#ex-combatants

Female former combatants aren’t known much to the Lebanese public because they largely remained invisible except for some prominent representatives like Jocelyne Khoueiry or Soha Bechara. Even when you google the Lebanese civil war and look for photographs, women appear mainly as war victims rather than as active participants of the war.

 But female combatants existed in the civil war, mainly in the Leftist militias and Christian militias. Their responsibilities ranged from rather traditional roles such as being nurses for the injured male combatants or doing logistical tasks to getting military training and leading women brigades.

 In short, women would play all roles that their male counterparts would play. Regarding women as more peaceful human beings merely because of their gender is a false assumption. Women can play significant roles in war, sometimes even better than men – as messengers or weapons smugglers for example, because they’d be less susceptible at checkpoints then men. Also in terms of spreading propaganda, in their families, to their children, but also in public, women often take on important roles.

 In post-war Lebanon, when female combatants had to reintegrate into society, they often suffered from a double stigmatization: First because they had been combatants – for a long time regarded as taboo in post-war Lebanon and second because they were women and fighters – something that doesn’t correspond much to traditional understandings of typical women gender roles. Once women lost their position as combatants, there was the possibility that they’d be pushed back to more traditional gender roles after the war had come to an end. However, realities are complex – female as well as male combatants were also often regarded as heroes in their communities.

 In short, complex realities should be acknowledged – women, not less than men, can exert all functions in societies, even if they’re infamous – and female combatants existed in the Lebanese civil war. This must be taken into consideration when tackling reintegration processes of former combatants – female “formers” should not be forgotten to be included in the reintegration process.

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Written by Christina Foerch Saab - Program Manager at Fighters for Peace

Christina: holds a Master Degree in Political Sciences and Spanish from the Free University of Berlin. In the year 2000 she moved from Berlin to Beirut where she has been working as filmmaker, journalist, and consultant for NGOs. Being a co-founder of Fighters for Peace, she has specialized in issues such as the memory of the Lebanese civil war, ex-combatants, peace education, media, and arms control and disarmament processes.

France regrets the return to arms of former FARC ex-combatants

The French Government has expressed concern on Saturday about the announcement of the return to arms by some ex-combatants of the FARC guerrillas and has called for the continuation of the months of peace efforts.

‘Iván Márquez’, the one who was the chief negotiator of the FARC in the peace talks and who was missing for a year, reappeared this Thursday in a video with other leaders of the…

Jonah saw me walking down Old CID Road a few days ago and came running after me "che Aaron!" He's a security guard now which is odd only because he is the most energetic person I've ever met and having him sit at a desk all day I can imagine is torture. Jessica McDiarmid profiled Jonah in the Toronto Star a couple years back. 

"Tomorrow at four you will meet me and I will take you to my new spot down Gurley street," he announced. "I've started a new organization, "Lyan" Liberian Youth Against Narcotics. We are registered already with the government and need you to come take photos which you will take to donors and lobby on our behalf."

This evening I followed him through a crack in a wall in Randal street, through a maze of back alleys, past a mosque, across Gurley and into his area. Jonah has the stride of a six foot two soccer player. I had to jog to keep up, as we wound our way through narrow passageways, people's outdoor kitchens and communal areas. Then we turned down a lane of seashells and refuse water and into a muddy little area beside the graveyard where a couple dozen or so scar-faced ex-combatants sat around, eyes glazed, clearly on drugs. Not just a little drugs.

"I thought you said they were against narcotics," I told Jonah under my breath.

Since independence in 1962, Burundi has been plagued by ethnic tensions between the dominant Tutsi minority and the Hutu majority.1 The most recent eruption of violence in 1993 led to the deaths of an estimated 300,000 people. A long and painful transition to peace thereafter culminated in the first democratic elections in 2005, and the election of Pierre Nkurunziza as President. At the end of 2006 he signed a ceasefire with the rebel FNL and, in 2009, civil war was officially declared to be ended. Nonetheless, especially since the 2010 elections, political tensions have remained high between the CNDD, which controls the government, and opposition parties.

Founded in 2005 in Bujumbura, CEDAC is a local and apolitical non-profit organisation.2 Its founding president, Eric Niragira, was 14 years old in 1993: he lived through the conflict, was forced to support the rebellion and participated in military and political activities. When he returned to school in 1996, he found it a painful experience:

‘On a daily basis, the army would gather fellow Tutsi students to participate in the killing of civilians who lived in the villages surrounding our lycee. When these students would return, the Hutu students were forced to wash their clothing and knives that were full of blood. We did this out of fear of being killed if we refused.’3

December 6, 2012 (JUBA) – Ex-combatants who will be affected by the disarmament, demobilization and reintegration (DDR) program in South Sudan will be transformed into productive self-sufficient units that will contribute to the development of the country, says Vice-President Riek Machar.

The region came out of a protracted liberation struggle fought for decades which ended in a peace deal with Sudan in 2005. The peace accord, known as the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), culminated in the independence of South Sudan on 9th July 2011 following an overwhelming vote in favour of secession from Sudan in an internationally supervised referendum.

The liberation struggle involved hundreds of thousands of soldiers in the combat, leaving thousands of them wounded while tens of thousands others have overgrown their usefulness in the organized forces.