Romeo Dallaire: Children as Weapons — Transcript

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1. 0:08my name is David speedy director of the
2. 0:10program and us global engagement here at
3. 0:13the Carnegie Council the council
4. 0:15provides a forum for vital issues such
5. 0:17as the ethics of nuclear disarmament but
6. 0:19we need your help
7. 0:20to guarantee the future of programs such
8. 0:23as these please give generously to the
9. 0:25council's fund drive visit Carnegie
10. 0:27Council dot org and click on donate
11. 0:30slash join thank you and at the end of
12. 0:33the Cold War nobody stood there and said
13. 0:36okay we're gonna start demobilizing not
14. 0:39only our nuclear weapons but I'll also
15. 0:43our non-nuclear our classic uses of
16. 0:46weapons and so as an example the Warsaw
17. 0:50Pact and US had hundreds of millions of
18. 0:54light machine guns and weapons available
19. 0:57because they were in immobilization
20. 0:59stocks they were still in the grease
21. 1:01that had been produced during the Cold
22. 1:03War
23. 1:03nobody said right we destroy all those
24. 1:05because we don't need them anymore
25. 1:07the good civil servants said our people
26. 1:09that paid taxes those are still good
27. 1:11what do we do with them
28. 1:13maybe we can make a buck and we did and
29. 1:15so we had the proliferation of small
30. 1:18arms massive proliferation small arms
31. 1:20and so you can get a brand new ak-47 for
32. 1:24three bucks in these conflict zones and
33. 1:26the guy who's selling it is still making
34. 1:28a profit and so you have massive numbers
35. 1:33of light machineguns that a nine year
36. 1:35old can carry use maintain and be quite
37. 1:38effective and you've also at the same
38. 1:42sort of time come to a crux in many of
39. 1:45these countries where not only are we
40. 1:47working on shifting gears towards
41. 1:49democracy and so on we're also seeing
42. 1:51significant over populations we're
43. 1:53seeing many of the countries who can't
44. 1:55even feed themselves anymore already are
45. 1:57in the dependency created by all the
46. 2:00extraordinary work we did in reducing
47. 2:03infant mortality by bringing in better
48. 2:05hygiene and so we increase their
49. 2:08population but we didn't give them
50. 2:10anything to help them
51. 2:13utilize all that brainpower all that
52. 2:16manpower we just increase the population
53. 2:18but we didn't through our international
54. 2:20development build the infrastructure to
55. 2:23employ them to it educate them and to
56. 2:26make them a thriving part of their
57. 2:28societies
58. 2:29on the contrary we created a whole whack
59. 2:32of disenfranchised youth we created that
60. 2:34poverty exacerbated and the frictions
61. 2:37exacerbated and so all of a sudden we
62. 2:40are with countries where the
63. 2:42demographics are over 50 percent are
64. 2:45under the age of 15 and so you've got
65. 2:48this atmosphere of impunity by
66. 2:52extremists in imploding nations civil
67. 2:56wars I mean it's London's who killed one
68. 2:58Daan's who are in there who are prepared
69. 3:00to do whatever is required to maintain
70. 3:02power because they've had it for a while
71. 3:04or to gain that power without going
72. 3:07democratically and you've got prevalence
73. 3:10of small arms and you've got unlimited
74. 3:13access to those who could use it these
75. 3:17weapons that is children you can go and
76. 3:19abduct them from the schools and from
77. 3:21the homes and you take them into the
78. 3:23bush you line them up you kill a few you
79. 3:25got access to drugs you indoctrinate
80. 3:28them you arm them you keep them under
81. 3:30control through fear you abuse the girls
82. 3:33and some of the boys in order to
83. 3:35completely deconstruct any social
84. 3:38structure and then you use them as a
85. 3:40primary weapon of conflict