For the Destabilization of Ivory Coast, Ex-Child Soldiers Recruited

Hundreds of ex-child soldiers and dissidents from several Liberian disbanded factions are being recruited from the Buduburam Refugee Camp in Ghana to help stage a rebellion in the Ivory Coast in favor of the indicted ex-president Laurent Gbargbo.

 Early in June of this year a team of Ivorian Scots were seen on the Liberian Refugee Camp trying to recruit ex child soldiers and former generals for a possible rebellion in the Ivory Coast. According to information gathered from some reluctant ex-rebel generals who were approached by the strange men from Ivory Coast, they are recruiting Liberian ex-fighters to stage a rebellion to unseat the current Ivorian government, and that their action is endorsed by the current president of France who has had a personal relationship with the imprisoned ex-president, Gbargbo.

 It can be recalled that the Ivorian madness, which began immediately after the 2000 disputed elections that brought Gbagbo to power, sparked up a coup in 2002 that escalated into a bloody crisis that saw more than twenty thousand dead and displaced. And as early as the onset of the crisis, it was reported that Liberia ex-president, Charles Taylor had a mercenary troop led by his Sierra Leonean’s RUF commander, General Mosquito. However, Mosquito was later executed on order of Charles Taylor for aborting the mission and returning to Liberia by Taylor’s SSS Boss, General Benjamin Yeatan, who himself was reported to have gotten involved in the latter part of the crisis.

 Last July, when Gbargbo’s refused to concede power to Mr Ouattara, after a December 2010 presidential election which UN said he lost to Alansan Outatra, another waves of violence erupted in the country. And In 2011 Mr Gbagbo was eventually captured by UN peacekeepers and forces loyal to Alasan Ouattara, and handed to the International Criminal Court (ICC) to be tried on charges of crimes against humanity.

 However, earlier this week, campaign group Human Rights Watch published a report saying militants loyal to Mr Gbagbo based in Liberia had killed at least 40 people in cross-border raids since last July. According to the New York-based human rights watch group, militants are recruiting children as young as 14 to attack Ivorians who are aligned to President Alassane Ouattara and live close to the border. The report is based on HRW’s field work in Liberian towns bordering Ivory Coast where interviews with 21 Ivorian and Liberian former mercenaries were conducted. It is no hidden secret that hundreds of Liberian ex-combatants have been involved in the Ivory Coast from the onset of the madness.

According to a research conducted by IDEFOCS earlier this year on the Buduburam Refugee Camp, hundreds of Liberian mercenaries have fought both on behalf of the deposed former Ivorian president, Laurent Gbagbo, and current president Alansan Ouattara in last year's political unrest. And many of these mercenaries who fled Ivory Coast following the arrest of the former president Laurent Gbagbo last year are now living in exile, awaiting fresh conflict to spark up in West Africa.

 About two weeks ago, UN reinforcements were sent to a bordering region between Liberia and Ivory Coast following rumors of a planned attack by militias loyal to Mr. Gbargbo. The BBC's John James in Abidjan reported last week that the volatile border region has seen a number of cross-border attacks over recent months, blamed on Liberian mercenaries and Ivorian militia fighters.

 However, this mass recruitment of ex-combatants living in Liberia and exile for the destabilization of the sub region can actually be attributed to the failure of the UN DDRR program intended to rehabilitate and reintegrate thousands of Liberian ex-fighters with special emphasis on child combatants. In my previous work, ‘Hot Boys: the search for Africa lost children’, it was predicted that, ‘with several thousand of such people (ex-child soldiers) unaccounted for around West Africa, there yet remain a more serious impediment to sustainable peace and security in the region.’

 Unfortunately, the warning was ignored as governments in West Africa failed to establish relevant programs to address the plight of former child soldiers left unaffected by the UN DDRR programs.

 The UN Security Council resolution 1509(c) (2003) mandates UNMIL to: “develop an action plan for the overall implementation of a disarmament, demobilization, reintegration, and repatriation (DDRR) program for all armed parties, with particular attention to the special needs of child combatants...in the DDRR process”.

