On my watch Lucien Rajakarunanayake:

Giving childhood back to children armed for terror

Sri Lanka has waited long enough to rid our country of the ignominy of child soldiers, and also name and shame the so-called international community for the manner it has failed to act against those who recruit children for armed conflict, while mouthing loud statements about the need for both sides to the conflict here to settle matters by negotiation.

The LTTE should put an end to the recruitment and use of Child Soldiers

If the campaign to ?Bring Back the Child? the theme of the National Campaign against the Recruitment of Children for Armed Conflict was too late in the coming, it was not because Sri Lanka was unaware of the need to end this damage to our children and its stain on the image of the country. It was because we have genuinely waited in good faith for organizations such as the United Nations and UNICEF and others, to bring an end to this shame through their good offices; and because we were always given the false hope, by the usual do-gooders and white flag bearers or truce wallahs for the LTTE, that it would be possible to succeed in reasonable and humane negotiations with the most brutal of terrorist organizations, to put an end to this worst aspect of terrorist savagery.

There are several countries where child soldiers are a fact of every day life today, especially in Africa. In come of these places there are more that mere suspicions that they are recruited by the government, or that they are harnessed by both sides to an armed conflict. The situation in Sri Lanka has been altogether different. As one of the earliest countries to have signed the UN Protocol on the Rights of the Child, successive Sri Lankan governments, whatever their other shortcomings, have been steadfast in their opposition to the recruitment of children for armed conflict, although having to live through nearly three decades of such conflict.

More than image

In launching the campaign against Child Soldiers last Thursday, President Rajapaksa made this position very clear. He said: ?The image of Sri Lanka, for far too long, has been stained by the presence of Child Soldiers in our country. We have been disgraced by being banded with other countries where this dreadful practice exists, and it is time for us to erase that stain on our country and nation; a stain that has not come through official policy, but through the acts of those who use terror against the state.? Important as it is to remove this stain from the image of Sri Lanka, as seen by the world, he said, ?more important than erasing the stain in our image, is the need to save our children from this special horror of terror; the most savage of the chosen weapons of terror that has been the menace of our society for nearly three decades.?

Regional bodies

It is an important reminder to regional bodies such as the European Union, which came out, last Monday, with a curious balancing act between democracy and terror, more tilted towards the agents of terror; and blow-hot, blow-cold organisations on Human Rights such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, who urge Sri Lanka to enter into a cease-fire with the LTTE and try once again to settle matters over coffee and snacks possibly in Oslo, Copenhagen or Geneva.

Their tilt towards terror is obvious when they wholly ignore, except for passing mention, of the actual and increased use of children carrying arms for the LTTE, after it has so blatantly turned down all pleas and requests from organizations such as the UN and UNICEF to stop the use of children for their war of terror in and against Sri Lanka; and even reneged on its pledges to the UN to put an end to the recruitment and use of Child Soldiers.

In the current military situation, where the LTTE has been pushed into less than 60 sq. km in Mullaitivu, it is farcical to talk of a ceasefire, which is as ridiculous as expecting the Soviet and Western Allied troops not to link up across the River Elbe as World War 2 was drawing to a close and the Nazis facing ultimate defeat in Germany.

Yet this is the thinking of those EU movers in Brussels, and other organisations of the ?international community?, that keep on urging Sri Lanka to have even a limited truce or ceasefire with the LTTE.

They forget, or ignore the fact that the LTTE has of late been increasing its recruitment of children into its armed ranks which is a clear war crime.

There is not even the suggestion that a truce should be preceded by the LTTE setting free all the child soldiers it has, even if these peace lobbyists are not happy with the Sri Lankan Government?s demand that the LTTE disarms and surrender, which will bring an instant end to the fighting.