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TechnoratiTheir stories are all too shocking, yet all too familiar.
In Sierra Leone, boys as young as 10 were turned into bloodthirsty soldiers through an injection called "brown brown," a mixture of cocaine and gunpowder used to induce fits of rage and violence. In Sri Lanka, rebels strapped suicide bomb belts to children on the assumption that police would never suspect an innocent child.
Globally, child soldiers like these have been forced into combat. From Congo to Colombia, some 300,000 kids are at war, often against their will. Their exploitation is among the most severe because physical, emotional and sexual abuse forces young boys and girls to do unimaginable things.
The world acknowledges their plight and recognizes that a child's mind is far too impressionable to withstand the forces of hatred and manipulation. That's why multiple international treaties call for child soldiers to be rehabilitated, not imprisoned. It's a standard upheld even in the deadliest war zones.
Then there's Omar Khadr.
Spending part of his childhood in Afghanistan and Pakistan, he was no stranger to violent ideology. Khadr's larger-than-life father was a friend of Osama bin Laden who glorified violence and martyrdom, instructing his six children that such death and destruction were the only worthy pursuits in life.
His father once tried to convince an elder son to become a suicide bomber and even threatened to kill all his kids if they ever betrayed his fundamentalist version of Islam. By 10, Khadr had received his first weapons training.
It's no wonder the boy became fanatical like his father.
Unlike other children forced into war, post-conflict Khadr has been thrown in jail, left to languish and even abused, as a Canadian government report revealed this month. He was 15 when arrested by U.S. forces in eastern Afghanistan but Khadr is charged with war crimes and is to be tried in October.
Why is he treated so differently from other child soldiers? The answer is clearly political.
Imagine if he had been caught fighting anywhere else, or by anyone else. The brainwashing he suffered at the hands of the man he trusted most would elicit unwavering sympathy. He would be cared for, as the UN, the International Labour Organization and other agencies require, and certainly not jailed with a bunch of adults.
In Sierra Leone, for example, former child soldiers participate in elaborate forgiveness rituals aimed at reintroducing them into their villages. In Rwanda, they are demilitarized and given job training.
It's an incredible injustice that a Canadian-born child in U.S. custody is not afforded the same rights. Remove the politics and look at Khadr's case on moral grounds and it's obvious his special treatment is inexcusable.
Canada's hands are far from clean. Britain and Australia negotiated to have their citizens repatriated from the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, but Canada's government refuses to intervene. Khadr is the only Westerner still jailed there. He's also the youngest.
Canada and the U.S. need to treat Khadr the same as other child soldiers, starting by returning him to Canada. If he is tried and convicted, it will set a terrible international precedent that threatens hundreds of thousands of other children manipulated into war. Jailing a child is not justice. Rehabilitating him from the shackles of his exploitation is.
Craig and Marc Kielburger are children's rights activists. They discuss global issues every Monday in the World & Comment section.
© Copyright Toronto Star 1996-2008
12 Comments so far
Show AllThe Kielbergers brought up the Tamil Tiger terrorists in Sri Lanka who strap suicide bombs on children, all the better to cause maximum civilian casualties. It does not stop there. Parents are forced to 'give' children of either sex to the 'cause' or pay a hefty tax in lieu. Even that does not stop forcible conscription and the children are almost never seen by the parents again.
There is immense anger in Tamil Tiger-controlled areas against this practice but the Tigers are currently being walloped militarily and replacements are in short supply, so this crime is ever more rampant. The parents have no options --- any challenge to the Tigers guarantees immediate death.
The brutish Tiger leadership cares not a whit for life, much less a child's life. Ironically, the children of the leaders have been smuggled abroad, often to the West, and are being educated there. The stolen children end up in the front lines while experienced cadres, who the Tigers are loth to lose, stay back in less dangerous areas.
