| NYT condemns child soldiers, omits Palestinians Pro-Israel Media Campaign 12 July 2001 --------------------------- ListBot Sponsor -------------------------- Start Your Own FREE Email List at http://www.listbot.com/links/joinlb ---------------------------------------------------------------------- In an editorial on 18 June 2001, the New York Times condemns the use of child soldiers in places like Sri Lanka and Eritrea. But it does not mention the use of child soldiers by the Palestinian Authority. If it were just this one editorial, I would not be writing this action alert. After all, there are dozens of conflicts in which child soldiers are being used, and I can't possibly ask the New York Times to list them all. But it is not just this one editorial. Time after time, whenever child soldiers are mentioned in the media, the reporters mention every possible conflict except the Mideast conflict. For the Times to do this is particularly puzzling, since it broke the story of Palestinian summer camps in which children as young as 10 learned how to use AK-47's and Molotov cocktails and how to kidnap Israeli soldiers ("Palestinian Summer Camp Offers the Games of War", Page A-1, 3 August 2000). More recently, on 8 May 2001, America's NBC Nightly News aired video footage of Palestinian children crawling under barbed wire carrying rifles, schools glorifying martyrdom, and a TV commercial urging children to "drop your toys; pick up stones" and showing Mohammed al-Durrah (the 12-year-old boy caught in a crossfire on 1 October 2000) beckoning them to join him in Paradise. Please send letters in your own words to letters@nytimes.com, and include your name, address, and telephone number. ______________________________________________________________________ When Children Go to War (Editorial, 18 June 2001) In Myanmar, the army recruits street children as young as 10 for use as human minesweepers. In Ethiopia, government forces press-ganged thousands of secondary school students and used them in human wave attacks across minefields in the border war with Eritrea. In Iraq, thousands of children under 15 have joined the Saddam Lion Clubs, learning how to use small arms and engage in hand-to-hand combat. In Sri Lanka, young Tamil girls hailed as "Birds of Freedom" by that country's Tamil insurgency, have been trained as suicide bombers. More than 300,000 children under 18 are fighting and dying in at least 30 conflicts worldwide. A report published last week by the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers documents in chilling detail the extent to which national armies and rebel groups in all parts of the world engage in this form of exploitation. Whether fighting on the front lines or deployed as spies, messengers, servants and sex slaves, children are the cheapest and most readily brutalized participants in modern warfare. There has been some progress toward global prohibition on the use of child soldiers. Last year the United Nations General Assembly adopted a new international protocol banning the use of soldiers under 18. Since last June, 80 countries have signed the new treaty, but only five have ratified it. The United States played an important role in drafting the treaty, but Congress has not ratified it. It should not delay. The new protocol can provide a valuable basis for exerting diplomatic pressure on states and rebel movements that seek legitimacy in the eyes of the world. The proliferation of lightweight automatic weapons has greatly enhanced the utility of children in war. The link between light weapons and the exploitation of child soldiers should give added impetus to diplomats meeting next month at the United Nations to draft long-overdue international standards for curtailing the small-arms trade. Within the past month in Sierra Leone, nearly 1,000 child soldiers, including girls as young as 6 years old, have been released by rebels thanks to a recent cease-fire agreement. That is welcome news, but too little attention has been paid to the long-term psychological traumas endured by children who witness and participate in atrocities. In peace negotiations and agreements, the United Nations has recognized the importance of disarming child soldiers and helping them return to society. But greater resources are needed to provide treatment to heal the damage done to these children of war. |
