Address by HE President Mahinda Rajapaksa
at the launch of the Sri Lanka National Campaign against the Recruitment
of Children for Use in Armed Conflict
Presidential Secretariat,
Colombo February 26th 2009
Distinguished Guests
Ladies and Gentlemen
 We meet today to launch an important campaign, one of
the most important campaigns for the future of our society. There are
many who would say that this should have been launched earlier. But,
even at this late stage this is something we owe to our children, who
will be our future, and for whom we must be ready to make the biggest
sacrifices.
Today we launch the Sri Lanka National Campaign
Against the Recruitment of Children for Use in Armed Conflict. 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.
But, 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.
My dear friends,
If we are late in acting to save these suffering
children, it is because we have been made to believe for too long in the
possibility of reasonable and humane action, by the perpetrators of this
terror directed at our children. It is not that we ever trusted them,
but you know how they were trusted by others who entered into various
agreements with them. It is only later they realized that any agreement
with them was not even worth the paper it was signed on. Unfortunately,
we are still urged to come to agreement with these agents of terror. The
whole world knows that the strategists of LTTE terror continue to hold
Tamil civilians hostage for their cause and have increased the
recruitment of children to carry arms for terror.
We launch this campaign after the failure of the
United Nations to get any agreement from the LTTE that it would put an
end to child conscription. We launch this long after the UN Special
Representative on Children in Combat failed in his efforts to get the
LTTE to release the child soldiers. This launch is also after the
terrorist leaders of the LTTE refused to honour the pledges given to the
United Nations about the release of child soldiers. We act after the
UNICEF has failed to get the LTTE to release the child soldiers they
still hold.
My dear friends,
The LTTE, in keeping with its policy of terror,
refuses to listen to the appeals by the world to stop the use of
children in any sort of armed combat. UNICEF now reports and this is
confirmed by other reliable reports, too that the LTTE has increased the
forcible recruitment of children into its ranks. It is, therefore, time
for us to launch this campaign on behalf of the children of our Tamil
parents in the North, who are forced into helpless silence, as their
so-called liberators seize their children to carry arms in the battle
front.
It is difficult today to give an accurate number of
children forced into armed conflict in our country. Before 2003, it had
been estimated that of nearly 14,000 strong LTTE fighters, nearly 60 per
cent or 8,500 were children under18 years. Even the media was happy to
refer to them as the "Baby Brigade". Recruitment of children took place
in both the North and the East. Later, there was more reliable
information when parents reported to UNICEF offices of the forcible
recruitment of children for combat.
According to the latest figures - in December 2008 -
the total under age - that is under 18 years - recruitment by the LTTE
is 6, 288. Of this 3,809 are boys and 2,478 are girls. There are claims
that 2059 such children, or those recruited as children, have been
released. But this requires better verification.
I am particularly pleased that the Honourable Chief
Minister of the Eastern Province is here. He knows very well what it is
to be a child soldier. I am sure we will have his fullest support to
eliminate this menace of child soldiers in Sri Lanka.
Yet, as much as the military campaign to eradicate
terrorism has slowed down due to the concern we have for the lives of
civilians the LTTE is holding as human buffers and shields in the tiny
pocket they are confined to, there is also the mounting concern for the
children that are forced to carry arms for them.
It is necessary to know why the LTTE needs these
children to be in their ranks. One reason is the rapid drop in adult
fighters, driven out of the fight by our heroic troops. The other is
that children will obey through fear and intimidation, even though
brought in by kidnapping and abduction, or threats to their parents. The
older children may even be "brain-washed", "motivated" or "misled"
through deliberate efforts to glorify war, violence, and martyrdom for a
cause.
My dear friends,
The Children in armed combat in Sri Lanka have been
snatched from their parents; they have been forcibly removed from their
teachers, their classrooms, their schools, their friends and relations,
and their playgrounds. They have been denied the learning that all
children are entitled to. They are deprived the play that all other
children enjoy. They do not have the warmth of their parents and the
guidance of their teachers and this is a tragedy we cannot tolerate any
longer.
For long enough we have seen the manipulators of
terror mould the tender minds of our children I repeat, the tender minds
of our children, for they are all our children; by propaganda to carry
out acts of violence, putting them at risk of death and disability. They
have been robbed of what our society invests for their future in free
education, free health, and all other child-centered services.
With the campaign we launch today, we will begin to
give voice to those thousands of Tamil parents who have been compelled
to watch this sad plight of their offspring, their hopes for the future
being ruthlessly destroyed. We will join them and give them strength. We
will make sure that our fight to eradicate terrorism, goes hand in hand,
with the fight to free our children from being robots of terror.
I call upon all of Sri Lanka to join this cause, to be
part of this campaign, to make your voices heard and your peaceful and
determined actions seen the world over as we seek to liberate the future
of our land, and to free our children from having to carry arms for
anyone, in any conflict, anywhere.
In this great cause, May you all receive the Blessings
of the Noble Triple Gem!
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