NO EASY ANSWERS (1): CHILD SOLDIERS
Note: both the Burmese
army and the KNLA have child soldiers, but with one critical difference. The
Burmese army forces children to take up arms - it press-gangs them to fight.
The KNLA does no such thing.
Children should be with their families and in school. They should never be combatants
in a war. It is easy to accept the stereotype that no culture should accept
their use, and that any which does is bad. But, the situation is far more complex
than this.
- What do you say to a culture in disarray and where there are many battlefield
orphans, when there is little ability to spread the value that children must
be protected, and then actually to do it?
- What do you say to a child on the run whose parents have been killed, and
who can get two bowls of rice a day at a rebel camp in the forest, but none
on his (or her) own?
- What do you say to a child whose parents have been killed, who understands
better than anyone the need for justice, and who would like to get some?
- What do you say to a ten year old boy, whose parents have been killed, who
manages to get a gun and kill two SPDC himself, and then, when he finds a group
of his rebel soldiers, they take his gun?
- What do you say to parents who - in their entire lives - have known only war,
who have no realistic expectation that the war will end, and who believe that
their children will be safer if they learn to fight?
There were a few child soldiers (below the age of 16) in Lay Po camp (and many
others, now older, who had joined the KNLA when they were young). A couple of
the boys were actually on summer break, training to fight while school was out
of session; others had followed their older brothers, or fathers. But, the Karen
do not take boys on frontline missions. They stay behind as guards. After all,
a childs mistake could cost many lives. But what happens if the enemy
attacks; an enemy that takes no prisoners - which kills everyone, including
the elderly, women and children? In these cases, anyone who can, fights, and
having had some training is greatly to be preferred.
The only option is such cases for those who would offer assistance is to find
the child soldiers - one-by-one - and then try to convince them to let you help
them. (This is not an easy task.)