Report

Genocide in Darfur

For the past three years the people of Darfur have had to endure the harsh conditions that their very own government has created for them. These innocent civilians of this region of Sudan have been deserted by the world and chastised primarily based on their race. What once started as a conflict has now escalated into genocide against the African people in Darfur and with everyday that passes more men are being murdered, women are being raped, and many others are being forced from their homes and into refugee camps. This issue should not have had the opportunity to escalate into a violent genocide, it should have been controlled and handled by other countries that had the ability to help but not enough is being done to end it. Why; even after the Holocaust and the Genocide in Rwanda, is our country still allowing ethnic cleansing to occur in Sudan?
According to researchers there have been more than 400,000 deaths in Darfur and with everyday that passes 5,000 more people will be killed. There are millions that have been forced from their homes and displaced in refugee camps in neighboring Chad and there are millions more that are in need of aid. Fighting broke out in early 2003 between government forces and rebels of the Sudanese Liberation Army (SLA) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM). These two rebel groups believed that the Sudanese government wasn’t recognizing or providing for the Darfur region because majority of their people are non-Arab. Another militia group that became very involved as the conflict escalated was the Janjaweed, which in Arabic translates to “evil horsemen,” who have a goal to rid Sudan of all non-Arabs. The Janjaweed are financed and supported by the Sudanese government and are the people who are burning down villages, murdering, raping, and stripping these people of anything valuable. If some are lucky enough to not be killed by the Janjaweed they are either forced into neighboring Chad where they take shelter in refugee camps or are left with no food, water, or aid. Millions of people are dying from starvation and malnutrition because the Janjaweed destroy their crops and pilfer their livestock. Our government and many other nations are aware of how serious this genocide has become but for the past three years the people haven’t seen much compassion from the world and it’s important that all nations give effort and fight against this genocide.
Now is the time for governments all over the world to act and realize that this genocide against Africans can not continue. Agreements and ideas are constructed and applied but often times not enforced well enough to be successful. It wasn’t until April of 2003 that the United Nations planned to create camps outside of Darfur in Chad in order to provide a more safe shelter for these refugees to reside. The United Nations has been persistent in creating peace in Darfur but it’s been difficult to give many people aid because access into Darfur is forbidden. Since there were an increasing number of refugees in Chad the United Nations has concentrated more on aiding them then attacking the source of this problem. In 2004 as this problem was becoming more obvious organizations such as the World Food Program UN Children’s Fund, and UNICEF have sent money and food into Darfur, but it’s hard to decipher how much food is actually going to the people in need of it and not stolen by the militia. Although money is being thrown at the situation what the people of Darfur need is a peace deal that didn’t come until May 2006. In September of 2004 the Senior UN humanitarian officials organized meetings with the leaders of these rebel groups to discuss alternative methods in creating peace. Finally a peace agreement between the government and Sudan was signed on May 5th stating that the Sudanese government must disarm the Janjaweed by October of 2006. However deadlines weren’t met, restrictions were ignored by the Sudanese government, the Janjaweed still remain very active today, and the peace deal failed soon after it was signed. Not only should this issue be an obligation for other countries but it should be a priority to the United States as well.
On April 18, 2007 President Bush stated "Ending the violence in Darfur requires better security for the people of Darfur; it requires progress toward political reconciliation. … No one who sees these pictures can doubt that genocide is the only word for what is happening in Darfur -- and that we have a moral obligation to stop it. The United States is helping to lead this effort." If the Bush Administration is leading this effort they have been doing a far less than mediocre job and making very little progress. All that has been done is Congress passing the Darfur Peace and Accountability Act in 2006 that simply prohibited Visas for any Sudanese official that is believed to be responsible for the genocide. The United States need to stop waiting for another peace resolution that will just be broken and useless again and start taking action. A possible plan that has emerged from the United States that will help stop these killings is to block Port Sudan with our Navy that would disrupt trade of their oil. The Bush Administration did promise to take action in this situation and the people of Darfur just keep waiting. It’s not just our government that should it addressing this problem, its individuals in our very own country that need to be stepping up and contributing.
It is important that this issue gains a higher status and it can be done by getting schools, campuses, communities, and even just an individual involved in activities that are against this genocide. At high school and college campuses the organization Student Anti Genocide Coalition (STAND) is forming in order to get students involved and this organization is now present in over 600 schools. As and individual it is possible to write letters to the President regarding Darfur and your opinions or even sign a petition, no effort is too little. It is important to also remember the many people that are in need of food and aid and donations are always needed. As a group we can create a protest and make our voices heard to the people in our community and push them to realize the massacre that is occurring and the burden that is put upon the innocent civilians of Darfur.
The genocide in Rwanda wasn’t handled with and brought to an end until 900,0000 lives were taken, it would be a shame and inhumane to let such a disaster occur again when there are open opportunities to stop it. The Bush Administration is beginning to take more action but it should not have taken this long in the first place and each day more and more people are realizing how serious this genocide is becoming. More action should be taken by our schools, communities, and individuals in this country in hopes that someday soon Darfur and the Sudanese government will be at peace and genocide can be a thing of the past.

