Teenage Maoist soldier recounts her horror

Forced to join Nepal´s Maoist guerrilla army at the age of 13, Manju Gurung told a Security Council meeting on protecting children in armed conflict Wednesday that she represented all youngsters who faced and survived the atrocities of war.

Now 18 years old, Manju spoke at an open council meeting considering a report by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon that urged the U.N.´s most powerful body to consider tough measures — including possible sanctions — against countries and insurgent groups that persist in recruiting child soldiers and continue violating international law on the rights and protection of children in armed conflicts.

At the end of the daylong meeting Wednesday, the council was set to approve a presidential statement expressing "its readiness to adopt targeted and graduated measures against persistent perpetrators."

The daughter of a poor rickshaw driver, Manju described how the Maoists came to her village in central Nepal in September 2005 and demanded that each family send one member to join a program the rebel group was conducting for seven days. That week stretched into two years during which Manju said she helped dig roads, survived 14-hour jungle walks, learned to fire an AK-47, and became a commander but was demoted to being a cook after she fainted and asked for medical treatment but was accused of faking to avoid work.

The meeting followed the council´s adoption last August of a resolution authorizing the naming and shaming of countries and insurgent groups engaged in conflicts that lead to children being killed, maimed and raped. The resolution, sponsored by Mexico, reaffirmed the council´s intention "to take action" against persistent violators.

Mexico currently holds the Security Council presidency and it chose to focus on the secretary-general´s report released last month, which for the first time included a list of violators that have been monitored for at least five years. These include Somalia´s transitional government, Congo´s armed forces, Myanmar´s army, and rebel groups in Congo, Myanmar, the Philippines, Colombia, Sudan and Uganda.

The report also named two parties that try to maim or kill children in conflict — Somalia´s government and al-Shabab Islamist militants trying to overthrow it. And for the first time it named seven parties that commit rape and sexual violence against youngsters — six in Congo and Uganda´s Lord´s Resistance Army, which is notorious for kidnapping children and using them as fighters and sex slaves.

"In the last two decades, more than two million children in armed conflict areas have died," Mexico´s Foreign Relations Secretary Patricia Espinosa said, "an additional six million have been handicapped, more than a quarter of a million have been exploited as child soldiers in various regions in the world, and thousands more have been victims of sexual exploitation, rape and prostitution."

Manju described how "sad and painful" her life with the Maoists was, how she went home briefly but was "terrified" by the rebel group´s threats and was recruited again. Six months later, she got to return to her village but she said she returned to the Maoists after about 10 days because "villagers treated me badly, bullied me and were talking behind my back."

In 2007, when Manju was finishing combat training, she said close friends told her it was always the youngest who were sent to the frontlines.

"Luckily, after I was trained and they were planning to send me to the next round of active fighting, the peace agreement was signed and I did not have to fight," she said.

Unlike many other young Maoist fighters who lost their lives, Manju returned home in May 2007, a "very happy" 15-year-old but also scared that the Maoist Party would take her again or that the Nepalese army "would kill me if they found out who I was."

Because of suspicions in her village, she was forced to move to a nearby city where she worked as a maid. But with the help of several human rights groups helping children affected by armed conflict, she is now home again, back in school and the president of a club that advocates for child rights and HIV issues.

"And I still dream of becoming a teacher," Manju told the council.

Radhika Coomaraswamy, the U.N. special representative for children in armed conflict, told the council the Maoists have released almost 3,000 children who were sent home, and there have also been some successes with groups in the Philippines and Sudan.

But she said the list of governments and groups that have used children in conflicts for at least five years is long, and "it is my duty to persuade this body to move forward on taking action against these violators."

Source: http://www.myrepublica.com/portal/index.php?action=news_details&news_id=19969