In recent weeks hundreds of young men and boys from the Dadaab refugee camps have been secretly recruited for the force, lured with false promises of lavish pay and claims of backing from the United Nations and the United States.
The former Mozambican President Joaquim Chissano will give his final briefing to the United Nations Security Council on July 15 in his role as the secretary-general's special envoy for the areas of east and central Africa affected by the Lord's Resistance Army and their two-decade campaign of violence. Although Chissano's mandate was suspended as of June 30, abuses by the LRA - ruthless rebels whose actions have had a devastating effect on civilians in four countries - continue.
Hundreds of thousands of children have fought as soldiers in recent armed conflicts, but very few have seen their commander stand trial for sending them to the front lines. Yesterday, Thomas Lubanga became the first person prosecuted before the international criminal court, and on just such charges. He is accused of committing this war crime in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, but the significance of his trial will resonate far beyond.
Myin Win was 11 years old when he was first recruited into Burma's national army. He was picked up by soldiers while selling vegetables at a railway station and sent to a military training camp. He weighed only 70 pounds, or about 32 kilograms, and said that the guns were so heavy he could hardly lift them.
On December 6, 2006, the United States Department of Justice indicted Charles “Chuckie” Taylor, Jr., son of former Liberian President Charles Taylor, for committing torture in Liberia. The case, which is scheduled to go to trial in September 2008, is significant on a number of levels.
One of the youngest detainees at Guantánamo Bay, a 23-year-old Afghan named Mohammed Jawad, spent two days in a courtroom here last week as his defense lawyer argued that his case should never go to trial. The attorney, Maj. David Frakt, claimed that his client was repeatedly tortured and abused in U.S. custody, charges that were supported by the testimony of a senior U.S. Army criminal investigator.
We sat for almost four hours under the tents erected outside the Military Commissions building at Guantanamo Bay, waiting to hear whether the arraignment of Mohammad Jawad, a young Afghan man, would take place.
Human Rights Watch again sent an observer to Guantanamo Bay, this time for the latest legal proceedings against Canadian Omar Khadr. Now 21, Khadr is facing charges for alleged offenses committed at the age of 15 as a child soldier in Afghanistan. Baldwin comments on these proceedings, the ad hoc nature of military commissions, and Canada's silence despite its commitment to the protection of child soldiers.
In a small Myanmarese army border outpost in Shan State, a sign in English and Myanmarese points into Thailand's thriving tourist town of Doi Ang Khan: "We Are Able." It's probably not much comfort to the soldiers walking around barefoot, enclosed by sharpened bamboo stakes and separated from their comrades by mountains of hostile jungle filled with resentful civilians and vengeful Shan insurgents.
When Omar Khadr, the 21-year-old Canadian walked into the Guantanamo courtroom escorted by three military police on Thursday he seemed calm. His boyish but bearded face was free of obvious emotion. This, after all, was the third time that the Pentagon has tried to bring charges against him in the Guantanamo-based military commissions.
In recent weeks hundreds of young men and boys from the Dadaab refugee camps have been secretly recruited for the force, lured with false promises of lavish pay and claims of backing from the United Nations and the United States.
The former Mozambican President Joaquim Chissano will give his final briefing to the United Nations Security Council on July 15 in his role as the secretary-general's special envoy for the areas of east and central Africa affected by the Lord's Resistance Army and their two-decade campaign of violence. Although Chissano's mandate was suspended as of June 30, abuses by the LRA - ruthless rebels whose actions have had a devastating effect on civilians in four countries - continue.
Hundreds of thousands of children have fought as soldiers in recent armed conflicts, but very few have seen their commander stand trial for sending them to the front lines. Yesterday, Thomas Lubanga became the first person prosecuted before the international criminal court, and on just such charges. He is accused of committing this war crime in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, but the significance of his trial will resonate far beyond.
Myin Win was 11 years old when he was first recruited into Burma's national army. He was picked up by soldiers while selling vegetables at a railway station and sent to a military training camp. He weighed only 70 pounds, or about 32 kilograms, and said that the guns were so heavy he could hardly lift them.
On December 6, 2006, the United States Department of Justice indicted Charles “Chuckie” Taylor, Jr., son of former Liberian President Charles Taylor, for committing torture in Liberia. The case, which is scheduled to go to trial in September 2008, is significant on a number of levels.
One of the youngest detainees at Guantánamo Bay, a 23-year-old Afghan named Mohammed Jawad, spent two days in a courtroom here last week as his defense lawyer argued that his case should never go to trial. The attorney, Maj. David Frakt, claimed that his client was repeatedly tortured and abused in U.S. custody, charges that were supported by the testimony of a senior U.S. Army criminal investigator.
We sat for almost four hours under the tents erected outside the Military Commissions building at Guantanamo Bay, waiting to hear whether the arraignment of Mohammad Jawad, a young Afghan man, would take place.
Human Rights Watch again sent an observer to Guantanamo Bay, this time for the latest legal proceedings against Canadian Omar Khadr. Now 21, Khadr is facing charges for alleged offenses committed at the age of 15 as a child soldier in Afghanistan. Baldwin comments on these proceedings, the ad hoc nature of military commissions, and Canada's silence despite its commitment to the protection of child soldiers.
In a small Myanmarese army border outpost in Shan State, a sign in English and Myanmarese points into Thailand's thriving tourist town of Doi Ang Khan: "We Are Able." It's probably not much comfort to the soldiers walking around barefoot, enclosed by sharpened bamboo stakes and separated from their comrades by mountains of hostile jungle filled with resentful civilians and vengeful Shan insurgents.
When Omar Khadr, the 21-year-old Canadian walked into the Guantanamo courtroom escorted by three military police on Thursday he seemed calm. His boyish but bearded face was free of obvious emotion. This, after all, was the third time that the Pentagon has tried to bring charges against him in the Guantanamo-based military commissions.