A New Sudan

This is a petition that demands justice and peace in Sudan and I also thought it would be appropriate it to post the link so whoever would like to sign it can!! PLEASE SIGN IT!!
http://www.darfurgenocide.org/newsudan.php

Email the President

I was wondering around online and found an organization with a link that lets you send a message to the President on Darfur and I put my name in and did it so I thought it would be useful to post in case anyone else would like to do it too.
http://act.darfurgenocide.org/dg/MessageActionReturn.cfm

Website

hstrial-kCampofelice.homestead.com
I began creating my own website that anyone can check out! Its a work in progress and there are alot of things still missing but I thought I would provide the URL if anyone was curious.

Youtube Video on what you can do to stop the Genocide in Darfur

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rGD6FhenyU

Decisions

I feel that lately all I have been doing is making decisions. Decisions about school, decisions about my sorority, and decisions about family. Since the beginning of Spring semester when I recieved my acceptance letter I have been trying so hard to decide whether or not to stay at St. John's or go back home and take classes at SUNY Buffalo. I have been driving myself insane making a "pros & cons" list and talking to my family and friends about what the best option is. Some of the "cons" of leaving St. John's were leaving my sorority and all the friends I made here and just getting an out of town experience for college. I can't imagine how much I would miss my sisters in my sorority and everything we have been through together, and I don't know how I am going to gather up enough courage to say goodbye to all 40 of them. But the good news is after months and months of debating this one question I have finally come to a decision and I've decided to leave St. John's and go to SUNY Buffalo. Although I love St. John's there are just too many reasons why choosing SUNY Buffalo is the best decision. At SUNY Buffalo I got accepted into their school of management and their M.B.A program which according to Forbes, is one of the Top 10 schools of business in the nation. I'm excited about starting somewhere new again and I would like to think of it as a new adventure and a new opportunity to meet new people but I am really really really going to miss St. John's.

First year of school

I can't believe that after our Easter break we have less than a month of school left and I couldn't be more excited. I don't know where the second semester of school went, but I feel that it flew by way too fast. The first semester of school was filled with getting to know new people and finding your niche so for me it went by very very very slow. But now that I have met and got to know all my good friends here I feel like I blinked and now its almost over! I'm beyond excited that soon all my classes and tests and deadlines will all be over and done with but I'm upset about not being able to see all my friends for about 4 months. Because I'm from Buffalo, which is way upstate I am barely going to see a lot of my friends here and I'm sure I'm going to be missing out on a lot of fun times. I have just been thinking a lot about how much fun my first year of college was and how excited I am for next year and the year after that and I decided to post it on my blog.

Q&A Darfur

What happened to the peace deal?
SLA leader Minni Minawi, who signed the May peace deal, was given a large budget, but his fighters have already been accused by Amnesty International of abuses against people in areas opposed to the peace deal.
The smaller SLA faction and Jem did not sign the deal.
The government again promised to disarm the Janjaweed but there appears no evidence of this.
The UN's Jan Egeland says that there has been a dramatic increase in violence and displacement since the deal was signed.
With the peace deal looking unworkable and amid fears of renewed "all-out war", there appears little prospect of people returning to their villages for some time yet.
Is anyone trying to stop the fighting?
About 7,000 African Union troops have slowly been deployed in Darfur on a very limited mandate.
Experts say the soldiers are too few to cover an area the size of France, and the African Union says it does not have the money to fund the operation for much longer.
Sudan has resisted strong western diplomatic pressure for the UN to take control of the peacekeeping mission. The latest plan envisages a more than doubling of numbers and a hybrid force with much greater UN involvement but at present there is deadlock.
In April 2006, the UN Security Council passed a resolution imposing sanctions against four Sudanese nationals accused of war crimes in Darfur that include two rebel leaders, a former air force chief, and a Janjaweed militia leader.
A dossier of evidence compiled by a UN commission has also been passed to the ICC in The Hague, along with the names of top war crimes suspects.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/3496731.stm

