Child Soldiers of LTTE Tamil Tigers
2007 Archive

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has commended the Sri Lankan Government's efforts in protecting interests of children by taking several measures, including the creation of a special task force on children.

In his latest report released yesterday, covering the period from 1 November 2006 to 14 September 2007, the United Nations Chief applauded the Government's creation of a special task force on children and armed conflict last April, and called on authorities to take further measures to prevent armed groups' abduction and recruitment of children as soldiers and to secure the release of current child soldiers.

When contacted, Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa said the Government has taken every possible step to prevent child recruitment by the LTTE or any other terrorist group. He said recruitment of child soldiers has been reduced to a greater extent due to appropriate action taken by the Government.

The 20-page report of UN Secretary-General too proves that the recruitment of child soldiers has been reduced considerably. According to Moon's report, LTTE has recruited 262 children (including 32 who were re-recruited) between November 1, 2006 and August 31, 2007. But the report, based on information received by the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), said the LTTE has recruited 756 children during the corresponding period of the privious year. [Full Story]

In a rejoinder, Rajiv Wijesingha, Secretary General of Sri Lanka’s Secretariat for Coordinating the Peace Process has revealed, because in the North, and in particular at Muhumalai, the LTTE has continued with planned attacks on Government forces, regularly causing death and injury and It was precisely for that reason that the government is unable to open the A-9 road there.

While contradicting statement by Ms Selvy, LTTE Spokesperson for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs regarding Jaffna civilians and the transport of Sri Lanka military to and from Jaffna, Rajiv Wijesingha, in a statement wrote, “Anyway, by October 2006 there was another reason for withdrawal from talks, namely the closure of the A9. Ms Selvy does not however mention why the A9 was closed southward from Jaffna. To put it quite bluntly, this happened after a massive artillery and mortar attack launched by the LTTE on the government forces on August 11th 2006, an attack which was the gravest threat in years to the security of the Jaffna peninsula, and which also destroyed the entire infrastructure built by the government at Muhamalai to facilitate the movement of people and goods.”

...
In 2003 the LTTE withdrew for the reasons given in Mr Balasingham’s long letter. In June 2006 they did not even start talking, for reasons which are not clear, except perhaps in the revelation of the Norwegian Ambassador that Mr Thamilselvam ‘had insisted that the issue of child recruitment does not fall within the parameters of the CFA’. The Norwegian Ambassador had very properly disagreed with this and pointed out that the CFA did mention abductions, and also that ‘continued recruitment was extremely damaging to the image of the LTTE at the international level’. The LTTE may have finally understood this, when Ms Radhika Coomaraswamy spoke up boldly against their violation of national and international laws. Having run circles round the last UNICEF Head in Sri Lanka, they have finally said that ‘by the end of this year LTTE will announce that there are no more under-18 persons in the organization’.

Prevarications regarding child soldiers
Entertainingly, according to the LTTE, ‘The UNICEF Head said that his visit was an introductory meeting with the Political Head. Among the topics discussed were the work of United Nations in general in the Tamil homeland and the program of releasing under-18 persons in the LTTE….Pointing to the delay by UNICEF in completing its part in this program, Nadeson called on the UNICEF Head to ensure that UNICEF carry out its part in verifying the under-18 persons released by the LTTE and also in doing its part to reunite the released children with their families….UNICEF must be ready to do its part to complete its role in this program so that it too can remain in sync in its statement. The children being killed and injured by the aerial bombing and claymore attacks of the Sri Lanka were also discussed at the meeting.’

Such a release by the LTTE is understandable, though it is sad that the UN has not as yet seen fit to dissociate itself with the claim that there is ‘work of United Nations in general in the Tamil homeland’ or ‘claymore attacks of the Sri Lanka’. But perhaps the UN has even now realized how serious is the issue of child soldiers and, in welcoming the declaration that the excuses offered to the previous UNICEF head will now cease, perhaps it has forgotten all its other obligations. [Full Story]

Analysis of the UN report with the title “UN human rights expert reports allegations of torture in Sri Lanka ref: http://www.spur.asn.au/BS_20071221_The_Expert_Torturer_and_Bullying_of_Sri_Lanka.htm target

I am referring to the web report which I accessed on a previous occasion, through the UNESCO homepage.

I was baffled to find a link to an article on torture, on the UNESCO homepage. This link was not needed, unless` of course Torture is a part of UN culture or UNECO wanted to tarnish the image of Sri Lanka .. (The link appeared to have been removed on 18 – 12 -07)

This report has been widely used by LTTE as propaganda.

...
Perhaps GOSL do not have enough resources to deal with the massive propaganda war by LTTE. It appears that UN and HR agencies have been completely deceived by LTTE.

UN and HR organisations themselves should make an attempt to identify and filter out LTTE agents It appears that UN and HR agencies .have been easy prey of LTTE agents, with disastrous consequences to Sri Lanka . Many believe that the data or information sources of these agencies are corrupt or biased.

It appears that UN agencies and HR agencies have no idea about the racist, empire building, deadly nature of LTTE and the modus operandi of LTTE. These organisations have done absolutely nothing to stop terrorism and is attempting to gang up and bully Sri Lanka . This is clear abuse of Sri Lanka .

There is ‘misuse of public power for private profit’ in UN’ [2], which has resulted in torturing and the bullying of Sri Lanka . An allegation does not mean that the incident has occurred in reality, as LTTE agents are masters in fabricating incidents that did not occur. It also appears that LTTE agents are intensifying their malicious campaign against GOSL, as they have realised that HR officials may easily be duped, naive, or may even be outright foolish.

UN and Human rights agencies have done nothing practical to stop terrorism. They have done nothing practical to stop
a) recruitment of child soldiers
b) brain washing of children in orphanages
c) Training of children in warfare
d) Terrorist fund raising.
[Full Story]

Philippe Duamelle, the Country Representative of the United Nation's Children's Fund (UNICEF) was called in to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday to express concern over his recent visit to Kilinochchi and his meeting with LTTE leaders.

Foreign Secretary Dr. Palitha Kohona emphasised that the UNICEF had not followed the guidelines issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs when diplomats and high ranking officials sought to visit the uncleared areas in the Northern Province.

These guidelines which have been issued to ensure the safety and security of the visiting officials, require them to obtain prior clearance from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The Foreign Secretary conveyed to the UNICEF Country Representative that non-compliance with these guidelines was unacceptable given the propensity of the LTTE to exploit such visits for propaganda purposes.

Duamelle who assumed duties as the Country Representative of UNICEF in Sri Lanka in September this year, stated that, unfortunately, he was not familiar with the Foreign Ministry's guidelines. But he said he had consulted the Ministry of Defence.

He had visited Kilinochchi to assess the effectiveness of ongoing programmes and meet with UNICEF staff. He claimed he had met the LTTE to impress on them the urgent need to release the child soldiers numbering 240 or more according to the complaints received by UNICEF. He regretted the unfavourable publicity that the visit had caused as his goal was to work with the Government of Sri Lanka. [Full Story]

The Queensland doctor Whitehall has once again used a professional medical journal, the Medical Journal of Australia 3/17 December to whitewash Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger terrorists. Dr Whitehall's subtle propaganda message will only help terrorists to influence more Australians to fund the carnage the Tamil Tiger terrorists have created in Sri Lanka.

His three page 'True Story' in the MJA, of the seemingly innocent & highly humanitarian medical adventure in the north of Sri Lanka, is generously interspersed with the Tamil Tiger terrorist messages. Dr Whitehall had initially intended to return to Sri Lanka and work in the east coast of Sri Lanka controlled by the LTTE renegade Karuna, but had been later diverted to Kilinochchi by the 'hosting organisation' (another term for a Tamil Tiger terrorist front, in this instance).

