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Reintegrating Young Combatants: do child-centred approaches leave children—and adults—behind?

2011; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 32; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/01436597.2011.567006

1360-2241

Jaremey R. McMullin,

Peacebuilding and International Security

Abstract This article uses recent experience in Angola to demonstrate that young fighters were not adequately or effectively assisted after war ended in 2002. The government's framework excluded children from accessing formal disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration (DDR) programmes, and its subsequent attempts to target children have largely failed. More critically the case of Angola calls into question the broader effectiveness and appropriateness of child-centred DDR. First, such targeting is inappropriate to distinct post-conflict contexts and constructs a ‘template child’ asserted to be more vulnerable and deserving than adult ex-combatants, which does little to further the reintegration of either group, or the rights of the child in a conflict context. Second, child-centred reintegration efforts tend to deny children agency as actors in their own reintegration. Third, such efforts contribute to the normalisation of a much larger ideational and structural flaw of post-conflict peace building, wherein ‘success’ is construed as the reintegration of large numbers of beneficiaries back into the poverty and marginalisation that contributed to conflict in the first place. Notes The author wishes to thank Alison MS Watson of the University of St Andrews for her valuable comments on an earlier draft of this article. 1 United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), 20 November 1989, Articles 3, 39; and M Wessells, Child Soldiers: From Violence to Protection, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006, p 179. 2 UN General Assembly, Optional Protocol on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict, 25 May 2000. 3 UN Security Council Resolution 1379, S/RES/1379, 20 November 2001. 4 UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations, Integrated Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration Standards (IDDRS), 2006, 5.30 5.2, at http://unddr.org/iddrs/, accessed 10 June 2010. 5 Wessells, Child Soldiers, pp 155–156. 6 The Cape Town Principles define a child soldier as ‘any person under 18 years of age who is part of any kind of regular or irregular armed force or armed group in any capacity’. Cape Town Principles and Best Practices on the Recruitment of Children into the Armed Forces and on Demobilization and Social Reintegration of Child Soldiers in Africa, Cape Town, 27–30 April 1997. 7 Uppsala Conflict Data Program, Uppsala University, 2008, at http://www.ucdp.uu.se/database, accessed 10 July 2010. 8 UN Security Council, Report of the Secretary-General on the UN Angola Verification Mission II, S/24245, 7 July 1992, para.10. 9 For a comprehensive account of this period, see MJ Anstee, Orphan of the Cold War: The Inside Story of the Collapse of the Angolan Peace Process, 1992–93, London: Macmillan, 1996. 10 UN General Assembly and Security Council, Report of the Panel on UN Peace Operations, A/55/305 and S/2000/809, 21 August 2000, para.21; and UN General Assembly, A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility, Report of the Secretary-General's High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change, A/59/565, 2 December 2004, para.86. 11 J McMullin, ‘Reintegration of combatants: were the right lessons learned in Mozambique?’, International Peacekeeping, 11(4), 2004, pp 625–643. 12 Human Rights Watch, Forgotten Fighters: Child Soldiers in Angola, 15(10), April 2003, p 16. 13 Multi-Country Demobilization and Reintegration Program (MDRP), ‘Angola—Final MDRP Fact Sheet’, December 2008, at http://www.mdrp.org, accessed 17 May 2010. 14 Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers, ‘Angola’, in Child Soldiers Global Report, London: Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers, 2004. 15 Republic of Angola and the European Community, ‘Country Strategy Paper and National Indicative Programme for the Period 2008–2013’, 2008, p 132, at http://ec.europa.eu, accessed 6 June 2010. A 2003 estimate of 10 000 was given in Republic of Angola Ministry of Social Welfare, Mesa Redonda sobre os desafios da Protecçao da Criança no processo du Reintegraçao, 7 March 2003. 16 World Bank, ‘Angola: Emergency Demobilization and Reintegration Project’, February, Report No PID 11534, 2003, at http://www.worldbank.org, accessed 7 June 2010. 17 Human Rights Watch, Forgotten Fighters, pp 8, 13. 18 J Gomes Porto, C Alden & I Parsons, From Soldiers to Citizens, London: Ashgate, 2007, p 47 (Figure 2.3). 19 Ibid, p 83. 20 IRIN News, ‘Angola: UNITA “wives” fear exclusion from government aid’, 10 March 2003, at http://www.irinnews.org, accessed 7 June 2010. 21 J Gomes Porto & I Parsons, ‘Sustaining the peace in Angola: an overview of current demobilisation, disarmament and reintegration’, ISS Monograph Series No 83, April 2003, p 70. 