Côte d'Ivoire: Ex-Child Soldiers Recruited for War
Hold Ivorian Authorities, Liberian Accomplices
Accountable for Recruitment in Liberia

(New York, April 1, 2005) ? The government of Côte d'Ivoire has
recruited hundreds of recently demobilized combatants in Liberia,
including scores of children under 18, to fight alongside Ivorian
government forces, Human Rights Watch said today.

Last week, witnesses interviewed [link to testimonies] in Liberia by
Human Rights Watch said that Ivorian army officers and Liberian ex-
commanders have intensified their recruitment efforts this month.
Meanwhile, the Ivorian government plans to begin peace talks with the
northern-based rebels in Pretoria on Sunday.

Child soldiers who had been demobilized after Liberia's brutal civil
war, ex-commanders and community leaders told Human Rights
Watch that children have been crossing into Côte d'Ivoire since
October to fight with a pro-government militia based around the
western cocoa-belt town of Guiglo.

"The Ivorian government is talking peace while actively preparing for
war using foreign combatants, including demobilized child soldiers
from Liberia," said Peter Takirambudde, Africa director Human Rights
Watch. "These children endured a horrendous civil war in Liberia.
Now they're being manipulated into taking up arms again in
neighboring Côte d'Ivoire."

On April 3, South African President Thabo Mbeki will meet with the
parties to the Ivorian conflict in Pretoria as part of an African Union-
led peace initiative. "Mbeki needs to urge all parties to stop recruiting
or using children for use in the Ivorian conflict," Takirambudde said.

The Liberian and Ivorian governments must prosecute those involved
in the recruitment and use of child soldiers. Human Rights Watch also
called on the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, who
announced on January 20 that he would send a team to Côte d'Ivoire
to lay the groundwork for a possible investigation of war crimes, to
include the recruitment and use of child soldiers in the ICC's
investigation. Under the statute of the International Criminal Court, the
recruitment and use of children under the age of 15 is a war crime.

In mid-March, Human Rights Watch interviewed 13 Liberian ex-
combatants, including four mid-level commanders and eight children,
who consistently identified two Ivorian military officers?one colonel
and one sergeant?whom they said coordinated the recruitment of
Liberian recruits on behalf of the Ivorian government.

The interviewees said they were offered financial compensation for
going to fight in Côte d'Ivoire and indeed were offered money for each
additional "recruit" they brought with them. They said money was
paid to them by Ivorian army officers once they arrived to the Lima
bases, and usually after their "recruit" had spent some time with the
militia. Others were offered clothing, jobs and lured by the opportunity
of 'paying themselves' through looting.

The interviewees described crossing the border into Côte d'Ivoire in
small groups, sometimes accompanied by the Ivorian military sergeant,
and once in Côte d'Ivoire, being housed in one of several bases in and
around the western towns of Guiglo, Bloléquin and Toulepleu. Most
identified the group for which they were fighting in Côte d'Ivoire as
the 'Lima Militia' and said it is comprised primarily of Liberians who
during the recently ended Liberian war fought with the Movement for
Democracy in Liberia (MODEL).

"I left Liberia to go fight in Côte d'Ivoire in November 2004 and
fought for a full week," said a 15-year-old Liberian boy told Human
Rights Watch. "My commander and I just came back a few days ago.
We came to recruit more boys and take them back for our operation."

While in the bases, they described receiving uniforms, weapons,
logistics and training from Ivorian military personnel. All of them
described seeing tens of Liberian children?some recruited from inside
Liberia and others who they said had been recruited from villages and
refugee camps in Côte d'Ivoire?inside each of the militia bases.

Most of the Liberians interviewed had disarmed in Liberia last year
and subsequently signed up for education or skills training programs
being administered by the U.N.-backed Disarmament, Demobilization,
Rehabilitation and Reintegration (DDRR) Program. But due to severe
funding shortfalls in this program, only a few education and skills-
training programs have opened up in regions along the Ivorian border.

All combatants interviewed said they did not understand why the
programs and schools had yet to open and cited their frustration as
having contributed to their decision to join the Ivorian militia. The
commanders appeared to have exploited this and used it as a tactic to
encourage ex-combatants to fight in Côte d'Ivoire.

To view this document on the Human Rights Watch web site, please
go to: http://hrw.org/english/docs/2005/03/30/cotedi10404.htm