The past two weeks have exposed the LTTE to be the largest user of child soldiers in the world. What is even worse, the LTTE has refused to accept responsibility for this shameful policy, and is doing nothing to correct it.

The LTTE’s claims over the years that it will abide by the demands of world organizations such as the United Nations to cease pressing children into its service, were blown away when more than a thousand children were returned to their parents over the last two weeks in the Eastern Province.

It is also now proved beyond doubt, as has repeatedly been said by international organizations and local and foreign media, that most of the children who are members of the LTTE were recruited during the Ceasefire Agreement over the past two years.

Some of these children are as young as 12 years old.

The LTTE is attempting to say that the recruitment of thousands of children took place without its knowledge, and was conducted by its former renegade Eastern Commander Colonel Karuna. This excuse is as pathetic as it is unbelievable.

It was never possible for Karuna to recruit such huge numbers of children without the complete approval of LTTE Leader Velupillai Prabhakaran.

Last week, the LTTE had the audacity to issue a public statement saying that it would give up recruiting children. Well, we’ve heard that before. Seven years ago, United Nations Special Representative for Children’s Affairs, Olara Otunnu, visited the Wanni and obtained a promise from Prabhakaran himself that there would be no further recruitment of children below the age of 18 years.

This promise was never kept. Not for even one day did the LTTE stop recruiting children. Indeed, there is absolutely no evidence that the LTTE leadership ever issued even a single instruction to its recruiting branch that it should halt or even reduce the recruitment of children. In an organization where disobeying a single order means death, there is no possibility that the recruitment branch actually received orders to desist, but continued to do so. Otunnu himself later publicly accused the LTTE of not honouring its promise, and called off plans to have follow up visits to the Wanni.

It is also not possible that Karuna recruited the children himself. The LTTE’s recruitment branch is one of the most highly specialized departments of the organization, with official propaganda leaflets, and propaganda video films. Specially trained recruitment cadres carry out organized recruitment campaigns, arriving in a district with lists of schools and their addresses. Principals are informed in advance that the recruitment branch would be carrying out a campaign and the date and time given so that the Tigers would receive the full co-operation of the school’s staff. The Tigers bring with them a video cassette player and large screen television, which they take from class to class and show propaganda films.

Leaflets are also given out to students. The recruitment cadres then identify children who show any enthusiasm to watch the films, and take down their particulars. The cadres also tempt the children by allowing them to hold weapons in their hands, and sometimes even allowing them to fire weapons. The smartness of wearing a Tiger uniform is also a major draw for the children.

The first visit is followed up by several more visits, and the children are brainwashed into joining. On occasions where parents get wind of what is happening, the Tigers kidnap the children before the brainwashing process is complete.

The recruitment branch sets quotas from each school of the number of children it wants recruited, and it is up to the cadres to fill the quotas.

Where a large number of students join relatively willingly, it is not necessary for many to be kidnapped to fill the quota, and the age of those kidnapped is relatively high. However, when only a few children join willingly, the cadres tend to kidnap many children, and they may be as young as 12 years old.

The cadres then send reports to the LTTE leadership in the Wanni, which monitors the recruitment drives on a daily basis. Reports are also sent to the LTTE’s training specialized camps, so that they can prepare to receive the number of child recruits who are being sent. Children are usually sent to training camps which are a considerable distance from their homes, so that they are less likely to run away, and it is also much more difficult for their family members to track them down. Parents received little help from anyone, as the police were under government orders not to act on complaints against the LTTE. Even when they managed to secure their children’s release, or the children escaped, the LTTE would simply go back to their homes later on and bring them back.

These children are given training and are further brainwashed through propaganda activities. The type of training depends on their age those above 16 years are given training in weapons and fighting, while those who are younger are given training in logistics. Cadres below the age of 16 form the backbone of the LTTE’s logistics setup, and in fact, during battles with the armed forces the logistics effort is provided almost exclusively by very young cadres, since any who are old enough and physically strong enough to fire a rifle with any degree of accuracy are sent into battle. Those who are above 16 who remain in the logistics branch are involved in driving vehicles with supplies and ammunition, or are in the medical units.

It is of course very likely that Karuna played an important part in the recruitment process, since the recruiters needed the assistance of his cadres. In fact, many of the recruiters were from the East themselves, and would have been closely associated to Karuna. Yet, their orders came from the Wanni, and they were responsible to the LTTE leadership and not to Karuna.

This column has continuously exposed the LTTE’s recruitment of child soldiers over the years, and reported on the two massive recruitment drives that the LTTE carried out during the ceasefire, the first of which saw its numbers swell to 10,000, and the second of which saw it increase further up to 18,000.

Even during the ceasefire, the LTTE has continued to recruit children. This while UNICEF has been actively involved in getting the Tigers to release children into the transit camps that UNICEF set up in the Northeast, from where the children were handed back to their families. But while the LTTE did hand over a small number of children to UNICEF, it continued to keep thousands within its ranks, all the while denying their very existence.

The LTTE had to set up many new camps during the ceasefire in order to train and house the new recruits, including the children. Large camps were set up during the ceasefire in every district in the East (Trincomalee, Batticaloa, Ampara), and several areas of the North, notably the Mullaittivu district. These camps were set up on the orders of the leaders in the Wanni, who would not have allowed Karuna to set up secret camps in the east. Neither could Karuna have done so, since the LTTE’s intelligence wing cadres were present in the east and reported directly to Intelligence Chief Pottu Amman. The eastern camps were not sufficient for the numbers recruited, and new recruits were shipped northwards in boats from the Vakarai or Muthur areas and arrived in Mullaittivu.

Any journalist who has interviewed LTTE cadres knows that most cadres are 16 to 18 years old when they join the LTTE. It is rare for a cadre to be over 20 years when he joins since by then he would have left school and be employed somewhere, even if it in his family’s paddy field.

An interesting fact is that girls are recruited at a slightly older age than boys. While there have been numerous cases of 12-year-old boys being taken in by the LTTE, girls are generally at least 14 years old. This is likely to be because girls are physically not as strong for the hardships of jungle life and training. As a consequence, the number of girls who run away from the LTTE is also much less than the number of boys, since girls would be more daunted by the prospect of trekking through the jungle alone with the LTTE on their trail.

The reason why the LTTE has allowed so many child soldiers from the east to go back to their homes is that it is in the process of completely revamping its administrative apparatus in the Eastern Province. This has begun with the installation of key senior cadres loyal to Prabhakaran in posts in the east. However, compared to the past, there are likely to be far more Northern cadres in these posts as Prabhakaran is anxious to keep a firmer grip on the area to ensure that such a fiasco as Karuna’s matter should never occur again.

However, once the LTTE sets up this administrative apparatus, it is quite likely to recall many of the child cadres back into service, since the Tigers would prefer to get back their trained cadres, rather than go through the hassle of recruiting and training new ones. This will not happen through a public announcement, of course, but by direct contact with each individual ex-child soldier.

After all, the LTTE knows where they live, and there’s no-one protecting them.