22 J Hart, ‘The politics of child soldiers’, Brown Journal of World Affairs, 13(1), 2006, pp 217–226; and AMS Watson, ‘The child that bombs built’, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, 27(3), 2004, pp 159–168. 23 Scanteam, Multi-country Demobilization and Reintegration Program: End of Program Evaluation, Final Report, Oslo, June 2010, Section 5.1.4. 24 World Bank, Greater Great Lakes Regional Strategy for Demobilization and Reintegration, Report No 23869-AFR, Washington, DC: World Bank, 2008, p 58. 25 MDRP Secretariat, MDRP Final Report: Overview of Program Achievements, Washington, DC: World Bank, July 2010, p 26. 26 Author's interview with MDRP official, Washington, DC, 7 April 2010. 27 UNSCR 1379 (2001) paras 8, 12. 28 UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations, IDDRS, 5.30 5.2, 7, 8. 29 All children interviewed by I Ruigrok, ‘Whose justice? Contextualising Angola's reintegration process’, African Security Review, 16(1), 2007, pp 84–98, fought for more than 10 years. Gomes Porto & Parsons, ‘Sustaining the peace in Angola’, p 59, found that the average period of service was slightly over 14 years. 30 S McEvoy-Levy, Youth as Social and Political Agents: Issues in Post-Settlement Peace Building, Kroc Institute Occasional Paper No 21:OP:2, December 2001,p 8; and D Durham, ‘Youth and the social imagination in Africa’, Anthropological Quarterly, 73(3), 2000, pp 113–120. 31 Author's interview, 2010. 32 CIA, World Factbook, at http://www.cia.gov, accessed 28 August 2010; and UNICEF, ‘Angola country statistics’, at http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/angola_statistics.html, accessed 28 August 2010. 33 A McIntyre, ‘Rights, root causes and recruitment: the youth factor in Africa's armed conflicts’, African Security Review, 12(2), 2003, pp 91–99; J-F Bayart, The State in Africa: The Politics of the Belly, New York: Longman, 1993; A de Waal & N Argenti (eds), Young Africa: Realising the Rights of Children and Youth, Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 2004, p 125; and C Jeffrey, ‘“Generation nowhere”: rethinking youth through the lens of unemployed young men’, Progress in Human Geography, 32(6), 2008, p 741. 34 UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations, IDDRS, 5.30 Summary; and G Machel, The Impact of War on Children: A Review of Progress since the 1996 UN Report on the Impact of Armed Conflict on Children, London: Hurst, 2001, p 14. 35 See, for example, M Lorey, Child Soldiers: Protection of Children in Emergencies—A Field Guide, London: Save the Children, 2001, p 7. 36 See, for example, UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations, IDDRS, 5.30 9. 37 Ibid, 5.30 8.9; and R Brett & I Specht, Young Soldiers: Why They Choose to Fight, Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2004, p 135. 38 For example, I Cohn & GS Goodwin-Gill, Child Soldiers: The Role of Children in Armed Conflicts, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994, pp 131–137. 39 UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations, IDDRS, 5.30 Summary. 40 N Argenti, ‘Youth in Africa: a major resource for change’, in de Waal & Argenti, Young Africa, p 150. 41 Brett & Specht, Young Soldiers, pp 3–4. 42 Watson, ‘The child that bombs built’. 43 NJ Boothby, J Crawford & J Halprin, ‘Mozambique child soldier life outcome study: lessons learned in rehabilitation and reintegration efforts', Global Public Health, 1(1), 2006, pp 87–107; NJ Boothby, ‘Displaced children: psychological theory and practice from the field’, Journal of Refugee Studies, 5(2), 1992, pp 107–122; and M Wessels & C Monteiro, ‘Psychosocial assistance for youth: toward reconstruction for peace in Angola’, Journal of Social Issues, 62(1), 2006, pp 121–139. 44 S Shepler, ‘The rites of the child: global discourses of youth and reintegrating child soldiers in Sierra Leone’, Journal of Human Rights, 4(2), 2005, pp 197–211. 45 Cohn & Goodwin-Gill, Child Soldiers, p 138. 46 Machel, The Impact of War on Children, p 20. 47 Here I am relating Judith Butler's ideas on gender and identity to the related context of age and identity. J Butler, Gender and the Subversion of Identity, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1990. 48 This relates to Butler's analysis of conflict framing of ‘grievable’ lives. J Butler, Frames of War: When is Life Grievable?, London: Verso, 2009. 49 Jeffrey, ‘“Generation nowhere”’, p 743. 50 Brett & Specht, Young Soldiers, p 132, emphasis added. 51 UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations, IDDRS, 5.30 Summary. 52 Machel, The Impact of War on Children, p 12. 53 M Mutua, ‘Savages, victims, and saviors: the metaphor of human rights’, Harvard International Law Journal, 42(1), 2001, pp 201–245. 54 V Pupavac, ‘Refugee advocacy, traumatic representations and political disenchantment’, Government and Opposition, 43(2), 2008, p 284. 55 Ibid, p 286. 