Child Soldiers: Change Is Within Reach

Everywhere, People Are Gaining Awareness

     Not so long ago, social justice issues, were topics rarely spoken of. Perhaps it was due to ignorance, but their lack of publicity in both the government and education system caused issues like these to charge on full speed ahead. Just as petty crimes go unnoticed and become widespread, many social justice issues also went unnoticed and went rampant. How large a small problem has become is living proof for our ignorance. Fortunately there has been a drastic turnaround and social justice issues are not only receiving increasing media attention, but they also went global.
 

      But not so fast.

 

      Just as much as I am happy that in 2016 there are less child soldiers, I believe that some may have forgotten the true roots of why millions of people, seemingly unaffected by child soldiers, decided to take action against it in the first place. I believe that understanding how and why those issues impact us and their relevance today will help us to really dive deep into the problem. Perhaps even inspiring the next generation to take even further action towards removing the use of child soldiers- forever.

     So, how do child soldiers impact people who live an entire continent away from them?  

 

     In a nutshell, they are the ones who fuel rebel forces and insurgents. Therefore, the more child soldiers available for their disposal, the more damage can inflicted upon the government forces trying to keep civilians safe.

     What is their relevance today?

 

     Again, as I emphasized in my first post Child Soldiers: An Impending Disaster, children are the next generation. Therefore, placing their future in jeopardy is also placing us in jeopardy. 

     After numerous posts, I now assume that we are well aware of the dangers surrounding the use of child soldiers. However, I think that it would be a crime if we chose to simply keep it to ourselves and go on and about our daily lives as if nothing had happened.  We should put our passivity in its place and start contributing to the cause. It is imperative for the survival of peace within humanity! We have to help!

     But how, you ask? Among many, you can choose to:

Educate Others!  Start a blog, get vocal, create presentations!

Donate to organizations! Support organizations who helps children in need!

Sources:

-https://www.hrw.org/news/2002/10/15/testimonies-my-gun-was-tall-me-child-soldiers-burma
-http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/150319090411-13-child-soldiers-restricted-super-169.jpg

Child Soldiers: Back In Time

History can teach us to learn from mistakes. 

 

     In today's modern society, for the second time, problems are unraveling, tensions are rising and conflicts are looming. It is almost as if it was pre-WWII all over again.

     What caused this repetition? Have we not learned our lessons?  Have we not understood the result another major conflict will inflict on everyone at large?

  

  Well apparently, Joseph Kony hasn't yet.

"The LRA began as an evolution of ‘the Holy Spirit Movement’ - a rebellion against President Yoweri’s oppression of the north of Uganda, led by Alice Lakwena. When Alice Lakwena was exiled, Joseph Kony took over, changing the name of the group to the Lord’s Resistance Army, or LRA. As the group lost regional support, he quickly started a trend of self-preservation that would come to characterise the rebel group, stealing supplies and abducting children to fill his ranks."

 

 

"Starting in 1996, the Ugandan government, unable to stop the LRA, required the people of northern Uganda to leave their villages and enter government-run camps for internally displaced persons (IDPs). These camps were supposedly created for the safety of the people, but the camps were rife with disease and violence. At the height of the conflict, 1.7 million people lived in these camps across the region. The conditions were squalid and there was no way to make a living. Thus, a generation of Acholi people were born and raised in criminal conditions.

 

 

The LRA terrorized northern Uganda for two decades when, in 2006, they indicated an interest in peace negotiations. These were hosted by Juba, Sudan (now South Sudan), and dubbed the Juba Peace Talks. Meanwhile the LRA set up camp in Garamba National Park in northeastern Congo, gathering its strength and stockpiling food. There is significant evidence that Kony ordered his fighters to attack villages and abduct children in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo) during the Peace Talks.

 

 

In August of 2006, a Cessation of Hostilities agreement was signed by the LRA and the government of Uganda. The talks took place over the course of two years. Joseph Kony sent a delegation to negotiate on his behalf, but when the Final Peace Agreement was ready to be signed, Joseph Kony repeatedly postponed the date of signing or failed to show up. Most notably, he failed to show up to sign the Final Peace Agreement with the Government of Uganda in April 2008 and November 2008. It is believed that Kony may have entered peace talks as a means of resting and regrouping. The entire time that the LRA was involved in peace talks, they were provided with food, clothing, and medicine as a gesture of good faith.

 

 

In December 2008, when it became clear that Kony wasn’t going to sign the agreement, Operation Lightning Thunder was launched. It was the coordinated effort of Uganda, Democratic Republic of Congo, the Central African Republic, and Sudan, with intelligence and logistical support from the United States.

The operation failed. Joseph Kony somehow learned of the attack in the hours before the air-raid and was able to escape. In retribution for the attempted attack, the LRA, led by ICC-indictee Dominic Ongwen, attacked villages in the DR Congo on December 24, 2008, killing 865 civilians and abducting 160 more over the course of two weeks. The LRA fighters were reportedly instructed to target churches, where people would be gathered with their families for Christmas Eve services.

 

 

A year later the LRA reprised the Christmas massacres in the Makombo region of northeastern Congo as a reminder of their powers of destruction. These attacks took place over four days, from December 14-18, 2009. This time they killed 321 people and abducted 250.

 

 

Because of the remote location of the Makombo massacres in December 2009, the outside world knew nothing about the attacks until three months later. Human Rights Watch broke the news internationally on March 28, 2010.

 

 

Since Operation Lightning Thunder, the LRA has functioned in small, highly mobile units across the porous border regions of DR Congo, the Central African Republic, and South Sudan. The African Union is leading counter-LRA efforts, with a large military contingent from Uganda. These efforts are assisted by U.S. military advisors, who have been present in the region since 2011. This advisor mission was expanded in March 2014 to include the use of four V-22 Ospreys, and the cap on U.S. personnel tripled from 100 advisors to a maximum of 300."

 

     If history can't persuade some, statistics will.  

Sources:
-http://invisiblechildren.com/conflict/history/
-http://invisiblechildren.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/lra-activity_24-months.png
-http://cdn.c.photoshelter.com/img-get/I0000hRzJJzdF5sU/s/750/750/Victims-DG-0001.jpg