Free Republic

Young, idealistic filmmakers want to bring plight of 'Invisible Children' of Uganda to world's attention Jacob, an African boy, looks into the camera and lets go with great, chest-heaving sobs. He cries until both he and the viewer hurt. Then he cries some more. Surely at some point the camera will look away. But it never does. When night falls, Jacob runs and hides with thousands of other youngsters in basements and back alleys of towns in Northern Uganda. They flee a rebel army composed largely of children like them who were beaten and brainwashed into fighting in a pointless,...

The Iraqi rebels show me their latest victim: a German in a pool of blood By Lee Gordon (Filed: 11/04/2004) A young Iraqi mujahideen fighter poses in triumph by the smouldering wreck, his face obscured by a red and white kaffiyeh scarf, his high-powered sniper's rifle ready for action. It is only minutes since a white Japanese 4x4 vehicle was forced off the road and its two occupants, both German, killed in a firefight and their bodies dragged from the vehicle when it burst into flames. Now, a mile away, I have been brought to the scene of their deaths...

Sudan's child soldiers lay down arms (Filed: 31/01/2004) The prospects of ending Africa's longest conflict appear better than ever. Adrian Blomfield reports from war-ravaged Tam About 100 children, some as young as 10, lope two abreast towards a parade ground, the harsh Sudanese sun glinting on their rifles. They break into a trot, wheeling precisely before coming to a halt. A man in civilian clothes steps forward and tells the children of 2 Brigade that their war is over. "There were problems in this area. That is why you were taken, all of you, including the girls," says Paul Pouk...

An estimated 11,000 Colombian children are celebrating Christmas among the country's guerrilla forces, says a report by Human Rights Watch. Girls and boys as young as 12 are forced to conduct executions, engage in combat operations, assemble anti-personnel mines or become concubines of middle-aged commanders in what is one of the most tragic side dramas of South America's longest-running civil conflict. The two-year study based on interviews with more than 100 minors who have surrendered to authorities or been captured by Colombia's security services concludes that one out of every four guerrilla fighters is under the age of 18. Despite...

An army of child tyrants is terrorising nothern Uganda FIRST the rebels tied Geofrey Obita’s hands behind his back so tightly that he could barely move his fingers. Then, telling the 16-year-old schoolboy not to scream, they sliced off his ears. Then they pushed him down to the ground and cut off what they could of his lips. “They were all over me, stamping, pushing, cutting. I could not move, I could barely breathe,” he told The Times in a barely audible whisper from his hospital bed in the small impoverished northern Ugandan town of Kitgum. Yet the child soldiers...

Although U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan's new report to the Security Council condemning nations and movements that recruit child soldiers identifies 23 different offending parties -- from Afghanistan to Burundi, from Colombia to Nepal, and from the Philippines to Sudan – one entity particularly known for massive recruitment of child warriors is conspicuously absent: the Palestinians. The report was released yesterday with great fanfare.