I read an article in the Bangkok post the other day which reported that two " child soldiers " had escaped from their Tamil Rebels Training camp after being kidnapped from their homes and trained in the art of warfare.

When they escaped they went to a government naval base. The Government then promptly brought them to Colombo and had them paraded for the world's media.

The Government then advised that they were going to be reunited with their parents in their home village (might have been town).

Does this seem as a bit stupid to any of you... those kids will suffer retribution surely ?

totster

I have not heard the story, but based on what you said, it sounds a bit stupid!

I have not heard the story, but based on what you said, it sounds a bit stupid!

I used the Tamil Tigers as one example, in another post in a different forum. It was about people/groups that go to a different country as immigrants/refugees and then do the same kind of stuff that they were used to doing in their home country (even if it is not acceptable or legal to do in their "new" country).

That post was deleted (it was probably considered racist, even if it was based on actual events).

Many countries consider the Tigers to be a terrorist organization. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) are "fighting" for an independant Tamil state in Sri Lanka (where have we heard that before ?).

Sending those children back to their home village is asking for trouble. They are an embarrassment to the terrorists, who will want to send a message to their other child soldiers. These are not nice people. They use a lot of children to do their fighting:

"Children have featured prominently in the LTTE's protracted guerilla and terrorist campaigns, and assessments by the Sri Lankan Directorate of Military Intelligence have estimated that as much as 60 per cent of the LTTE's fighters were below 18. Estimates based on LTTE fighters who have been killed in combat reveal that 40 per cent of its fighting forces - including both males and females - were between 9 and 18 years of age."

South Asia Terrorism Portal

Why do all these groups feel that they have to have a separate homeland ? Most of them could not support themselves in any way, shape or form if they were independant. They would immediately require international assistance, as they have no economy and little idea of how to actually run a country.

Perhaps that's a part of the plan. While he was the Chairman of the Palestinian Authority, Yasser Arafat managed to skim off more than $300 million (US) in international aid for his personal accounts.

How much better of is East Timor now that it is separate ? Is Bangladesh better off now or than when it was a part of India ?

Would an independant Kurdistan be content and self-sufficient, or would it decide that it needs a larger territory and needs to integrate portions of other countries that have Kurdish populations (like Turkey and Iran).

Would an independant Palestine be content with having 2 parts of it's country (the Gaza Strip and the West Bank) separated by such a long strip of Israel ? If they became fully independant tomorrow, how long before they started fighting to gain a larger piece of Israel ?

When will we start seeing these kinds of actions in Western countries ? (There is still a separatist movement in Quebec, Canada. Fortunately they seem to have given up on the more violent aspects of their cause).