Conditions Conducive to Terrorism Recruitment and Trafficking Of

Institute for Human Rights

ÅboAkademiUniversity

Essay for the course on Human Rights and Terrorism

Conditions Conducive to the Spread of Terrorism –

Recruitment of Children into Terrorism

Prof. Martin Scheinin

Student:

Ivona Truscan

31504

-2007-
Table of contents

I.Background ………………………………..…………………………………..2

II. Contextual factors…………………………………………………………….7

II.1 War ………………………………………………………………….7

II.2 Education …………………………………………………………...8

II.3 Oppression …………………………………………………………10

III. Particular characteristics of children……………………………..…………11

IV. Recruitment – Opportunity to join an armed group ………………………..14

V. Illicit trade in small arms and light weapons ……………………………….15

VI. Terrorist acts ………………………………………………………………..16

VII. Conclusion ………………………………………………………………….17

The absence of a “common power to keep all in awe” makes

“life of man solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short”[1]

Conditions Conducive to Terrorism – Recruitment of

children into terrorism

I. Background

The international community has taken three directions in the fight against terrorism.[2] At first it was thought that terrorism needs to be addressed through domestic legislation. However, once terrorism became a transnational phenomenon, States began considering theories to legitimize the use of force. In September 2006, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Counter-Terrorism Strategy which includes the third dimension to the fight against terrorism by addressing the conditions conducive to the spread of terrorism. Nevertheless, the General Assembly stresses that “none of these conditions can excuse or justify acts of terrorism”.[3] This liberal approach to fighting terrorism cannot be separated from the other two directions, sinceonly a concerted approach can effectively address the cluster of factors that determine the context within a country at a given time.[4]

One of the factors that support the spread of terrorist groups is the rich recruiting pool as it is not only adults who serve in their ranks, but also children.

The practice of using children in armed conflicts is not new. It can be attested that children played a significant role in the Jewish youth fighters or in the partisan groups resisting the German oppression during World War II. The participation of Jewish children was motivated by honor, a sense of duty and necessity.[5] When the Jews became aggressors in the Palestinian territories, Palestinian children served in the armed groups led by the community’s conviction that young Palestinian people have a duty to sacrifice themselves.[6] Child soldiers have a reputation of being a fierce category of combatants also in Sierra Leone which can serve as example that the aim of exploiting children during the civil war was in fact the destruction of the population as a whole.[7]

There is a vast framework of legal instruments that address the issue of recruitment of children into armed conflicts. There are hard law instruments such as the Geneva Conventions and its Additional Protocols, the Convention on the Rights of the Child and its Second Optional Protocol on the Involvement of Children into Armed Conflict, the Statute of the International Criminal Court. As soft law instruments, it is worth mentioning The Paris Principles: Principles and Guidelines on Children Associated with Armed Forces or Armed Groups, Amman Declaration on Child Soldiers, Berlin Declaration On the Use of Children As Soldiers, The Cape Town Principles, Declaration By the Nordic Foreign Ministers Against the Use of Child Soldiers, European Parliament Resolution on Child Soldiers, Maputo Declaration on the Use of Child Soldiers, Organization of the American States Resolution on Children and Armed Conflict, Montevideo Declaration on the Use of Children as Soldiers.

According to the Cape Town Principles, a child soldier is defined as “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, including but not limited to cooks, porters, messengers, and those accompanying such groups, other than purely as family members. It includes girls recruited for sexual purposes and forced marriage. It does not, therefore, only refer to a child who is carrying or has carried arms.”[8]Currently, the Paris Principles replaced the term of “child soldier” with “children associated with an armed force or an armed group”. The new concept refers to “any person below 18 years of age who is or who has been recruited or used by an armed force or armed group in any capacity, including but not limited to children, boys and girls, used as fighters, cooks, porters, messengers, spies or for sexual purposes. It does not only refer to a child who is taking or has taken a direct part in hostilities”.[9]The term “recruitment is defined as encompassing“compulsory, forced and voluntary recruitment into any kind of regular or irregular armed force or armed group.”[10] However, the Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL) goes further and in its decision in the Norman case[11], it states that the prohibition against recruitment is independent from the prohibition against the use of children into armed conflicts. According to the SCSL Statute it is a crime to use a child to participate actively in hostilities irrespective of whether or not the child was previously recruited into an armed force or group.[12] The Statute of the International Criminal Court gives the standardized wording of the crime: use of children under 15 years to participate actively in hostilities. The Report of the Preparatory Committee for the Rome Conference, 1998 asserts that “ the words using and participate have been adopted in order to cover both direct participation in combat, and also active participation in military activities linked to combat such as scouting, spying, sabotage and the use of children as decoys, couriers, or at military checkpoints. It would not cover activities clearly unrelated to the hostilities such as food deliveries to the airbase or the use of domestic staff in an officer’s married accommodation”.[13] Consequently, unlike recruitment of children for regular armed forces, recruitment for terrorist groups constitutes direct participation in hostilities as soon as the activity is carried out in view of certain military operations.[14]

However, recruitment of children by terrorist groups is not directly addressed by the aforementioned instruments. The difficulties in analyzing this topic consist mainly in identifying a certain armed group as being a terrorist group. There is a lot of polemic on the issue, and it is very difficult to make that distinction based on objective legal criteria. In many situations, States are resorting to defining a certain group as a terrorist one in order to justify violations of human rights or measures which seriously deviate from the standards imposed by human rights instruments. Therefore, the author will restrict the area of analysis to recruitment of children for the perpetration of terrorist acts.