Quote

"Genocide is... both the gravest and greatest of the crimes against humanity."
Alain Destexhe

NewsPaper Article

(CBS) The United Nations has called it the greatest crisis in the world. The United States calls it genocide. It's happening in the African nation of Sudan, and 60 Minutes went to see for ourselves. What we saw and what you will see again tonight is evidence of a government-backed campaign to wipe out a race. There are at least 180,000 dead and more than 2 million on the run. It all started two years ago in a part of Sudan called Darfur, where rebels looking for a measure of freedom revolted against Sudan's authoritarian Islamic government. The government apparently decided to end the revolt by trying to wipe out all of the native Africans in Darfur, to clear the territory for Arabs. We should tell you that some of the evidence of the killing that we found is hard to watch. But, as we did last fall, we will start with the survivors. They are the innocent victims, pouring across the border of Sudan into Chad. Correspondent Scott Pelley reports.
60 Minutes traveled to the middle of Africa. There are refugee camps up and down the Chad-Sudan border. Some are larger; others smaller. One camp has about 19,000 refugees, but in the entire region, there are 189,000 refugees, and the United Nations is planning for another 100,000 on top of that. One camp is the farthest north, which means it’s in the driest part of the Sahara. Walking around it, you are struck by one thing. If this is better than where they came from, imagine what they are fleeing. Pelley visits one of the villages burning in Sudan. The Sudanese government has unleashed African Arabs, called the Janjaweed, to wipe out tribal blacks. The name "Sudan," ironically, is Arabic, meaning "land of the blacks." But the Janjaweed is rewriting that history in blood. Janjaweed, by the way, has a translation, too. It means "evil on horseback." John Prendergast, who was director of African Affairs at the National Security Council for the Clinton White House, says that these tribal blacks have "been subjected to one of the most brutal campaigns of ethnic cleansing that Africa has ever seen." Prendergast is now with the International Crisis Group, a human rights organization documenting the disaster in Sudan and neighboring Chad. "A government-made hurricane hit Darfur ... using these Janjaweed militias," Prendergast says. "And the human debris has washed up on the shores of Chad." The refugees are from Sudan’s western province, Darfur, which is about the size of Texas. Prendergast says the survivors lucky — many of them were chased across the desert border into Chad by the Janjaweed. "The Janjaweed are like a grotesque mixture of the mafia and the Ku Klux Klan," says Prendergast. "These guys have a racist ideology that sees the Arab population as the supreme population that would like to see the subjugation of non-Arab peoples. They’re criminal racketeers that have been supported very directly by the government to wage the war against the people of Darfur." Survivors say the attacks usually start at dawn, with bombs falling from planes of the Sudanese Air Force. "And then here come the Janjaweed on camel or on horseback," Prendergast says. "They come rolling into the town, shooting and torching the village, often bringing women to the side and raping women indiscriminately. And in order to ensure that the destruction is complete, the government either sends ground forces to oversee the operation, or the attack helicopters, which often are the most deadly things." "They arrived on horseback, killed my husband and took my son," says Toona, who still didn't know what happened to her son eight months later. She left Sudan with five surviving children after the Janjaweed burned her village. "They never gave me a chance to talk to my child," Toona says. "Some of them dragged my son away, others slaughtered my husband, and some others took me to the side, and tortured me and left me there. My newborn was snatched off my back, and was left lying on the ground. I found him in that situation when they let me go."
Zara lost eight members of her family. "They attacked us very early in the morning, some militiamen on horseback and camels and some soldiers in military vehicles. There was an airplane above," she says. "They burned the village, they killed some people, they slashed their throats and captured others." Zara's husband was killed, along with two of her children, two sisters and three of her brothers. To reach Chad, Zara walked 10 days carrying a 1-year-old boy, now her only child. They found refuge in the sprawling camps that are an emergency response by the International Rescue Committee and the United Nations. They are holding the desert back with nothing more than tarps and trucks. Tents that go up white are soon painted by the Sahara. Food comes from hundreds of miles away. Water flows in, one tanker at a time. 60 Minutes found a 4-month-old refugee and orphan in a shelter for severely malnourished