March 15, 2000

 FORCED RECRUITMENT STEPPED UP, CHILD SOLDIERS IN EVIDENCE

Hundreds of youngsters, some as young as 14 years old, have been rounded up from western, eastern and southern Shoa, Wellega, Illubabor, etc., and taken to the Hurso and Dedesa military training camps. While the government claims that it has "enough manpower" to "defeat the EPLF" (Eritrea), it has instructed its officials and cadres in rural areas to send in to the camps a set number of recruits. This has evidently led to the ongoing forced recruitment that is being witnessed all over the country. Reports indicate that many youths from rural towns are fleeing to Addis Abeba to escape the ongoing press-ganging. Peasants who are in jail officially for not paying the debt they had incurred by buying fertilizers from the government itself have been told that if they join the army their debts will be cancelled. As the forced recruitment proceeds in earnest, reliable reports citing eye witness observation of the more than 100 trucks which recently left Addis Abeba for the frontlines filled with trained soldiers reveal that quite a few of the soldiers were actually child soldiers, from 14-15 years old. In this connection, other reports indicate also that the government is using the famine situation to force people to join the army. Hence, in Lalibela (Wello region), thousands of people affected by the famine have been told by the government cadres that they can receive adequate food if they send their young male boys to the army. SOCEPP once again vigorously condemns the government's practice of forced recruitment into the army and the fielding of child soldiers on the front lines.

SOCEPP