HELPLESS SCHOOL GIRLS Mr. Rajapakse, no, they were not child soldiers. They were helpless school children, who happened to be in the compound of Chencholai, an orphanage for female children in Mullaitivu administered by the LTTE. Those school children are dead because you wanted them dead. The children were attending a seminar on First-Aid. These were all unarmed and innocent children engaged in an educational program related to humanitarian aid. The wanton and deliberate massacre of more than sixty school girls and seriously injuring one hundred and twenty nine other teenage girls will go down in history as one of the greatest violations and abuses of human rights. It was done under the leadership of one who claims to be an advocate of human rights. Mr. Rajapakse has to take full responsibility for this. Hitler did not personally supervise the killings and the torture of Jewish children during the holocaust, nor did Slobodan Milosevic in Kosovo and yet they were deemed to be war criminals. Mr. Rajapakse, digressing briefly, Chencholai the orphanage where the destruction of lives occurred has been at that site for over 8 years. Some of them in the orphanage are children of parents who perished in the Tsunami, some were abandoned by parents due to abject poverty, some of them were rescued from pedophiles, some were rescued from being domestic child slaves, some saved from being exploited for prostitution, and some whose parents had perished in the war and others who were rescued from begging. It would be recalled that the government had imposed an embargo on even essential foodstuffs, medicines and fuel some years back. Many died as a result, and some of them in the orphanage are the children of those who died. There are others whose parents had perished in the war killed by the security forces and yet others who had involuntarily ?disappeared? with no trace. Mr. Rajapakse, the location of Chencholai is well known -- often visited by NGOs, Charities and diplomats, as well as many within and without Sri Lanka. It was not a mistake. It was not just a stray bomb but twelve in all dropped from Kfir jets. Even the UNICEF and the HRW who generally play to the gallery of a gullible international audience, shedding crocodile tears for cheap popularity, have reluctantly admitted that those massacred were not rebels. Let us wait and see what the other self proclaimed champions of women?s rights, human rights and social justice in their unrelenting hypocrisy have got to say. The state owned Ceylon Daily News, the worthwhile reading of which is only the obituary column, has not mentioned one word.  Mr. Rajapakse, you have claimed that those children who perished were child soldiers whom you have always loved to death. You have always wanted to liberate them from the clutches of the LTTE. At least you have been telling the outside world so. Is this what you mean by liberating? A kind of mercy killing, something like putting down your pet dog to end its suffering. Your version of Euthanasia. Or did you want to give them a taste of Nibbana? Did the noble Lord Buddha the founder of the great philosophy that you claim to follow and on which the state of Sri Lanka is founded say that this was the way to do it?. Mr. Rajapskse, we need not tell a commander in chief of the armed forces that even in war there are rules and conventions to be observed. You may be afraid of the highly politicized and the most undisciplined armed forces in the world but in a truly democratic state the head of the government is never afraid of the armed forces. EN, 23.9.2006