Editorial - Massacre of the innocents

28 December 2013 04:31 am Views - 1867

As the world marks the day on which innocent people and especially children were killed or made to suffer, mainly by wicked and selfish political leaders, we could reflect on how this is happening in many countries including Sri Lanka on a larger scale and what we as a people need to do to curb or stop it.
The flashpoint where there could be an apocalyptic catastrophe is Syria. Many world political analysts believe the crisis there is the gravest since the Second World War and could lead to a third which would be a nuclear war and the self-destruction of the whole world. According to United Nations figures released this week there have been some 120,000 documented deaths in the Syrian conflict and we don’t know how many more have died undocumented.

Making the picture even graver and more like a modern horror story, is the shocking revelation that more than two million people have fled from the crisis and are languishing as refugees in different degrees of degradation. Even more shocking is the revelation that more than one million of these refugees are children under 12 and surviving in camps that are like sewers, with not even swadling clothes to give them some comfort in the harsh winter. This horror of horrors, which some parts of the world know little about and others care less, was what prompted Pope Francis to make it the theme of his message at first Christmas mass in the Vatican. He pleaded with world leaders and the whole world to move fast in stopping this abomination of the desolation.

Children are also known to have suffered and are continuing to suffer most in this century’s worst war zones of Afghanistan and Iraq, with the latest being South Sudan where rival political groups are fighting fiercely for oil-rich areas with innocent people including children being the main victims.  
In recent decades with the blatant promotion of the selfishness, greed and cutthroat if not killer competitiveness of the globalised capitalist market economic policy, many world leaders appear to have become insensitive if not senseless to the reality that their agendas and policies are heaping loads upon loads of suffering on innocent people and mainly children.

What is the situation in Sri Lanka? Though Government leaders and economic advisors—who appear to suffer from the delusion that they are some kind of superstars—are continuing to boast about high growth rates and better standards of living, it was revealed in Parliament last week that the Department of Census and Statistics has been ordered to play the role of an unqualified spin-doctor. Obviously people can’t eat, wear or take shelter under figures when the fact is that millions of people and especially children are suffering without adequate food, shelter clothing, healthcare, education and other vital elements for life.

For instance the Daily Mirror reported last week how Ratnapura is also known for child slavery, which does not glitter much in this city of gems. This city’s dark mines rob the children of their innocent and beautiful childhood. The situation is so grave that the International Labour Organisation and the Ratnapura District Secretariat have launched a project to eradicate what are seen as some of the worst forms of child labour, by 2016 or so they say.

According to the latest Sri Lanka child activity survey conducted by the Department of Census and Statistics and Ministry of Finance, 107,259 children of a total child population of 4,338,709 are engaged in child labour. Of them it was found that as many as 63,916 had been forced into hazardous child labour. Shocking indeed, and hopefully some food for thought on this Holy Innocents Day!