Young Victims of a Senseless War - In Battle for “a Cause” Unclear
by Sama Duthiya

“Tamil children from poor families in the North and East of Sri Lanka are sacrificial pawns in a terrorist war financed and waged by extremist Tamils in the West who refuse to negotiate for peace....”says M. Devadasan in the cover story of the Outlook magazine appropriately entitled: “Children of War”. The article (Outlook: Winter 1997/98) describes how young children are wooed by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) with Rambo-style movies and stories of young martyrs and play areas full of toy guns mounted on see-saws. The author vividly describes how Tamil families in the North and East are menaced with property confiscation or physical violence if they appeared unwilling to contribute their sons for the cause.

Reports indicate that the LTTE now has more than 1200 enlisted child soldiers under the age of 14 bearing arms for the “Cause” at any given time. These children are recruited sometimes by the use of money, but more often by the use of sheer terror tactics. The families and the children are told the young recruits would be trained to hold high office in the LTTE military command, but more often than not, they are used merely as “cannon fodder”, to take the fire in the frontline of battle. John F. Burns of the New York Times in a recent article syndicated by the New York Times writes how the LTTE hard core draws back when attacked, leaving the child soldiers to die out in the front, screaming for their mothers in the night. The report describes how the child soldiers often forget to swallow the cyanide capsules strung around their necks and die anguished deaths, taking the fire meant for their comrades in arms. All this sacrifice, for a “cause” that they hardly understand!

The LTTE’s recruitment of young Tamil children in the relentless pursuit of their megalomaniacal ambitions, demonstrates just how selfish, heartless and ruthless they are. No genuine freedom fighter would stoop so low, be so cowardly as to allow young children to serve as fodder for the cannon intended for them. The killing of innocent people in ruthless acts of ethnic cleansing, the terrorizing of whole communities, the displacement of people leaving them homeless and landless - these are all cowardly acts. But the calculated decision to enlist young children of their own community to die in the frontlines of a senseless war is the most cowardly act of all. It is a decision that should be shunned by the international community. It is a crime for which the perpetrators should be held accountable and brought to justice by the international community - for the violation of the rights of those who are not of an age to take decisions for themselves.