Many are the stories of Sri Lankan government soldiers paralysed and unable to shoot because they are faced with 15 -16 year-old kids. There is no evidence of the Tigers using chemicals like 'brown brown' in Sierra Leone (my God!) to motivate the youngsters but whatever brainwashing they do use must be pretty potent. Desertion, of course, brings execution.
The West must act decisively against these brutes and one way to do that is to act on the highest moral principles. The Khadr case is an affront and a betrayal. He was brainwashed. As far as we know he did not kill any civilians, so he's no terrorist. The US medic killed near him, according to defence lawyers, was hit by friendly fire. Perhaps but, regardless, this was a boy of 15 for heaven's sake.
Canadian hands are indeed far from clean. We forget at our own peril that justice is blind, and that none should be presumed guilty of a crime until proven so beyond doubt in a court of law.
I cannot believe that were Canada to hold a US citizen indefinitely without trial (age 15 at the time of their incarceration) that the US would tolerate such conduct a full five years. Ergo, I am forced to conclude that we in Canada do not defend the rights of Canadians, as those south of the border would rightly defend the rights of the same american. We tolerate the intolerable in lacking the courage to call a fundamental wrong here wrong.
At least three british adult citizens held in Cuba have been returned to Britain, at least one Australian adult citizen has been returned to Australia, while those in power in Canada sit on their hands and do nothing in defense of a canadian.
What crime has this then child committed. Had that same child thrown that same grenade in a war against America's foes (assuming he ever even threw a grenade) he would have been labelled a hero, or as a child soldier a victim; not a criminal. What choice did this then child have regarding on which side he fought, given where he found himself -- badly injured in a building that had been bombed from the air. No more choice (indeed I would imagine far less choice) than the US soldiers then assaulting him. When in war did it become a crime to oppose an enemy advancing on one with weapons drawn, having first bombed one from the air, and when in war did it become a crime to become a captured enemy combattant.
This does not taste to me like law -- this tastes like petty vindictiveness - a he may have harmed one of us, so now we make him suffer. Such vindictiveness has no place in war; it is outlawed by international conventions; and is contrary to common human notions regarding honourable conduct expected of ones own forces in their treatment of prisoners.
Did those in power learn nothing from their complicity in Mahar Arars treatment, that they should so readily choose to be just as complicit in the abuse of yet one more canadian. History will not I fear speak well of Canada or the US regarding the times we now live in. One cannot fight evil while oneself being blind to the difference between acting rightly and acting wrongly.
Lacking an understanding of right and wrong, we in Canada (as in the US) risk becoming that which both sides of the border we would once rightly have abhored. How did we become so blind to due process and so disrespectful of the rule of both domestic and international law so fast. That we have saddens me profoundly.
Australia put pressure on the U.S.re the trial deal of David Hicks because the Liberal govt.was looking at a hiding in the coming elections.Prior to this,the govt.gave their full support to Hicks'incarceration without a blink.It was the Australian people who could see the injustice being done that forced the govts' hand.
Hicks came home,served 9 months in an Adelaide jail,and is now a free man.He,like I suspect many,was just an impressionable kid looking for adventure.The 5 years of Quantonimo was the equivalent of using a sledgehammer for a thumbtack.
as a canadian, i am utterly ashamed and i no longer pledge allegiance to that country.
how can anyone hold a 15 year-old accountable for these crimes?
shame on the government of canada!
Nobody in leadership of any nation cares about torture or justice or they would refuse to associate (photo ops etc.) with Bu$h the inferior, and the leaders of many other countries, including China, Russia and all the middle east countries to name a few.
Again , speaking as a Canadian , Harpers stand here is simply unsupportable. The silence on the issue from the Liberal side of the House is due to them playing a role as well because they did nothing while in power to ensure Khadrs rights protected.
Now I saw a poll someone mentioned wherein it suggested the bulk of Canadians supported Khadrs detention at Gitmo.
I have not spoken to a single Canadian who feels that way although I am sure there a good many.
What I wonder is why Canadians were so angry when Arar was seized by US authorities and sent to be tortured in Syria.
