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As Chad Recruits Child Soldiers, France Claims It's A Struggle, 25-Second Meeting with Ocampo

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis

UNITED NATIONS, September 26 -- French minister for human rights Rama Yade, speaking to the Press before a meeting of the UN Working Group on Children and Armed Conflict, acknowledged that "Chad is one of the countries" that recruits child soldiers. Inner City Press asked her, given France's close diplomatic relations with Chadian president Deby, what France is doing to get this recruitment of children into Chad's national army stopped.  Rama Yade said that Chad, like other countries, must "struggle" against the practice. But in this case, it is the government that is doing the recruitment. The struggle should begin at home, in N'djamena as well as in Paris.  Video here, from Minute 5:50.

   Inner City Press also asked what is being done for the over 90 child soldiers capture during the defeat of the Chad-backed Justice and Equality Movement rebel attack on Khartoum, just five kilometers outside the capital in Omdurman. UNICEF's Hilda Johnson answered, that 50 of the JEM-recruited child soldiers have been reunited with their parents, and that efforts are being made for the other 40, along with two civil society partners. Video here, from Minute 10:24.  Inner City Press asked, but what is being done about or against the recruiters? Rama Yade said that there was no time to answer, she had to go inside to the meeting, at which she hoped that the number of states signing on to the so-called principles of Paris would grow from 66 to 67.


Rade Yade at the UN stakeout, 40 JEM-recruited child soldiers not shown

  Does Chad agree and live up to the principles of Paris? It should, given France's military support when President Deby faced overthrow by rebels (who, to be fair, in all probability use child soldiers themselves). Also needing action is child soldier recruitment in Myanmar, and a more effective prosecution of, and perhaps Prosecutor for, the Thomas Lubanga child soldier recruitment case at the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

   Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo is in New York this week, lobbying about his request for an arrest warrant against Sudanese president Omar Al-Bashir. At the Security Council stakeout on Thursday, French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner loudly proclaimed that he had met with Ocampo, and the France supports international law.  Moreno Ocampo, on the other hand, admitted to an Inner City Press source that his meeting with Kouchner lasted no longer than 25 seconds. Such is the level of commitment, including to getting Deby's Chad to stop child soldier recruitment.

Watch this site, and this Sept. 18 (UN) debate.

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These reports are usually also available through Google News and on Lexis-Nexis.

Click here for a Reuters AlertNet piece by this correspondent about Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army. Click here for an earlier Reuters AlertNet piece about the Somali National Reconciliation Congress, and the UN's $200,000 contribution from an undefined trust fund.  Video Analysis here

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