children. His mother died in childbirth. His father was murdered in Sudan. All he has is a grandmother and five brothers. His grandmother pours formula past his lips all day to wash away the hunger that nearly killed him. Many of the children bear the look of the hunted and the haunted. They are people holding on in the midst of a genocide that aims to exterminate them. One of the things you notice is just how many kids there are. Because most of the men are missing or dead, 90 percent of the refugees are women and children. "These guys have been through hell and back," says Prendergast. "And it’s just amazing. Look at the smiles and the resilience ... The Zagawa people: these are the people that ... are legendary within Sudan for their survival skill." One woman told Pelley she carried her 1-year-old child for 12 days just to get to a camp. "These are the survivors. For many of those people, that was a death march," says Prendergast. "I mean, there were people they had to bury along the way. "These are the lucky ones," he continues. "That tells you something about what’s going on in Sudan today, if these are the lucky ones." The refugees are telling their stories to another American, Samantha Power. She has investigated ethnic cleansing in Sudan, Rwanda and Kosovo. In 2003, she won a Pulitzer Prize for her book "A Problem From Hell: America and the Age of Genocide." What is the evidence that this is ethnic cleansing, or genocide? "When the Janjaweed come in, and there is interaction between the Janjaweed and the local people, the Janjaweed are shouting ethnic slogans. They are saying, 'You blacks, you Zurga,' sort of like an equivalent of 'nigger.' 'Get out. You’re slaves. You’re hyena. Never come back,'" says Power. "When rape is committed, often the same epithets are issued. 'You’re gonna give birth to a light-skinned child now.' They see their task, those who are racially motivated, as one of purification." The death march of that "purification" runs through among the hottest, driest territory on Earth. Last summer, Power and Prendergast crossed the desert with 60 Minutes into Darfur. We saw just how difficult a journey that can be. When it's dry, the sand gives way like water. When the rains come, riverbeds called Wadis fill with immoveable mud. A lot of people are coming down through this way, and a lot of people don’t make it this far. "There are untold numbers of Darfurians who are stuck," Power says. "We encountered some of them as we drove eastward, and they said, 'If we had the means, we would get to Chad. We’re too sick. We’re too old. Please tell people to send help.'" About 500 of those people used to live in the village of Hengala. But in January 2004, everything that could burn there did. Men, women and children were driven out, dead or alive, by the Janjaweed. Sudan’s military government is telling the world that it has reined in the Janjaweed. But outside a town called Fariwiya, 60 Minutes found bodies of evidence that suggest otherwise. In July 2004, anti-government rebels showed what they say is proof of continuing mass murder. "The first thing that greeted us was decomposing flesh. And then, as we walked further up the hill, we saw, almost blending into the sand, the bodies of men who appeared to have been executed," says Power. "Most of the bullet holes seemed to have entered from the back of the head or the back itself. But the thing that I found the most haunting was that one of them had clearly made a run for it. And he almost looked like he was pleading for mercy." And the living are still pleading. In a landscape dominated by desolation, 60 Minutes found refugees still on the journey to the camps. A tree is home for 14-year-old Nasir and 16-year-old Mohammad. They crossed into Chad the night before. They told 60 Minutes that their father, uncles, and brothers were killed, and their mother is missing. They had been in hiding and walking for eight months, living on rainwater and whatever else they could find in the foothills. The shade of the noor tree was their last stop before the refugee camp. With survivors swelling the camps, the threat of cholera or hepatitis rises with each new refugee. Infants are at most risk if disease begins to finish off what the government of Sudan and Janjaweed have started. So, Pelley posits, a million people could die by natural causes when the cause isn’t natural at all. "Exactly," Power says. "This won’t look like Rwanda. If a million people die in Darfur, we’ll all sigh and say, 'Isn’t it a shame we couldn’t get medicine to those poor, sick, Darfurians?' As if they were poor and sick to begin with. "Fifty thousand people have died so far. That’s 50,000 too many. But when we know there are between a million and two million who can yet be saved, what is our excuse for watching this happen in slow motion?" The African Union now has monitors in Darfur, trying to police an area the size of Texas. Meanwhile, the World Health Organization estimates another 7,000 people die every month in Darfur.