...
Dr Whitehall, please do continue your humanitarian work - that is most commendable, but kindly keep away from the propaganda aspect of terrorism. You will only help indoctrinate and create more misery, and trauma by encouraging suicide cadres, child soldiers, and fund raising for Tamil Tiger terrorism in Australia. [Full Story]

Outlawed separatist group Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) has assured to end child recruitment in its rank by year-end.

The assurance was given by LTTE's political chief B Nadesan to the newly appointed UNICEF head Philippe Duamelle in Killinochchi in Northern Sri Lanka Thursday, the LTTE said in a statement in Colombo Friday, news agency Press Trust of India reported.

Nadesan assured UNICEF of LTTE's continued cooperation and also sought its helping hand, according to the statement. Nadesan also said that LTTE has been cooperating with the UNICEF in a systematic manner to release all the child soldiers in the organisation.

LTTE's political chief assured the UNICEF head that there would be nobody under the age of 18 in the group from January 1, 2008. [Full Story]

A recent program on Sri Lanka in "Unreported World" by Britain's Channel 4, focusing on the current situation in the conflict areas, interviewed Sri Lanka Army Commander Sarath Fonseka on Nov. 9. When asked why unidentified gunmen still run amok in the east, the lieutenant general responded, "it will happen as far as the LTTE and its operations are continued." Pro-Tiger media twisted his words and substituted it "will happen as far as the anti-terrorist operations are continuing," to make it appear he was admitting to government responsibility, when in fact, his actual response left no doubt he held Tigers responsible. Nevertheless, Tiger intention was to deceive the international community

...
Thus, Tigers have masterfully distorted history, demography and geography to mislead the world on a dubious claim of the existence of a "historical Tamil Homeland." According to Tiger sources, over the past twenty-four years, they have sacrificed 19,538 young men and women, including child soldiers, up to August 2007, in pursuit of a homeland. Tigers, who try to forcibly foist their will on Tamils as "their sole representatives," are the very source single-mindedly decimating the Tamil race in Sri Lanka. [Full Story]

Velupillai Prabhakaran seems determined to make fools of those who seek to invoke the clauses of the Geneva Convention with regard to the actions of the Security Forces in Sri Lanka's battle against terrorism. In less than two weeks since the LTTE leader made his annual "Heroes Day" speech, in which he found fault with the whole world, other than himself, for the failure of the LTTE to achieve its goal of a separate state, he has unleashed his savagery in such a way as to confound those who keep rushing to quote the rules and conventions of modern warfare to give a life-line to Prabhakaran and his Tiger killers.

...
It is conveniently ignored by these rule book wallahs that the Conventions agreed to in Geneva were for the purpose of warfare between two sovereign states. Tickity-boo, and the Secretary General of UNESCO is not disturbed by such things, or even by the direct threat to education of children by the LTTE's use of conscripted child soldiers to carry arms for it, which the other UN arm concerned with children, the UNICEF finds abhorrent, and not at all in keeping with any rules of warfare. [Full Story]

Not even three weeks have lapsed when the whole hornets' nest was brought upon the UNESCO, particularly on the shoulders of its Director General Koichiro Massusra, officially by the Sri Lankan State as much as by patriotic Sri Lankan nationals who are living throughout the globe on the imprudent statement he made condemning the SLAF air strike on the Voice of Tigers Radio Station (VoT) by calling it a 'Civilian Radio' station. Subsequent defensive statements from UNESCO proved beyond any doubt that the respectable Director General had been mislead when he apparently borrowed coloured glasses from his representative in Colombo to view the situation before he commented. What a poor show!

...
UN Convention on the rights of the child states 15 years as the minimum age a child could be recruited for any combat purposes. The UN Security Council Working Group on Children and Armed Conflict has repeatedly asked the LTTE to cease child recruitment and sent strong messages calling for the cessation of child recruitment. Subsequently the Secretary General of the UN Ban Ki Moon has also sent a strong message to the LTTE, and categorized the LTTE as a 'repeat offender on the Secretary General's list of violators for years'. if Duamalle's intention by visiting Killinochchi had been 'to assess the effectiveness of ongoing programmes and meet with the UNICEF staff' as he put it, then there is a wretched vacuum in their communication system as the LTTE has paid no heed except for a lip service and the innocent Tamil children are being forcibly recruited and made cannon fodder every day which is being exposed day after day by the Defense web site, electronic media and through numerous websites the world over. [Full Story]

The MP who heads the parliamentary body scrutinising Britain’s counter-terrorism laws addressed a rally at which a plea for support for suicide bombers was broadcast, The Times has learnt.

Keith Vaz, the chairman of the Commons Home Affairs Select Committee, addressed the annual Tamil rally in the ExCel centre in East London.

He spoke after partipants watched a televised address by Velupillai Prabhakaran, the commander of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), a terrorist organisation banned by the Home Office.

Mr Vaz, the MP for Leicester East, was joined by a fellow Labour MP, Joan Ryan. Their presence drew an angry response from the Sri Lankan High Commission, which released a statement claiming that the event was a “clear violation of the UK terrorism laws”.

The rally was organised by British-based Tamils on the birthday of the Tamil Tiger leader. In his address, Mr Vaz told an audience of more than 10,000 people: “I understand the demands made by some for an independent Tamil state. They will grow, unless there is justice.”

Ms Ryan, the MP for Enfield North, told the rally: “I am sorry to have to remember the 70,000 innocent Tamils who lost their lives in the struggle. We must pursue the aims and values for which they lost their lives.”

Earlier in the day, Mr Prabhakaran, in full military dress and in front of the LTTE flag, appeared on six giant screens calling for “the entire Tamil-speaking world to rise up for the liberation of Tamil Eelam”.

In a reference to the LTTE’s use of suicide bombers, he said: “The immeasurable dedication and sacrifice of our heroes is delivering a message to the Sinhala nation.”

The Sri Lankan High Commission accused Mr Vaz yesterday of being “partisan to a proscribed terrorist group” and claimed that the event was organised by apologists for terrorists. “This event was organised by a front organisation of a terrorist group for fundraising and propaganda purposes,” a spokesman said.

When told of the contents of the LTTE leader’s speech and of the criticisms of the Sri Lankan Government, Mr Vaz, who chairs the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Tamils, responded: “I’m not really interested in [the contents of Mr Prabhakaran's speech].

“I was there to deliver a message from the all-party group, which is what I do. I was there to deliver a message from my constituents. I have many Tamil people in my constituency.” Mr Vaz said he was unaware that the Tamil leader was going to speak.

Under the UK Terrorism Act, the Tigers are banned from raising funds, holding property or operating in any form. It is an offence to glorify their activities, or incite others to support them.

...
In 2004, Amnesty International said that LTTE fighters were beating up parents who refused to give up their children as child soldiers.

The police, who recorded the gathering, told The Times that they were “assessing material from the event to ascertain if there is any evidence of criminal offences being committed”. [Full Story]

Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP
Prime Minister,
UK
Dear Sir,

Terrorist fund raising, propaganda activities and compensation of victims
Unhindered Terrorist fund raising and propaganda activities are still being allowed to carry on in UK,. Many have objected to such activities in UK, but the authorities are simply turning a blind eye. Massive destruction and loss of lives are taking place in Sri Lanka due to the apathy shown by UK authorities to terrorist propaganda, terrorist brain washing and terrorist fund raising. A recent, 27 -11 -07, terrorist organised event, , in Excel attracted 25000. Most of them probably are bogus refugees. It appears that the event was organised by a LTTE front, British Tamil Forum (BTA), based in Harrow, using a bogus front. to deceive the authorities. Unless the authorities are very sharp, LTTE will simply hoodwink them and deceive them.