 Sadly, with about 80 million United States Dollars exhausted by the DDRR program it had failed tremendously to meet the needs of its targeted beneficiaries, many of whom are now full grown mercenaries, awaiting fresh trouble to spark up in the region.

Charles Taylor’s verdict: A Moment of Justice for Former Child Soldiers

April 26, 2012 marked a great triumph in the history of the Sierra Leonean people whether they accept it or not. It was the day that ended the bloody chapter of the country’s civil war, which saw half a million people killed and maim. And for many victimized Sierra Leoneans, it would be remembered as: ‘the day the final verdict came down.’

To the world in general it was the day when former Liberian president, Charles G. Taylor, after five years of trial in the international court on Sierra Leone, in The Hague, Netherland, was finally charged with aiding and abetting the worst atrocities in West Africa, Sierra Leone!

I was not quite surprise when BBC announced the mixed feelings in Liberia on this eventful day in the history of Africa and the world.  For this is a megalomaniac who held the country spellbound for fourteen years with his doctrine of violence, affecting thousands of young people and even some adults with his notorious lifestyle. Incidentally, I happened to be in Ghana, on the Liberian Refugee Camp in Buduburam conducting a research on former child soldiers when the final verdict came. While several Liberian Refugees jubilated over the news, some listening along with me as the verdict was announced thought it as a mockery to justice. And according to them the court had no solid evidence to convict the ex-Liberian president, and that the final verdict is an insult to the Liberian nation.

“I don’t care what they do, our Papay will stay come back!” one angry supporter of the warlord presumed.

What a mockery to thousands of Liberians killed, and the more than half of million made homeless for more than two decades as a result of this men’s selfish ambition, I thought sadly. A man who had consistently lied in court about recruiting children into his army after all physical evidence proved otherwise. And a man for whom most of our young men/women had taken up arms, and had committed the worst atrocities under the influence of drugs for fourteen years, only to be left abandoned without proper rehabilitation programs. 

 

And then I noticed that some of the people who spoke favorably of Charles Taylor’s return were mostly young people between the ages of 25-35, most of whom fit the criteria of our targeted group of former child soldiers- a generation misled by the Charles Taylor’s Philosophy!

I couldn’t help it but inquired of my young Liberian brother, who seemed lost, what he meant of the ‘Papay coming back’.

“What would it benefit you as a Liberian if he (Charles Taylor) ever comes back?” I asked, interestingly.

But it seemed, after his endless wry, my young Liberian brother could not supply any genuine reason, except to confirm my worst fear:  that Charles Taylor is coming back soon to restore them to their lost positions as soldiers and generals. And like my young friend, there are thousands of young people out there who think the same.

But the sad truth is: ‘The Papay is guilty!’

And according to his recent sentence, he wouldn’t be seeing freedom until after 50 years. Though many would have opted for life imprisonment or death by what-ever-means, many peace-loving West Africans are glad that the warlord who terrorized West Africa wouldn’t be around any sooner as he himself has predicted.

Charles Taylor became the first head of state on April 26, 2012, to be convicted for war crimes since the Nuremberg trials.  He was charged by the prosecution with 11 counts of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and a serious bridge of international humanitarian law committed in Sierra Leone between 1999 and 2000.

According to Morris Y. Matadi, a former child soldier, and executive director for IDEFOCS, a civil society group that focuses on the rehabilitation of former child soldiers for the restoration of peace and security in West Africa, the final verdict of Charles Taylor is not just a triumph for Sierra Leoneans, but for all peace loving people of West Africa.

“For the thousands of African children, like myself, that were abducted by warlords, turned into mercenaries, used under the influence of dangerous drugs, and at last abandoned, this day mark the day of Justice for us!” said the former-child-soldier-turned-entrepreneur, exuberantly.

Morris will arrive in Boulder, Colorado, America in June 2012 to honor an invitation from the Unreasonable Institute, an organization that mentor young social venture, as an alumni, and partake in several fund raising programs to raise the sum of $132,000.00 USD for the construction of the first former child soldiers’ reintegration center in Liberia that will cater to thousands of former child soldiers conscripted by the convicted war lord.