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Journalists restricted
As the first of three Transit Centres for LTTE child soldiers was opened on Friday in Kilinochchi, journalists specially flown to the north by UNICEF were not allowed to interview the 49 occupants freely.

While a scrummage ensued among reporters to ask questions from the four children selected by UNICEF for the interviews, both the questions and answers were screened by the organisers.

"The children were brought in late last night. They are very tired. We asked them whether they would like to be interviewed and these are the ones who agreed. We also do not want them to relive the trauma," UNICEF officials said.

Photographing was also severely restricted by TRO officials though journalists promised not to take close-up shots and those which could lead to the identification of the children.

What the children say
"We were living with our families when we saw the army atrocities and harassment. Then we decided to join the LTTE. The LTTE didn't want us, but even when our parents came we did not agree to see them. The LTTE educated us."

This was more or less the story of the two boys and two girls - who say they have been with the LTTE less than a year - picked for interviews with journalists.
One fatherless girl deviated slightly from the story and said that her family faced immense hardship after her father died and she went to the LTTE because of poverty. Asked whether the LTTE paid her a salary, she replied with a shake of her head.

The question: Did you wear a cyanide capsule? was immediately disallowed by the organizers while the children were reluctant to talk about the type of work they did for the LTTE.

What plans for the future? To study, they say, but what they hope to become they will not reveal.

From tomb to womb
Child soldiers begin new journey from LTTE ranks to home and family
Wanni: It is 11 a.m. Kilinochchi time and 11.30 a.m. Colombo time on Friday, October 3. The stage is set for the opening in Kilinochchi of the Transit Centre for child soldiers released the previous day. Eight girls, no not child combatants, in pink party dresses from an orphanage nearby are waiting for a sign to begin their dance of welcome to the sound of western music, for the "dignitaries" who have just arrived for the opening.

The ceremony begins with the lighting of the traditional oil lamp in memory of all those who have died in the war, followed by speech after speech - but still no sign of the 49 children, 27 girls and 22 boys, brought in a van and released to UNICEF by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam the previous night. Or is there?

Children's laughter emanates from across a neat cadjan fence just beyond the hall where the ceremonies are taking place. And one or two heads pop up from behind it, with faces peering curiously at the goings on, only to disappear in a few seconds, most probably at the reprimands of adults.

This is the first of three transit centres for child soldiers (the other two are to be opened in Batticaloa and Trincomalee) to be jointly managed by UNICEF and the Tamil Rehabilitation Organization (TRO), which has been running orphanages in the Wanni. The TRO is an NGO registered with the government but widely perceived to be controlled by the LTTE.

The centres are a collection point where the needs of these child soldiers are to be assessed in a non-military environment before they are returned to their families. The assessment will be to find out basic information such as their names, parents' identities, their villages, level of education and also the trauma they have gone through so that such issues can be better tackled when they are safely back with their families. Rehabilitation is to begin once they are reunited with their families and monitored closely by Save the Children social workers.

Finally, the speeches are over and it is time to see these children's temporary home for the next few weeks or, as reiterated by UNICEF officials, only a maximum of three months.

At the steel gate leading into the inner compound, there is more waiting, for they are not ready, say officials. Rush through and it is walkabout time around the spacious garden scattered with mango trees, providing a shady area against the scorching sun of the Wanni. Newly-constructed dormitories, spanking new furniture, clean bathrooms et al.

But occupancy is evident, even if only for a night, with sarongs carelessly thrown over a bunk bed, enamel cups close to a jug of water, slippers lying around and a clothesline bent low with trousers, shirts and sarongs on the boys' side and dresses and skirts on the girls' side. The journalists' walkabout is strictly monitored, with UNICEF and TRO officials running hither and thither shouting warnings that no photographs are allowed. Understandable because we are dealing with children.

Suddenly we come upon a dormitory with four boys of around 14-15, two playing carrom on the floor and the other two lounging around. I step up into the room, and one boy of about 14, smiles and turns towards me. Before I can apologetically utter the few Tamil words I know indicating that I cannot communicate in Tamil, orders are barked at him by TRO officials to turn the other way, which he does with some reluctance. Then he joins the other boy on the top bunk bed and begins a board game.