...
Adel Balasinham, who abused children by brain washing them, and converting them to killers, is allowed to live freely in UK, when there is ample evidence against her.
Please see video: [LTTE female child soldiers (virgin killers and Adela Balasingham)]
[Full Story]

Prabhakaran, the megalomaniac, committed his birthday bloodbath in Nugegoda killing 19 innocent civilians and injuring over 38 others yesterday (November 28). Those cowboy human rights outfits and peace industrialists may remain silent and discard this heinous crime as yet another incident. And those media stooges of LTTE will continue to refer to the crime as just "an explosion" taking great care to drop the word LTTE from their reports. Some of them would even report it as yet another rebellious act of their heroic "Tiger Rebels".

Yet, this time it was not the same. Because Prabhakaran has clearly targeted our schoolchildren in the Nugegoda bomb blast! It may not be clear to foreigners who have little knowledge about our country, but for Sri Lankans it is well known how Nugegoda, in the evenings, is crowded with young school going children .

...
Prabhakaran has always taken great pride in his nefarious crimes against soft targets, specially the women and children. From the Kent Farm massacre in 1984 to the Nugegoda bomb blast in 2007, he and his maddened cut-throats have butchered thousands of innocent children in many ethnic cleansing raids and bomb blasts targeting civilians. His great hatred towards women and children is not selective on any racial or religious sentiment at all. He has directed much of his violence against Tamils, than any other race. He has built much of his image as the world's most remorseless terror chief over the violent deaths of thousands of Tamil child soldiers and female suicide cadres. [Full Story]

The failed assassination attempt on the life of Social Service and Social Welfare Minister Douglas Devananda yesterday highlights what seems now a recurrent dimension in the LTTE’s continuing manifestation of terrorism, the use of the vulnerable as sacrificial lambs. Ordering a paraplegic woman to carry out a suicide attack may seem unthinkable, but to some elements at least in the LTTE it would seem that the unthinkable is second nature.

The incident further demonstrates LTTE’s rejection of a peaceful approach towards resolution of the conflict and exposes the duplicity of its leader’s statement on Nov. 27 that, while he has chosen the path of peace, the Government of Sri Lanka has not.

...
In training and employing young women to indulge in suicide operations, the LTTE prevents such women evolving into young mothers – a natural expectation of any young woman. Sometimes indeed the LTTE also seems to remove young mothers from their children to fill growing vacancies in the rank and file of LTTE cadres. The rejected and abandoned children, removed from their mothers’ protection, are then used as cannon fodder by the LTTE in the form of child soldiers. Watch Video: Tamil Tiger (LTTE) suicide bomber live video in Sri Lanka
[Full Story]

Confronted with a serious accusation levelled by the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) that the United Nations Children's Educational Fund (UNICEF) have a hand in a secret plot to supply 'Meals Ready to Eat (MRE) to the LTTE terrorists, the government has commenced investigations to probe into the allegation

While urging the government to send the LTTE-friendly UNICEF officials home, the JVP also insists the government to shut down the UNICEF office in Kilinochchi temporarily to put a stop to all communication between the two of its offices in Colombo and Kilinochchi.

...
Q: Do you have any details about the children in Wanni?

A: There are still children recruited by the LTTE. The LTTE earlier this year said that they were not going to recruit any children were born after 1st January 1990. This means that still they have 17-year-olds, who we regard as children, in their armed forces. So the LTTE as far as we are concerned is contravening the domestic law and international law by still having under-aged children in the organisation.

Q: Does the UNICEF taken this situation about children into the international agencies?

A: Well, we have done the only action that the UNICEF can do. It is the negotiation with the LTTE to release these children and we have been doing it for many years with a greater and lesser degrees of success. But there had been instances where children had been released. But the fact is that still there are children, under 18-years, in the LTTE.

At the Oslo round of Peace Talks in November 2002, UNICEF was given a mandate to monitor child rights violations of the ceasefire agreement. As part of this mandate UNICEF compiles and verifies data on child recruitment, as reported usually by family members, and makes this information available regularly to partners, working with them to advocate against child recruitment.

According to UNICEF data-bases, as of 31 October 2007, there were 1448 outstanding cases of under-age recruitment by the LTTE. Of these, 290 were under the age of 18, and 1158 were recruited while under 18, but have now passed that age.

As of 31 October 2007 there were 223 outstanding cases of underage recruitment by the Karuna group. Of these, 169 are under the age of 18, and 54 were recruited while under 18, but, have now passed that age. UNICEF continuously checks its database on underage recruitment to ensure its accuracy. UNICEF only withdraws recruits from its database when it is able to verify their release through an official letter of release, or by establishing that the child is reunited with his or her parents. UNICEF estimates that its database only reflects a third of the actual number of children recruited.

Q: Are you going to negotiate with the LTTE in the future to release these child soldiers? What was the respond from the LTTE earlier?

A: The response from the LTTE and the TMVP with regard to the issue of underaged soldiers are just promises. Promises being broken and deadlines were passed without being fulfilled. We have stated publicly that the UNICEF consider when a deadline passes or promises are not fulfilled that is a bad sign. We have said quite insistently. But we are a humanitarian organization and are not empowered to into the LTTE camps and take the children out. We rely on negotiations. There are lots of actions in the Security Council these days on child recruitment. [Full Story]

An LTTE foray into army frontline south of Kambiliwewa, Weli Oya last Friday morning triggered a short but fierce exchange of fire.

Subsequently the LTTE unit withdrew leaving behind one woman combatant, two T 56 assault rifles, eight magazines, one compass, four hand grenades, ten detonators, one 50 meter wire roll, a short length of detonator cord, one claymore mine with a stand, one firing device, one remote controller, three batteries, one meter device, two belt orders and three improvised explosives devices.

Save the Children on agreement with TRO
Apropos our front-page news item "Lanka expects UN, INGOs and NGOs to review links with the LTTE" in our Monday's issue, Menaca Calyaneratne, Head of Media and Communications, Save the Children Sri Lanka, said they hadn't negotiated any fresh projects with the TRO since August last year. She said that Save the Children had funded the setting up of 50 libraries for children and they (TRO) had accounted for all Save the Children funded projects except one by late last August last year. We inadvertently referred to these projects as ventures funded by the UNICEF. Dog tag Troops recovered the body of the woman cadre with a dog tag bearing 4945. The young woman had been gunned down as she advanced towards an army strong-point south of Kambiliwewa, the scene of on and off confrontations over the past several months.

What was her name? Was she among the hundreds of child soldiers recruited over the years? Was she married to an LTTE cadre? And most importantly did she have children?

The army returned her body through the ICRC to the LTTE. Over the past several months, the army had observed a significant increase in the number of female LTTE cadres killed in skirmishes on the Wanni front. The LTTE, struggling to meet the growing manpower demand as the army push them on two fronts-Muhamalai in the North and the general area west of Omanthai in the Wanni, is believed to be increasingly using female units. [Full Story]

BBC Presenter: We will take a look at the situation in Sri Lanka and the continuing violence in the north of the country between government forces and Tamil Tiger rebels. It has been increasing in intensity with artillery fire, air and naval bombardment. Back in 2002 a cease fire was negotiated by Norway and it was agreed by the government and the LTTE; the Tamil Tiger rebel group. But by December 2005, that cease fire was in shreds although officially it remains in place. According to government figures over 5000 people have since died. Earlier this month the head of the Tamil Tigers' political wing S.P. Thamilchelvan was killed in a government air force raid. He was the most senior Tamil leader to die in recent years. On the very same day colonel Karuna, leader of a breakaway faction was arrested in London and held in immigration detention. Human Rights groups accused him of crimes including torture and recruiting child soldiers. The Asian Human Rights Commission is now criticising both the government and rebel forces for what it calls the extrajudicial killing of civilians. They claim that in October alone 53 ordinary Sri Lankans died in this way. So is there a peace process left, is there any point in talking about peace? Joining me now is Dr. Rajiva Wijesinha, Secretary General for the Co-ordination for the Peace Process. So that's the key question I must ask you - Is there any kind of credible peace process or process that might lead to peace, on the table, apart from war?