The present paper is an attempt to look at the context that may be favourable to the spread of terrorism by addressing one of its conditions: the access to human resources, particularly children. The author will try to recompose a general context by drawing on common elements that encourage or condonethe recruitment of children in different geographical areas. For the purposes of the present paper, the author chooses to focus on practices of armed groups in Colombia, Chad, Occupied Palestinian Territories, Sri Lanka, and Uganda while taking into consideration the Report of the Secretary-General on Children and armed conflict[15] from 2002 which indicates armed groups that resort to the practice of recruiting children into their ranks.

The analysis will focus on the composite of civil and political rightstogether with economic, social and cultural rights, as well as at issues considering psychological aspects. This identification is important for the purposes of pointing out the State as the duty-bearer of the obligations to respect, protect, and fulfil basic human rights. Thus, it is not only the armed groups who are under an obligation not to recruit children, or the members of the group who are criminally responsible for committing the said offence, but also the States hold the responsibility for failing to protect their citizens, and especially children who qualify to be a particular social group.

The author will try to show that the more States fail to comply with their human rights obligations, the more incentive there is for their nationals to turn to armed groups with a high disposition for personal sacrifice. The pressure that determines people to consider that there are no other means to resolve social, economic, or political problems than resorting to wars fueled through their own sacrifices and losses is one of the main elements that support the development of terrorist groups, and distinguishes the former from the armies of the Western societies.[16] Hence, the West is more concerned about armament as a protective element against its vulnerability generated by globalization concomitantly with economic development. However, military superiority alone cannot insure a positive outcome since the terrorist groups are targeting mainly the civilian population by using means which are less military in nature or by resorting to suicide-bombers.[17]

The role of armed groups in a given society is to challenge the State’s power to exercise coercion.[18] Armed groups offer regular meals, clothing, medical attention, protection from family abuses, from abuses of opposing parties, and in certain cases, families receive a minor soldier’s wage.[19] Moreover, certain armed groups also promise transformation of the society which would lead to an increased level of protection and attainment of personal goals. Nevertheless, the means used to address those needs apart from being markedly unlawful,have regressive effects of the process of achieving stabilization, and encourage the spread of terrorism to other targets and communities.[20]

Despite the fact that terrorism is undoubtedly an abnormal activity, terrorists possess characteristics which are strikingly normal in respect of the rest of the population. Terrorists are a very heterogeneous group. The education, background, age, gender, intelligence, and economic class are considered to determine the manner in which individuals become terrorists.[21] From this perspective, Jerrald Post argues that “ [W]e should therefore be discussing terrorisms – plural – and terrorist psychologies – plural – rather than searching for a unified general theory explaining all terrorist behaviour.”[22]

II. Contextual factors

II.1 War

Although international legal instruments distinguish between voluntary or forced recruitment, or refer to conscription and enlistment, there are regularly strong “push” or “pull” factors that deter the meaning of the concept of volunteering making the joining by children of armed groups a result of internal or external coercion.

For many children war constitutes an informal source of financial income obtained either from payment by the armed group to the child, or directly to his/her family, or from looting or pillage. War is also an opportunity to escape an oppressive home environment, or humiliation at school and to place the child on a superior level of respect by fighting for the cause of his/her community, be it ethnic, religious or political. However, the situation is sometimes more difficult for girls soldiers, who often act as “wives” of the commanders, or are subjected to sexual abuse, unwanted pregnancies or sexually transmitted diseases: “Women can say no to men, but it’s difficult not to have a boyfriend. There’s a certain pressure. Most women who join want to be with a commander so they can get away with stuff, enjoy privileges.”[23] “Privileges” refer to escape performing certain jobs or fighting. These situations, however, can have an extremely strong impact upon demobilization and return of the girl soldier to her original community, since she might face rejection from the side of her family.

From a psychological perspective, it has been attested that children have a higher rate of adaptability and of rapidly transforming the new situations into normality. Consequently, involvement in war can be motivated by family tradition, lack of alternatives, or availability of weapons.[24]

The involvement of the children in the conflict in Colombia is an example depicting this factor. The roots of the conflict are to be found in the civil war known as La Violencia which was triggered in 1948 by the assassination of presidential candidate Jorge Eliécer Gaitán. The violence became more acute in the 1960s following the model of the Cuban Revolution in an attempt to obtain political influence and control of territory. In the 1980s the paramilitaries got involved in the conflict. They were formed by armies, landowners, and business interests to combat guerrilla forces.[25]