What does education mean to you?

I feel that there is a huge difference between the education I recieved when I was in elementary to highschool than where I am now in college. Before college education was kind of a joke and I can honestly say I learned very little. The only thing that was pounded into your brain was how to behave and how to respect your teachers and other students. During that time you didn't have to depend on yourself for anything because your teachers and family would do things for you and carry you along the way. There was always extra credit and teachers were more than willing to help you after class. I feel like education in higschool was just cramming as much information in our brains as possible and then judge our intelligence with one standardized test at the end of the year. There were never any discussions and nothing was ever explained, and most of the teachers just read from the books. Everything you learned you would be tested on once and all that material would never be used again so you would forget about it as soon as the test was over. Im so glad to be in college now because I feel like what I'm being taught is actually being processed through my brain and I'm taking classes that I will actually benefit from in the future. Don't get me wrong not all of my teachers in highschool were horrible there were a couple of really good teachers but in college most of my professors are really experienced in the field they are teaching so they are really informed on the subject. The education I recieve now requires a lot of independent study which gets me a lot more involved in what I'm learning and I become more and more engaged with what I'm learning.

Children are meant to have fun... not carry a gun!

Katie Campofelice
Child soldiers

The use of children as soldiers is seen as appalling and in today’s society it is completely unacceptable, yet all over the world hundreds of thousands of children are being forced to carry weapons and fight in combat. I find it absolutely embarrassing to our society that these children are constantly enduring brutal conditions and dealing with both the physical and psychological effects that consequently follow. As this problem begins to grow so does its awareness and people’s efforts to end it, but why is the use of child soldiers still so prevalent in today’s society?
The use of children as soldiers is an intolerable problem and is prominent in places all over the world such as Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East but it has become most crucial in Africa where it is estimated that more than 200,000 children are being forced to join these armed militia groups. These armed militia groups move into communities and pick and choose children like cattle. A 15 year old boy P.K who was abducted in Liberia in 2002 recounts “Government soldiers came and forced me and my father to join them. My father refused so they cut his throat. They beat me and tied me and forced me to join the fighters”. (Amnesty) The estimated number of children soldiers is approximately 300,000 but some argue that it is in fact much greater because it is extremely difficult to collect this type of data. Impoverished and underdeveloped countries like Sierra Leone, Rwanda, Liberia and many more are using children as young as five years old to carry out acts of violence. All together there are children actively involved in combat in more than 85 nations all over the world. These children are ripped away from their families at a young age and are raised in these sadistic environments. While some children are kidnapped or forced to become part of these groups, many children join voluntarily because there is little to no other opportunity for a better life and because of the social, political or economic pressures surrounding them.
In many areas these children soldiers undergo brutal conditions and endure a great deal of pain and suffering. In numerous cases children receive very little food, suffer from beatings and sexual abuse, and are forced into using illicit drugs. In Africa these government armed forces, paramilitaries, and civil militia feed these young children drugs in order to condition them into believing that the acts they are committing against their own people and community are acceptable. Boys in captivity are forced to ransack and burn villages and torture and even kill their own neighbors. At age 15 Albert was he was recruited by an armed opposition group in the Democratic Republic of Congo recounts “They would give us ‘chanvre’ [cannabis] and force us to kill people to toughen us up. Sometimes they brought us women and girls to rape…They would beat us if we refused.” (Amnesty) Both boys and girls participate in combat and some are even used for sexual purposes, messengers, spies, servants or to lay or clear landmines for the older soldiers. Although life for a boy soldier is ruthless, young girls are also treated inhumanely by having to deal with rape and they are often forced into sexual slavery or are used as “comforters” for the male soldiers. The discrimination brought upon young girls in astonishing and these male soldiers rather refer to them as sexual possessions rather than human beings. Many armed forces believe children soldiers are very vital to their societies because they are seen as cheap and expendable and are very obedient to authority. In addition they feel that these young, impressionable children can be turned into the fiercest fighters through brutal instruction and training. Involving children as soldiers has been made easier by the production of inexpensive light weapons.
The goal of these forces and groups is to inhibit fear and guilt into the minds of these children, which later leads to many psychological and physical problems later on in their lives. The involvement of children in war desensitizes them to suffering and emotions, and in some cases children are deliberately exposed to horrific scenes in order to “harden” their psyche. (Child Soldier) The most severe consequence of having children serve as soldiers is on their moral and psychological development because their moral system is being dominated by fear and violence. After the war has ended it becomes almost impossible for these children to be a functioning member of society when their entire experience of that society is organized around fear and violence. These children also suffer physical injuries like loss of hearing, loss of sight, and loss of limbs. Most children lose limbs because the leaders of these forces cut off limbs as a form of punishment for being disobedient.
The first international regulation dealing with the issue of children in armed conflict was the 1977 Additional Protocols to the Geneva conventions which established a minimum age for recruitment. The world finally reacted to this issue and in 1989 The UN Declaration of the Rights of Child was adopted. To date, a basic agreement among states seems to have been reached on raising to 18 the minimum age for participation in hostilities, for compulsory recruitment into government armed forces, and for any kind of recruitment into nongovernmental armed groups. Although laws have been passed it is a very difficult task to end this trend completely because most of the children are being kidnapped by armed forces that have no connections to the government. Charity organizations also exist that are working to prevent the recruitment and use of children such as the Child Soldiers Coalition Trust and The Child Soldiers Project.
A child should ever have to witness the violence that these children endure everyday, and no child should be forced to murder and rape innocent people, it is disturbing to even think about. But everyday more and more children are being rescued from these armed forces and put back into society