Prof. Rajiva Wijesinha: The most important thing is negotiation. Unfortunately, the LTTE Tigers have not been willing to negotiate, basically for 4 years, although there were brief talks last year. What the government has done is, it has thought that it should really discuss a future constitutional package with the non-LTTE Tamils plus other minorities. And there is an on-going process. [Full Story]

Defence Affairs Spokesman Minister Keheliya Rambukwella has found fault with Human Rights Watch for it’s duplicitous conduct vis-a-vis the Government and the LTTE.

Speaking at the weekly security briefing the Minister referred to the army of child soldiers who were present at the funeral of Thamilselvan in Kilinochchi and asked if HRW was blind to this fact while it focused only on the death of the LTTE political Commissar.

The Minister also blamed the media for not highlighting this fact when the UN and European Union are expressing concern on the issue of child soldiers.

We trust that Louis Arbour and those of her ilk who went to town on alleged human rights violations by the Security Forces would take note of this most damning evidence of the recruitment of child soldiers by the LTTE.

Why only point an accusing finger at the Government on the question of Human rights ? True, there will be those who will argue that a legitimate Government cannot be equated with a terrorist organisation and has to act within certain constraints and abide by the various international charters and conventions governing human rights.

It is very well known that many Human Rights groups sympathise with the LTTE. If not they will be out of business. Hence their partiality to the outfit while being quick to blame the government. [Full Story]

Human Rights Watch and other International Organisations maintained a deafening silence on LTTE child recruitment withholding credible evidence while the media too failed to highlight such instances, Defence spokesman Minister Keheliya Rambukwella said.

He was referring to the large attendance of child soldiers at the funeral of LTTE Political Wing leader S.P. Thamilselvan.

Speaking at the weekly security news briefing, Rambukwella noted that certain international organisations and human rights bodies blamed the Government when Thamilselvan was killed in an aerial attack but did not utter a word on the presence of child soldiers to mourn Thamilselvan.

“A UNICEF delegation had gone to Kilinochchi in 2005 and found over 1,300 LTTE child soldiers. The UNICEF delegation obtained a promise from Thamilselvan to release the child soldiers but he reneged the promise to the UNICEF,” the Minister said. [Full Story]

Referring to a story spread this morning that two LTTE light aircraft were spotted in Anuradhapura, Defence Spokesman Minister Keheliya Rambukwelle said it was a false and mischievous rumour. Around 5 am today, the Air Force was having their usual air practice, so that if any suspicious aircraft appeared in the sky they would have spotted it.

The story that was spread in the early hours today was only a mischievous rumor. No aircraft was spotted in Anuradhapura, said the Minister addressing the media in Colombo, today.

Referring to reports of a child soldier present at the funeral of the late S.P. Thamilselvan, former head of the LTTE’s ‘Political Wing’, the Defence Spokesman said as it is known that the LTTE uses children both as combatants and human shields, it was strange that no agency or organization advocating human rights raised an issue of human rights violation in this instance. [Full Story]

Defence Spokesman Kehelya Rambukwella addressing the media today in Colombo, remarked that it is a matter of regret that there is some bias in reporting human rights violations in Sri Lanka.

Bringing up the issue of double standards, he referred to the photograph of a child soldier present at the funeral of the late S.P. Thamilselvan, former head of the LTTE’s ‘political wing’. He said that it is well known that the LTTE uses children not only as combatants but as human shields and found it strange that no agency or organization advocating human rights raised the issue of human rights violation in this instance.

He also pointed out that UNICEF has been aware of the use of child soldiers in warfare for at least the past two years ago.

“Not a single worthwhile vibrant voice was raised against this matter. There were mothers, mothers with infants used even in military operations, but the silence over such activity, was rather shocking and regrettably sad.

“Recently, Alan Rock who visited Sri Lanka, said that the Government of Sri Lanka was helping Karuna’s faction to enlist child soldiers. This was detrimental to the sovereignty of a government which had no connection to such activity. The use of children at Thamilselvan’s funeral displayed enough evidence boldly to the world of the attitude of the LTTE in violating Human Rights openly.”

Referring to a rumor spread this morning in Sri Lanka and abroad through news items that two LTTE light air crafts took flight in Vauvniya was a piece of irresponsible news circulated without any foundation. Around 5 am today, the Air Force was having their usual air rehearsals, so that if any other aircraft appeared on the scene, they would have spotted the same. What was spread at 5.12 a.m was only a mischievous rumour. No aircraft was spotted in Anuradhapura, the Minister said.

Speaking on the security situation, he said that the LTTE has been trying to enter the Forward Defence Line in Muhamalai for the last one and half months. More than an attack it was an attempt on entering the Sri Lankan territory, he pointed out. [Full Story]

He was the smiling, conciliatory face of one of the world's deadliest insurgent organisations, an apparently tame Tamil Tiger who had swapped the movement's distinctive jungle fatigues and vial of cyanide for a suit and spectacles.

For the four years that the Norwegian-brokered ceasefire agreement held, S. P. Thamilselvan, who has been killed in an air raid, aged 40, was the international face of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), the guerilla army that seeks to establish an independent state called "Eelam" in the north of Sri Lanka.

...
When meeting foreigners, Thamilselvan relied on his interpreter Pancharatnam, a former postmaster known as "George". He would answer reporters' questions obligingly, but George would often cloak answers on such uncomfortable subjects as the LTTE's use of child soldiers in turgid rhetoric. [Full Story]

If the devastating Black Tiger attack on the Saliyapura Air Force camp serves to wake us from our hubris-induced slumber of complacency, the LTTE would have done us a favour. The shocking security lapses which enabled the spectacular success of that attack stemmed from our unclear and unreal thinking. We thought the war was as good as won; we thought the Tiger’s back and his resolve were broken. Disinformation is a staple fare in wars; its target is usually the enemy. In Sri Lanka the regime ends up by believing its own disinformation. The result is a false sense of safety and wellbeing. With an enemy as resourceful as the LTTE this is a dangerous state to be in.

...
Currently the international situation is non-conducive to the LTTE. The West is cracking down on Tiger operatives, blocking them from collecting money and purchasing new weapons and technologies. This tough line has helped us immensely in the undeclared Fourth Eelam War. The LTTE, because it is hurt by these restrictions, would want to see them removed or relaxed. With this objective in mind the Tigers seem to be acting with greater precaution, with more attention to political factors. They are picking their targets carefully and refraining from the kind of conduct which can earn them more international odium. The international illegitimacy of the Tigers is not a function of their separatism but their terrorism. What sticks in the collective gullet of the international community is not so much the Eelam demand but the use of child soldiers and the deliberate targeting of civilians. By covering up for the child proscription activities of our necessary ally, the TMVP, we have managed to get the Tigers a bit off the hook on the war crime of using child combatants. If the LTTE can refrain from attacking civilians for a considerable period, the basic precondition for re-legitimisation can be created. [Full Story]

The Jaffna peninsular has produced some of the best brains and also outstanding sportsmen and women of our time. Professionals in the field of medicine, engineering and law received their education in the government and the private educational institutions that had a prolific presence in the peninsular. St. John's, St. Patrick's, Tellipalai Union, Manipay Hindu and the Jaffna College are some of the schools that were in the forefront in moulding the future sportsmen and professionals who did great service to Sri Lanka.

