Military

DATE=10/19/00

TYPE=BACKGROUND REPORT

NUMBER=5-47192

TITLE=SRI LANKA CHILD SOLDIERS

BYLINE=JIM TEEPLE

DATELINE=NEGOMBO, SRI LANKA

CONTENT=

VOICED AT:

INTRO: For nearly 18 years a vicious war has raged in the tear-dropped

shaped island nation of Sri Lanka. The war between Tamil separatists

and the Sinhalese-dominated government has left an estimated 60-thousand

people dead. Caught up in the conflict are tens of thousands of

children whose lives have been severely disrupted by the fighting.

V-O-As Jim Teeple reports Tamil separatists have used children as

fighters for years and for those fortunate few who manage to leave the

battlefield behind them resuming a normal life requires a helping

hand.

TEXT: // ACT OF TOOLS BEING PLACED IN A METAL BOX, THEN FADE UNDER TEXT //

TEXT: The auto shop at the Don Bosco Technical center is state of the

art. The tools are new and the staff dedicated. The diagnostic testing

equipment is as good as you will find anywhere in the world. The

Salesian Brothers of Don Bosco a Roman Catholic order devoted to

helping and educating young men and boys -- are serious when it comes to

giving troubled young men a second chance at life.

The boy putting his tools away needs a second chance. He and six other

young men and boys at the Don Bosco Technical center have seen more than

their share of trouble. All seven were, until recently, soldiers of one

of the most feared guerrilla armies in the world The Liberation Tigers

of Tamil Eelam or the Tamil Tigers. They were captured by Sri Lankas

army and sent to the Don Bosco Technical Center in Negombo, Sri Lanka

just north of the capital Colombo. The boy putting his tools away is

one of two at the center who will speak to outsiders. He says he is

too scared to give his name -- but that he is now eighteen, and fought

for the Tamil Tigers from the age of sixteen. He also says he fears for

his family.

/// TAMIL VOICE ACTUALITY W/ENGLISH TRANSLATION ///

My mother and the rest of my family are experiencing difficulties

following my capture. I am studying auto mechanics and living here now,

because if I return to my house Ill face a lot of difficulties from the LTTE.

/// END ACTUALITY ///

The young man says he feels fortunate he is alive and healthy. Sitting

next to him is another young man also eighteen and too scared to give

his name, who is not so fortunate. The second young man began fighting

for the Tamil Tigers at the age of thirteen. Wounded badly in the

shoulder when he was captured at the age of sixteen he cannot learn

auto mechanics. Instead he studies printing and says he feels bitter

that he had to fight when other children could go to school.

/// TAMIL VOICE ACTUALITY W/ENGLISH TRANSLATION ///

When I see schoolchildren I feel said, If I had been able to study like

that I could have a good position in life I have sadness in my mind.

/// END ACTUALITY ///

// OPT // The Tamil Tigers have been fighting the Sri Lankan government

for 17 years to carve a separate homeland out of northern and eastern

parts of Sri Lanka. Many Tamils say they face discrimination in jobs,

education and language from Sri Lankas Sinhalese majority, which makes

up about 75-percent of Sri Lankas population. Sri Lankas government

says discriminatory practices against Tamils are a thing of the past.

In 1998, United Nations officials accused the Tamil Tigers of using

children as soldiers. Following that, Tamil Tiger officials said they

would not recruit children under the age of sixteen. However a human

rights group made up largely of Tamil intellectuals recently accused the

Tamil Tigers of continuing the practice saying children as young as

ten are sometimes forced to fight. Analysts who study the conflict say

as many as a third of the estimated seven thousand or so fighters who

belong to the Tamil Tigers are either women or children. // END OPT //

The boys at Don Bosco say they joined the Tamil Tigers voluntarily after

older boys who had joined the guerrilla organization staged

presentations and films that glorified life as a Tiger fighter. It

was a decision they say they soon regretted when faced with the

realities of life as a child soldier. Forced marches, frequent beatings

for minor infractions of camp discipline and terrifying combat against

heavily armed government troops replaced school and family life. Father

Felix Mellawarachchy is the director of the Don Bosco Technical Center.

Father Felix as he likes to be called says when the Tamil Tiger boys

first arrived at Don Bosco they were difficult to handle.

/// FELIX ACTUALITY ///

When they first came they were really wild and really arrogant. They

were not willing to accept anything we said. But slowly we won their

hearts, and now they are just like other boys -they are really

receptive. In times to come I feel they might even be better than the

other boys -- we treat all of our boys equally but we do give these

fellows some special treatment because they deserve and need our special

attention.

/// END ACTUALITY ///

Thousands of children have been killed or maimed in Sri Lankas civil

war and thousands of others have lost one or both parents. More than

250-thousand children have also been displaced by the fighting. One in

three children in Sri Lanka has been directly affected by the war in

some way, and for the rest there also are also costs to bear. In the

past few years money spent on the war has been close to double of what

is spent on education and health. In a recent poll, 55 percent of

children surveyed said they are afraid for Sri Lankas future.

But there are some bright spots. At Don Bosco, Father Felix says months

of patient work with the former Tamil Tiger soldiers is now beginning to

show results. He says the boys are learning new skills and have

adapted well to their new surroundings. Still, he says, there are bad

days.

/// FELIX ACTUALITY ///

They feel very sad sometimes because they see the parents of other

children the brothers and sisters of other children when they come to

visit and eat together then they feel sad because they have nobody

all they have are us. And there are wounds their wounds I do not

think can be erased those scars will remain forever. But we try our

level best as priests as the Salesians of Don Bosco to be good and

kind and loving to these boys.

/// END ACTUALITY ///

The boys who used to fight for the Tamil Tigers say their biggest

surprise upon coming to Don Bosco was being accepted by their Sinhalese

peers. Sri Lanka is more and more a divided country fewer and fewer

Tamils and Sinhalese speak each others language. The Salesians of Don

Bosco and the former Tamil soldiers in their care say Don Bosco teaches

a lesson of reconciliation that the rest of Sri Lanka should follow. (Signed)

neb/jlt/pfh