Sri Lanka Accused on Child Soldiers
By SHIMALI SENANAYAKE, The New York Times, November 14, 2006
(Also see articles by Reuters below.)
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Sangam Editorial Note:
Finally, the Sinhala Government's strategy of mud-slinging the Tamil resistance movement is beginning to be exposed. While thousands of Tamil children are being orphaned and being denied food, medical care, education, and even their right to life, the government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) sheds tears about child soldiers. Now the GoSL is caught in its own trap.
We present here a series of articles confirming the child recruitment by the Sri Lankan Army, which is comprised entirely by Sinhalese soldiers. The sole purpose of this clandestine child recruitment program is to cause even more suffering to civilians living in the NorthEast of the island through child paramilitary operations.
The new media reports implicating the GoSL and its military should not be viewed as a sudden change in the mindset of the “international media.” The concerned global citizen should continue to be wary of the ever-present potential for ludicrously biased coverage by the media. It is, unfortunately, quite possible that after these reports on the GoSL recruiting child paramilitaries the international news media will return to their usual habbit of reporting only the GoSL's perspective. |
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka, Nov. 13 — A United Nations official accused Sri Lankan security forces on Monday of helping to abduct children to serve as soldiers against Tamil separatists.
Allan Rock, a special adviser to the United Nations on children and armed conflict, said the troops had rounded up children for a paramilitary force known as the Karuna Group and had ignored pleas for help from parents who said their children — some as young as 13 — had been taken by the group.
“We encountered both direct and indirect evidence of security forces’ complicity and participation,” Mr. Rock said after a 10-day mission in the war-ravaged north and east.
The Karuna Group broke away from the Tamil Tigers in March 2004 and has been fighting the Tigers in eastern Sri Lanka. International monitors here to monitor a now-shattered 2002 cease-fire have accused the government of being allied with the group, a charge the military has denied. The cease-fire was supposed to end a two-decade war between the government and the Tigers.
The military, in a statement, said Mr. Rock’s allegations were “completely misleading,” and said it “vehemently denies having any involvement whatsoever” in abductions for the paramilitary group.
But Mr. Rock said he was encouraged that President Mahinda Rajapakse pledged to investigate the allegations and, if evidence is found to support his findings, to punish those responsible.
This was the first time such accusations have been leveled against Sri Lanka. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam have long been accused of recruiting children, some as young as 10 years old, to fight the Sri Lankan government.
Despite repeated pledges to stop the practice, the Tigers continue with underage recruitment and have yet to release “several hundred children,” Mr. Rock said.
Mounting violence in Sri Lanka since January has killed more than 2,500 people.
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S.Lanka Troops Help Abduct Children as Fighters: UN
By REUTERS, November 13, 2006
Filed at 9:33 a.m. USA (ET)
COLOMBO (Reuters) - A U.N. envoy on Monday accused elements within Sri Lanka's security forces of helping to abduct children as soldiers for a group of renegade rebels who are fighting the Tamil Tigers.
Allan Rock, Special Adviser to the U.N. Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict in Sri Lanka, said President Mahinda Rajapakse had vowed to immediately probe the allegations and punish those responsible.
Rock said his mission had found credible evidence that troops were helping a group led by a former rebel commander called Karuna.
``One very disturbing element that confronted us ... has to do with the complicity and participation of some elements of the government's security forces in the forcible abductions by Karuna of children (in the east),'' Rock told a news conference.
``We encountered both direct and indirect evidence of this complicity and participation.''
Sri Lanka's government is under mounting international pressure to halt fierce fighting with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) that has killed around 3,000 civilians, troops and rebels so far this year amid the worst fighting since a now crumbled 2002 truce.
Rock said the Tigers were also recruiting children as fighters, failing to honor pledges. They had promised to release all under-age rebels by Jan 1. 2007.
UNICEF lists 1,598 outstanding cases of under-age recruitment by the Tigers, 649 of which are still under the age of 18. The agency also lists 142 outstanding cases of under-age recruitment by the Karuna group.
Rock suspects the real number of under-age recruits is far higher.
Earlier on Monday, thousands of protesters joined a march in Colombo to condemn the assassination of a prominent rebel-backed minority Tamil MP and demand the government and Tigers halt renewed violence.
Shouting ``Don't kill Tamils'' and waving banners that read ''Stop crimes against humanity'' and ``Shame,'' about 3,500 supporters of the non-partisan National Anti-War Front accompanied the coffin of Tamil MP Nadarajah Raviraj, who was killed on Friday.
He was the second high-profile member of the Tamil National Alliance, seen as the Tigers' political proxies in parliament, murdered since December. His colleagues blamed government forces or their supporters.
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Sri Lanka Army Dismisses U.N. Child Soldier Claim
By REUTERS, November 14, 2006
Filed at 2:01 a.m. USA-Eastern Time (ET)
COLOMBO (Reuters) - Sri Lanka's army has dismissed a U.N. envoy's charge that elements within the security forces are helping renegade rebels to abduct children as soldiers to fight the Tamil Tigers, voicing deep revulsion.
Allan Rock, Special Adviser to the U.N. Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict in Sri Lanka, said on Monday his mission had found credible evidence that troops were involved in child abductions.
``The mission's conclusions based on 'eye-witness evidence' that the 'government security forces are actively involved in these criminal acts' deserve a deep sense of revulsion,'' Army Headquarters said in a statement faxed overnight.
It said Rock's findings were ``completely misleading.''
But Rock told reporters on Monday that President Mahinda Rajapakse, under increasing international pressure to halt mushrooming human rights abuses, had vowed to probe the allegations and punish those responsible.
Nordic truce monitors suspect links between some elements of the military and a breakaway group led by a former rebel commander called Karuna, and have accused troops of at the very least turning a blind eye to attacks.
``One very disturbing element that confronted us ... has to do with the complicity and participation of some elements of the government's security forces in the forcible abductions by Karuna of children (in the east),'' Rock said.
Rock said the Tigers also continued to recruit children as fighters, failing to honor pledges to desist in the face of international dismay.
The Tigers, who deny recruiting children and say any in their ranks lied about their age to join, promised to release all under-age rebels by Jan 1. 2007, he added.
UNICEF lists 1,598 outstanding cases of under-age recruitment by the Tigers, 649 of which are still under the age of 18. The agency also lists 142 outstanding cases of under-age recruitment by the Karuna group.
Around 3,000 troops, civilians and rebel fighters have been killed this year amid the worst fighting since a now tattered 2002 ceasefire.
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