CLASSIFIED | POLITICS | TERRORISM | OPINION | VIEWS

Tamil Tiger Child Soldiers

Asoka Weerasighe Ottawa, Canada

February 21, 2008

UN Security Council
(Working Group on Children & Armed Conflict) New York US

Member of the UN Security Council:

Your deliberations on February 21, with a lead taken by Human Rights Watch discussing to impose sanctions on armed groups in Sri Lanka for using children in their forces is a welcome humanitarian gesture.

“The LTTE and the Karuna Group continue to use children to fight their battles in clear violation of international law and Security Council resolutions” said Joe Becker, children’s rights advocate for Human Rights Watch. “The Security Council should punish their brazen violations with concrete action”, said Becker and continued to say, “The LTTE has ignored repeated appeals to end its use of child soldiers and the time for Security Council action is now.”

While I whole heartedly endorse that sentiment, but the time for the Security Council to act was yesterday… was a decade ago! To call for “action is now” shows lack of intensity and urgency to save these children to become forced cannon fodder in the battlefield in an adult war.

While the Security Council sits around varnished tables discussing what should be done and what shouldn’t be done, Tamil child soldiers are being mowed down along the Forward Defence Lines like slashed poppies in a Khandahar poppy field with their chests bleeding a poppy red having been shot by the defending government forces. The fact is that a whole generation of Tamil children has been wiped out since the 1990s while you all sit around tables in discussion.

These are the Tamil children that were abducted while going to school or the LTTE going to houses demanding from parents a child, or else…. These were the children who were recruited from Tsunami orphanages, and their guardians threatened with death if they were not let go. These are the children who are young four-year olds and the Kalashnikovs that they grip to shoot are bigger than them. And this is not fair. You know this story well. You know this story well enough that you could recite chapter and verse while in your sleep, as you all have written reams of pages in your annual reports. There should be no reason to prolong your definitive actions any more, while child soldiers die in the battle field a dozen a day, only to be identified with another wooden cross stuck on a mound of earth along a line of thousands of them in a Tamil Tiger grave yard.

Recalling the FACT that on March 17, 2006 in Kinhasa, Thomas Lubanga Dyilo, a Congalese national and alleged founder and leader of the Union des Patriotes Congolais (UPS) was arrested and transferred to the International Criminal Court as part of the judicial proceedings under the Rome Statute for allegedly committing war crimes: conscripting and enlisting children under the age of 15-years and using them to participate actively in hostilities,

Recalling the FACT that 13 people from all warring factions in Sierra Leone have been indicted by the Special Court since November 2003, including former president of Liberia Charles Taylor for conscripting of children under the age of 15 into an armed force;

Recalling the FACT that Charles Taylor is the highest-ranking leader ever brought to the International Court of Crime accused of recruiting child soldiers;

Recalling the FACT that on June 20, 2007, the United Nations-backed War Crimes Court for Sierra Leone handed down landmark convictions against Alex Tamba Brima, Brima Bazzy Kamara and Santiogie Borbor Kanu for recruiting and using child soldiers.

Recalling the FACT that the Tamil Tigers first recruited children to form part of the Tiger fighting force as the Baby Brigade and commandered by Justin, when they took on the Indian Peace Keeping Force in 1987, and you all are still discussing what concrete action should be taken for this brazen violation;

Recalling the FACT that by 1987 the Tamil Tiger child soldiers were integrated with adult units to fight beside them*, and you all are still discussing what concrete action should be taken for this brazen violation;*

Recalling the FACT that the LTTE child soldiers saw their first recorded major action on November 22, 1990 when they attacked the Government’s Mankulum army camp, *and you all are still discussing what concrete action should be taken for this brazen violation;*

Recalling the FACT it was the battle for Elephant Pass when an estimated 550 Tamil Tigers were killed, and the majority were child soldiers, *and you all are still discussing what concrete action should be taken for this brazen violation;*

Recalling the FACT that the fiercest of all LTTE-fighting units was the Leopard Brigade, or Siruthai Puli which was exclusively of child soldiers whose unswerving loyalty to the Tamil Tiger leader Prabhakaran was well noted. He says go and kill, and they go and kill, and you all are still discussing what concrete action should be taken for this brazen violation;

Recalling the FACT that despite signed pledges given by the LTTE to United Nations Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict (CAAC), Olara Otunuu in 1998 that they will stop recruiting children, and yet they have done it in the scores of hundreds every year ever sinc, and you all are still discussing what concrete action should be taken for this brazen violation even after 10 long years;

Recalling the FACTthat UNICEF in March 2005 reported more than 4,700 cases of recruitment of children by the LTTE, and you all are still discussing what concrete action should be taken for this brazen violation.

It is unconscionable that the UN representatives go to Sri Lanka, meet with the leaders of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, get their pledges not to recruit child soldiers, write reams of pages reporting Velupillai Prabhalakarn the leader of the LTTE being guilty of child recruitment for the Baby Brigade, and still have not indicted him for that war crime.

*It is unconscionable and immoral that the UN has not indicted Velupillai Prabhkaran, the leader of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam for War Crimes as yet. If Charles Taylor was guilty of such a crime and brought to the International Criminal Court, why not Prabhakaran? If Thomas Lunga was guilty of the War Crime of recruiting children as child soldiers, why not LTTE’s Prabhkakaran? If Alex Tamba Brima, Brima Bazzy Kamara and Santigie Borbor Kanu were guilty of War Crimes for recruiting child soldiers, why not Prabhakaran? I am absolutely stymied!*

*You all have discussed this issue to death, and owe it to the Tamil children that much. Lets have some honesty. Lets have some gumption.
Indict the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam’s leader Velupillai Prabhakaran. You all have found him guilty of violations year in and year out, and all that is printed in black and white in your annual
reports.*

*Lets have a time line of your proposed action as words on paper year after year cannot save these Tamil children in peril. You owe that much to those Tamil children and their heart-broken parents who have no more tears to shed. You just owe it to them and you owe it to your conscience having spent oodles of tax dollars visiting Sri Lanka and writing reports.*

*Enough is enough and let this exercise of yours not turn out to be perennial joke.*

*Surely if now is not the time to indict Prabhakaran…then let us know when?*

Sincerely.
Asoka Weerasighe
Ottawa, Canada

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