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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Uganda
Index
During the late 1980s, Uganda's most tragic
military-related
problem was the large number of children, mostly orphans,
who had
attached themselves to the army. The government estimated
that
there were several thousand kadogos (child
soldiers), most
of whom were under the age of sixteen
(see Social Welfare
, ch.
2). Within days of Museveni's seizing control of the
government,
his press office announced that kadogos would be
disarmed
and enrolled in schools designated for that purpose. The
first of
these, the Mbarara Kadogo School, opened in February 1988,
enrolling about 800 pupils between ages five and eighteen,
according to the school's commander. An important
government aim
was to deter these pupils from joining anti-NRA rebel
groups
still fighting against government control. By 1990
kadogos
were no longer evident in regular army units.
Data as of December 1990
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