The scourge of terrorism changed all this; over the past quarter century, the youth of Jaffna had another most pressing concern, that is, to escape the clutches of the LTTE. The parents were forced to send their children overseas, particularly to Madras or to Colombo Schools to prevent them being recruited as child soldiers. [Full Story]

Mrs. Hillary Clinton, the frontrunner Democratic candidate in the 2008 US Presidential Election has stated at an interview that all terrorists cannot be lumped together even though they are connected by the thread of terror tactics, because the goals they are fighting for are different (The Guardian Unlimited, October 23, 2007). Since there is a strong possibility that Mrs. Clinton may become the next President of the US, whose primary concern is to keep America safe, she would also be expected to have a clear vision regarding global security, with the US being the world’s sole super power. It is critical therefore that that she iterates clearly her understanding as to whether the response of the free world towards those who engage in terrorism, for whatever reason, warrants a common global approach or not.

The fundamental premise of Mrs. Clinton is that if an entity such as the Tamil Tigers (LTTE) sets it a well-motivated goal, the nature of the tactics used to achieve that goal should not matter. Accepting such a premise would mean that the LTTE cannot be faulted for engaging child soldiers in war, nor could they be faulted for committing genocide, or for using civilians as human shields. Its use of suicide bombers, chemicals and every other means to achieve its goals under cover of the sanctity or loftiness of its goals would be equally acceptable. This premise postulates that terrorism used as a tactic in the pursuit of a goal is inconsequential, provided the motivations for that goal are worthy. [Full Story]

Following the successful attempt by the government to prevent a European Union (EU) resolution being tabled against Sri Lanka at the recent UN Human Rights council session, the government has now embarked on a mission to brief the EU on efforts taken to address human rights concerns in the country.

Human Rights Minister, Mahinda Samarasinghe flew to Brussels over the weekend for meetings with EU delegates including its presidency from Portugal to discuss persistent concerns raised by the block over Sri Lanka's human rights situation, a spokesman for the Minister told the Daily Mirror.

"The Minister flew from New York to Brussels to discuss human rights concerns raised by the EU and the recent efforts taken by the government to address and deal with these allegations," the spokesman said.

Minister Samarasinghe was earlier in New York to address the UN general assembly on various topics including child soldiers where he had stated that terrorist ‘groups’ in Sri Lanka, a reference to the LTTE and TMVP, were still recruiting children for combat. [Full Story]

When I wrote last week about the manner in which Louise Arbour was being made use of, I little thought that, when she failed to come up to scratch, she would soon enough be kicked to touch, to be replaced on the field by a series of hot air balloons. But today, Thursday October 18th, we had another barrage of falsehoods and inconsequentialities, based loosely on her visit, that made it clear that what she had in fact said was of little interest to the Human Rights industry.

...
So much for the highest floating balloon. Meanwhile a host of journalists engage in detailed critiques that are not especially logical. One takes off from Louise Arbour reference to reports about the TMVP and other armed groups to go into paroxysms about the Karuna faction, without registering that her criticism was muted compared with her categorical condemnation of the LTTE. Interestingly, senior UN officials, such as Ms Arbour and Mr Alston and Ms Coomaraswamy and the Secretary General in extrapolating from the Allan Rock Report, do not mince their words about the LTTE, in marked contrast to their junior colleagues resident in Sri Lanka who have yet to issue public condemnations of the LTTE’s current campaign of forced recruitment and its refusal to commit to demobilizing all child soldiers. [Full Story]

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) are continually making full use of young male and female child soldiers to defend their Front-Lines from the Sri Lankan Armed Forces. I do not know why, the LTTE cries out to the International Community and accuses the Government of Sri Lanka of Human Rights abuses when the LTTE themselves are abusing the Human Rights of young teenagers who deserve a better quality of life free from the very high possibility of a very short life-span by being forced out on the battlefield. More and more, young Sri Lankan Tamils are fleeing Sri Lanka, our motherland because they fear being recruited by the LTTE. This is fact! The declaration of Eelam War (IV) is the biggest mistake the LTTE leader Prabhakaran could have made and has cost the lives of over 4,000 people. Human life to the LTTE means nothing, Human Rights, Freedom of Speech, Democracy and Pluralism means nothing. They make full use of their front Human Rights organisations worldwide for their own propaganda purposes to fuel their campaign and support amongst the Sri Lankan Tamil speaking Diaspora which is fast dwindling.

The LTTE have always waved the Human Rights issue when they have been near military and political defeat. It is entirely hypocritical of them to have appointed a Human Rights Spokesperson Ms N. Selvi, a female soldier, a champion of Human Rights for Terrorist Fascists who has no understanding whatsoever of the pain and anguish of a mother who has either lost her son or daughter in the battlefield after being recruited by the LTTE. [Full Story]

Sri Lanka army soldiers yesterday (October 15) launched several pre-emptive strikes immediately ahead of their forward defences in Wanni and Jaffna killing over 30 terrorists, defence sources said. The strikes came in the wake of series of terrorist attacks at the security forces' personnel manning isolated posts in Vavuniya and Mannar.

In the Wanni front, troops launched their first strike at a terror hideout at Mullikulama last morning. Sources said that at least 20 terrorists were killed and 15 others were injured in the incident. During the subsequent search, troops have found seven bodies of young LTTE female cadres. Also, troops have seized six T-56 machine guns and one Multi Purpose Machine Gun.

...
LTTE is a ruthless terror outfit which fights for an ethnically pure, separate Tamil homeland for Tamils living in Sri Lanka since 1983. The outfit is well known for its extreme tribalism and nefarious crimes against soft targets specially the women and children. During its two and half decade long terrorist war against Sri Lankan people, LTTE has killed over 70,000 people mostly civilians in its ethnic cleansing raids, indiscriminate bomb attacks, suicide blasts, etc. LTTE is also in top of the UN's list of shame for using child soldiers in war. As a tactical measure the outfit uses only young female cadres and male child soldiers for the frontlines. [Full Story]

UN Human Rights High Commissioner Louise Arbour’s visit has triggered a mixed reaction. Some human rights groups that advocate a UN monitoring mission here are cock-a-hoop, while the anti-terror activists are deeply perturbed as they believe she is here on a mission aimed at giving oxygen to the Tigers licking their wounds in foxholes in the Wanni.

Those who are campaigning for a UN monitoring mission with a gung-ho zeal claim that the government has failed in the task of protecting the civilians trapped in the conflict zone. They point out several instances of serious human rights violations that the government stands accused of.

But, of what use are monitoring missions, UN or otherwise? The ceasefire monitoring mission has become a pathetic failure. It originally consisted of monitors from several powerful countries including the EU member states. Still, it served little purpose. Today, it stands accused of its partiality towards the LTTE and has obviously overstepped its mandate as evident from the recent visit by a diplomat from Iceland to the LTTE headquarters in Kilinochchi with the help of truce monitors.

Is it possible that a UN monitoring mission will be able to be different from the SLMM? UNICEF evinced a keen interest in the rights of children in combat and went to the extent of setting up transit homes in collaboration with the LTTE to secure their release. The project flopped as the LTTE reneged on its promise to let go of child soldiers. The UN did precious little to coerce the LTTE into falling in line. The Security Council skirted the proposed tough action against the organisation including the LTTE on the UN List of Shame for recruiting child soldiers. So, what purpose is a UN human rights monitoring mission going to serve here? We don’t need a group of commentators, do we? We already have truce monitors! [Full Story]

Sri Lanka continues to be confronted by, what terrorism expert and Chief Scientist at the Centre for Asymmetric Threat Studies at the Swedish National Defence College, Dr. Magnus Ranstorp has described as, “[LTTE is] probably the most sophisticated terrorist organization in the world.”

Only two weeks ago the Sri Lankan Navy assisted by the Air Force was able to detect and destroy 03 large LTTE ships carrying arms and ammunition in the high-seas about 1200 km (600 nautical miles southeast of Sri Lanka’s southern most tip of Dondra) thus foiling the LTTE’s latest attempt to smuggle lethal weapons into the country.

