra

Leone.”47 They raped thousands of women, further spreading the disease that landed most of

them in the battlefield in the first place. They created a vicious cycle of retribution, where,

suffering from survivor’s guilt, children sought vengeance for the massacre of their families:

I was persuaded...to be part of the army and kill those people who were responsible for
killing my parents. [But] I was also creating a circle of revenge where I killed somebody

41 Singer, Ibid., 61.

42 Singer, Ibid., 146.
43 Rosen, Ibid., 62.

44 Singer, Ibid., 80, 109.

45 Ibid., 81, 83.

46 Rosen, Ibid., 83.

47 Ibid., 18.
 else’s parents, [and] he’s going to be persuaded by a different group...saying, “Okay, join
the army and kill this person who killed your parents.”48

“And to revenge,” according to another child soldier, “is only to have a gun.”49 Child soldiers

publicly killed family, friends and neighbors, in effect alienating them from their communities,

making reintegration next to impossible. They are reviled by their former communities and are

left to their own devices. Hungry and alone, they are the potential ingredients for a new war.50

Singer calls this endless cycle a “culture of impunity,” where soldiering takes away a

child’s very childhood, paving the way for future strife.51 Half of all ongoing conflicts are fought

by a second generation of fighters; thus, children are growing up surrounded by violence and see

it as a permanent way of life.52 War, then, becomes “the framework through which they

understand society and life itself,” and children find it difficult to imagine what peace is like and

how they should function in it.53 And because they are taken so young, most have no other viable

skill other than killing; they do not know life without a gun.54 Robbed of hope and wanting skill,

they “become a potential pool and catalyst for the next spate of violence.”55 More dangerously,

Rosen rightly points out that international law immunizes children from prosecution for war

crimes. They can get away with the worst atrocities, and will not know any better. They will

become the new generation of warmongers, devoid of morals, devoid of ideology, stealing their

lost childhoods from the next generation of youths living in the amoral vacuum they had no hand

in creating, just as the generation before them had none.

48 Singer, Ibid., 57.

49 Singer, Ibid., 65.
50 Ibid., 115.

51 Ibid., 109, 210.

52 Ibid., 43.

53 Ibid., 44, 109.

54 Ibid., 110-111.

55 Ibid., 109.
A new military revolution?

The civil war in Sierra Leone speaks out to a chilling new turn in total war. Old wars

were struggles over power as afforded by territorial control, sovereignty, and most importantly,

ideology. But with the political and socioeconomic collapse brought about by the end of

colonialism, warfare in Sierra Leone centered around “profit-seeking enterprises” at the expense

of the innocent. Singer asserts: “Resource and population exploitation rather than mass

production drive the new ‘economy of war.’”56 Sierra Leone’s war was aimless, formless, and

had no real purpose other than its own continuity.57 A post-war survey shows that nobody knew

what the rebels wanted; in fact, RUF leader Foday Sanokh began his reign of terror by murdering

his group’s theorists.58 Indeed, the war needed no ideology. Fueled by child soldiers, ideology

became irrelevant because children are too young to understand such things.59 And so they

redefined the idea of senseless murder 100 thousand 60 times in Sierra Leone. With no limits and

no consideration other than survival, the children of Sierra Leone have unwittingly created a new

kind of military revolution, one that self-perpetuates and where an entire generation is self-

destructing as adults egg them on.

56 Singer, Ibid., 52.

57 Rosen, Ibid., 11.
58 Singer, Ibid., 100.

59 Ibid., 99.

60 Silvia Aloisi, “Sierra Leone War Crimes Court will Hunt Guilty Everywhere.” Global Policy Forum 18 March 2003.

accessed 26 November 2007 http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/liberia/2003/0318court.htm.

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Rutgers University Press: 2005.

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