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Colombia

As part of their training, children recruited by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC-EP) and paramilitary forces in Colombia have been asked to kill captured enemy soldiers as well as other child recruits, including friends, to prove their loyalty.  Bernardo, who joined paramilitaries as a seven-year-old street child, told Human Rights Watch,

They give you a gun and you have to kill the best friend you have. They do it to see if they can trust you. If you don't kill him, your friend will be ordered to kill you. I had to do it because otherwise I would have been killed.

Seventeen-year-old Adolfo, also recruited by paramilitaries, described his initiation:

I was really scared at first. The first test they give you is to kill a man, a guerrilla. Bring me so and so, they say, so that he can learn. And they bring you and tell you to kill the man. If you don't kill him, they will kill you. They used to bring guerrillas captured in Caquetá to the camp, and tie them up by the hands and legs and a man would come up with a chainsaw, and slice them piece by piece. Everybody could watch. I must have seen it ten times. It's part of the training.

Fellow combatants who desert or are accused of infractions are treated harshly. Child recruits are expected to watch and often to participate in such punishments.  Mauricio had been in the FARC-EP for four years and had won a command without killing anybody. Then he was sent to find and bring back a deserter who had been spotted in town by the militia:

We went to his house and picked up him, then brought him back to the camp. There, they held a war council. He had a defender, but everyone knew what the verdict was going to be. It was automatic. There was no real possibility that he would escape shooting. His crimes were “theft from the movement and desertion,” the most serious crimes of all. In the war council, no one voted to save him. After the council, we went and dug his grave. Then we brought him to the side of the grave. He closed his eyes, and I shot him in the head. I had never executed anyone before, but this time I had to do it. If you don't do it, they'll kill you.

Children recruited by paramilitary and guerilla groups are trained to treat their enemy’s fighters and sympathizers without mercy.  As a result children witness and participate in grave violations of human rights including torture and killings.  Commanders often use these instances to initiate and implicate children in violence.  Many child soldiers expressed fear of being executed if they did not comply with orders.

At 13, Laidy, recruited by paramilitary forces, shot a policeman in the head. “I felt happy afterwards. I wanted to please the commanders. Because if you say no, they'll kill you.”

Separated from their families and believing they will never be released or escape, many child recruits believe they have no choice but to prove their loyalty to their commanders and fellow combatants by participating in killings and other grave abuses.

See: “You’ll Learn Not To Cry”: Child Combatants in Colombia, September 2003, http://hrw.org/reports/2003/colombia0903/

April 2008

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