56 This is how Paul Richards frames the assumptions of Robert Kaplan and other neo-Malthusian analysts of conflict in the developing world in Fighting for the Rain Forest: War, Youth and Resources in Sierra Leone, Oxford: James Currey, 1996. The same could be said to underlie research on the ‘greed and grievance’ thesis. 57 R Maclure & M Denov, ‘“I didn't want to die so I joined them”: structuration and the process of becoming boy soldiers in Sierra Leone’, Terrorism and Political Violence, 18(1), 2006, p 119. 58 A Honwana, ‘Negotiating postwar identities: child soldiers in Mozambique and Angola’, in G Bond & N Gibson (eds), Contested Terrains and Constructed Categories: Contemporary Africa in Focus, Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2002, pp 277–298. 59 A Giddens, ‘Comments on the theory of structuration’, Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 13, 1983, pp 75–80. 60 AMS Watson, ‘Can there be a kindered peace?’, Ethics and International Affairs, 22(1), 2008, pp 35–42; and McEvoy-Levy, Youth as Social and Political Agents, p 2. 61 N Puechguirbal, ‘Women and children: deconstructing a paradigm’, Seton Hall Journal of Diplomacy and International Relations, 5(1), 2004, pp 5–15; and C Enloe, ‘Womenandchildren: making feminist sense of the Persian Gulf crisis’, Village Voice, 25 September 1990. 62 Human Rights Watch, Forgotten Fighters, cover page. 63 Pupavac, ‘Refugee advocacy, traumatic representations and political disenchantment’, p 272; and T Parsons, Social Structure and Personality, New York: Free Press, 1965. 64 Maclure & Denov, ‘“I didn't want to die so I joined them”’; and M Bøås & A Hatløy, ‘“Getting in, getting out”: militia membership and prospects for re-integration in post-war Liberia’, Journal of Modern African Studies, 46(1), 2008, pp 33–55. 65 S Willett, ‘New barbarians at the gate: losing the liberal peace in Africa’, Review of African Political Economy, 32(106), 2005, p 574. 66 CRC, Articles 12, 13; UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations, IDDRS, 5.30 5.1, 9.1; and UN General Assembly, A World Fit for Children, Outcome Declaration of the 2002 General Assembly Special Session on Children, New York: UNICEF, 2003. 67 UNDP, Practice Note: Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration of Ex-Combatants, New York: UNDP, 2005, pp 23, 29. 68 McMullin, ‘Reintegration of combatants’, p 630. See also J Hanlon, ‘Mozambique: “The war ended 17 years ago, but we are still poor”’, Conflict, Security & Development, 10(1), 2010, pp 77–102. 69 MDRP ‘Angola’. 70 S Gear, ‘Wishing us away: challenges facing ex-combatants in the “new” South Africa’, Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation, Violence and Transition Series 8, 2002. There is, of course, a well developed literature on the distinction between negative and positive peace. See J Galtung, ‘A structural theory of imperialism’, in DP Barash (ed), Approaches to Peace: A Reader in Peace Studies, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000, pp 42–44; H Miall, Contemporary Conflict Resolution, Cambridge: Polity Press, 2005; and OP Richmond, The Transformation of Peace, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. 71 AB Fetherston, ‘Peacekeeping, conflict resolution and peacebuilding: a reconsideration of theoretical frameworks’, International Peacekeeping, 7(1), 2000, p 196. 72 Author's interview, 2010. 73 M Pugh, ‘The political economy of peacebuilding: a critical theory perspective’, International Journal of Peace Studies, 10(2), 2005, pp 23–42. 74 J Hart, ‘Displaced children's participation in political violence: towards greater understanding of mobilisation,' Conflict, Security & Development, 8(3), pp 277–93. 75 Ruigrok, ‘Whose justice?’. 76 Author's interview with senior World Bank official, Washington, DC, 7 April 2010. 77 UN, ‘UN Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF) Angola: 2005–2008’, 2005, p 8, at http://www.unangola.org/pdf/UNDAF_English.pdf, accessed 10 June 2010. 78 Jeffrey, ‘“Generation nowhere”’, p 739. 79 Porto et al, From Soldiers to Citizens, p 153. 80 World Bank, ‘Angola: from combatant to civilian’, 29 August 2005, at http://web.worldbank.org, accessed 17 May 2010. Surveys routinely mask the extent of unemployment among former fighters, as they tend not to distinguish between formal and informal employment, or else conflate subsistence agriculture with ‘self-employment’. See, for example, MDRP, ‘Angola’, which reported a self-employment rate of 61% of ex-combatants. 81 MDRP, ‘Angola’. 82 For example, BA Ruble, JS Tulchin, DH Varat & LM Hanley (eds), Youth Explosion in Developing World Cities: Approaches to Reducing Poverty and Conflict in an Urban Age, Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, 2003. 83 H-P Kohler, FC Billari & JA Ortega, ‘Low fertility in Europe: causes, implications and policy options’, in FR Harris (ed), The Baby Bust: Who Will Do the Work? Who Will Pay the Taxes?, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2006, pp 48–109; and RAND Corporation, ‘Population implosion? Low fertility and policy responses in the European Union’, Research Brief, 2005, at http://www.rand.org, accessed 28 August 2010.