Exclusive – State Dept. revolt: Tillerson accused of violating U.S. law on child soldiers

Exclusive - State Dept. revolt: Tillerson accused of violating U.S. law on child soldiers

By Jason Szep and Matt Spetalnick

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A group of about a dozen U.S. State Department officials have taken the unusual step of formally accusing Secretary of State Rex Tillerson of violating a federal law designed to stop foreign militaries from enlisting child soldiers, according to internal government documents reviewed by Reuters.

A confidential State Department “dissent” memo not previously reported said Tillerson breached the Child Soldiers Prevention Act when he decided in June to exclude Iraq, Myanmar, and Afghanistan from a U.S. list of offenders in the use of child soldiers. This was despite the department publicly acknowledging that children were being conscripted in those countries.[http://tmsnrt.rs/2jJ7pav]

Keeping the countries off the annual list makes it easier to provide them with U.S. military assistance. Iraq and Afghanistan are close allies in the fight against Islamist militants, while Myanmar is an emerging ally to offset China’s influence in Southeast Asia.

Documents reviewed by Reuters also show Tillerson’s decision was at odds with a unanimous recommendation by the heads of the State Department’s regional bureaus overseeing embassies in the Middle East and Asia, the U.S. envoy on Afghanistan and Pakistan, the department’s human rights office and its own in-house lawyers. [http://tmsnrt.rs/2Ah6tB4]

“Beyond contravening U.S. law, this decision risks marring the credibility of a broad range of State Department reports and analyses and has weakened one of the U.S. government’s primary diplomatic tools to deter governmental armed forces and government-supported armed groups from recruiting and using children in combat and support roles around the world,” said the July 28 memo.

Reuters reported in June that Tillerson had disregarded internal recommendations on Iraq, Myanmar and Afghanistan. The new documents reveal the scale of the opposition in the State Department, including the rare use of what is known as the “dissent channel,” which allows officials to object to policies without fear of reprisals.

The views expressed by the U.S. officials illustrate ongoing tensions between career diplomats and the former chief of Exxon Mobil Corp appointed by President Donald Trump to pursue an “America First” approach to diplomacy.

INTERPRETING THE LAW

The child soldiers law passed in 2008 states that the U.S. government must be satisfied that no children under the age of 18 “are recruited, conscripted or otherwise compelled to serve as child soldiers” for a country to be removed from the list. It currently includes the Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan, Mali, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.

“The Secretary thoroughly reviewed all of the information presented to him and made a determination about whether the facts presented justified a listing pursuant to the law,” a State Department spokesperson said when asked about the officials’ allegation that he had violated the law.

In a written response to the dissent memo on Sept. 1, Tillerson adviser Brian Hook acknowledged that the three countries did use child soldiers. He said, however, it was necessary to distinguish between governments “making little or no effort to correct their child soldier violations … and those which are making sincere – if as yet incomplete – efforts.”

Hook made clear that America’s top diplomat used what he sees as his discretion to interpret the law.

‘A POWERFUL MESSAGE’

Foreign militaries on the list are prohibited from receiving aid, training and weapons from Washington unless the White House issues a waiver based on U.S. “national interest.” In 2016, under the Obama administration, both Iraq and Myanmar, as well as others such as Nigeria and Somalia, received waivers.

At times, the human rights community chided President Barack Obama for being too willing to issue waivers and exemptions, especially for governments that had security ties with Washington, instead of sanctioning more of those countries.

“Human Rights Watch frequently criticized President Barack Obama for giving too many countries waivers, but the law has made a real difference,” Jo Becker, advocacy director for the children’s rights division of Human Rights Watch, wrote in June in a critique of Tillerson’s decision.

The dissenting U.S. officials stressed that Tillerson’s decision to exclude Iraq, Afghanistan and Myanmar went a step further than the Obama administration’s waiver policy by contravening the law and effectively easing pressure on the countries to eradicate the use of child soldiers.

The officials acknowledged in the documents reviewed by Reuters that those three countries had made progress. But in their reading of the law, they said that was not enough to be kept off a list that has been used to shame governments into completely eradicating the use of child soldiers.

‘UNCONSCIONABLE ACTIONS’

Ben Cardin, ranking Democrat on the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, wrote to Tillerson on Friday saying there were “serious concerns that the State Department may not be complying” with the law and that the secretary’s decision “sent a powerful message to these countries that they were receiving a pass on their unconscionable actions.”

The memo was among a series of previously unreported documents sent this month to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the State Department’s independent inspector general’s office that relate to allegations that Tillerson violated the child soldiers law.