Now certainly Arar was totally innocent but am I to believe that Canadians feel that if someone is suspected of having ties to terrorism, that it is ok to torture them and hold them for years without trial?
Am I to believe that Canadians feel said person, as a child of 15 when he was seized is somehow not deserved of proper representation in a court of law or the protection of his Government?
The Attorney for the defence of Khadr has labled the Court at Gitmo an absolute farce as have others before him who resigned in disgust. It a kangaroo court kept in Gitmo for the very reason it a Kangaroo court.
I have read an article in this weeks Globe and Mail on the lawyer who is defending Khadr and he seems to be a pretty stand up guy. It his contention that the court so biased and so unfairly structured, there simply no way Khadr can get a fair trial and it his contention the only hope for Khadr is pressure from the Government of Canada, and by extension its citizens.
Harper is a law-and-order type who just happens to worship at the altar of the Bush Doctrine. He's also a theo-con, so don't expect this issue to get resolved in Kadr's favour anytime soon.
Pleased to see that the Toronto Star is following up on the egregious treatment of Mohammed Khard, which I wrote about on my blog.
Shame on the US for breaking international law with Khadr. Is anyone involved with his detention, interrogation, or trial interested in a trip to Belgium? Go, I hear it's nice this time of year.
The connection between child exploitation is very significant, and shows the common nightmare endured by victims of adult warfare.
The Rwandan and west African child soldiers were brutally victimized, just like Khadr. Adults exploiting children really commit a war crime of tremendous psychological implications, as children must live with what they've done. Rehabilitation efforts are major and costly.
Child victims of war--and worse, those forced to participate in it--deserve better from us adults. At least one organization is active in this field, working along with UNICEF is SOS Children (link), unfortunately many other nations owe it to former child soldiers to help integrate them into society without abusing them.
The Kielburger brothers are far too ready to assume Khadr was a child soldier, made into an evil fanatic by his father and forced into war. None of that has been proven.
Khadr should be released for many reasons: the illegality of his detention; the illegality of the allied attack on Afghanistan; the denial of due process and procedural safeguards in the military commissions system; the delay in charging him and bringing him to trial; the fact that he has been subjected to torture; the lack of evidence that he threw the grenade in question; and the pernicious idea that an apparent civilian captive can be charged with murder for allegedly killing a foreign soldier who is invading his home while the same illegally invading soldiers can shoot the unarmed civilian twice in the back as he sits on the ground, without any criminal consequences whatsoever.
Focusing exclusively on the fact that he was a child when apprehended - in order to distinguish Khadr from all those other (read "real") bad guys in Gitmo - implicitly excuses the existence of the Guantanamo gulag and all those other factors that cry out for his release and the release of all the other illegally held detainees. Moreover, it seeks to make Khadr primarily a victim of his father, rather than of the US war machine - a nice bit of Islamophobia thrown in for good measure.
I have the same criticism of the argument that Khadr is the last citizen of a "Western" country to be held at Guantanamo. It's as if Western countries' citizens deserve a pass, but all those swarthy Easterners can rot.
The powers that be in the US have stolen all the money from the people and now make all the decisions for all of us. This is not a democratic republic any longer. We have become a fascist state ruled by the corporate class.
I am heart broken at the treatment of this child. They do the same thing to our children in this country. We have many children treated as adults for crimes that they have committed. In our society, no one is rehabilitatable. It used to be different, but I fear we will not see any real change in the forseeable future.
I read these articles and am forever ashamed that I continue to hold American citizenship.
I hold on in the hope that we will, one day, become better than we truly are.
Please please, all foreigners who read this, so many of us are truly sorry for what we have become. And we are trying. But we are fighting a large, wealthy, ignorant enemy within our own borders.
Unfortunately, common sense is not likely to prevail here. Canadian Prime Minister Harper is too ideologically committed to the Bush administration's agenda to see clearly on this matter.