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CNN Live Sunday
Liberia's Legacy; Children Trained To Kill
Aired August 31, 2003 - 18:35 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANDREA KOPPEL, CNN ANCHOR: Now, to Liberia where peace between rebels and the country's new government is slowly taking shape but, in its wake, child soldiers trained by both sides to kill.
As our Jeff Koinange explains, one of the war's legacies is its impact on Liberia's children who said goodbye to their innocence a long time ago.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JEFF KOINANGE, CNN AFRICAN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): They are the forgotten faces of Africa's endemic civil wars, child soldiers. They are easy to recruit, easy to train, and many end up as lean, mean, killing machines.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I kill a lot of enemies.
KOINANGE (voice-over): He calls himself General Come Down to my Level.
KOINANGE: Why do they call you that?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, because when I see my enemy they always come down to my level. I make sure they come down to my level.
KOINANGE: Other kids have equally colorful names. This one calls himself Colonel Bad Blood. He's only 14 years old. This is 13- year-old Captain Bush Shaking, while this is 11-year-old Lieutenant Snake in the Grass and this little lady is 12-year-old Sergeant Theresa Bomb (ph). The more flamboyant the name, it seems, the more respect they feel they'll get.
They are just a very few of the many child soldiers who fought for the army of former Liberian President Charles Taylor's. The rebel groups have their own vanguard of teenage worries. On close scrutiny, there's not much difference between the two.
(on camera): Nobody really knows how many child soldiers have fought in this Liberian conflict, thousands, maybe even tens of thousands, but what's evident is that most of these young men and women have known nothing but war, rape, pillage, and plunder for most of their lives.
(voice-over): Time after time, child soldiers are usually the ones sent to the front lines perhaps because they are more malleable, less aware of the danger, but the ones who survive risk being scarred for life. To Liberia's defense minister this goes to the heart of the country's predicament.
DANIEL CHEA, LIBERIAN DEFENSE MINISTER: Unless we demilitarize the brains of our people the peace that we are looking for is going to be short lived.
KOINANGE: When they're not busy fighting these teens are busy doing what any normal teens would be doing, dancing, laughing, growing up. Most, though, would rather be elsewhere.
First they need to rebuild many of those schools. It will take much longer to rebuild the lives of these teenage killers and longer still to rebuild the shattered psyche of a nation.
Jeff Koinange CNN, Monrovia, Liberia.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KOPPEL: And, Liberia isn't alone. It is an endemic according to human rights groups that goes across the African continent.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired August 31, 2003 - 18:35 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANDREA KOPPEL, CNN ANCHOR: Now, to Liberia where peace between rebels and the country's new government is slowly taking shape but, in its wake, child soldiers trained by both sides to kill.
As our Jeff Koinange explains, one of the war's legacies is its impact on Liberia's children who said goodbye to their innocence a long time ago.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JEFF KOINANGE, CNN AFRICAN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): They are the forgotten faces of Africa's endemic civil wars, child soldiers. They are easy to recruit, easy to train, and many end up as lean, mean, killing machines.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I kill a lot of enemies.
KOINANGE (voice-over): He calls himself General Come Down to my Level.
KOINANGE: Why do they call you that?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, because when I see my enemy they always come down to my level. I make sure they come down to my level.
KOINANGE: Other kids have equally colorful names. This one calls himself Colonel Bad Blood. He's only 14 years old. This is 13- year-old Captain Bush Shaking, while this is 11-year-old Lieutenant Snake in the Grass and this little lady is 12-year-old Sergeant Theresa Bomb (ph). The more flamboyant the name, it seems, the more respect they feel they'll get.
They are just a very few of the many child soldiers who fought for the army of former Liberian President Charles Taylor's. The rebel groups have their own vanguard of teenage worries. On close scrutiny, there's not much difference between the two.
(on camera): Nobody really knows how many child soldiers have fought in this Liberian conflict, thousands, maybe even tens of thousands, but what's evident is that most of these young men and women have known nothing but war, rape, pillage, and plunder for most of their lives.
(voice-over): Time after time, child soldiers are usually the ones sent to the front lines perhaps because they are more malleable, less aware of the danger, but the ones who survive risk being scarred for life. To Liberia's defense minister this goes to the heart of the country's predicament.
DANIEL CHEA, LIBERIAN DEFENSE MINISTER: Unless we demilitarize the brains of our people the peace that we are looking for is going to be short lived.
KOINANGE: When they're not busy fighting these teens are busy doing what any normal teens would be doing, dancing, laughing, growing up. Most, though, would rather be elsewhere.
First they need to rebuild many of those schools. It will take much longer to rebuild the lives of these teenage killers and longer still to rebuild the shattered psyche of a nation.
Jeff Koinange CNN, Monrovia, Liberia.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KOPPEL: And, Liberia isn't alone. It is an endemic according to human rights groups that goes across the African continent.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