Legal scholars say that because of the executive branch’s latitude in foreign policy there is little legal recourse to counter Tillerson’s decision.

Herman Schwartz, a constitutional law professor at American University in Washington, said U.S. courts would be unlikely to accept any challenge to Tillerson’s interpretation of the child soldiers law as allowing him to remove a country from the list on his own discretion.

The signatories to the document were largely senior policy experts with years of involvement in the issues, said an official familiar with the matter. Reuters saw a copy of the document that did not include the names of those who signed it.

Tillerson’s decision to remove Iraq and Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, from the list and reject a recommendation by U.S. officials to add Afghanistan was announced in the release of the government’s annual human trafficking report on June 27.

Six days earlier, a previously unreported memo emailed to Tillerson from a range of senior diplomats said the three countries violated the law based on evidence gathered by U.S. officials in 2016 and recommended that he approve them for the new list.

It noted that in Iraq, the United Nations and non-governmental organizations “reported that some Sunni tribal forces … recruited and used persons younger than the age of 18, including instances of children taking a direct part in hostilities.”

Ali Kareem, who heads Iraq’s High Committee for Human Rights, denied the country’s military or state-backed militias use child soldiers. “We can say today with full confidence that we have a clean slate on child recruitment issues,” he said.

The memo also said “two confirmed cases of child recruitment” by the Myanmar military “were documented during the reporting period.” Human rights advocates have estimated that dozens of children are still conscripted there.

Myanmar government spokesman Zaw Htay challenged accusers to provide details of where and how child soldiers are being used. He noted that in the latest State Department report on human trafficking, “they already recognized (Myanmar) for reducing of child soldiers” – though the report also made clear some children were still conscripted.

The memo said further there was “credible evidence” that a government-supported militia in Afghanistan “recruited and used a child,” meeting the minimum threshold of a single confirmed case that the State Department had previously used as the legal basis for putting a country on the list.

The Afghan defense and interior ministries both denied there were any child soldiers in Afghan national security forces, an assertion that contradicts the State Department’s reports and human rights activists.

(Additional reporting by Raya Jalabi in Baghdad, Antoni Slodkowski and Shoon Naing in Yangon, Hamid Shalizi in Kabul)

Girl strapped with bomb kills five in Cameroon mosque

By Josiane Kouagheu

YAOUNDE (Reuters) – A girl with a bomb strapped to her walked into a mosque in northern Cameroon where it exploded, killing five worshippers in an attack bearing the hallmarks of Islamist militant group Boko Haram, authorities said.

The girl of 12 or 13 years old arrived at the Sanda-Wadjiri mosque in remote Kolofata at the first call to prayer at between five and six a.m., the governor of Cameroon’s Far North region Midjiyawa Bakary told Reuters by telephone.

“The men were bowed in prayer when she came,” Bakary said. “Five of the worshippers were killed and the bomber also.”

He did not name any suspects, but Boko Haram has repeatedly used suicide bombers as well as strapping children with explosives to strike at civilian and military targets.

The Nigerian jihadist group, which is now split into at least two factions, has been fighting for almost a decade to revive a medieval Islamic caliphate in the Lake Chad region, where Nigeria, Cameroon, Niger and Chad meet.

Allied forces from the four countries have routed it in much of the territory it once controlled, but the group has responded by scattering and stepping up attacks on civilians.

Amnesty International said last week that Boko Haram had killed 381 civilians in Nigeria and Cameroon since the beginning of April, more than double that for the preceding five months.

Of those, 158 of the deaths were in Cameroon, which the rights group linked to a rise in suicide bombings, the deadliest of which killed 16 people in Waza in July.

(Writing by Tim Cocks; editing by Ralph Boulton)

Saudi-owned TV drama fights Islamic State propaganda

Women perform in a scene from 'Black Crows' series, believed to be filmed in Lebanon, April 19, 2016.

By Tarek Fahmy and Noah Browning

DUBAI, June 1 (Reuters) – A Saudi-owned television channel has launched a drama series portraying the brutality of life under the Islamic State to counter sleek propaganda from the jihadist group which has won it recruits worldwide.

Beamed across the Arab world by satellite channel MBC, the $10-million project reflects the kingdom’s self-appointed role at the forefront of a Muslim bulwark against extremism which was underlined in a May 20-21 visit by U.S. President Donald Trump.

“Black Crows” shows women and children living under the jihadists and is the first television drama to tackle subjects such as mass murder and rape, contrasting sharply with the idyll of heroism and holy war projected by IS on social media.