...
I wish to focus on each of the three issues Senator Leahy wants Sri Lanka to satisfy, if it is to avail of U.S. funds appropriated under the heading “Foreign Military Financing Programme”.

i. The Sri Lankan military suspends and brings to justice members, who had been credibly alleged to have gross violations of human rights including extra-judicial executions and recruitment of child soldiers.

ii. That the Sri Lankan Government has provided unimpeded access to humanitarian organizations and journalists to the Tamil areas of the country. [Full Story]

Last week the sole superpower disallowed a Bill that would have provided an estimated 3.8 million of its own children with health insurance. President George W Bush vetoed the S-chip Bill – thereby deepening his isolation nationally and within his own party - not because America lacks the $35 billion to fund the new programme. He did so because the Bill did not accord with his worldview. Mr. Bush is not bothered by the fact that during his Presidency the number of uninsured Americans has increased steadily (by a hefty 2.2 million in last year alone) reaching an all time high of 47 million in 2006. He is similarly uninterested in the plight of those millions of American children without health cover. As far as he is concerned it is not the responsibility of the state to look after the poorer, more vulnerable segments of society. And where there is no commitment to universal justice, there is no will to correct sectoral injustice. Similarly when there is no absolute commitment to the rule of law, when a government believes that its own must be above the law, it makes no real effort to check lawlessness on the part of its members.

...
Ends do not justify means. On the contrary means can colour and shape the ends and even impede their achievement. The LTTE and the methods it uses in the struggle for Eelam is a case in point. The anti-civilisational, anti-democratic means of the LTTE have shaped the contours and contents of the end, effectively transforming it from Tamil Eelam to Tiger Eelam, from the country of all Tamils to the country of pro-LTTE Tamils. And the LTTE’s anti-civilisational and anti-democratic acts have often turned out to be counterproductive – child conscription being the best case in point. [Full Story]

President Mahinda Rajapaksa and our Armed Forces should be commended for rescuing children in the East from the LTTE.

The Government will also rescue the children in the North from the clutches of the LTTE as it did in the East, Child Development and Women’s Welfare Minister Sumedha G. Jayasena said.

Addressing the Universal Children’s Day celebration at Biyagama recently, Minister Jayasena said the Government has put a full stop to the LTTE’s recruitment of child soldiers and same will be carried out shortly in the North.

Today the LTTE is limited only to two districts in the North and children in those two districts suffer at the hands of the terrorists. But children in the South and North have the right to be happy and lead a torture free life.

Minister Jayasena pointed out that under Jathika Saviya a lot of development programmes are underway to develop the country. But physical development alone will not do any good to the country without spiritual, cultural and moral development. [Full Story]

Government Spokesman Honourable Minister Keheliya Rambukwella told a Media briefing held at the Media Center for National Security (MCNS) this morning that the Sri Lankan Government will accept the apology tendered by the Foreign Ministry of Iceland regarding an official of Iceland visiting the LTTE areas with the SLMM. The official had Diplomatic status but in this instance entered the LTTE areas while holding a tourist visa with the connivance of the SLMM and met LTTE representatives and even meeting VIP’s. Earlier there was the instance of Hansson Bauer who stepped beyond his mandate regarding his duties by meeting a LTTE leader and misused the immunity granted to the Diplomatic Corps. The Hon. Minister made it very clear to the media that this latest breach of trust by the SLMM is viewed by the Government with serious concern and misgivings considering the prevailing situation.

...
At Nikaweratiya yesterday (04), President Mahinda Rajapaksa stated at the Vap Magul ceremony that various governments had for the last 25 years attempted to deal with the LTTE either by a Military solution or by engaging in a negotiated settlement to bring peace to Sri Lanka. The president stated that all attempts at negotiations since 1985 had little or no success. In the last 18 nearly months, he had always clearly stated that the 'doors are always open for negotiations” which efforts the LTTE has always sabotaged. However after utmost restraint he had to adopt a policy of “liberating the people” who were in the grip of LTTE harassment, unable to lead their lives in peace and living in constant fear of their children being forcibly conscripted by the LTTE for armed combat against the Security Forces .This policy has been a success . Whilst the President has reiterated that the path to a negotiated peaceful settlement is open to the LTTE the Security Forces have since Mavil aru in July 2006 liberated the entire Eastern province including Sampur, Mutur, Vakarai, Thoppigala, and the entire coast belt from Talaimannar down to Puttalam including adjacent areas as Silavaturai, Arippu, Adampan, Mullikulam, Kondachchi, Marichchakadchi, Nanattan , Mantai and Mannar island. The President hopes the LTTE will decide as otherwise he will not wait another 30 years to resolve the crisis . His only option will be to liberate the people from the grip of LTTE terrorism. [Full Story]

The Eastern Province contributes four per cent to the GDP due to its boundless natural resources including copper, oil and mineral deposits and with the liberation of the area from the LTTE clutches the province would drive the national economy towards the development under the humanitarian mission of the Government, said Army Spokesman, Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara at a seminar on Monday in Colombo

...
The LTTE has built a number of prisons in the Eastern area to jail innocent Tamil people for ransom. They have also cultivated cannabis and are involved in the moonshine business in the East.

They transport these products to the Southern part of the Country. But consuming liquor is prohibited among LTTE members. The LTTE used the Eastern province largely to train the child soldiers and to house suicide bombers. [Full Story]

Coinciding with the visit of UN envoy Manfred Nowak – the Special Rapporteur on Torture -- the JVP yesterday charged that envoys from various international institutions including the UN and the EU were coming here with the intention of tarnishing the image of the country.

JVP parliamentary group leader Wimal Weerawansa slammed the government for laying the groundwork for the visits by UN envoys and later being critical of them when derogatory public statements on the country’s security situation were made.

“Once Allan Rock came and he went around the world saying government forces were recruiting child soldiers.

Again when John Holmes came to the country he went around saying Sri Lanka is the most dangerous place for aid workers. What we say is that the international community has not given up attempts to divide this country,” he said while noting that the IC would try to achieve its separatist target with or without the help of LTTE leader Prabakaran. [Full Story]

The 6th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council concluded in Geneva on September 28th without any resolution on Sri Lanka. This seems to have come as a surprise to a few human rights activists, since for the last month or so some newspapers and websites have been full of the dire criticism that awaited Sri Lanka in Geneva.

The explanation now is that Sri Lanka was saved by ‘like minded banana republics and potty regimes’ to quote perhaps the least subtle of the critics of the government. Such a description of countries like China and India and Japan, who were enormously supportive of Sri Lanka, along with a plethora of nations from the Americas and the Middle East and Africa and Europe too, only emphasizes the myopic world in which some Sri Lankan critics of the government live.

...
Human Rights Watch, in the plenary, concentrated on other nations and only made a passing reference to Sri Lanka together with Somalia. However one representative attended one of the discussions on Sri Lanka organized by the Mission, to affirm that HRW stood completely by its researcher Charu Hogg. She confirmed that this applied even to the illegal activities of Ms Hogg who had entered Sri Lanka on a tourist visa to engage in research for her professional work. The issue of child soldiers was also raised, and the position the Sri Lankan delegation took up was amply bolstered by the report of Radhika Coomaraswamy, Special Rapporteur on the subject, who pointed out that the LTTE had not committed ‘to the full release of children under the age of 18 years in contravention to applicable national and international law’. This conclusively nailed the canard that had been floating around since the Ceasefire Agreement, that LTTE pronouncements had the status of law and could supersede national Sri Lankan law.

