by Melani Manel Perera

The rebels are again recruiting civilians and adolescents. The military is also suspected of using minors in the conflict. Appeal from Christian leaders: spare the civilian population.

Colombo (AsiaNews) - The Tamil Tigers have forced six thousand child soldiers to fight. The figure comes from the last five years of conflict, and confirms the alarm raised some time ago by the Catholic Church and civilian organizations in the country. 60% of the soldiers are boys, and their average age is 16. The number relates only to verified cases, but the real figure could be higher.

The phenomenon of forcing adolescents to take up arms is a constant feature of the war that has pitted the army of Colombo against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) for more than 20 years. In 2002, on the occasion of peace talks that ultimately failed, the two sides of the conflict accused each other of using child soldiers. Their forced recruitment never stops, and in April of 2007 the Minister of Social Services, Douglas Devanada, the Tamil leader of the Eelam People’s Democratic Party, had denounced a massive new campaign by the rebels to enlist 60,000 children, taking a child from each of the homes in the northern part of the peninsula of Jaffna. Now Philippe Duamelle, a UNICEF representative in Sri Lanka, asserts: "We have clear indications that the LTTE has intensified forcible recruitment of civilians and that children as young as 14 years old are now being targeted." It is UNICEF that recently claimed that from 2003 to 2008, there have been at least 6,000 cases of child soldiers.

Both sides involved in the fighting have been periodically accused of not sparing the population in their attacks, and of using minors in military maneuvers. The government of Colombo, in fact, is suspected of exploiting child soldiers. The charge against the military, made most recently by Sri Lankan civilian organizations, is substantiated in part by the discovery of bodies of armed minors among the victims of fighting with the Tigers. Sources for AsiaNews confirm that the child soldiers are not for the most part enlisted in the army, but in paramilitary groups that supplement the Sri Lanka Army.

In an attempt to convince the Tamil rebels to spare the civilians from the conflict and allow them to leave the war zone in the north, the Catholic Bishops' Conference of Sri Lanka (CBCSL), the Anglican bishops, and the National Peace Council (NPC) have sent separate messages to the heads of the LTTE.

Bishops Fernando Vianney and Norbert M. Andradi, president and secretary of the CBCSL, are protesting over the "the plight of the innocent civilians who have become victims of the prevailing violence," and ask the Tamil rebels "to refrain from targeting the innocent civilians and that their lives be spared and that their right to life be respected at all costs."

The Anglican bishops are telling the LTTE to "immediately stop this ruthless suppression of Tamil civilians," while the NPC is asking the Tigers to allow the population to reach the buffer zone. The National Peace Council also condemns the recent attacks by the rebels who, mingling among the crowd of fleeing civilians, blew themselves up, causing dozens of deaths and injuries near the refugee centers.

• sri
• lanka
• civil
• war
• tamil
• tiger
• rebels
• separatists
• independence
• child
• soldiers
• abuse
• minors
• exploitation
• terrorism