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V. CHILD SOLDIERS IN ANGOLA FOLLOWING THE CONFLICT
Demobilization of UNITA Soldiers
-FAA officer, November 28, 2002. The vast majority of boys and girls who served with UNITA lived in family areas attached to the cantonment areas of former soldiers. With the confusion at the end of the war and a highly dispersed population, a few child combatants returned to their home areas or moved into civilian camps for internally displaced persons rather than stay with UNITA. These cantonment areas were designed as temporary settlements, established to register and identify UNITA soldiers, demobilize them, and move them to transit centers and ultimately to their home provinces or resettlement areas. Some child soldiers remain in the family areas, others have been moved to transit centers and await resettlement, some others have returned to their communities. The government has repeatedly set deadlines for the closure of the camps and announced in April 2003 that many were officially closed although in some cases residents remain.47 One hundred thousand UNITA adult combatants were registered and demobilized in the official government program. Sources in the capital explained that there was some speculation at the time UNITA first moved into the camps over whether children would be included in the demobilization process or not. By July 2002, however, there were 80,000 identified demobilization beneficiaries that included men and women only. In late November and December of that year, more men and women moved into the camps and the number increased to its present figure.48 Demobilization as it was planned after the 2002 Memorandum of Understanding required that UNITA soldiers were first incorporated into the national army. They were then provided with documents that established their service record and demobilized from the national army, as would any soldier who served with the FAA. The demobilization process started around September 2002 when a large number of intended beneficiaries began to receive a salary based on their grade commensurate with soldiers in the government army. They received payment for a five-month period that covered the time from when they first arrived in the camps to their official demobilization date. Some women who fought with UNITA as well as men and women who entered the camps late last year have yet to receive their documentation and monetary compensation. Angolan national law on the recruitment of children meets the requirements of international law and treaties. Young adults eighteen and older may volunteer to serve in the armed forces. Males who have reached the age of eighteen must register for service and at age twenty can be called up in times of necessity.49 Accordingly, underage soldiers who served with UNITA could not be officially integrated into the FAA and therefore could not be demobilized and included in the government run program for adults only. During the Human Rights Watch visit to Angola, researchers met with FAA and former UNITA officers as well as national and provincial government officials. Each cited different reasons why children were not included in the demobilization process, but pointed out that children could not be integrated into the FAA and so were not eligible for the program. According to one international aid worker, the design of the program meant that the government was able to avoid the cost of providing benefits to an additional 7,000 former combatants and to deflect attention from the potentially embarrassing issue of the use of child soldiers in Angola generally and by the FAA in particular. As this aid worker put it, no government official denies that children were used in the war, but authorities simply point out that children do not qualify for existing programs. The fact that the issue of child soldiers was not formally addressed during the negotiations suggests that either UNITA did not press to include it or the government was not willing to provide any concrete remedy.50 The lack of political will to make children affected by conflict a clear priority partly explains why child soldiers may have been excluded. In the demobilization process in Angola following the Lusaka Protocol of 1994, nationwide advocacy on the need to assist child soldiers played a key role. According to one report, "Angola offers a positive example of how advocacy can bring the issue of child soldiers into demobilization plans. Even though child soldiers in Angola were omitted from the peace agreement [Lusaka 1994], the demobilization commission's first resolution gave child soldiers priority and adopted procedures for their demobilization and reintegration...The lesson learned was that child protection concerns require the active participation of all political and humanitarian offices. Concern for child soldiers required high-level political attention; otherwise the matter risked being lost in the peace process."51 Despite some progress on child protection issues since 2002 by the government, U.N. agencies, and non-governmental organizations, child soldiers have not been a comparable priority in the current process. The lack of a national, inclusive program that identifies child soldiers and targets them specifically for rehabilitation means that many affected children may never receive assistance.52 In November 2002, some 445,000 former UNITA soldiers and their families lived in forty-two camps located around the countryside.53 Initially these areas were known as Quartering and Family Areas (QFAs). Following the demobilization of the soldiers, they simply became known as gathering areas reflecting their civilian status. Since November, some camp residents have returned home, either assisted through government programs or by simply abandoning the camps. Many more will likely remain in the gathering areas or transit centers until at least the end of the rainy season in late April 2003, although there is uncertainty about future plans for this population.54 Some camps have been easily accessible, close to provincial capitals and towns. Others, located in isolated areas, where providing humanitarian aid and monitoring population movements has been challenging. The Chicala I gathering area was located some thirty kilometers west of Luena, the capital of the province of Moxico. In December 2002, Chicala I had a population of 2,346 residents, of whom 437 were demobilized adult combatants and the