“The main audience we target, the most important and dangerous, are those who are prone to support and even join terrorist organizations,” MBC spokesman Mazen Hayek told Reuters in an interview.

“Media is part of their (IS) offensive strategy. Thus media organizations have the right, actually the duty, to face such an offensive – which is well-funded and on the internet and social media – with this series,” he said.

Actors and MBC staff have told local media they received death threats online from IS supporters because of the show.

Filmed in Lebanon, the more-than-20-part series that started on Saturday follows the widow of an Islamic State commander turned leader of a women’s morality police force. There are scenes of gutted homes, mass graves, big explosions and gunmen waving black flags.

Plot-lines include women from the Yazidi religion being captured and forced into sex slavery, child-soldiers and a woman with a forlorn love-life moving to territory held by the group to become a “jihadi bride”.

Since Islamic State launched its lightning offensive across Iraq and Syria staging beheadings and releasing carefully crafted films to draw in new recruits, Arab and Western governments have sought to counter their message.

BATTLING RADICALISM

During Trump’s Riyadh visit, Saudi King Salman unveiled a Global Center for Combating Extremism to monitor and rebut extremist material online, and now maintains a new Ideological War Center within its defense ministry.

“The media alone is not enough, we need religious institutes, clerics and mosques to work with the media in combating radicalism,” said Najat AlSaeed, a Saudi analyst who has written a book on Arab satellite TV.

“There is progress, but it’s slow and is not enough for the reformists or the global community.”

The show will aim to reach a big audience of Muslim viewers as they break their fast in the evening for the holy month of Ramadan – a prime season for TV dramas. MBC together with its sister entertainment and movie channels are the most watched network in the Arab world.

The subject matter strays widely from traditional programs: Middle East period drama or romantic soaps.

However, Syrian actress Dima Al Jundi who plays the morality enforcer says only art can convey the depth of human suffering the group has wrought in a way viewers need to see.

“If you open YouTube, you’ll find videos of murder or suicide bombings. But the details of their daily life, how they recruit kids, how they abuse women – this you wouldn’t know.”

Saudi Arabia follows the ultra-conservative Wahhabi school of Sunni Islam, but sees the Islamist militants as posing a threat to its own stability. IS denounces the al Saud family as ungodly rulers for their alliance with the United States and has staged attacks in the country.

Senior Wahhabi clerics, whose influence in Saudi society forms part of a covenant with the royal family dating to the kingdom’s founding 250 years ago, endorse execution by beheading for offences that include apostasy, adultery and sorcery, oppose women driving or working and describe Shi’ites as heretics.

The clerics sharply differ, however, from al Qaeda and Islamic State Sunni militants in opposing violent revolt against the government.

Saudi Arabia crushed a campaign of al Qaeda attacks in 2003-06 but has been hit by Islamic State bombings in the past two years. Saudi security police closely monitor Saudis with suspected connections to militants and have detained more than 15,000 suspects in the years since al Qaeda’s campaign.

(Editing by William Maclean and Peter Millership)

Islamic State kills hundreds, seeks child recruits around Mosul

Displaced Iraqi girls are seen in Kokjali village near Mosul, during an operation against Islamic State militants, Iraq,

GENEVA, Nov 4 (Reuters) – Islamic State militants have killed hundreds of people, including 50 deserters and 180 former Iraqi government employees, around their stronghold of Mosul, U.N. human rights spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani said on Friday.

They also transported 1,600 people from the town of Hammam al-Alil to Tal Afar, possibly for use as human shields against air strikes, and told some they may be taken to Syria. They also took 150 families from Hammam al-Alil to Mosul on Wednesday.

Militants told residents of Hammam al-Alil that they must hand over their children, especially boys above the age of nine, in an apparent recruitment drive for child soldiers, she said.

IS militants were holding nearly 400 Kurdish, Yazidi and Shia women in Tal Afar, and had possibly killed up to 200 people in Mosul city, she said.

The U.N. also had reports of air strikes causing civilian deaths, including one on Wednesday evening that reportedly killed four women and injured 17 other civilians in the al Qudus neighbourhood in eastern Mosul.

(Reporting by Tom Miles; Editing by Catherine Evans)

Congo Rebels Kill Children Who Refuse To Fight

Human Rights Watch has released a report detailing atrocities committed by M23 rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo including execution of children who refuse to serve in their ranks.

A spokesperson for Human Rights Watch told the BBC that the rebels have forced 137 young men and boys to join their army and have executed 33 young men and children who tried to escape from serving their troops. Continue reading