ISLAND EDITORIAL ON NEW US CONGRESS LAW ON CHILD SOLDIER RECRUITMENT. GOSL IS PANICKING:

US laws against children recruitment: Proof of the pudding …

Laws the world over have one thing in common. They come with holes large enough for the shrewd, the wealthy and the powerful to ride a coach and six horses through. That is so even in the so-called developed countries where the rule of law is said to prevail.

The post 9/11 era has seen a number of anti-terror laws, including bans on terrorists outfits, come into being in the Global North, which had been cherishing the delusion that terrorists wouldn't dare touch their cities. But, the implementation of those laws has been rather half-hearted and ad hoc. How the LTTE activists are operating in the US and Europe in spite of bans is a case in point.

Now, we hear that the US Congress has passed a new law called the Child Soldiers Accountability Act to deal with recruiters of child soldiers. Consequently, the US will be in a position to prosecute foreign military commanders who recruit child soldiers in other countries, Human Rights Watch (HRW) has said. Children are currently used in armed conflict in at least 17 countries including Sri Lanka, HRW points out. Recruiters, it says, prey upon children, who are often the most vulnerable potential recruits and the most susceptible to threats and coercion. Child soldiers are used as combatants, porters, guards and spies and for other duties, HRW says.

Those who harm children are sick monsters and they must be punished in such a way as to make them rue the day they were born. Therefore, the US Congress and Senate deserve praise for the new law. But, it is doubtful whether the US will get an opportunity to prosecute any of the recruiters of child soldiers, according to what we gather from the HRW dispatch reproduced in this newspaper yesterday. HRW says that the new law 'makes it a federal crime to knowingly recruit or use soldiers under the age of 15 and permits the United States to bring charges under the law against both US citizens and non-citizens who are in the United States. (Emphasis added) Those who conscript children are non-American terrorists who won't come out of their jungle hideouts, let alone visit the US and run the risk of being prosecuted.

If the US government is to hunt down recruiters of child soldiers, it has to move beyond its shores or help those who are already doing so. Else, the US will have to wait till kingdom come to catch one of them. In the alternative, the Congress should legislate for the various fronts of the foreign terrorist groups conscripting children to be prosecuted. Sadly, terrorists who don't pose a threat to US interest take the US anti-terror laws for granted. That was why the late LTTE spokesman Anton Balasingham audaciously said, after the US ban, that LTTE activists knew how to circumvent the proscription. He sounded very confident that the LTTE fund-raising would go on unhindered. He was proved right.

The fronts of the LTTE on the UN List of Shame for child recruitment continue to operate freely in the US making a mockery of the US ban. The US also did precious little when the UN Security Council, a few years ago, skirted the proposed stern action against terrorist groups with child combatants in their ranks.

A strategy to liberate child soldiers from the clutches of terrorists should consist of three tracks: Prosecuting military commanders responsible for crimes against children, cracking down on their accomplices in disguise, and helping legitimate governments battling terrorists recruiting child combatants.

Among the accomplices of the recruiters of child soldiers are INGOs and NGOs masquerading as conflict resolution or humanitarian outfits enjoying the patronage of the western countries. In this country, INGOs and NGOs pulling for the child-recruiting terrorists have brought community based organisations into disrepute. Their sordid operations have made 'INGO' a dirty word like 'gonorrhoea'. But, strangely, they are being propped up by certain foreign envoys, who don't seem to care a damn about the fact that they are doing so at the expense of the reputation of their countries.

Even some prominent US citizens are advocating the cause of a terrorist organisation which stands condemned for using child soldiers. Former Deputy Attorney General of the US Bruce Fein has no qualms about being a hired defender of the LTTE proscribed in the US. How the US will deal with such elements working for terrorists harming children remains to be seen. If recruiting child soldiers is a crime then anyone who supports those who conscript children aids and abets that crime and deserves to be punished accordingly. Would the US have tolerated one of its former legal bigwigs like Fein-or anyone else for that matter-championing bin Laden's cause?

If it is the liberation of children in armed conflict that the US has at heart, then it should help, as was said earlier, the legitimate governments battling warlords recruiting child soldiers. So long as those monsters are allowed to continue their wars, children won't be safe. Sri Lanka is about to break the back of separatist terrorism and the beneficiaries will be civilians, especially children, who have been living under the LTTE's jackboot. The US has a worthy cause to support. (After all, leading Sri Lanka's war on terror from the front are two American citizens!)

The new legislation adopted by the US has warmed the cockles of many a heart. Welcoming it, HRW has said, "International tribunals are beginning to prosecute individuals for recruiting child soldiers but almost no national government has done so; the US is giving real leadership to efforts to end the use of child soldiers." Given our experience with the US laws, we remain cautiously optimistic. Proof of the pudding, it is said, is in the eating.
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