Topic: Children and Armed Conflict
Country: Mozambique
Delegate Name: Ian Savas
School: Roeper School
Topic page: background guide and all position papers All Mozambique position papers GLIMUN 2009 committees
Mozambique’s first recorded inhabitants began to live there from zero to four hundred A.D. The country was colonized from fifteen hundred to nineteen seventy-five. This colony was always under Portuguese control. Several years before independence there was an uprising against the Portuguese government. The uprising used guerrilla tactics but was soon crushed by the Portuguese. A few years later Portugal gave independence to Mozambique along with several other African nations. This liberation caused mass amounts of Portuguese to leave the country this caused a collapse within the country’s economy. For a few years after independence a government to hold this drew its values from Marxist ideals. In nineteen seventy-seven a new political group formed to combat the communist one. At this point many Portuguese found themselves leaving the country due to the fear of war. A civil war broke out around this time; the two major fighting groups were the FRELIMO (the Marxist group) and the RENAMO (Mozambique Resistance Movement). The RENAMO were a group of rebels attempting to up-root the government while the FRELIMO attempted to maintain control of the country. The RENAMO were infamous for using inhuman war tactics such as forced starving, random killings of civilians, and child soldiers. The war lasted for 16 years and crippled the country’s economy. The FRELIMO government had been allied with the Soviet Union. RENAMO was aligned with South Africa. In late nineteen-eighty to early nineteen-ninety support for the rebel cause was diminished in both South Africa and in the United States. With the end of the U.S.S.R in 1991, FRELIMO lost its major supporter. Around this time there were peace talks between both fighting groups and a constitution was adopted. The two rival armies became the two political parties of today.
In nineteen ninety-nine Resolution #1261 was adopted by the Security Council. This resolution was passes unanimously. The second clause of this document states “Strongly condemns the targeting of children in situations of armed conflict,” this clearly states the opinion of the United Nations on Children of armed conflict. Other passages from said resolution include “Urges all parties to armed conflicts to ensure that the protection, welfare and Rights of children are taken into account” which comes from the seventh clause of the resolution. At the session in which the resolution was adopted the countries of Argentina, Burundi, Canada, the Czech Republic, El Salvador, Germany, Indonesia, Italy, Latvia, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Norway, Romania, Slovakia, and Ukraine were asked to attend the session with observer status The Security Council also passed a similar resolution in August of 2009. There for Mozambique agrees with these two past resolutions and believes that the proper course of action should include the attempted elimination of children soldiers, in order to prevent another conflict such as the one that happened in Mozambique.
