Child conscription must stop - President

ROHAN Mathes

While assuring that terrorism would be eradicated, President Mahinda Rajapaksa said that his Government has taken simultaneous action to fight and free children from being robots of terror.

President Rajapaksa made this observation when he addressed the launching ceremony of the Sri Lanka National Campaign against the Recruitment of Children for Use in Armed Conflict, under the theme, ‘Bring Back the Child’, at the Presidential Secretariat yesterday.

The national campaign targeted at armed groups, vulnerable communities and the children affected, to prevent any future child recruitment and promote the release of children recruited already, had been launched jointly by President Rajapaksa and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).

“I call upon all Sri Lankans to join in this cause, to be part of this campaign, to make your voices heard and your peaceful and determined actions seen the world over,

as we seek to liberate the future of our land, and to free our children from having to carry arms for anyone, in any conflict, anywhere,” the President said.

President Rajapaksa noted that it was high time the stigma of ‘Child Conscription’ which tarnished the country’s good image was erased, and our children were saved from the horror of terror which had plagued the country during the last three decades.

He pointed out that although the Government never trusted the perpetrators of this heinous crime, there had been others who had even entered into agreements with them.

“It is only later they realized that any agreements with them was not even worth the paper it was signed on,” he added.

The President noted with dismay, that despite the world-renowned and continuous LTTE terror of holding innocent Tamil civilians hostage and the increase in child recruitment, his Government is still urged to enter into agreements with these agents of terror.

President Rajapaksa claimed that the campaign was launched following the United Nation’s Special Representative on Children in Combat, had failed to get the LTTE child soldiers released. The United Nations too, had failed in their attempts to get the LTTE to agree on ending child conscription.

He said prior to 2003, in the 14,000 strong LTTE cadres, there had been around 8,500 children under 18 years. Even the media had happily referred to them as the ‘Baby Brigade’. The latest figures in December 2008, indicate there are 6,288 child soldiers in combat, comprising 3,809 boys and 2,478 girls, with the claim pertaining to the release of 2,059 of them, requiring verification.

The President said that the drop in LTTE adult fighters and the fear and intimidation instilled in the children, together with the ‘brain-washing, motivation and misleading’ mechanism of the LTTE, has undoubtedly augmented the process of enhancing child conscription.

“The children in armed combat in Sri Lanka have been snatched from their parents. They have been forcibly removed from their teachers, their classrooms, their schools, their friends and relations and their playgrounds. For long we have seen the manipulators of terror mould the tender minds of our children.”

“They have been denied the learning that all children are entitled to. They are deprived the play that all other children enjoy.

They do not have the warmth of their parents and the guidance of their teachers. And this is a tragedy we cannot tolerate any longer,” the President said.