Prabhakaran's 'orphanage': Ready to supply cannon fodder

Dushy RANETUNGE in London

CHILD SOLDIERS: The LTTE web based propaganda disseminator TamilNet on Monday carried a news item that Air Force action has resulted in the death of 61 school children. The propaganda piece has been presented followed by a condemnation by the LTTE front the TNA as if the Sri Lankan Air Force has deliberately targeted school children.

But a closer look at the TamilNet news item exposes another dimension to this tragedy. It states that the target was an orphanage called "Chencholai" and that the 'school children' from the district were attending a First Aid course at the site.

The July 1997 issue of Hot Spring magazine, another Pro-LTTE propaganda vehicle, states that "Chencholai (an organisation for the care of war orphans) was established by Prabhakaran. The LTTE leader established 'Chencholai' in 1991 as a part of his grand design.

Nirupama Subramanium writing on the December 2001 issue of FRONTLINE in an article headlined 'The LTTE's Baby Brigade' states "One ready-made source for child soldiers is said to be the Chencholai (Red-Blossomed Gardens), a chain of orphanages set up by the LTTE."

The University Teachers for Human Rights (UTHR) briefing No. 2 states: "It is such groups that provide most of the child recruits. 'Punniapoomi' (Sacred Land) is a school run by the LTTE in Oddusuddan where children are moulded and trained in a militaristic environment.

The 'Chencholai' group are LTTE sponsored orphanages in Jaffna, where children are taught to sing songs with godly veneration for the Leader and his vision.

Chencholai, brainchild of Prabhakaran, serves multiple purposes for the LTTE. It is presented to promote the LTTE as a humanitarian organisation, contradicting the UN organisations which state that the LTTE uses child soldiers.

This LTTE 'humanitarianism' is used as a cash cow, to raise funds from the Tamil Diaspora on the guise that it is a legitimate orphanage like your local one in Toronto.

This whole "Chencholai - the LTTE orphanage set up by Prabhakaran" concept creates a positive image of the organisation, to impress the gullible foreigners and the lower levels of Tamil society to raise funds for the cause.

At a military level, Chencholai provides a home-grown, indoctrinated, ready supply of committed child soldiers to be used as cannon fodder for the cause. In this instance as to what large numbers of school children were doing on the premises of a terrorist front organisation is puzzling.

According to the TamilNet news item they were following a "residential First Aid course". One would expect school children to gain First Aid training at their school premises and not at a well-known LTTE front organisation at a time when air raids are being conducted.

Further more the fact that it is a "residential" first aid course is also puzzling and unusual for school children unless some other form of training was under way.

Questions also would be raised as to what kind of First Aid training can an orphanage provide school children? Are orphanages designated first aid training centres.

The LTTE Peace Secretariat and the TNA has condemned what it calls deliberate targeting of a "schoolgirls compound". This is inaccurate and a distortion of facts. The compound of a terrorist front organisation set up by their terrorist leader wanted by Interpol cannot be classified as a "schoolgirls compound".

The incident highlights that the LTTE is continuing to expose children to danger by getting (even perhaps forcing by intimidation) Tamil children to visit LTTE compounds close to a region its leadership is hiding in a bunker complex.

There is concern that the terrorists are using school children as a human shield. Examination of casualties from recent LTTE attacks in Muttur area and Jaffna has exposed the LTTE's extensive reliance on Tamil girls to fight their battles.

If the LTTE has any regard for Tamil children, they will ensure that no children are brought anywhere close to its organisational structure or have anything to do with children.

The recent bomb attack in Dickman's Road, in the heart of Colombo also resulted in a small Tamil child, two-and-half-year-old Jegatheswaran Asvini, losing her life.

Significantly the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) did not condemn the demise of this Tamil child. It seems that in this game of political expediency only children killed by the other party has any value of being condemned.

The despicable politics of these so called democratic Tamil parliamentarians is a disgrace to humanity. Unfortunately the LTTE's long record of child abuse does not augur well for Tamil children in Sri Lanka.