Children at War in Liberia and Sierra Leone

Children did not fight in wars when adult strength and size was needed to prevail in combat. A child was at too much of an disadvantage against adults. By the 1990s children could be armed with light and small weapons such as the semi-automatic AK-47, making him closer to equal with a similarly armed adult. And there were those willing to use numerous armed children for their political ends. By the 21st century year child soldiers had fought in Asia, the Balkans, Latin America and Africa. Members of child armies who were around fifteen years old were said to be wary offending soldiers who were around nine - the children tending to cluster around these age groups. The nine year olds had less measure than the fifteen year olds. The nine year olds were more inclined to shoot in response to annoyance.

One of the first to use children as soldiers was Charles Taylor of Liberia. Charles Taylor was from a family elite enough that Taylor was able to study in the United States, with a student visa beginning in 1972 at age 24. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics in 1977. During his years as a student in the U.S. he elevated himself among Liberians, becoming chairman of the Union of Liberian Organizations.

Liberians descended from American slaves (Americo-Liberians), as was Charles Taylor, had been ruling Liberia, and they were resented by other Liberians. Siding with this resentment, a Master Sergeant, Samuel Doe, led an overthrow of Liberia's government in 1980. Taylor had been at the forefront of the criticism against the government that Doe overthrew, and he was offered a job in Doe's regime, running a general services agency, which controlled some of the regime's budget. Eventually Doe accused Taylor of embezzling nearly 1 million dollars. Taylor returned to the United States and there an extradition warrant from Liberia resulted in Taylor being imprisoned, where he awaited extradition. Taylor escaped and disappeared. In late 1989 several hundred members of the Gio and Mano tribes rebelled and threatened the Doe regime. In December Charles Taylor reappeared at the head of a guerrilla force of from 100 to 500 persons, centered about 100 miles north of Liberia's capital, Monrovia. Taylor's force, it is has been said, was trained in Libya, where Taylor is thought to have been hiding. Taylor announced his intention to overthrow Doe's regime and is reported to have said that "The best Doe is a dead Doe."

Leading the Gio tribe against Doe was Prince Yormie Johnson. It was Johnson's force that reached Monrovia, and Johnson had Doe executed as Doe was trying to leave the country. Taylor continued his struggle for power and civil war continued. He asked President Joseph Momoh of Sierra Leone permission to use his territory as a springboard for attacks within Liberia and Momoh refused, creating resentment by Taylor against Momoh.

In 1991 the war spilled into neighboring Sierra Leone, a force of Liberians and Sierra Leoneans, led by Foday Sankoh, entered Sierra Leone from Liberia. Sankoh had been a student activist in the 1970s. He had been a corporal in the Sierra Leonean army, then a wedding photographer and a television cameraman. He is reported to have met Taylor in Libya. He is said to have been financed by Libya's Muammar Qaddaffi, who was supporting West African dissidents, including Taylor. Sankoh, in his early fifties, claimed, in strident tones, to be making revolution against Sierra Leone's corrupt elite.He recruited youths to his "Revolutionary United Front."

Momoh, fought them, using combatants trained from among the 250,000 refugees from Liberia who were in Sierra Leone. The military in Sierra Leone ousted Momah and continued to fight the rebels. Taylor continued to support the rebels in Sierra Leone, and a coalition of forces united against both Taylor and Sankoh. Between December 1989 and mid-1993, Charles Taylor's National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) according to estimates, was responsible for thousands of deliberate killings of civilians. Thousands of civilians were killed, mutilated and raped.

Sankoh's force fought for control over Sierra Leone's diamond mines. His response to criticism included ednying atrocities and, where possible, having his critics killed. Two of Sankoh's comrades, Abu Kanu and Rashid Mansaray, were executed after they had tried to moderate the excesses of Sankoh's Revolutionary United Front.

Taylor, meanwhile, had found wealth controlling territory and selling Liberian export items: diamonds, timber, rubber, gold and iron ore. He had made sweeps through communities, and needing as many gun-slingers as he could get he recruited boys into his army, some as young as nine years old.

With neither side winning the war, a peace agreement was made in 1996. In 1966 wartime elections in Sierra Leone resulted in the presidency of Ahmad Kabbah, ending four years of army rule in Sierra Leone. In 1977 in Liberia a transitional government of various factions was installed and elections held. Taylor was elected president with an official count of 75.3 percent of the vote. In 1997 in Sierra Leone disgruntled military men overthrew Kabbah. Taylor continued to battle insurgents opposed to his rule. Taylor was giving the rebels in Sierra Leone weapons in exchange for diamonds. These rebels swept through areas in Sierra Leone chopping off the arms, legs and noses of thousands they suspected of supporting Sierra Leone's government.

In February 1998, Nigeria intervened and in the civil war in Sierra Leone and ousted rebels from the capital, Freetown. In May, Kabbah returned to Freetown amid rejoicing. In January 1999, rebels returned to Freetown and were driven out again, leaving about 5,000 dead. A compromise peace was made with the rebels, giving some government posts to rebel leaders. In 2000 in Freetown, Sankoh's soldiers gunned down a number of protesters. Sankoh was arrested, followed by celebrations in Freetown. Sankoh was handed to the British and, under jurisdiction of a United Nations court he was indicted on 17 counts for war crimes, including crimes against humanity, rape, sexual slavery and extermination. A United Nations force arrived. The civil war in Sierra Leone flared again. Rebels abducted several hundred of the UN force. British paratroopers arrived to evacuate British subjects and to secure the airport for UN peacekeepers, and they moved to rescue British hostages. In May 2001, British trained Sierra Leone forces began to spread into rebel areas. The rebels were disarmed.

In January 2002 the civil war was declared over, and the United Nations declared that 45,000 rebels had been disarmed and that the disarmament was complete. In May in Sierra Leone, Kabbah won a landslide election.

Between the years 2000 and 2003, according to a United Nations report, Liberia under Taylor had over 15,000 child soldiers in its armed forces. On June 4, 2003 a United Nations tribunal indicted Taylor for war crimes, accusing him of bearing the greatest responsibility for murder, the taking of hostages, rapes, exterminations, sexual slavery and for the use of child soldiers. Taylor was surrounded by hostile forces and under international pressure to resign. In July 2003, while awaiting trial for war crimes, Foday Sankoh - who had been ideolized by his supporters as a lion - died of complications from a stroke, at age 66. In August 2003, a comprehensive peace agreement ended fourteen years of civil war, and Taylor went into exile in Nigeria.

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