INTERVIEWER: Let's see, as far as -- can you tell us about sort of the range around the world that you've seen, where around the world that you've seen these instances where children have been involved in conflict as combatants?

MS. O'CONNER: I've seen various places where kids are involved in conflicts, but not as many places where they are actually used as combatants, although there are many, many places. I mean myself, I've seen it mainly in Afghanistan where, for instance in one of the villages, during the war, while the Soviet troops were still there, the then-Soviet troops were still there, one of the kids was sort of in the Communist Party League and was basically a propaganda chief, but was also -- took up guns, took up weapons.

And in this particular instance, it was very chilling for me because he was in charge of our group of journalists and we were being tightly controlled and we of course were trying to get away from that. So I was keeping him busy while other journalists went down alleys, et cetera, to try to get some information. And I was speaking to him in Russian and suddenly, he realized my colleagues were gone. He just took his gun and, you know, right into my neck and said, "Let's go," and pushed me into a car and drove me off, I mean a car that was coming by with some other soldiers and loyal to Soviet troops, but local Afghan soldiers.

And it was very, very scary because the problem was this kid was in charge and, yet, he was a kid who'd had no idea of what life was about. And you could just see in his eyes that he didn't understand the consequences of pulling that trigger and the reality of all of this. It was almost like a game to him.

And the trouble with using kids as combatants is that in some ways, they can be much more aggressive and much willing to pull the trigger, even though -- maybe because of their innocence. And also, they are not aware of perhaps any of the finer points or the gray areas of what the discussion is about, so they're quick to go to one side or the other. And they're very -- they can be easily manipulated. And that's why, of course, that a lot of sides in combat right now use kids as combatants. They willingly go along, they think of it as a game, they have no fear and they're easy to manipulate.

INTERVIEWER: If you can, give us an example of, you know, how young these children are that you've seen who have been recruited to participate in conflict.

MS. O'CONNER: Well, I think most of the kids that I've seen that have been recruited have been about the age range of 11, 12, 13, 14. I think this particular kid in Afghanistan, a kid that I knew in Afghanistan who put a gun on me was 14 years old.

Another child that I remember very specifically was a kid that I met in the marketplace in Chechnya. And we were trying to find arms sales in this market and we were just walking along and all of a sudden, this kid caught my eye, he was just about this high, he was so tiny, and he must have been maybe ten or 11. And he was in complete sort of guerrilla outfit with the fatigues, slinging a gun, the bullets strung across, the whole thing, bandanna, he looked so tough.

And I said to him, you know, "What are you doing," and he said, "I'm fighting." And I said, "Well, why are you fighting? Do you really understand what this is?" And this kid just, just spewed out a diatribe of hate. And in fact, I began my piece that day with, "Listen to the hatred," and just let this kid talk, because he -- his parents had both been killed by a shell, his sister had been maimed. He had seen at such a young age such destruction and destruction of his whole family and of his whole surroundings. He wasn't going to school. And as far as he was concerned, there was only reason that he had no one in his life any more, and that was because of the other side, to him, the Russian troops, he saw nothing else but that. And it was easy to understand, he lost so much at such an early age, that he felt he had no other choice.

INTERVIEWER: A lot of times when people think of conflicts and children in conflict, what they see on television is often Africa and images, you know, from the southern part of the world. Is this a north-south problem or, you know, is it -- is it a regional problem or is it north-south?

MS. O'CONNER: It's interesting that perhaps -- I'm not sure that this is just a north-south problem because I think that kids, while they might be used more physically as combatants in the underdeveloped countries where perhaps fleeing is almost not an option, there's nowhere to go -- whereas, in European conflicts, there is always another country over the border which those kids can flee to. In places like Africa or in undeveloped countries, often there's another undeveloped country who doesn't want them and who will kick them out and be just as brutal as this place. So obviously, then, those kids have no place to go, it's easier to turn those kids into combatants.

But I think that kids are used in wartime by the other sides, even in northern conflicts, perhaps in a more insidious way, I mean along the lines of keeping the conflict alive. I mean what happens a lot of times, whether it's intention or unintentional, is that the hatred becomes very much part of the culture and learned, and that kids at a very young age, an age of innocence, have learned hatred already. And then you have to wonder when you hear that hatred, where's the peace process over here going to go when these little kids over here are talking like this.