Due to the political and social unrest, Colombia’s development indicators show a significant increase in what regards unemployment rates, inequality of distribution of income between the richest and poorest sectors in Colombia. As a consequence, there was also an increase of the percentage of the population living under the national poverty line which has a direct impact on children’s attendance of school. In 1992, the population considered to be poor had an average of 4.32 years of schooling, while average number of years of schooling for the population not considered to be poor rose to 7.45.[26] The Report submitted by Colombia on the Situation of Human Rights shows that 5 million children, or 41% of the child population, live in poverty, and 3 million children, or 15.6%, live in extreme poverty, the number of abused children is approximately 2 million, there are 15,000 minors who are street children, and, of this number, 60% have no other alternative, there are 2.4 million children and adolescents between the ages of 12 and 17 not enrolled in school, nearly 2 million minors between the ages of 12 and 17 are working, and 90% of these children perform hazardous tasks, one minor is kidnapped every other day, ten percent of the population infected with HIV consists of children between the ages of 10 and 18, and arrests are executed in only 1.7% of proceedings for sexual abuse, homicide, and kidnapping of minors, and only 18.3% of trials end in a final verdict.[27]

II.2 Education

Access to education provides any individual with the possibility to assume a certain role in society. Conflicts usually deprive children not only of the possibility to attend school, but also of future opportunities to make a dignifying living. The current conflict in Northern Ugandadates back from 1986 when President Museveni took power with the support of National Resistance Army (NRA). The Government is confronted with the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) which turns to killings, mutilations of civilians, abduction of children and adults, lootings from homes or public places, burning of villages and fields.[28]Despite the positive evolution of the main economic indicators in the early 1990s, the increase of the hostilities in 1996 shows a dramatic change. If enrolment of boys during 1993-1995 rose up to 79%, and of the girls up to 67%, the percentage severely decreased in 1997 when it only indicates an 18% total enrolment.[29] This high drop out rate makes children be perceived by the armed groups as being available.[30]

LRA’s actions taken together with an increased rate of abductions made thousands of children from regions in Northern Uganda to travel to nearby hospitals, bus parks, churches, or local factories to sleep. Due to this practice, children are called “night commuters”.[31]

The conflict in Chad is driven mainly by economic interest, i.e. control over valuable natural resources. The control exercised by the current president over oil resources determined even supporters from his Zaghawa party to join opposition armed groups based in Darfur, such as the United Front for Change (FUC), or Platform for Change, Unity and Democracy (SCUD), which receive extensive support from the Sudanese Government.[32] The protracted Chadian conflict had a serious impact on development of Chad. The Human Development Index calculated for 2004 by United Nations Human Development Program places Chad among the ten least developed states in the world. Another aspect to be taken into consideration isthe alarmingly high rate of illiterate population which reaches almost half of the population of Chad.[33] Malnutrition increases, health services deteriorate while social resources are diverted into the war effort.[34]

II.3 Oppression

The conflict in Sri Lanka had as main opponents the Government and the Liberation Tigers of the Tamil Eelam. The latter began fighting the Government in the late 1970s with the aim of establishing the state of Tamil Eelam in the north and east of the island.Since the February 2002 ceasefire, its control of significant areas in the north and east has been acknowledged. The ceasefire agreement was respected to a significant extent until 2005 when the rate of human rights abuses saw an escalating increase.[35]The conflict in Sri Lankais an example where human life is endangered by the exercise of the freedom of expression, religion, or association especially by Tamil and Muslim civilians.[36]

The conflict between Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories continued after the occupation in 1967, since Israel imposed hard conditions on the Palestinians, including curfews,which prevented Palestinians from travelling to work or to market, caused severe economic hardship, disruption of schooling, hunger and medical emergencies, widespread administrative detentions during the first intifada (1987-1993) without charges or trial for renewable periods.[37]

The Special Rapporteur on the right to food raised the attention of the international community with regard to the severe hindrances of human rights as a result of security measures adopted by the Israeli Government in the OccupiedPalestinianTerritory. World Bank indicates closure as “the proximate cause of the Palestinian economic crisis.”[38] The curfews, road closures, the permit system and security checkpoints seriously restrict the freedom of movement of people and economic trade, and impede the access of food and water supplies, including those representing humanitarian assistance. Other measures that contribute to the isolation of the Palestinians are: closure of the border with Egypt almost 55% of the time, sealed border with Jordan almost 56% of the time, complete closure of Gaza airport following bombings by the Israeli Government[39], and the practice of “Bantustanization” which is defined as a policy of land confiscation meant to set apart Palestinian communities into separate territorial areas called “Bantustan”.[40]Moreover, the security wall separates Palestinians from their land, and at the same time leaves them “imprisoned by the winding route of the fence or in the closed military zone”.[41]

As a matter of consequences, 22% of children under the age of five suffer from malnutrition, and almost 16% of children experience acute anaemia. Both malnutrition and anaemia are highly probable to produce permanent negative effects on the physical and mental development of the children. Food consumption has decreased with 25% per capita, mostly due to unemployment (65%) and curfews (35%). The number of persons living in extreme poverty conditions has tripled since September 2000 when the second intifada started. The inability to feed one’s family creates feelings of loss of dignity which are emphasized by the bullying and humiliation suffered at checkpoints.[42] More than 50% of the Palestinians are dependant on food aid and humanitarian access which is very often restricted.