Amazingly, one international NGO that has been closely associated with the LTTE came into the open during the plenary debate on Ms Coomaraswamy’s statement and claimed that the ‘accepted international law age is 15’. This was followed a few days later by what seemed another front NGO complaining about racism in Sri Lanka, which allowed the Sri Lankan delegation to point out that the worst racism in the country was on the part of the LTTE, which had engaged in the only known instance of ethnic cleansing, in 1990, when it drove out Muslims from the north. [Full Story]

Horse-crap #3
Ambassador Blake: "The opposition UNP, which deserves much credit for the important steps it took to advance peace in 2002-2003"
OaO Asithri: Much credit for what? For allowing over 600 anti-LTTE political opponents and over 60 Sri Lanka Army (SLA) Military Intelligence operatives to be slaughtered by the LTTE terrorists in just one year, using the new found freedom that the UNP under Ranil Wickremasinghe awarded them on a platter? Or is the "much credit" due for giving the LTTE much needed time to re-arm, recruit (including child soldiers), and get ready to whack SLDF as they are doing today with claymores? [Full Story]

President Mahinda Rajapaksa is due to deliver his address to this year's UN General Assembly 25th of this month. There is much anticipation that he will outline the principles of a political solution to the conflict that has sapped the energy and the blood of the country, killing thousands of its citizens in the process, preventing the country from realizing its full potential as a vibrant, free and democratic economic force in the region. While all communities have suffered as a result of terrorism unleashed by the LTTE and its leader Prabakaran, those who have suffered most are the Tamils themselves. They surely must have very little to thank for the misery and hardship they have been undergoing for decades under their so called liberators, the LTTE.

...
Having said this, the President must also convey a message for those countries and organizations sympathetic to the LTTE that the LTTE is the reason for whatever human rights violations taking place in the country, and that such sympathizers should exert some pressure on the LTTE to desist from the many human rights violations they are notorious for. The President must remind the international community that some countries that are promoting discussions with the LTTE have never pointed out the violations on the part of the LTTE, including the recruitment of child soldiers, and have never condemned the many atrocities they have committed over the years against innocent civilians and politicians on both sides. The President should take the opportunity to expose the double standards of some of these do good countries and organizations, while emphasizing his and his government’s commitment to upholding human rights. [Full Story]

The statement by the Sri Lanka delegation to the Sixth Session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva on 21st September 2007 at Palais des Nations in Geneva emphasized the strong commitment of the Government to eradicate the heinous practice of child recruitment.

Ms. Shirani Goonatilleke, Director Legal of the Secretariat for Coordinating the Peace Process speaking on behalf of the Government of Sri Lanka outlined the steps taken to protect children in armed conflict. (The full statement is reproduced below).

Ms. Radhika Coomaraswamy, Under-Secretary -General, Special Representative of the Secretary- General for Children and Armed Conflict presented her report to the Human Rights Council in Geneva today. The report included her findings from her field visits to countries undergoing conflict and the findings of her Special Adviser Mr. Alan Rock's visit to Sri Lanka in November 2006. Mss Coomaraswamy stated that with the full cooperation of the Government he was able to access all areas of the country including the north and the east in order to ascertain the ground situation.

Ms. Coomaraswamy welcomed the statement made by the Sri Lanka delegation and commended the positive steps taken by the Government. She highlighted in particular the adoption of zero tolerance in regard to child recruitment, the commitment in relation to the Security Council Resolution 1612 and the action taken in setting up a committee to investigate allegations of complicity against certain elements of the security forces in the alleged abductions and recruitment of children by the LTTE " break away" group the Karuna faction.

She said it was unfortunate that the LTTE did not commit to the full release of children under the age of 18 years and this she noted was in contravention to applicable national and international law. [Full Report]

An eleven-year child, who escaped from the LTTE , surrendered to the police at a checkpoint, celebrated his birthday in a Home for Children recently. The birthday party was organized by the Ven. Thera who is the co-ordinator-in-charge of the Home for Children.

Although he is now far away from his home village, Settikulam off Vavuniya, he did not look perturbed but was smiling as he cut the birthday cake and shared it with his friends.

He said that when he was at home, a group of people had come in a white van and asked him to come with them as they could provide him with a better education. As his family was poor, he was asked to go with them and he had obeyed his parents. He said that his journey on that day ended not in a much better place but in a camp where there were children.

"In the camp we were told to kill the Sinhalese and we were trained to use guns," he said.

"The camp where I was trained was known as John Master's camp and there were sixteen LTTE child soldiers there. I led a miserable life for seven days in that camp and so decided to escape anyhow. [Full Story]

He recently hit the news with a quick military victory that wrested control of the eastern provinces of his island nation from the LTTE. But Mahinda Rajapakse is not a man in a hurry. The Sri Lankan President knows exactly where he wants to go, and in order to get there he marches to the beat of his own distant drummer. He does not play to the gallery and the concepts of PR and image-making and “positioning” are alien to him. Unlike his westernized predecessors Chandrika Kumaratunge, Ranil Wickramasinghe, and even Premadasa, Rajapakse, in his own words is “not a man of glamour.” He is the country’s first head of state from the rural south and, like the English he speaks, homespun.

Inderjit Badwar: But isn’t the recent fighting in the East a sign that you have escalated the war effort rather than the peace effort? Is the 2000 Cease Fire Agreement (CFA) now a dead letter?

Mahinda Rajapakse: First of all let me state without hesitation that I applaud the brave Sri Lankan soldiers who have liberated the Eastern Province from the grip of terror. The victory of Thoppigala is a landmark in restoring peace in an area that was an LTTE stronghold for training terrorists including child soldiers, as well as for arms and drug smuggling.

Today, I am confident enough to tell you that I will hold elections in the Eastern Province hopefully by the end of the year. We will demonstrate the viability of a Tamil-Sinhala-Muslim partnership. This will be a showcase of how the three communities can work together in a peaceful, democratic, power sharing arrangement. It will be an example to the North where the LTTE’s efforts have been to isolate the Tamil community from the rest of the Sri Lankan people. [Full Story]

The Business Community, including the heads of some of the leading conglomerates in the country paid a courtesy call to the Secretary Defence at his office on Tuesday (11). This meeting provided the forum for the Business Community to voice some issues of concern, which were clarified by the Secretary Defence. Following are the excerpts taken from this discussion.

...
With examples to back his argument he stated that “The world over, they are engaging in drug trafficking, arms smuggling, money laundering, human trafficking and other large scale banking frauds. They have so far assassinated close to 60 Tamil leaders who have fought for democratic rights of the Tamil people. They have put 2 generations of Tamil people in jeopardy by recruiting the largest no. of child soldiers over 25 years. The complete education system and the lifestyle in the North & East are in total disarray except in little pockets in Government controlled areas. While the so called Tamil civil diaspora is funding terrorism for petty economic gain, their kith and kin are suffering in the North & East of Sri Lanka”. [Full Story]

SECRETARY GENERAL
Secretariat for Co-ordinating the Peace Process
10th September 2007
Peter Splinter
Amnesty International
Geneva

Dear Peter,
I am writing in response to your press release of September 4th, which raised a number of issues that we also dealt with in our discussion of September 5th. I am sorry that you released the document before our discussion, which had been arranged beforehand, since you were therefore not able to incorporate the matters we discussed.

...
With regard to child soldiers, the practice is of course abhorrent and the government policy on this is very clear. Again the Peace Secretariat has been devising programmes to ensure effective rehabilitation with socialization, and it is sad that many groups who raise the issue are not contributing actively to constructive rehabilitation.

With regard to recruitment of child soldiers by the Karuna faction, the figures are much exaggerated, for obvious reasons. This does not mean that it has not occurred, and it is incumbent on us all, and in particular the government, to prevent this. However, I believe all concerned parties should study reports of actual incidents. For instance the UN Secretary General's report last year gives some interesting statistics based on reports of the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (widely believed in Sri Lanka to be unduly supportive of the LTTE, though this seems to have changed in recent months).

