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Article: Soldier girl? Not every Tamil teen wants to be a tiger: "Sundari," a sixteen-year-old girl in northern Sri Lanka, doesn't wish to fight her country's war, though she was trained to do so at age eleven. The saddest tragedy is that using her real name in a call for peace could get her killed.(Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam)
- Article from:
- The Humanist
- Article date:
- September 1, 2006
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2006 American Humanist Association. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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EVERY WAR HAS A NAME. Some call this Asia's bloodiest civil conflict, while others refer to the twenty-plus-year battle as the "No Mercy War" But the most appropriate stamp might be "The Children's War" for both victim and combatant, because the civil war in Sri Lanka isn't being waged exclusively by adults, nor is it just a boys' club. Young girls are getting--or being dragged--into the act. Their willingness to do so depends upon whom you ask.
Initially a nonviolent separatist movement, the Tamil armed resistance was launched in 1983 by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) against the Sinhalese majority government after years of failed negotiations. The ...