The release by the LTTE of 23 child combatants is a matter for happiness. But for the efforts of some human rights activists and a section of the media – only a section as others have chosen to turn a blind eye to the issue so as not be ‘branded as being anti-LTTE’ in the eyes of the NGO circuit – the LTTE would not have let go of them.

Those who are wary of taking on the LTTE over child soldiers however are at the forefront of campaigns to protect children’s rights in the south. An oft heard argument from these quarters is that the issue of child soldiers is being used as a bludgeon with which to beat the LTTE. Inevitably, such a crime against children, which causes immense worry to the civilised world, becomes ammunition in the hands of anti-LTTE activists. However, that it is the rivals and enemies of the outfit who have become more vocal on this issue should in no way be claimed in extenuation of this crime.

An occasional release of some children in captivity has been part of the LTTE strategy to tide over the international pressure at times when the issue of child abductions becomes too embarrassing for it and the countries supportive of it such as Norway. This, we have seen many times in the past, but thousands of children continue to languish as combatants.

In some areas in the East, as the CNN reported in 2003, parents had stopped sending their children to school fearing that the LTTE would abduct them. While these voiceless parents and children suffer in silence unable to stand up to terror, children of LTTE leaders live like the progeny of the political elite in the south. Prabhakaran’s children, as we reported a few years ago, are doing well in their studies. His wife, who had to forego her higher education due to marriage, applied for reregistration with the Peradeniya University (Faculty of Agriculture) last year with a view to getting a transfer to the Jaffna University. But, since she had been away for over a decade without a valid reason being cited, the university could not comply with her request. This kind of emphasis that Prahakaran’s family and those of other LTTE leaders have placed on education is salutary. And other children must also be allowed to live like children and pursue their education. The Sri Lankan Tamil community has been able to produce scientists, doctors, engineers, writers and many other professionals of international fame because of the importance they have attached to education. Even during the height of the civil war, the Jaffna University remained open offering a lesson to their southern counterparts which remained more closed than open in the 1987-90 period.

Perhaps, the LTTE has borrowed a leaf from certain political leaders of the south, who have seen to it that their home constituencies don’t develop so that there won’t emerge a power elite posing a threat to them or their children.

Rohana Wijeweera also was notorious for making cannon fodder of others’ children. While mobilising school children in his abortive insurrection which left thousands children on tyre pyres or floating in rivers or in mass graves like the one on Suriya Kanda, which came to be dubbed ‘Mountain of Death’, he was hiding with all his children and wife in safety just like Prabhakaran.

One of the questions with which the paid peaceniks seek to silence their critics opposed to appeasing the LTTE is: "If the war resumes, will you send your children to the war front?" Similarly, these ladies and gentlemen sighted at every embassy cocktail brushing their coat tails with foreign envoys, who keep their NGOs going (and consider them the ‘civil society of Sri Lanka’), must ask the LTTE leaders abducting children of hapless civilians: "Messeigneurs, why aren’t you sending your children as well to the war front?" Nay, we are asking LTTE leaders to do so. What is being stressed is that they must show the same concern for other children as well.

If a child is robbed wherever in the world for whatever purpose, it should be considered a crime. The gravity of the crime becomes manifold when children are abducted to be trained to kill or to be killed. For, soldiering is a process where children lose their childhood and are turned into men prematurely. This lost childhood can never be regained and their minds conditioned by brain-washing to kill is extremely difficult to rehabilitate.

International pressure mounting on the LTTE, through unprecedented global media focus on the country, in the wake of the tsunami disaster, appears to have had its desired impact on the outfit but there should be no let up until its Child Brigade, consisting of thousands of child combatants, is totally disbanded and the children are handed back to parents through an organisation like UNICEF. The TRO which is doing the bidding of the LTTE should not be entrusted with the task.