remainder family members. An open atmosphere prevailed in the camp with residents freely circulating to nearby fields and collecting water at a stream adjacent to the camp. The government, U.N. agencies, and international NGOs have provided basic food and health assistance. The Chicala II gathering area, located several kilometers further west from Chicala I, was considerably larger, with 6,876 family members and over 2,500 former adult combatants as of December 2002. Divided into sixteen shady sub-blocks each containing mud-and-wattle houses in neat rows, the camp appeared structured and orderly at the time Human Rights Watch visited. The camp liaison officer, proudly showing off the sub-blocks, praised residents for their cleanliness and efficiency in following instructions from authorities. Like Chicala I, Chicala II has also received government and non-governmental assistance and in addition has internal cooperatives that provide care to children and adults.55 As of April 2003, these two camps and others were declared officially closed by the government, yet some residents remain in the areas.56 Children in the two gathering areas have received some medical care, as health posts run by an international agency provided medical personnel and drugs for common ailments. Health professionals interviewed in the camps appreciated the assistance that was provided but said they were unable to care for more serious cases. While they suspected that some children might be HIV-positive, they lacked the equipment to do proper testing. Camp residents, many of whom were former teachers, provided informal education at the primary level. UNICEF has distributed some educational and health materials for the children. Boys and girls interviewed in the camps stressed that while efforts had been made to provide schooling for those up to fourth grade, older children had no educational possibilities.57 These same children emphasized their relative well-being in comparison with their experiences during the war. They received something to eat and basic medical treatment, and no longer lived with the sound of gunfire. But camp officials and the children alike stressed their need for additional school materials, soap, proper clothing, blankets, and shoes.58 International aid workers in Luanda and the provinces highlighted that in comparison with the majority of Angolan children, these boys and girls were marginally better off. Similar comments were voiced among Angolans themselves, questioning the preferential treatment of those who were involved in the war while thousands of children in the country lack food, decent shelter, and medical care. Addressing inequalities in assistance given to vulnerable groups will be essential in rebuilding harmonious communities. Rehabilitation programs as currently designed may help address these disparities. This approach however, runs the risk that former child soldiers may not receive assistance in part because they are not identified and their numbers unknown. Further, children interviewed for this report who had already left the FAA or UNITA gathering areas and transit centers were receiving no official support, suggesting that the thousands of others who will leave the camps may share a similar fate. Another problem that surfaced at recently closed camps for internally displaced persons and gathering areas for demobilized soldiers is the abandonment of orphans who had been taken in by families. Because humanitarian aid was given to families with allotments related to family size, adults could receive larger shares of food aid by increasing the numbers in their group. Orphans and unaccompanied children were taken in and claimed by some families as their own. As these camps closed and people returned to their home areas where little assistance was provided, some families left these children behind. Humanitarian workers in Moxico province have dealt with cases of abandoned children from the Calala gathering area in the east and camps for internally displaced persons around Luena that are now closed. They feared that since some UNITA child soldiers were also without families, this trend was likely to continue as gathering areas closed in 2003.59 Abandonment is likely to complicate current plans for rehabilitation which fail to identify and specifically provide for former child soldiers, because it assumes that children have family and community to which to return. Children Returned to Their Communities A social worker involved in assisting former FAA child combatants deplored the lack of assistance offered by the government and the conditions in which many of these children now find themselves. For some children, he told Human Rights Watch, the situation was so bad that children expressed their desire to return to military service in order to be guaranteed a decent meal and shelter. This social worker believed that placing children with families and helping them return to civilian life was important, but because so many people were living in poverty in Angola, the families were often not able to provide proper care. He also denounced the lack of counseling and care needed to help children overcome their troubled past. Without this, he claimed, former child soldiers were unlikely to become responsible and productive members of society.60 Local groups have petitioned the government to provide demobilization cards for these children, which show that they served in the FAA. Repeated requests by these groups to the Department of Military Records (Departamento de Recenseamento Militar, DRM) were denied. These cards may never provide children with monetary benefits or a government pension, but because of existing registration laws, they would exempt the children from having to face combat conditions again. A camp commander in one gathering area whom we questioned about the need for cards stated that with the military presently reducing numbers, these cards would not be necessary in the future. A local priest came to the opposite conclusion: "During the war, it was our experience that people who registered went off to fight and there is a concern that these children may some day have to fight again." 61 Whether or not the same children are called up again, these cards could play an important psychological role in ensuring their holders that their military days are finished. Felipe A., a former FAA combatant, explained the difficult conditions in which he now finds himself.
