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“Child Soldiers” – A distortion of ground reality to vilify the Tamil liberation struggle

In this context, Colombo media has a role to play, a role that becomes vital in the background of a two-decade old war and the misery it has wrought upon a selected community of people, the Tamils. To trace the background of the conditions that existed, one need to revisit the early seventies when the Tamil children were shamelessly told by the then government that they belong to a second class of citizenry, in that they have to pass more hurdles than their counterparts in the South to gain admission to the halls of learning. This, among other indignities perpetrated on their brothers, sisters, fathers and mothers, motivated those children to join the freedom struggle.

Children who have been witnesses to their mothers and sisters being gang-raped by state troopers, children who have seen their elders fleeing mayhem and murder in their work places in the South cannot be told of the international law relating to the age limit to become a fighter. They keep on asking, “What has the international community done to bring to book a rogue state that perpetrates heinous crimes like aerial bombing of churches and schools, killing hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians including children and women and what moral right these people have to ask us not to become fighters when we are being attacked”?

What is the ground reality today after two decades of war and a three and a half year cease-fire? Has the so-called peace process brought about any changes in the lives of the people who fled their habitats due to military onslaughts? An emphatic ‘No’ is the answer. Children who have lost their parents in carpet bombing and shelling, children who have lost their parents in the tidal wave disaster continue to seek refuge with LTTE, for that is the only place that provides them security from hunger, want and anti social elements that tend to abuse these children. Working with UNICEF, the LTTE ascertains the background and provide to these children a safer environment. Putting these children back into the right environment does not call for a news report captioned “Child Soldiers released by LTTE”. This is stigmatising an unfortunate lot of the society and vilifying a freedom struggle.

Journalistic ethics call for more responsibility on the part of the media and it is suggested that a little bit of investigative journalism is practised by actually visiting the areas and speaking to the people, seeing the special homes run by TRO and LTTE to take care of these unfortunate children and see the conditions of abject poverty in the homes that force the children to seek refuge with the LTTE.

22 July 2005

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