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Child soldiers: the sins of the army and rebels

by Danielle Vella
The Church in the north-east is “worried” about an increase in the forced abductions of young boys and girls. Youngsters are so afraid they are not going to school or even to mass. In areas controlled by the army, disappearances and murders by “unknown” forces abound.

Mannar (AsiaNews) – Forced recruitment, abductions and arbitrary arrest are menaces constantly threatening Tamil civilians in Sri Lanka’s war-torn north and east. The army and rebels are both to blame for such abuses that the Church recently drew attention to. But things are getting worse and a government decision to invoke anti-terror regulations that grant sweeping powers to the security forces is reminiscent of the arbitrary detention and torture of innocents on the basis of mere “suspicion”.

The past year has seen the island plunge back into civil war between the security forces and the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). Escalating warfare – often fought around thickly residential areas like Jaffna – is causing a real humanitarian crisis.

Recruitment by the Tigers

One direct consequence of intensified war is an upsurge in forced recruitment of youngsters by the LTTE in territory under their control. Serious concern was voiced about this during a pastoral convention held last week by Mannar diocese in the north, attended by around 125 people: priests, representatives of religious orders, lay parish delegates and professionals.

“Girls and boys do not go out of the house for fear of being taken by the LTTE. They are not going to schools and not even to church for Sunday Mass,” anonymous sources who attended the Mannar meeting told AsiaNews. “There are numerous cases of recruiters going to houses and forcibly taking boys and girls for training. They are tied hand and feet and taken like lambs for the slaughter.” The LTTE justification, continued the sources, was that recruits were needed for the “nation” that was facing annihilation. Convention participants expressed frustration at their powerlessness to stop this abduction. The Bishop of Mannar, Rayappu Joseph, urged the community not to lose hope and to fast and pray, saying he would take up the matter directly with LTTE officials.

Army-backed kidnappings

Forced recruitment is a pressing problem in army-held areas in the east too. Last month, a senior UN official accused government forces of forcibly rounding up Tamil children in the east to fight for Karuna, a former LTTE leader who defected from the rebels and is now fighting against them. The government rebuffed the allegations.

Tamils in army-held areas also face the danger – highlighted at the Mannar pastoral meeting – of abduction and murder by “unknown forces” that are often held to be elements of the security forces or paramilitary groups. Such forces are very active in Jaffna, where people live in mortal fear of daily kidnappings, arbitrary arrests, disappearances and killings, a concern raised by the Jaffna Bishop, Thomas Savundaranayagam, when the US Ambassador, Robert Blake, visited his house on 7 December.