An NGO working with former UNITA child soldiers around Luanda painted a similar picture for boy soldiers who have already left the gathering areas. The Mimbota area, in nearby Bengo province, had been partially emptied by December 2002. Former boy soldiers were loaded onto trucks and transported to a transit center in Caxito town. Although they were supposed to spend only several nights there, some of the children had nowhere to go and spent weeks hanging about the center. Angolan aid organizations were able to trace some of these boys back to their families and helped them to return home. At the time they left the center, these boys were each given a worn pair of trousers and a T-shirt. As one worker expressed to us, "This is not our idea of rehabilitation."63 This activist also underlined the pressing need for educational and vocational training for children so that once released they will have something to do. Many gained some mechanical and electrical skills while serving in the ranks and courses could be created that draw on their existing knowledge to prepare them for eventual employment. While children interviewed expressed their desire to continue their education, they were uncertain from where the financial support would come. Many older children believed they would be denied enrollment in primary school on the ground that they were too old. Others may simply be ashamed to sit with a class of seven-year-olds in primary school.64 Not surprisingly, the problems faced by former child soldiers already in their communities matched the fears of those in the camps. Boys whom Human Rights Watch interviewed in the gathering areas were unanimous in their desire to return to school and study but feared they might not be able to do so for financial or other reasons. Miguel R., a sixteen-year-old, has never been to school and can neither read nor write. He expressed concern about having school materials and sitting in the first grade with younger children. Marcello N. would like to study and work but did not know where he would get the money to do so. Carlos B. wants to return to secondary school and live in one place again. "After moving around so many times in the last few years, I need a stable community in which to live."65 47 Angola Press Agency, Some 28 Sheltering Areas Closed, Luanda, April 2, 2003 [online], http://allafrica.com/stories/printable/200304020625.html (retrieved April 4, 2003). 48 Human Rights Watch interview, Luanda, November 26, 2002. 49 Constitution of Angola, article 152, "on duty to defend the country", Lei Constitucional da República de Angola, art. 152(2), "O serviço militar é obrigatório. A lei define as formas do seu cumprimento." For conscription at the age of 20 see Law 1/93. For age of 18 for voluntary service see Decree No. 40/96, December 13, 1996. 50 Human Rights Watch interview, Luanda, November 26, 2002. 51 Verhey, Beth, Child Soldiers: Preventing, Demobilizing and Reintegration, November 2001, Africa Region Working Paper Series No. 23, p 7. 52 Angola Press Agency, Child Protection Strategies Meeting Continues, December 17, 2002. [online], http://allafrica.com/stories/printable/200212170632.html (retrieved December 20, 2002). 53 OCHA Update, Humanitarian Situation in Angola, October 28, 2002. 54 UN Wire, Angola: Top U.N. Official Says Ex-Unita Fighters, Displaced Need Help, January 16, 2003. See also UN Integrated Regional Information Networks, WFP Concerned Over Increase in People Leaving Camps, January 27, 2003; Angola Press Agency, Some 28 Sheltering Areas Closed, Luanda, April 2, 2003 [online], http://allafrica.com/stories/printable/200304020625.html (retrieved April 4, 2003). 55 Camp statistics were provided by camp leaders at the time of Human Rights Watch visits in early December 2002. 56 Human Rights Watch telephone conversation with humanitarian worker in Moxico, April 8, 2003. 57 Human Rights Watch interviews, December 3 and 4, 2002. 58 Ibid. 59 Human Rights Watch interview, December 2, 2002. 60 Human Rights Watch interview, November 28, 2002. 61 Ibid.; Human Rights Watch interview, December 4, 2002. 62 Human Rights Watch interview, November 28, 2002. 63 Human Rights Watch interview, Luanda, November 25, 2002. 64 Ibid.; Human Rights Watch interview, November 28, 2002. For a discussion of other barriers on access to education, see um futuro de esperança para as crianças de Angola: uma análise da situação da criança (Luanda: Ministério do Planeamento, Ministério da Assistência, and UNICEF, n.d.), pp. 54-57. 65 Human Rights Watch interviews, December 3 and 4, 2002.
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