New beginning for child soldiers

New beginning for child soldiers
With the country in the midst of celebrating the first anniversary of the war victory the normalisation process too is gradually gaining ground from all evidence that is before us. This is not only with regard to the rebuilding of infrastructure of the war battered landscape but also the rebuilding of the shattered lives of the people of the North.
As already evident travel barriers to the North are a thing of past. People from the South are flocking in their thousands to places of worship and historical sites that they had only read and heard of in the past. According to reports all hotels and Guesthouses in the tourists spots in the North and East have been over-booked for the prolonged Vesak holiday.
The North has become a hub of development while businessmen and traders commute to and from the North and the South with regular monotony. In short all the severed arteries that once linked the two communities from the North and South are now in place.
However while enjoying the fruits of freedom in a tangible form one tends to overlook the human misery and suffering that overtook the people of the North and the pathos of their heart-rending existence under the jackboot of a brutal terror.
We say this because the war has taken such heavy toll on the lives of people in the North that for most the healing process would be a long drawn out one while for others the scars of war run so deep that the damage could be permanent. Therefore while addressing the physical development of the Northern landscape there is also a compelling need to heal the mental scars left behind by the prolonged conflict speedily.
It is here that the Government should be commended for addressing the human fall out of the war with the same urgency it is addressing the physical side of developing the war ravaged landscape.
According to our lead story on Wednesday the last batch of child soldiers comprising 108 boys and 90 girls were handed over to their parents by the Rehabilitation Authority. In all, there were 294 child soldiers who were undergoing rehabilitation and 96 of them were released earlier to their parents.
According to Commissioner General of Rehabilitation Brigadier Sudantha Ranasinghe these child soldiers were given all the necessary grounding to make them enter the mainstream of life putting behind their harrowing ordeal. "They played cricket, participated in camp fires, did scouting and learned a lot of other skills like any other child would in a Colombo school. They even went to McDonalds and enjoyed meals," he is quoted as saying.
For them this will be a new beginning away from the bunkers. Whereas before, their life was a gamble, today they have been given the opportunity to savour a new life and the freedom to revel in the joys of youth that was cruelly plucked away from them.
President Mahinda Rajapaksa had pardoned these hapless victims and given them all the facilities to restart life on a clean slate. He should be saluted for this singular achievement of giving back the lives of these child soldiers who were condemned to a premature death.
But for the military victory over the LTTE these children who are between the ages of 12 and 17 would still have been held in LTTE gulags until the time came to lay down their lives for an Utopian dream. This is indeed a telling indictment on those Western countries who advocated negotiations to end the war and spare further bloodshed. In a sense it is a paradox that peace negations failed to end the killings while the military option succeeded to rescue all those condemned to die such as these hapless child soldiers of whom no NGO who were quick to accuse the military of battlefield atrocities, gave a damn.
In this regard it is also opportune to recall the efforts made by UN special rapporteur on children affected by war, Olara Otunu to secure the release of child soldiers in the days of the Ceasefire agreement. Despite the assurance given by the LTTE to send them to their parents it turned out to be yet another empty promise of the outfit. Now they are free thanks to the steps taken to militarily crush the LTTE.
What is now needed is proper follow up action to ensure these children make the best use of their newfound freedom. No doubt among them would be talented youth who were rudely deprived of an education to exploit their talents.
These one time child soldiers who have now received a fresh lease of life should be afforded the proper guidance to make the optimum use of their new lease of life and be productive citizens who will be assets to the nation.