An open letter to the President Mahinda Rajapaksa.
By V. Anandasangaree
(June 05, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) 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.
Home Unlabelled Do ten year olds in IDP camp need identity cards?
Do ten year olds in IDP camp need identity cards?
By Sri Lanka Guardian • June 05, 2009 • • Comments : 7
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In most western countries, now a days travel documents have to be separately issued for children as well, and it is no good to just write the names in the passport. So what we see in Sri LAnka is what already started in the USA almost a decade ago. US schools also now demand that even small children have "student IDs".
Remember, LTTE had soldiers as young as 11 years old. Also they sent 7 year old children as suicide bombers. So I think there is a valid reason why the government wants to issue IDs for 10 years and abve children.
I do not see any harm in issuing a identity card to a minor. We should also consider that the LTTE conscripted young children to fight for their cause.
We should allow the government to weed out the terrorists from the civilians to establish permanent peace in the region. I also believe that we should not have all sorts of splinter parties with communal names and all Tamils, Singhalese, Muslims should join the two major parties and fight for their causes from within such parties.
Dear Mr. Sangaree, An ID card is better than an AK-47, don't you agree? Unusual circumstances need unusual actions. Please don't make a big issue of these minor things. Now that the Tiger threat has diminished, you seem to be differing in your statements, unlike earlier.
Sri Lankan government should issue photo identification to everyone irrespective of the person's age following the practices of some other countries. In addition, the SL government should not listen to baseless critizism as it strives to resolve problems and drive country forward.
Mr. Nadesan,
In Western countries government policy applies to all equally and indiscriminately. But that’s NOT the case in Srilanka! If ID for 10 yrs old is the policy of the Government then lets have it for the entire people in Srilanka who lives in North, South, East and West. Discriminative policies of the past brought enough destruction to our people and the country. ID for these poor kids, in the IDP camps is the last thing they wanted at this point. The need of the hour is to bring public policy to build trust, not suspicions.
J.SanGary Anandasangary
Mr Anadasagaree, you are one of the most respected leaders from our tamil community, but I do not agree with your disapproval of issuing identity cards for children over 10 years old. It is a very sensible thing to be done by the government. When we look at the history of the defeated terrorist and also for any other purpose this could help to eliminate the blame game.
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