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| Monday, 28 February 2005 |
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How some children become cannon fodder in the North-East by Tharuka Dissanaike
Human rights organisations and the UNICEF have expressed their concern over several reported cases of child recruitment in the immediate aftermath of the tsunami. These attempts of recruitment have no regular pattern but worryingly have come from all parts of the North and East of Sri Lanka. A former under age soldier who was in a refugee camp after the disaster, has recounted witnessing the coercion of three young girls aged 13-15, who have been displaced and orphaned by the tsunami, into LTTE ranks in Trincomalee. The SLMM has been informed of two thirteen year olds -Thanabalasingham and Gunabalasingam Velkumar from Urumpirai South, Jaffna: abducted by the LTTE on January 3. The New York-based Human Rights Watch has said in a statement that the 'Tamil Tigers, who were already recruiting large numbers of child soldiers, now may seek to replace forces lost to the tsunami with child recruits'. There are no accurate figures of the numbers of LTTE cadres that may have succumbed to the tsunami wave, but independent estimates point that human losses could be between 700 to 2000 men and women serving in the ranks of the LTTE. The biggest and most obvious ceasefire violation of the LTTE has been its continued and dogged persistence in recruiting children into their ranks. In fact, the month before the tsunami, when there was a distinct feel of possible war in the air, the movement began an accelerated drive to take in as many underage recruits to their ranks. There are reports from LTTE-controlled areas of the North and East, of LTTE going into schools last December with the ominous message of a coming war and that the children would not be safe from the Army (Sri Lankan) if they do not join the movement. Although the rebel ranks have always been propped by the inclusion of underage (below 18) recruits, many of them taken forcibly without the consent of the parents, the ceasefire actually presented the LTTE with additional opportunity. Areas hitherto inaccessible to them, due to military presence, were suddenly opened up. Under the guise of political activity the LTTE launched massive campaigns to recruit children, from their homes, from schools, from festivals etc, and this situation was worst in the Eastern Province. UNICEF reports that between 2001 April to September of last year, there were 4250 reported cases of underage recruitment. Mind you, this is the reported number, the actual number, needless to say, would be a lot higher. During the same period however the movement released 1003 children, mainly through UNICEF's programme to re-integrate ex-under age combatants with their families, communities and schools. "Before the ceasefire, in 1994 when I was researching this issue, maybe one in twenty recruits was abducted, others joined voluntarily. But today, it is the reverse. An overwhelming number of child recruits are forcible," said Prof. Harendra de Silva of the National Child Protection Authority. While the LTTE always maintained stoic denial of underage recruitment, even when evidence was trust upon them, the Karuna debacle and the war that erupted 'between brothers' or the two fractions of the LTTE in April 2004, literally opened a can of worms. Many of the uncounted casualties of this war were children (fighters under 18 years of age). There are reports of battlegrounds where villagers admit to have seen as many as 25-30 children dead in a single place. In the lead up to the actual battle, when the Karuna fraction was being besieged in their northern most stronghold at Verugal, another interesting phenomenon took place. Hundreds, may be thousands, of parents stormed the camps run by Karuna, demanding their children back from the ranks. The parents were shocked and upset that their children were going to be fighting the very LTTE that had forcibly taken them to the fold. "It was a case of brother fighting brother. Parents did not want their children to be caught in such a futile war," said a member of a human rights organisation in Batticaloa. "For the first time in the history of the war, parents in the east - in Batticaloa especially - began to resist LTTE pressure to recruit children." This became most evident in a post-Karuna war incident in Batticaloa in July. During a festival in Thandamalay Murugan Temple the LTTE recruited 26 people- the majority were children. The next morning a visibly angry group of parents accompanied by local human rights groups went to the political office of the LTTE demanding their children back. They were told to go to the Meenagam camp the next day. After long deliberations with area leaders (according to reports even Col. Kaushalyan, the local area commander was present) the parents were allowed to see the children. Later that afternoon, the children were released. But escaping the camps of the LTTE does not guarantee a safe childhood for any of these 'returnees'. After the disintegration of Karuna's ill-prepared coup, an estimated 4000-6000 troops that were in the eastern camps returned home. "We have reports of 1800 underage recruits who returned to their homes. They are registered with us although they do not have formal release papers from the LTTE," a UNICEF official in Colombo said. But since then, fresh waves of recruitment have targeted these 'returnees'. Meanwhile the LTTE's official programme to release underage recruits to their families or the UNICEF-run transit center in Kilinochchi also stalled after the Karuna war. A UNICEF report notes that the center has been empty since June 2004, when the LTTE, recovering from the internal dispute launched a recruitment drive- targeting children mainly. To stay out of the LTTE's way, some children (as young as 14) have been married off by distraught parents (The LTTE shies from recruiting married people). Others have been packed off to distant relatives in other parts of the country. Others have been sent abroad to work as labourers or domestic servants in oil-rich middle east countries. Some young returnees have tried to resume schooling only to find the LTTE visiting schools or abducting children en route. All attempts to return to normalcy have proved in vain for a majority of returned children and their families. These children's lives have transformed for the worse forever. They are paying the price for a war that they cannot even identify with, and is fuelled by adult hatred. |
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Even the tsunami could not curb the LTTE's hunger for more children in
their ranks.
