Burma’s NO To Child Soldiers Day

Mar 27th, 2007

_ By Taisamyone

March 27th is usually celebrated as Burma’s Resistance Day, the day when the armed forces of Aung San rebelled against the Japanese invaders and joined the British and Allied forces to defeat the Imperial Japanese Army. It is the day that began resistance to foreign rule and the road to independence from both invaders and colonialists. The SPDC changed the name to Armed Forces Day – a move to celebrate themselves narcissistically, not wanting to remind the people of any resistance to the enemy, nor to remind them of a lost freedom and independence!

Despite the extent and ferocity of wars in Africa where child soldiers have been commonplace, Burma remains the country with the highest level of child soldiers in the world, especially the estimated number of between 50,000 and 80,000 in the government armed forces – another of the facts accepted by the world but that the junta deny. The use of child soldiers among the Karen armed freedom fighters has been a fact of life for many years, but this is a much reduced number from the days of God’s Army. When the Southeast Asia Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers (SACSUCS) charged the SSA-S with having a large number of child soldiers, the SSA-S denied the accusation and invited SACSUCS to Loi Taileng to prove its case. SSA-S says that all members under 18 are banned from joining regular army units but instead sent to schools. There is also a marked difference in recruitment; the Tatmadaw preys on children, using threats, intimidation and often violence to force young boys to become soldiers. Boys, and sometimes girls, join the freedom fighters often through experience of abuse at the hands of the Tatmadaw or because they have been orphaned by them.

Human Rights Watch have reported the issues of child soldiers in Burma; “Throughout Burma (Myanmar), children as young as eleven are being forcibly recruited into Burma’s national army, the largest user of child soldiers in the world. Without their parents’ knowledge or consent, they are sent to military training camps where they are routinely beaten, and brutally punished if they try to escape. Once deployed, they may be forced to fight and/or carry out human rights abuses against civilians, including other children.”

A major international conference entitled “Free children from war” was held in Paris on 5 and 6 February 2007. The meeting, co-organized by the French Government and UNICEF, was attended by 58 countries, including dozens of government ministers, donors, the heads of UN agencies and many non-governmental organizations. The conference sought to encourage nations to ratify the latest UN conventions of the use of child soldiers. The ‘Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict’ was ratified by the 58 countries, some with reservations (i.e. voluntary military service from age 16 is permitted in the UK, but many countries opt for the recommended age of 18 as a minimum). It may come as no surprise that Burma is not a signatory to this protocol.

Obviously, action is needed to stop these practices, and the work of the ILO on forced labour should be pressed more strictly and, if need be, referred to the ICJ, ICC and the UNSC. The progress made to date is minimal, so it is imperative that activists continue to collect reports and make the world aware of the actual situation, to counter the lying propaganda of the junta and to inform the world organisations who can bring pressure to bear on the regime to change.

The future of Burma belongs to all of the children of Burma. What these young people need of course is not military training, but a proper education, something that is not so easy to come by in Burma. I think two quotes indicate why:

… the “University Union was founded to which every student in higher education had to belong. The universities themselves were turned into an extension of the state bureaucracy.”

“a militarised education system that prohibited free thought. Schools became boot camps complete with military language and physical discipline.” … “a regimen of draconian ‘thought control’ laws that constrained all civilians. Imprisonment and torture were the fates of anyone who questioned authority.”

Both these quotes could be about Burma and the SPDC’s rules today, but they hark back to early in the last century:

The first is a description of the first actions on the civilian laws that Franco imposed as part of his fascist government during the Spanish civil war. Fascists the world over all do the same thing, whether it is fascist Spain under Franco, or Burma under the SPDC.

The second describes the military ethic of Imperial Japan in the 1920s and 1930s that created the fascist expansionist empire that devastated Burma and most of Asia during World War II. I think I spot a similar theme through these dictatorial authoritarian regimes, and we are all aware of the suffering and anguish that they unleashed on peaceable nations. No liberal democracy has ever imposed such laws, they are the domain of totalitarian dictators and unelected unaccountable regimes the world over, who are unable to curb the rising resentment of freedom loving peoples to their rule – only when freedom and democracy are restored can people create the civil society that they want, and the society that they deserve.

The use of child soldiers in Burma is something that needs to be changed, the children need a normal upbringing and education. Orphans should be cared for by those who actually care for the welfare of the children, whether that is a government institution, the monasteries, NGOs or with support from international organisations. But the crucial change is not just in the use of child soldiers, but the structure of society and the access to education and healthcare for all – all of the people of Burma need to remember that ‘Resistance Day’ is a remembrance of resistance to imposed cruelty and alien decrees from those unlawfully in authority. It is time for the armed forces and the people of Burma to re-live Resistance Day, and resist the powers of authority in their abuse of human rights, to resist the junta’s attempts to deny freedom to the people of Burma, and to resist the attempts of the SPDC to impose an undemocratic government on the people, it is time to resist the regime and take the true road to independence. Long live Resistance Day. Long live “No To Child Soldiers” Day. Let us all take back the future for all our children.

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