In Northern Ireland, I remember along the Falls Road and in the areas of the tenements where there's actually a huge wall of graffiti and you can tell which side of the wall you're on by what the kids say. Because the kids, you know, of course on the Catholic side, they're saying, "Those bloody Prods," and on the other side, they're talking about, "Those hateful Catholics," that it's all their fault. And you realize that these kind of conflicts have been, will be going on for hundreds of years because of the way it becomes a generational -- it's passed on to the kids in the conflict. And of course, these kids see a lot of violence; they hear a lot of violence, they see it, they experience it, and it's really tough.

INTERVIEWER: Well, what can you tell us about your experience of children having accessibility to weapons and that sort of stuff in a conflict zone, any stories that you can relate?

MS. O'CONNER: Let's see, I have a story of my husband's, actually. Well, in Chechnya, for instance, there was a kid, basically. This is after the war and there were still a lot of weapons around and in fact, a lot of kids were finding weapons. And this kid had a hand grenade and he, during filming, in a room with counselors and other people -- and this kid was in a house that this woman had sort of created for children of the conflict, kids who didn't have families, et cetera, and she had kind of taken all these kinds in and was getting them counseling.

And all of a sudden in all this discussion, this kid just whips out this hand grenade and he's like, you know, tossing it from hand to hand, playing with it. And then someone says, "What is that," and he says, "It's a hand grenade," and pulls out the pin. And the woman in charge of the house says, "Oh, give me that," you know, and sort of -- it's so common for these kids. They look upon these weapons as toys and they don't often realize, of course, how dangerous they are. And they're very accessible, they're all over the place. They're also -- they're in their homes.

Because a lot of times, especially in the guerrilla conflicts or ethnic conflicts, the combatants are just -- it's a civil militia, it's people, people take up arms, their fathers take up arms. And so, you know, of course the kids have access to these guns.

And after the war, it's a huge problem because accidents are happening. I mean I think the biggest problem right now after the war with kids is land mines and that's being seen, it's a huge issue worldwide. A lot of kids -- kids can't play in a lot of places where there was war.

I was in Isetia and Upkazia and there are whole fields where kids can't play, they can't be plowed. People are really going to have trouble surviving in that area because they laid land mines and never mapped them out. And while I was standing there one day with a U.N. observer who had just cleared one small stretch, a mine exploded and you just sort of had to pray that it wasn't a kid. It turned out it was a cow, but a lot of times, it's a little kid playing in a field.

INTERVIEWER: In your reporting, have you seen postwar recovery and rehabilitation programs that attempt to demilitarize the kids?

MS. O'CONNER: Yes. In Chechnya, there's quite a number of counseling programs. In one of the counseling programs, there's a counselor who, I saw one counselor who was basically -- this one child was very, very afraid of a huge gun and the counselor was telling him, "Make it smaller, smaller, smaller, smaller, and then make it so small that you can blow it away." And those kinds of things are working with kids, but you know, these Chechnyans, they don't have any money. And this was one program in Grozny, in the middle of the region, and you know, the counselor said this was going to be just a drop in the bucket. They fear that they are raising, you know, the next generation of combatants because of what these kids had seen.

I mean even Russian soldiers who I spoke to, themselves 20, 21, worried about what they were going to take back from their experiences to their kids, raising them, and they talked about that. So nobody was -- people are certainly aware when they see -- when you're in a war zone and you're in a war situation, you see these kids around you, it's so obvious how badly affected children are.

INTERVIEWER: What about medical and humanitarian communities, how have they -- what sort of role have they played? From your experience, what sort of role have you seen that they have played in the conflict situations with regard to helping the children?

MS. O'CONNER: Well, I think that, you know, in terms of humanitarian relief organizations and nonprofit organizations like Med__________ Frontiere (phonetic) or nongovernmental organizations or even U.N. organizations, most times, what they tend to focus on is refugees, is trying to create paths and create places for kids to go to, so that I think they don't become combatants, so that they can create safe havens and negotiate safe havens where women and children can live apart from the fighting.

The trouble is respecting those safe havens. We saw that happen in Bosnia, where the safe havens were not respected. I saw it happen in Chechnya. I saw all the villages that had peace deals, were designated safe havens, had been negotiated with the U.N. as safe havens, U.N. people on the ground, were then bombed on the pretext that there were rebels in the town. And I knew personally, you know, a couple of times that there were not rebels in the town, I mean there was no evidence of it.

But then you have to wonder is this about terrorizing the population or is it about fighting a war? Because the kids, you know, the kids are usually I mean the innocent victims of the war, but they are also, you know, obviously a target because they're a very effective way to terrorize the population, is destroying villages with women and children. It's something that will affect people. I saw in Chechnya, you know, it hardened the fighters' resolve, I think it works in the opposite way.