1. Amnesty International, http://web.amnesty.org/pages/childsoldiers-index-eng
2. Child Soldiers, http://www.childsoldiers.org/home/
3. Tooshi, Nahal, A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier.

"I would like to give you a message. Please do your best to tell the world what is happening to us, the children. So that other children don't have to pass through this violence."
A 15-year-old girl who escaped from the Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda

Albert was 15 when he was recruited by an armed opposition group in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). “[T]hey would give us ‘chanvre’ [cannabis] and force us to kill people to toughen us up. Sometimes they brought us women and girls to rape…They would beat us if we refused”.

A 15 year old boy P.K who was abducted in Liberia in 2002 said “Government soldiers came and forced me and my father to join them. My father refused so they cut his throat. They beat me and tied me and forced me to join the fighters”.

My Findings

I have been doing more and more research on my topic and although its been very depressing and disturbing my topic is something I've become a little obsessed with. I found myself thinking about it today in my class and wondering "How many children were kidnapped from their families today in Africa?" Its wierd, I know, but I recently just started reading this biography A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmal Beah, and it's almost impossible for me to put down. I've also been online going on the websites of certain charity organizations that post the stories of some of the children that were lucky enough to make it out alive. Stories about soldiers forcing the younger boys to rape and murder women in order to make them stronger just made me sick to my stomach, and it made me realize how sheltered my life is and how ignorant people are to this issue. The more and more I learn about this topic the more and more I appreciate the place I was born into to. Another issue is my disappointment in the actions of other countries that are watching this occur and have yet to do something to end it. After almost nothing was done about the Genocide in Rwanda and the many children that were used in battle most would think that when a second Genocide occurs this time in Darfur people would realize that hundreds of thousands of children are holding guns and being forced to murder innocent people. I have also researched the organizations that are trying to end this disgusting trend but it's very difficult to control these armed forces in foreign nations.

