DO TEN YEAR OLDS IN IDP CAMP NEED IDENTITY CARDS?

04.06.2009
His Excellency Mahinda Rajapaksa,
President of Sri Lanka,
Temple Trees,
Colombo-03

Your Excellency,

I am perturbed over the decision of the Government to issue Identity Cards to children over 10 years old. No parent whether in-side the camp or outside the camp, be they Sinhalese, Tamils or Muslims from any part of Sri Lanka will welcome this move. One can’t be either wrong all the time or right all the time. Whether what I say is palatable to you or not, I do not know, but with the limited knowledge I have I am thoroughly convinced that it will prove counter-productive and disastrous and therefore I very humbly urge you to stop the authorities from doing so. In the alternative have the scheme extended to all the 10 year old ones right round the country, if your Excellency feel that it will help the children in several ways or limit it to children over 16 years, like all others so that they may not have the feeling that they are a different lot in the society and not equal to children of their age, living outside the camp. Let no sense of inferiority complex creep in to their young minds. There is already a feeling wounding them, as begging for their living.

These children in the IDP camps should be treated with utmost sympathy and not with contempt. What type of hardships these children under-went from the time they were in the wombs of their mothers, who were living in constant fear and tension for very many years, should be taken into consideration. The situation did not change but worsened day by day till it reached its climax during the last lap of the war. This is the period during which they experienced worst horrors in their life-time, a little bit of which was experienced by the people of Colombo who lived close to the Galle Face Green, where the Air Force was rehearsing for the air-display, minus the bombs. This situation was forced on them by a foolish terror group and was never welcomed by the people.

I humbly request you to kindly avoid labeling them directly or otherwise as Tigers, for their lifetime. This move is almost similar to the cyanide capsules the LTTE made the innocent child-recruits to carry.

I am sure that your Excellency will give serious consideration to my request and take all possible steps to prevent branding these children permanently as Tigers. Referring to the LTTE as Tamil Tigers is wrong and prejudicial to the good-will that prevails between the Tamil and Sinhalese communities. They called themselves only as Liberation Tigers and not as Tamil Tigers. This move will certainly prove counter-productive and in no way help you to win over the Tamils. The authorities may kindly be asked to trace the parents of the destitute children and hand them over to them. I just received information that the mother of an infant had died and the baby was trying to get itself breast-fed from the dead mother’s breast. This is not the first time this had happened.

Ps:- I will consider fingerprinting of small children as a cruel act.

Thanking you,

Yours Sincerely,

V. Anandasangaree,
President – TULF.