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07-03-2006

Tamils want their kids to be child soldiers – LTTE

by Dushy Ranetunge

Accused by an UN agency for abducting and recruiting over 5375 child soldiers during the present ceasefire and besieged by the international community for its record in this respect, the LTTE arrived in Geneva in February, armed with its latest defence and explanations.

The great minds of the LTTE, who claim to be the sole representatives of the Tamil people, had mobilised their combined intellectual forces, and formulated their response to the most serious issue faced by the organisation. It’s an issue that might lead them to The Hague, charged with war crimes.

The LTTE response was that the Tamil people, because of their economic and social circumstances, hand over their children to the LTTE voluntarily. Their position was that the LTTE was merely doing social service and that the Sri Lankan government is indirectly responsible because of the neglect of Tamil children.

Such is the moral and intellectual bankruptcy of this organisation.

This latest LTTE explanation was first suggested to me by the editor of the Uthayan (Tamil Newspaper published in Jaffna) and Sudar Oli (Tamil Newspaper published in Colombo) during the coach ride back from the Chateau de Bossey to the Geneva Press Club.

When asked, "are you suggesting that Tamil parents hand over their children to the LTTE to use as child soldiers and cannon fodder" he answered in the positive and stated that it is the Sri Lankan government’s fault for neglecting the social and economic interests of the Tamil children. Balasingham also advanced this theory during the press conference.

Even if, as the LTTE and its apologists suggest, the Tamil people are handing over their children voluntarily to the LTTE, what right does this organisation have to abuse them as child combatants?

We inquired from the Uthayan/ Sudar Oli editor, in the presence of a Swiss journalist, why the TRO (Tamils Rehabilitation Organisation) didn’t look after the children? He stated that the TRO did not have enough money.

But there have been news items on TamilNet that the TRO has built school and community buildings and various other facilities for Sinhalese and Muslims in the East. Has the TRO abdicated its primary responsibility of helping Tamils to help Sinhalese and Muslims at the cost of helping Tamil children? Or is it a part of LTTE strategy to deprive Tamils of their basic needs so as to create an environment conducive for recruiting children.

The TRO is controlled by the LTTE and the LTTE is at present using the TRO as a political weapon to re-establish its control over the East, after its influence in the East diminished as a result of the Karuna rebellion. The alleged abduction of TRO workers by Karuna cadres in the East on the eve of the CFA talks in Geneva are also linked to this latest strategy of the LTTE of using the TRO as its fifth column in the East.

I also informed the editor of Uthayan / Sudar Oli, that there are conflicts all over the world and there are families in Africa with social and economic circumstances far worse than that of Tamils in Sri Lanka, but they are not known to hand over their kids to armed groups. But the editor insisted that it’s all the fault of the Sri Lankan government and the bombing of schools etc.

I suggested that no schools had been bombed during the ceasefire and the 5375 child abductions were related to the ceasefire period, but the editor was not convinced, as according to him, it was all the fault of the Sri Lankan State.

If as the LTTE suggests, over 5000 Tamil children have been voluntarily handed over by Tamil parents to the LTTE and the LTTE is training them as child soldiers, then this act alone illlegitimises the LTTE’s claim to be the leaders of the Tamil people. Leadership has moral and political responsibility and the LTTE’s declared position proves it to be void of any moral or political responsibility to lead the Tamil people. As the US Ambassador in Colombo stated "What kind of leaders are these?"

However the SLMM manned by Nordic countries suggests that Tamil parents are not handing over their children to the LTTE. They state that Tamil parents approach them complaining that the LTTE have abducted their children.

It was also suggested that the Sri Lankan government is using the issue of child soldiers as a political weapon. The LTTE too has used human rights as a political weapon against the Sri Lankan state, and now it seems that the tables have turned. I suggested that the LTTE too should deal with its human rights problems as the Sri Lankan State did, by engaging the human rights organisations and incorporating systems and procedures to deal with these issues and until they do, the problems were not going to go away. The only response was a grunt.

Last week, on LTTE orders, children from a school in the North were bussed to an LTTE training ground to watch them train during school time.

On February 5 during a conference at Birkbeck College, University of London, Ms. Rajes Bala of the Tamil Women’s League said that mothers no longer wanted to lose their children to the war. She castigated Tamils in the UK who fund the LTTE by stating that they want to send their children to Oxford and Cambridge, but by contributing to the LTTE they are ensuring that the children of poor Tamils are abducted, trained as child combatants and sent to their death as cannon fodder.

Source-The Island