Trial For Child Soldiers?
The United Nations on Thursday outlined proposals for a special war crimes court for Sierra Leone to prosecute those most responsible for killing and maiming tens of thousands of people - including a controversial provision to put child soldiers on trial.
Secretary-General Kofi Annan laid out a plan to bring fighters as young as 15 under the joint court's jurisdiction, but left the ultimate decision on whether to proceed with such trials to the Security Council after children's rights advocates voiced outrage and concern.
The advocates, including those within the United Nations itself, argued that the estimated 5,400 child fighters in Sierra Leone are themselves the victims of abusive commanders who abducted them, drugged them and forced them to kill.
Subjecting teens to public accusations and putting them on trial, even with special protections, "is potentially making these children a victim a second time," said Joanna Van Gerpen, UNICEF's representative in Sierra Leone.
What the children most need is to be free of fears about coming out of the bush so they can enter rehabilitation programs, undergo counseling and be reunited with their families and communities, she said in a telephone interview from the capital, Freetown.
In his report, Annan stops short of recommending that the council approve the provision that would apply to teens who were younger than 18 at the time of their alleged crimes.
He said that if the council decides to approve the provision, the children should have their own trial chamber. Their privacy should be ensured, he said, and no child should be imprisoned, but there should be "alternative options" for sentencing.
Reed Brody, advocacy director for Human Rights Watch, said Annan's decision not to recommend specifically that children be brought under the court's jurisdiction was an improvement over original U.N. plans to call for such prosecutions. But he said his organization would now turn to lobbying the Security Council against accepting that provision.
The court, which would have its seat in the Sierra Leonean capital, would handle the most serious breaches of international law, including war crimes and crimes against humanity dating back to 1996 from one of Africa's most brutal conflicts.
While Sierra Leone's civil war began in 1991, the report recommended that the court's jurisdiction extend back only to Nov. 30, 1996, to avoid overburdening the proceedings. That date corresponds to Sierra Leone's first comprehensive peace agreement, which later collapsed.
Unlike the U.N. tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, the Sierra Leonean court would be a hybrid, using both international and Sierra Leonean-appointed judges and prosecutors.
One of the first candidates expected to be tried by the tribunal is Foday Sankoh, leader of the rebel Revolutionary United Front, which reignited Sierra Leone's eight-year civil war in May by taking 500 U.N. peacekeepers hostage. He wa detained by the government during the hostage crisis.
Sankoh and his rebel fighters had been granted a sweeping amnesty by the government as part of the peace deal signed in Lome, Togo in July, 1999.
When the United Nations became a signatory to that agreement, it entered a reservation stating that the amnesty did not apply to crimes that violated international norms.
The court will need at least $22 million for the first year. The Security Council has said it would be funded by voluntary contributions, but Annan said the only "realistic solution" was to bill member states for it.
By Nicole Winfield
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