Report

The use of children as soldiers is seen as appalling and in today’s society it is completely unacceptable, yet all over the world hundreds of thousands of children are being forced to carry weapons and fight in combat. These children are constantly enduring brutal conditions and dealing with both the physical and psychological effects that consequently follow. As this problem begins to grow so does its awareness and people’s efforts to end it.
The use of children as soldiers is an intolerable problem and is prominent in places all over the world such as Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East but it has become most crucial in Africa where it is estimated that more than 200,000 children are being forced to join these armed militia groups. These armed militia groups move into communities and pick and choose children like cattle. A 15 year old boy P.K who was abducted in Liberia in 2002 said “Government soldiers came and forced me and my father to join them. My father refused so they cut his throat. They beat me and tied me and forced me to join the fighters”. The estimated number of children soldiers is approximately 300,000 but some argue that it is in fact much greater because it is extremely difficult to collect this type of data. Impoverished and underdeveloped countries like Sierra Leone, Rwanda, Liberia and many more are using children as young as five years old to carry out acts of violence. All together there are children actively involved in combat in more than 85 nations all over the world. These children are ripped away from their families at a young age and are raised in these sadistic environments. While some children are kidnapped or forced to become part of these groups, many children join voluntarily because there is little to no other opportunity for a better life and because of the social, political or economic pressures surrounding them.
In many areas these children soldiers undergo brutal conditions and endure a great deal of pain and suffering. In numerous cases children receive very little food, suffer from beatings and sexual abuse, and are forced into using illicit drugs. In Africa these government armed forces, paramilitaries, and civil militia feed these young children drugs in order to condition them into believing that the acts they are committing against their own people and community are acceptable. Boys in captivity are forced to ransack and burn villages and torture and even kill their own neighbors. At age 15 Albert was he was recruited by an armed opposition group in the Democratic Republic of Congo. “They would give us ‘chanvre’ [cannabis] and force us to kill people to toughen us up. Sometimes they brought us women and girls to rape…They would beat us if we refused.” Both boys and girls participate in combat and some are even used for sexual purposes, messengers, spies, servants or to lay or clear landmines for the older soldiers. Although life for a boy soldier is ruthless, young girls are also treated inhumanely by having to deal with rape and they are often forced into sexual slavery or are used as “comforters” for the male soldiers. The discrimination brought upon young girls in astonishing and these male soldiers rather refer to them as sexual possessions rather than human beings. Many armed forces believe children soldiers are very vital to their societies because they are seen as cheap and expendable and are very obedient to authority. Because children were seen as “expendable” they were forced to In addition they feel that these young, impressionable children can be turned into the fiercest fighters through brutal instruction and training. Involving children as soldiers has been made easier by the production of inexpensive light weapons.
The goal of these forces and groups is to inhibit fear and guilt into the minds of these children, which later leads to many psychological and physical problems later on in their lives. The involvement of children in war desensitizes them to suffering and emotions, and in some cases children are deliberately exposed to horrific scenes in order to “harden” their psyche. The most severe consequence of having children serve as soldiers is on their moral and psychological development because their moral system is being dominated by fear and violence. After the war has ended it becomes almost impossible for these children to be a functioning member of society when their entire experience of that society is organized around fear and violence. These children also suffer physical injuries like loss of hearing, loss of sight, and loss of limbs. Most children lose limbs because the leaders of these forces cut off limbs as a form of punishment for being disobedient.
The first international regulation dealing with the issue of children in armed conflict was the 1977 Additional Protocols to the Geneva conventions which established a minimum age for recruitment. The world finally reacted to this issue and in 1989 The UN Declaration of the Rights of Child was adopted. To date, a basic agreement among states seems to have been reached on raising to 18 the minimum age for participation in hostilities, for compulsory recruitment into government armed forces, and for any kind of recruitment into nongovernmental armed groups. Although laws have been passed it is a very difficult task to end this trend completely because most of the children are being kidnapped by armed forces that have no connections to the government. Charity organizations also exist that are working to prevent the recruitment and use of children such as the Child Soldiers Coalition Trust and The Child Soldiers Project.
A child should ever have to witness the violence that these children endure everyday, and no child should be forced to murder and rape innocent people, it is disturbing to even think about. But everyday more and more children are being rescued from these armed forces and put back into society

Research Plan part 2

Im having second thoughts about what I want my topic to be for my research paper. I've been curious and looking online and in newspapers and I really think I want to research some type of social issue occuring right now. I was actually reading about the Genocide in Darfur but I feel that I won't have enough sources to construct a good enough paper. I don't read the newspaper very often but I'm interested in learning more about current events and what is happening around the world. While researching about th genocide in Darfur I also came across the topic of children soldiers in Africa. I feel like researching a social issue would be more beneficial then researching something about myself but I feel like it would be hard to find a person that would know enough about this subject to interview or conduct a survey that would be useful to me. I missed class last thursday and I just checked the discussion board today so I'm pressed for time because tomorrow is Tuesday and I need to figure out what it is I want my topic to be but I'm flustered.