But humanitarian relief organizations and medical organizations tended to focus on creating safe havens and in working with refugees, trying to get kids out, trying to make sure that they had medical care once they were out, food, shelter, et cetera.

At the moment, they can't work with the counseling because they just don't have enough -- they're trying to save the ones they can get out. And generally, I don't find them having enough wherewithal to seek out the kids who need counseling.

INTERVIEWER: Do you think there's anything that can realistically be done, aside from making escape routes for people to get out, to help prevent children from becoming involved in conflict? I mean I know that's a huge --

MS. O'CONNER: I would say it's difficult to think of another solution, other than trying to get the kids away from the combat. Because when they're there, they're seeing the devastation and they're experiencing the horrors of the war and therefore, they're very prone to be used and to want to be used, to become combatants.

So I don't see how there could be another alternative like counseling. I mean you could try to counsel during the wartime, but it's just very difficult. I mean in Grozny, people were moving ten, 12, 15 times. I mean keeping even track of those kids who were in the middle of the conflict is really, really tough. And you know, mostly, they're hiding in basements, they're not coming out on the street.

You would see during the worst fighting, which is when it's affecting these kids the worst, they're wandering the streets occasionally for food and water and things, but you know, mainly they're taking shelter or they're taking up arms.

INTERVIEWER: What do you think makes these kids so susceptible, I mean is it the innocence of being a child?

MS. O'CONNER: I think that kids just naturally see things more -- their moral reasoning does not develop to the point to see gray areas and gray areas are always the reason that one would stay out of war. The ability to see areas of compromise is the only way to get forward to a peaceful solution. Kids have trouble seeing gray, seeing the areas for compromise or the areas for, you know, perhaps not getting in the conflict in the first place. Kids see things in black and white. And kids then will also take a very emotional response to what's happening personally to them. So they are therefore very susceptible to propaganda and also to someone using their own personal situation to manipulate those kids into their way of thinking.

And so that's why I think kids just generally are more susceptible. They don't know compromise as well as a rational adult should. Although I've been in a lot of war zones in which I haven't seen a lot of compromising going on, I mean every war zone.

INTERVIEWER: Did you see children who were combatants in the war zone behaving also as children behave, too? I mean --

MS. O'CONNER: Yeah. I mean, yeah, I saw kids in, I saw kids during the siege of the White House in October 1993, there were kids inside the White House.

INTERVIEWER: In Russia?

MS. O'CONNER: In Russia. I saw kids during the siege of the Russian White House in 1993 in Moscow, where it was a couple of weeks before the White House was actually bombarded, where there were women and children and kids camped out on the perimeter of the White House as a protective barrier for the people inside. And you know, during the day -- at night, they would sometimes take up positions, guarding or carrying a banner or they would be on the lookout, used as a lookout mainly. But those kids were, during the day you know, just playing, singing, doing what kids do, and that's what was sort of amazing.

And I really wondered when the White House was being bombed, I really wondered what's happening to those kids inside, especially a little boy that I met who was there with his grandmothers who had brought him to the White House and I wondered what was happening to all three of them, these two old babushki and this little boy, Dima. I never found out.

INTERVIEWER: Can you think of some issues that we haven't covered that you would feel need to be or should be addressed in a program __________?

MS. O'CONNER: Yeah, I think the one thing is in places like, for instance, Northern Ireland or in Bosnia, Isetia, Upkazia, where these are more ethnic battles, kids are the conduit to make these everlasting battles. And that's one of the things that somehow, that break has got to be made and people I think have to realize that if they are going to make the break for a peaceful solution and if they are going to end conflict, then they're going to have to be really careful about what they teach their kids.

I mean I walked into a classroom in Bosnia, in Sarajevo, and every single child there had either a mother, a father, an aunt or an uncle who had been killed in the war and that's pretty amazing, 30 kids in this classroom. And all of those kids had very strong opinions about the war, except for three who were not blaming the other side. And I said, "Why," and they said, "Because my parents said we have to stop and they said we have to realize that it's the politicians and it's people who can't realize and can't see the way forward to a solution, who are going to use and continue the hatred, and we have to understand." And I thought, wow, sophisticated answers coming from these little kids. But obviously, their parents had sat down and said to them, "We have to stop the cycle of violence." And until it takes that level, the parents sitting down with their kids and saying, "Even though your aunt . . .," or, "your uncle," or, "your mother," ". . . was killed, you have to understand that this is where it ends."

INTERVIEWER: Okay, great, thank you very much.

MS. O'CONNER: Okay.

(End of interview.) - - -