US Gives Military Aid to Human Rights Abusers

Your tax dollars at work: A child soldier in D.R. Congo, armed and trained with the help of Uncle Sam

From Inter Press Service:

Washington is providing military aid to six of the countries cited in the U.S. State Department's latest series of human rights reports for recruiting and using child soldiers. They are Afghanistan, Chad, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sri Lanka, Sudan and Uganda.

A new study by the Washington-based Centre for Defence Information (CDI) charges that, while child soldiers are often recruited and deployed by rebel groups over which the government has little control, in other cases the recruitment is being carried out by directly by governments and government-supported paramilitaries.

For example, the CDI reports that in Chad, government security forces recruited and retained child soldiers and compelled forced labour by adults and children. It says that human rights abuses included killings and use of child soldiers, adding that government and other armed groups continued to use child soldiers.

In the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the CDI reports that government military units and armed groups continued to recruit and maintain child soldiers in their ranks. It notes that military authorities took no action against commanders who employed child soldiers, and says that while the government reached agreements with militias for the demobilisation of child soldiers, the groups did not generally respect the agreements.

Nice to see that the Bush administration is still committed to spreading democracy and human rights across the globe.

(via appletree) (cross posted at Liberal Avenger)