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So what is new in the fact that children are serving ashostile combatants? During World War II in WesternEurope, young German youth served in the
Wehrmacht (
translated as “German Army”), especially during the latter stages of the conflict, circa 1944. The Hitler Youth Brigadethat fanatically and hopelessly helped defend Berlin againstthe rapid onslaught of the Soviet Army from the East, and theconverging allied forces, led by General Dwight D.Eisenhower from the West, comes to mind. The Germanyouth that served during this period of World War II were predominately teenagers between the ages of 13 to 17. In awar of attrition, the manpower pool was drying up for NaziGermany. Hitler, in addition to impressing the youth of Germany into the dying war effort, also resorted toconscripting older adults (50 to 65 years of age). What Nazi Germany did in World War II in losing a war of attrition as a nation state is not dissimilar to what other nations have done in modern warfare (since the 18thcentury). When pressed for manpower needs, the nation resorts to widening the available draft ages for combatants,thus teenagers and senior citizens in increasing numbers begin to appear in armed conflicts.In the same recent period (1980s to the present) that produced massive children casualties in tribal, ethnic andcivil wars in Africa, an even larger number of males fatally succumbed to the sexually transmitted disease thatcontinues to threaten the continent – the HIV-AIDS virus. Thus armies were filled with whatever resources wereavailable – young male children. One could speculate in this manner that nations are doing what they have alwaysdone – fill armies with whatever manpower pool is readily available for the stated purpose of conducting warfare.The role of children as primary hostile combatants is expanding worldwide. “Wars are now being fought in backyards and in the streets of cities instead of on more defined battle lines, putting women and children at morerisk,” according to Christine Knudsen of Save the Children organization. Her observations are based on work donein Chechnya and Guinea in West Africa.
2
According to a Reuters Foundation report in May 2002, civilians areincreasingly bearing the brunt of war casualties, and, in particular, children. Around the turn of the 20th century,only five percent of war casualties were civilian. That figure jumped to 65 percent in World War II, and has reachedastronomical proportions with more recent conflicts – 90 percent.
3
With asymmetrical warfare, there are no front lines. In Africa, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Burma, El Salvador,Mozambique and many other areas that have intrastate conflicts between informal militia, war takes place in themidst of communities. Civilians are targets because of the ethnic, religious and/or tribal group to which they belong.Caught in this crossfire, children and adolescents are vulnerable to exploitation by the opposing warring factions. In1986, when the National Resistance Army battled its way into Kampala, Uganda UN observers were shocked to seefour and five year olds in the ranks. Uganda’s rebel army had an estimated 3,000 child soldiers under the age of 16,including 500 young girls.
4
Approximately 250,000 children under 18 (some as young as five) served in 33-armedconflicts in 1995 and 1996 alone.
5
__________
2
“Women and Children Bear Brunt of War,”
Reuters Foundation Report,
Sue Pleming, 2 May 2002,website:http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/431553.
3
Ibid.
4
Admiral John Shanahan (USN Retired), Television Show Transcript,
“Child Soldiers: Invisible Combatants,”
produced on 29 June 1997, website:http://www.edi.org/adm/1042/transcript.html.
5
Ibid.
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Wehrmacht is translated as (German) Armed Forces. The German Army is the Heer. Since you don't know that. I cannot believe you.