Students
shun away from exam centers for fear of conscription
THE ATTENDANCE OF GCE ADVANCED
LEVEL IN WANNI DROP TO 7 TO 8 PERCENT FOR FEAR OF CHILD CONSCRIPTION
By Walter Jayawardhana
The attendance of GCE Advanced Level public examination in the Wanni
area these days has dropped to 7 to 8 percent for the fear of parents
keeping their children away from the examination centers as they are
afraid of them being recruited for war.
The public examination held to select students to the universities
is shunned away by the students, under the influence of their parents,
who have registered for the examination as thE centers have become popular
hunting grounds for the LTTE child soldier recruiters to conscript children
for the war, sources in the Kilinochchi and Mulativu, the two districts
still under the control of the Tamil Tigers, said.
The US government owned Voice of America radio station in an editorial
broadcast said that the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) has
started forcing families to turn over at least one family member including
children to serve as combatants.
The broadcast dated August 30 also quoted a representative of the Human
Rights Watch who gave evidence before the European Parliament and said
the Sri Lankan insurgents have “forcibly recruited for combat boys
,girls, men and women” and “continues to murder its political
opponents largely in the Tamil community and runs a near totalitarian
state…”
The editorial said, “Sri Lankan children have suffered death,
wounds, hunger, disease, and the trauma of being forced to take part
in combat.
More than four-hundred fifty children were reportedly forced to join
the Tamil Tigers during 2006, bringing the total number of child soldiers
in their ranks to more than one-thousand. During the same period, a
breakaway faction of the Tamil Tigers lead by Karuna Amman is believed
to have forcibly recruited more than two-hundred children.”
Eelam People’s Democratic Party (EPDP) is another political party
of the Sri Lankan Tamils whose members are continued to be assassinated
by the Tamil Tigers as they openly oppose the Tigers. Its leader Douglas
Devananda said he meets about 200 or more Sri Lankan Tamil from the
North to listen to their grievances.
Devananda who is also the Minister of Social Services said the students
of Vanni who are entitled to sit for the GCE public examinations after
registration are shunning away from the exam centers these days because
the parents are afraid of them being forcibly snatched away to be conscripted
in the baby brigades of the LTTE.
Minister Devananda confirmed as the result of the LTTE’s decision
to conscript 60,000 students from the examinations only 7 to 8 percent
of the students are attending the GCE Advanced Level examination this
time.
He said there is a reliable information that the LTTE leader Velupillai
Prabhakaran is considering to increase the number of children to two
from one family very soon and that might be announced on the “Mahaveer
Day speech”, in which he is scheduled to announce major policy
decisions on November 26 2007.
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