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As Chad Recruits Child Soldiers, France Claims It's
A Struggle, 25-Second Meeting with Ocampo
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of
Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis
UNITED NATIONS,
September 26 -- French minister for
human rights Rama Yade, speaking to the Press before a meeting of the
UN
Working Group on Children and Armed Conflict, acknowledged that "Chad
is
one of the countries" that recruits child soldiers. Inner City Press
asked
her, given France's close diplomatic relations with Chadian president
Deby,
what France is doing to get this recruitment of children into Chad's
national
army stopped. Rama Yade said that Chad,
like other countries, must "struggle" against the practice. But in
this case, it is the government that is doing
the recruitment. The struggle should begin at home, in
N'djamena as well as
in Paris. Video here,
from Minute 5:50.
Inner City
Press also asked what is being done for the over 90 child soldiers
capture
during the defeat of the Chad-backed Justice and Equality Movement
rebel attack
on Khartoum, just five kilometers outside the capital in Omdurman.
UNICEF's
Hilda Johnson answered, that 50 of the JEM-recruited child soldiers
have been
reunited with their parents, and that efforts are being made for the
other 40,
along with two civil society partners. Video here,
from Minute 10:24. Inner City Press asked,
but what is being done
about or against the recruiters? Rama Yade said that there was no time
to
answer, she had to go inside to the meeting, at which she hoped that
the number
of states signing on to the so-called principles of Paris would grow
from 66 to
67.
Rade Yade at the UN stakeout, 40
JEM-recruited child soldiers not shown
Does Chad
agree and live up to the principles of Paris? It should, given France's
military support when President Deby faced overthrow by rebels (who, to
be
fair, in all probability use child soldiers themselves). Also needing
action is
child soldier recruitment in Myanmar, and a more effective prosecution
of, and
perhaps Prosecutor for, the Thomas Lubanga child soldier recruitment
case at
the International Criminal Court in The Hague.
Prosecutor
Luis Moreno Ocampo is in New York this week, lobbying about his request
for an
arrest warrant against Sudanese president Omar Al-Bashir. At the
Security
Council stakeout on Thursday, French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner
loudly
proclaimed that he had met with Ocampo, and the France supports
international
law. Moreno Ocampo, on the other hand,
admitted to an Inner City Press source that his meeting with Kouchner
lasted no
longer than 25 seconds. Such is the level of commitment, including to
getting
Deby's Chad to stop child soldier recruitment.
Watch this site, and this Sept. 18 (UN) debate.
* * *
These
reports are
usually also available through Google
News and on Lexis-Nexis.
Click
here
for a Reuters
AlertNet piece by this correspondent
about Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army. Click
here
for an earlier Reuters AlertNet piece about the Somali
National
Reconciliation Congress, and the UN's $200,000 contribution from an
undefined trust fund. Video
Analysis here
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