A similar scenario is played out in the large grounds where a majority of the girls -- with close-cropped hair, and boys are engaged in games. Most of the children seem to be in the 13-14-15 year range, though I spot one boy who looks as young as 9 or 10 years old. Cameras are not allowed, says a TRO official brusquely attempting to push aside journalists, including me having only a small one around my neck. UNICEF officials quickly intervene and I am allowed through. Ultimately, long shots of the kids at play are allowed.

Attempts to chat to the children meet the same fate. A few casual questions about what sports they like, to which they reply in unison that they enjoy netball, basketball, carrom and chess, are cut off and journalists hurried to two structured interviews.

Two boys and two girls are the only ones who are able to face journalists, we are told as we sit under trees, with the children wearing caps covering half their faces. The girls do look terrified as they face not only the journalists and interpreters but also a knot of men, including TRO officials gathered around to watch and listen. Questions have to be asked in English, for UNICEF officials to check whether they are acceptable (to prevent further traumatization, it is explained), then translated into Tamil by social workers and put to the children, the reply awaited and translated for the journalists. It is a difficult interview.

After grumbles and complaints, 10-20 more precious minutes with the two boys are given, the interview for which I sit beside a journalist from the Voice of Tigers.
Later it is time for a sumptuous lunch with crab curry at the TRO office a little distance away. Then the nearly two-hour van-ride back to Palali -- passing first through Tiger territory in Kilinochchi, where we are stopped for speeding by an LTTE policeman waving a speedgun; crossing over to the army-controlled area at Muhamalai; through Jaffna town, all battle-scarred and attempting to limp back to normalcy; the high security zone with young soldiers relaxed, smiling and joking -- and to the airfield for the plane- ride back to Ratmalana.

With the setting up of the Kilinochchi Transit Centre, a first step seems to have been made in the right direction, solely from the point of view of children. A crucial experiment has been launched in Sri Lanka. And though on the first full day both UNICEF and TRO officials were on edge on the grounds of "protection" of traumatized children, seeing the children at play gives hope that this may very well work out. We hope that the pledges given by all parties involved in the setting up of the Transit Centre under the joint Government-LTTE Action Plan for Children Affected by Armed Conflict will be fulfilled to the last letter. That the strong speeches made by the Deputy Director-General of the Peace Secretariat, Dr. John Gunaratne, Deputy Head of the LTTE Political Wing, Sudha Thangam, UNICEF Representative in Sri Lanka, Ted Chaiban and TRO Head Regi came from the heart.

"It's a risk we have taken. But this was the only opportunity we had to get them out of their military environment. There are still cases of recruitment and it has to be understood that, if the reintegration of child soldiers is to be successful, new recruitment of children has to stop. We've grabbed this opportunity and expect we will be able to get more and more children out of the military camps into their homes through these transit centres," says Mr. Chaiban of UNICEF. The agency has reports from parents of 1,155 children who are with the LTTE.

Conceding that the only mechanism available for UNICEF to work with on this highly sensitive issue of child soldiers was the TRO, Mr. Chaiban explains that there was much negotiation and discussion among all involved in the process about the location of the first centre in Kilinochchi. “The concerns about TRO running the Transit Centre is understandable but without TRO we will not have a crucial mechanism to work with the LTTE.”

The Transit Centre will have an international UNICEF staffer on duty round-the-clock.
Why not release them directly to their parents? A cross-section of UNICEF officials say traumatized children need a period of adjustment to a non-military environment. "We also need to ascertain what drove them to the LTTE. And check out the vulnerability factor. Whether this is economic, not having an education or violence in the home, and try to equip the child to deal with it. There are many angles we have to work on. Help the family with a micro-employment project if that is the need, school and catch-up classes if the child is of school-going age, or vocational training if they are beyond the school-age," says a UNICEF official.

All people involved in this effort seem aware of the lurking dangers, like the heavily-mined areas with red-alert notices we passed through to get to the Kilinochchi Transit Centre. The important thing will be to ensure that this Transit Centre dubbed a "child neutral zone" remains so, sans both LTTE and government influence, for children who have been demobilised to begin getting back their childhood here initially, followed soon after by a reunion with their families.

Sri Lanka needs to give this experiment a chance because even if one child passes through the Transit Centre from the LTTE ranks to their homes and parents, it is better than none at all.

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