Child soldiers

A recent UN study found that several terrorist organisations around the world were continuing with the abominable practice of recruiting children to their ranks. One of the prime suspects was the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), which has been engaged in this practice more or less since its inception.

The LTTE is well-known for its ‘baby brigades’ which were reputed to have children as young as eight who could barely lift a gun. It is true that the LTTE had released some children due to international pressure. But it still keeps a substantial number of children in its ranks. The same holds true for the Karuna group.

In fact, the UN Secretary-General listed the LTTE for the fifth consecutive time since 2002 for violating international standards regarding the recruitment and use of child soldiers.

It is in this context that Human Rights Watch, an international human rights organisation which had earlier documented cases of extortion by the LTTE, has urged the UN Security Council to take punitive action against the LTTE and its leaders for recruiting and keeping children as fighting cadres.

HRW has urged the UN to give the LTTE 30 days to release all child soldiers. If that does not happen, HRW advocates travel bans on their leaders and a freeze on their assets.

Using children as armed cadres is a clear violation of international law and Security Council resolutions.

Some try to give it a different twist saying that the LTTE is a terrorist entity that will not abide by civilised norms, but that is a flimsy excuse for justifying the tormenting of children and depriving them of their education.

One must bear in mind that the LTTE had promised to disband its baby brigades more than a decade ago but there has been little progress.

Increasingly bereft of manpower as a result of battlefield losses, the LTTE has started a conscription drive whereby all householders in uncleared areas are obliged to provide at least one youth to their ranks.

It has now been revealed that some LTTE bunkers are manned by very young girls, most of whom had written letters to their parents bemoaning their fate. The LTTE also makes use of the civilian population as a ‘shield’ to save their fighting cadres. All these show the natural disregard of the LTTE towards civilian lives.

As Sri Lanka’s Permanent Representative to the UN Prasad Kariyawasam stated yesterday at the UN, the time for action on child soldiers is now.

The future of HD

The battle for the high-definition video format is finally over. Sony’s Blu-Ray has triumphed over Toshiba’s HD-DVD. The first blow for the latter came when Warner Brothers, which made discs in both formats, sided with Blu-Ray. This was followed in quick succession by other defections and major retailers’ move to stock only Blu-Ray products.

The rivalry did prevent many people from buying next-generation discs, both of which are capable of reproducing 1080 line true High Definition pictures. Now that one format has emerged as the clear winner, just as JVC’s VHS videotape triumphed over Sony’s Betamax in the 1980s, consumers do have a clear path to follow.

But for how long is the question on most analysts’ lips. Remember Super Audio CD and DVD-Audio, hailed as the next big thing in audio after the CD? They were more or less washed away in the download stream.

The ultimate winner: MP3. With the rapid proliferation of the Internet and increasingly access to broadband, downloads have become the preferred format for music purchases the world over. Physical album sales are dwindling day by day.

Many fear that the same phenomenon will be repeated in the video landscape. Several services in the US already offer downloadable HD movies through the Internet. Moreover, cable and satellite-based Video On Demand services are proliferating.

Who wants to bother with a trip to the video store when the movie comes right to your TV screen at a small charge? Granted, downloads are unlikely to have alternate endings, multiple language tracks, uncompressed surround sound, directors’ commentaries etc which are common in physical discs.

There are more obstacles. Even in the US, the biggest market for movies, the Internet bandwidth available to most customers is not enough to stream a high-def movie without any interruption. It will take at least five more years for such an infrastructure to become commonplace.

There are other threats to Blu-Ray apart from the Internet.

Most consumers are perfectly happy with existing DVDs, which have top-notch picture quality. Many cheap DVD players upscale the resolution to near-HD levels.

Besides, only a very low percentage of consumers have LCD or plasma TVs which can output a true HD (1080p) picture at the moment. Flash memory is also developing rapidly to the point where a pen drive would soon be able to store an uncompressed HD movie.

Ultimately, it is the consumer who will give the final verdict. Both physical and non-physical media have their strengths and weaknesses and the most plausible scenario is that they will survive side by side.