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| Sunday, 20 February 2005 |
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Features |  |
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Kofi Annan: condolences and child soldiers by Lucien Rajakarunanayake There are many concerns among the citizens of this tsunami struck island about the message of sympathy sent by Kofi Annan, UN Secretary General, to the families of Kousalyan and other members of the Tamil Tigers killed in a recent ambush. Almost everyone is moved by a killing and Mr. Annan is obviously no exception. But the contents of his message of sympathy tend to make us wonder about his impartiality in these matters, or the impartiality of those who advise him from Colombo about such issues. We have no problems with his statement of hope that the recent killings would not adversely affect the peace process in Sri Lanka. As a people we do feel sorrow at the death or danger to anyone. Mr. Annan may have known this from reports about how Sri Lankans rose to their humanitarian best to help each other irrespective of ethnicity, religion, political differences and even enmity, when the tsunami hit us. It is that surge of humanitarian feeling that helped us get on top of the situation so fast; in addition to the genuine foreign aid we received. We too hope, as Mr. Annan does, that the pledges of assistance made by many countries would be adhered to. However, what bothers us here is what made Mr. Annan rush to declare his sympathies at the deaths of Kousalyan and the five others, one of whom was a former member of parliament and also a member of the Human Rights Commission of the LTTE, if there could really be any commission of that type with the LTTE's known record on Human Rights. In case the Colombo Office of the UN did not inform the UN Secretary General of the fact, the most important person killed in this incident, Kousalyan, was the political head of the LTTE in the East. He was very close to the LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran, and carried out all his orders faithfully, including the forcible recruitment of children to carry arms for the LTTE, a matter about which Mr. Annan has expressed genuine concern. In case his expression of sympathy was due to the ongoing peace process here, whatever its status be, what is of interest is whether he or his office sent any such message when the Israeli forces killed the bed-ridden leader of Hamas not long ago, despite a peace process of sorts and a Road Map to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict being in place? A shortwhile later, did he send a message of sympathy to the family of the deputy leader of Hamas, who replaced its leader, and was also assassinated by the Israelis? I'm sure Mr. Annan must be aware of the proverb 'He who lives by the sword dies by the sword' which has its roots in the teaching of Christ that: "All those who take the sword shall perish with the sword" (Mathew 26; 52). Being a predominantly Buddhist country we are also familiar with the teaching of the Buddha that hatred begets hatred. It appears that what took place in the case of Kousalyan and his colleagues was exactly that. They were wielding the sword for many years, little realising that they would also be its victims. They wielded the sword against Tamil leaders who held views contrary to the LTTE. They used the threat of the sword to extort money and goods from the Tamil people, who they claim to be the sole representatives of them, and also seek to liberate from majority domination. They also used the sword at will against Sinhalese and Muslim civilians, these included the massacre of Buddhist monks, and Muslims at prayer in their mosques. Whatever Mr. Annan's concerns about how the recent killings of Kousalyan and others would affect the peace process, it is difficult to understand his abiding sympathy at the violent deaths of such people. Even if he is such a sensitive person as to be genuinely grieved by the death of a human being anywhere, irrespective of the antecedents to such death, it is surprising that he did not realise that the expression of such private grief in public is not in keeping with the office he holds, as the virtual custodian of all human values and human rights the world over. The children of war In writing this I am reminded of another admonition by Jesus Christ: 'Let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth' - Mathew 6:3. Could it be that at the time he sent his message of sympathy about the deaths of the LTTE cadres, he was not aware of the dossier about the use of child soldiers, that his office presented to the Security Council the very next day? He must be having great skill in keeping one's sympathy about the killing of recruiters of child soldiers and the need to impose sanctions on their organisations in watertight compartments in his mind. It is definitely a case of his left hand not knowing what his right is doing. Just to set the record straight, Kousalyan himself was recruited to the LTTE as a child soldier. He rose in the ranks of terror, being always faithful to his leader. He was among those who forcibly recruited children from the East for the LTTE's fighting cadres. It might interest Mr. Annan to know that the majority of suicide killers of the LTTE were those recruited from the East. It is Kousalyan and others of his ilk who did not raise one voice of protest at how the LTTE broke its written and spoken pledges to the United Nations about stopping the recruitment of child soldiers. These are the people who made a mockery of the pledges given to the UN Secretary General's own Rapporteur on child soldiers, Mr. Olara Otunnu, and also to UNICEF. Kousalyan was LTTE's political leader in the East, when UNICEF reported that the LTTE has recruited 40 children to carry arms for it, in the month since the tsunami hit Sri Lanka. Whatever Mr. Annan's personal feelings about the killing of Kousalyan and others, we are glad that his office has presented its latest report about child soldiers, and retained the LTTE among the organisations engaged in this unpardonable cruelty to children and parents. We hope that his personal sorrow at the death of Kousalyan and his brothers in terror shall not prevent him from prosecuting the case against these organisations with all the vigour at his command. We have been impressed by the manner in which Mr. Annan insisted that the US-UK led invasion of Iraq should not take place without proper UN approval. We have also seen these invaders, particularly George W Bush, come cap in hand to ask the United Nations to get him out of the mess he put the American people into, by requesting that the UN handle the recent election in Iraq, even under US-UK occupation. Let there be no more delay on the part of the Security Council in acting against these forces of terror that use children as cannon-fodder, for dubious claims of liberation. |
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