SNOW

I am so happy that it has finally snowed and this time its actually sticking! I am from Buffalo, which is very upstate and it does nothing but snow there, so I was so excited to see that we got more than just a inch of snow. Back at home in Buffalo my younger brothers recieved 8 snowdays already and the snow just keeps coming. They have over 4 ft of snow and I am jealous beyond belief. Snow is the most beautiful sight in the world and there isnt nothing I love more than waking up and seeing everything covered in a blanket of white when I look out my window. I really wish it snowed more HERE!!

My research plan

It really doesnt matter to me what topic I write about, I really enjoy writing about pretty much anything. However I am more curious is writing about something having to do with researching myself or my background. The journal entry where we had to find out where our name came from really interested me. I don't want to do a reasearch project on my name though I would rather do something about my heritage or about the town I grew up in. One of those topics could very well be the starting point for my reasearch project.

Lambda Phi

During highschool the one thing I was positive I would never do is join a sorority. In highschool I had this image in my head that sorority girls were flakey and spent all their time partying with fraternity brothers. At my freshman orientation for St. John's University I was introduced to a group of girls that were part of Lambda Phi and right away I knew my image of sorority girls had been so wrong. When school started I decided to pledge and through pledging I met some of my best friends and I became a part of a bond more sacred then I could of ever imagined. My sorority, Lambda Phi has become so much more than just my friends, they have become my support system and my family when Im away from home. Whether its needing help in a class, someone to go out with, or a shoulder to cry on I know I can rely on my sisters to stick by my side if I were to ever need anything. I love how each sister is unique in their own way and everyone has something different to offer. Of course my sorority has parties from time to time but we also very active in other activites at St. John's. My sisters and I are very dedicated to performing community service and raising money for our charity Maury's Camp. We also are very involved when it comes to our academics and keeping our Sorority GPA above a 3.5. Deciding to pledge for Lambda Phi was one of the best decisions I've ever made because it's something I'll be apart of for the rest of my life.

Did any of your former schools have a writing center?

The high school that I went to had a writing center but like it was said in "vision quest" it was "located in the dustiest, gloomiest corners" of my school. The writing center at my highschool was so hidden that I didn't even discover it until my senior year. The writing center that was in my high school is nothing like the one here at St. Johns. Instead of having qualified consultants to help me write my paper I had teachers on their lunch breaks and students who were in AP English classes that just corrected my grammar mistakes. I am really impressed by the writing center here at St. Johns and all the money and effort they put into creating it.

When writing school assignments, where do you prefer to do your work?

When it comes to writing a school assignment I could never just have one spot where I feel at my best ability to write. Where I sit down to work on my writing depends on what type of topic I'm writing about. If it is a formal writing like a research paper I prefer to work in a library or a more formal setting. If I have to write a paper that focuses on facts and analyzing articles being in a library or a place with little distraction makes it easier for me to stay focused. Its easier for me to write a more serious and proficient paper when Im working in a more formal atmosphere. When it comes to sitting down and working on a more informal type of writing I prefer to work in a more comfortable atmosphere. If I have to write about a more personal topic that requires a lot of my own thoughts and opinions I really like to be in my own room on my bed. It is easier for me to write about a more personal topic in my room because my room is a place where I feel relaxed and where I can be more creative. If I want to be able to write to the best of my ability I need to be able to write in a place that will inspire me to write about what ever topic I am given.

My name is Kathryn Campofelice. My first name, Kathryn was given to me by my mother. My mother actually named me after the character Kathryn Scarlett O'Hara in the movie "Gone With the Wind" which was her favorite movie and book of all time. It took a while for her to decide between the two names Kathryn and Scarlett. She chose Kathryn because she loved the name Katie and she was 100% Irish and my very Italian father gave my other three siblings very Italian names so she wanted her heritage to be shown somewhere in our family. When my great great grandfather Francis Ochello immigrated to America from Sicily he forgot to bring his birth certificate with him so they wrote down the name of the town he was from del' Campofelice as his last name. Though Campofelice wasnt his real last name it stuck and carried down the line to my father today. So my last name actually comes from the town that my ancestors are from. Katie is short for Kathryn which is of Greek origin. Kathryn comes from the word katharos which means pure and signifies chasity and innocence. My last name Campofelice in Italian means happy field.

GREETINGS!!

My name is Katie Campofelice and I'm a student at St. John's University in Queens, NY. I'm setting up this blog for my English class this semester.