Open statement

Your honor, fellow lawyers, and surveyors of the jury. We are here today to talk

about the tragic and rather morbid subject of war crimes and acts. War is the fight

for power, when people try to make the difference of a better nation. In war there

are laws and guidelines that protect the innocent including children, women and the

elderly. That is what war is supposed to be but instead war consists of murder,

assassinations, killing of innocents and malicious and morbid crimes against

humanity. The atrocity of being in a calm place that was once home and is now a

place of fear. Children are the future generation, when you ask a child what they

want to be when they grow up they say a Doctor, Lawyer, Engineer things that can

some day make a better nation, they don’t want to grow up to kill someone, making

them grow up in this environment makes them more calloused and causes all sorts

of mental issues like PTSD to name one. No child should ever witness these

horrible things nor should be involved in them. Sadly these violent actions not only

have been made and causing children to live in fear but also to be used first handed

on these acts of war. In the civil war between the two ethnic groups Kani and Lago

there have been occurrences of child soldiers that the defense may try to deny this

but they cannot deny the fact that their chief in command who is Arthur Mabo was

in fact responsible for these war crimes. As a chief in command he is in charge of

his army and strategizing where and when his army attacks, that is what a person in

command needs to do. Not only that but according to law Commander's

Responsibility he is responsible for the actions of his subordinate. As a man of

power he is responsible for knowing what was going on in his army and one big

factor that he was chief in command was because of his military background. We

will prove that Mabo is guilty of having conscripted children under the age of 15

into armed groups. We will prove Mabo is guilty of having enlisted children into

armed groups. And we will also prove that Mabo used children in active duty

during armed conflicts. We will bring these witness that with present the atrocities

and inhumanities that Mr. Mabo did during his time as a leader of the PFLS.