According to the SLMM, during a particular reporting period, there were 117 complaints against the LTTE of which 37 were ruled against them; 105 against the Karuna faction of which 6 were ruled against them; and 15 complaints against the government (presumably of aiding the Karuna faction, since there has never been any allegation of the government using child soldiers) of which 3 were ruled against them. [Full Story]

September 5, 2007
To Dr. John Whitehall, Pediatrician
Director, Townsville Hospital Neonatal Unit
Queensland, Australia
Dear Dr. John Whitehall,

Your interview with ABC supportive of the Tamil Tiger Terrorists (LTTE)

I refer to your interview with Richard Fidler of ABC on August 25, 2007, and write to correct certain misconceptions on your part and misinformation conveyed to your listeners on that occasion. Even though I am a little late in responding to your comments, I find it necessary to do so in the interest of correcting the erroneous or false picture painted by you.

...
2. "I did not see any evidence of child soldiers. But I saw a list of those dead and found that many of them were less than 16 years old."

What more evidence do you need to know about the conscription of child soldiers? Those who died before the age 16 are considered children, and it is deemed a war crime to recruit persons below the age of 15. UNICEF, HRW, Amnesty and other international agencies have widely reported about the abduction and forced conscription of children by the Tigers. [Full Story]

Dear Dr John Whitehall,

I read the transcript of the interview given to ABC radio on the affairs of Sri Lanka appeared in TamilNet dated 25/08/07, with some interest.

I normally do not read Tamilnet or waste my time by responding to the misinformation therein, since I am fully aware that the contents are nothing else, but the voice of Tamil Tiger Terrorists. Since I became aware of the highly misguided story of yours broadcasted via ABC, as an Australian citizen with Sri Lankan decent, I thought of writing this letter to correct some of grossly misconceptions therein.

...
The LTTE is still abducting young Tamil children for the purpose of training them to kill people. During 2004, more than 1000 cases of new child recruitment were reported to UNICEF, a higher percentage of them were girls. As per UNICEF there were 40 verified cases of child recruitment of the LTTE within the first few months of Tsunami while you were said to be serving in Tiger held areas. The case of bombing of a school where 61 girls died, as claimed by you, were not school children but was a proven case of child soldiers although you were adamant to accept the evidence of child solders due to your apparent sympathy with the group. In actual fact, the LTTE has had killed more innocent Tamils than Sinhalese during their terror campaign for a fascist separate state. [Full Story]

Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama has said Sri Lankans are saddened by the misperceptions, distortions and deliberate aspersions cast upon the Government of Sri Lanka in foreign countries, for they do not reflect the reality of the ground situation, in a country that is endeavoring to rid itself of the menace of terrorism. The Minister added that such accounts are particularly disappointing and discouraging to those engaged in trying to end, what many have been content to dismiss as an “intractable problem”. The Minister urged greater objectivity in the reporting of developments in Sri Lanka.

Minister Bogollagama made these observations when he addressed the Royal Institution for International Relations (RIIR) Brussels on 3rd September, 2007 on the theme “Sri Lanka : the Quest for Peace”

e) Allegations have also been made of abduction and recruitment of children for use in armed conflict, and complicity in this of some elements of the security forces with the Karuna faction.

It is instructive here to note that it is the government of Sri Lanka that took up the issue of child soldiers at the UNGA as early as in 1997 and urged the international community to take effective action against this abhorrent practice. The GOSL has always maintained a policy of ‘zero tolerance’ on child combatants. Please do not forget that the LTTE since since 2002 alone has recruited over 5700 children according to the UNICEF, while recent allegations have been made that the Karuna group has also engaged in recruiting.In the face of these accusations, I am happy to inform you that only a week ago the Minister of Disaster Management and Human Rights has appointed a committee chaired by the Secretary, Ministry of Justice to conduct a full investigation on the issue of child combatants and child recruitment in Sri Lanka. [Full Story]

Increasingly fewer students are presenting themselves for GCSE exams in Vanni North Sri Lanka. The reason: they are afraid that if they leave their homes they will fall into the clutches of Tamil rebels, who continue to forcibly recruit child soldiers among their ranks.

The alarm was sounded by the Minister for Social Services, Douglas Devanada, and the leader of the Tamil Eelam People’s Democratic Party (EPDP).

According to the minister, only 7 – 8% of enrolled students in Vanni succeeded in sustaining Advance Level exams recently held in the country: the Tamil tigers have decided to recruit 60 thousand children forcibly removing one from every home in the North of the Jaffna peninsula.

The Minister cited “reliable sources”, according to whom the leader of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) Velupillai Prebhakaran, “is considering the possibility of demanding and increase in the numbers of little recruits in his discourse due to held on Martyrs Day November 26th next”. [Full Story]

The attendance of GCE Advanced Level public examination in the Wanni area these days has dropped to 7 to 8 percent for the fear of parents keeping their children away from the examination centers as they are afraid of them being forcefully recruited for war by Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.

The public examination held to select students to the universities is shunned away by the students, under the influence of their parents, who have registered for the examination as the centers have become popular hunting grounds for the LTTE child soldier recruiters to conscript children for the war, sources in the Kilinochchi and Mulativu revealed that the two districts are still under the control of the Tamil Tigers. [Full Story]

UNICEF yesterday expressed its concern after the government published, on various websites, the pictures and names of child soldiers who had surrendered to the STF in Ampara. This came despite the Human Rights Ministry announcing the setting up of a committee to deal with child soldiers and their rehabilitation.

Two government news websites published the pictures, with full name, gender and age, of all eight child soldiers. In response, UNICEF spokesman Gordon Weis said, “We were happy to see the statement made by the Minister of Human Rights. However, part of rehabilitating child soldiers is that they do not publicize them as former fighters. This runs contrary to the government’s commitment to rehabilitate these children.”

The four female and four male child soldiers were found hiding and abandoned in the jungle strapped with detonators, anti-personnel mines and LTTE camouflage shirts. The child soldiers had been ordered by the LTTE to attack STF personnel in the Kanjikudichcha Aru area. [Full Story]

EIGHT UNDERAGE CHILDREN who were employed as child soldiers by the LTTE were nabbed by the Special Task Force (STF) soldiers during a search operation in the general area of SANGAMANKANDA on POTHUVIL – AKKARAIPATTU main road.

The search was conducted subsequent to the STF attack on a gang of terrorists, the previous day (27th August 2007) in the same area. (See Situation Report on 28th August 2007.

The arrest of those eight child soldiers, four males and four females, amply proves that LTTE, turning a deaf ear to repeated appeals made by the international community still continues to do the same violating UN conventions and Humanitarian Law by conscripting teenagers for combat roles. [Full Story]

Police Commandos the elite corps of the Police Special Task Force (STF) on Tuesday (August 28) rescued seven child combatants along with another 20-year old youth who had been forced by the LTTE to engage in a terrorist attack against the security forces in the Kangikaidichchi Aru area.

According to STF sources, the commandos had rescued the group of young LTTE cadres comprising four girls and four boys when they had successfully intercepted a terrorist movement at a location close to the 212 milepost on the Akkaraipattu- Pothuvil main road.
The group of terrorists had attacked the STF commandos who had been conducting a clearing operation in the area around 5 am on Tuesday. The STF personnel had overpowered the terrorist attack successfully forcing them to flee in all directions.

During the subsequent search, STF personnel found eight fear-stricken children who had been hiding in the jungle along with weapons and other military gear belonging to the LTTE.

Name	Age	Sex
Jeewarasa Sudan	15	Male
Chamuth Nadan	20	Male
Perumal Sinnathambi	15	Male
Dharmaratnam Ramesh	16	Male
Selvarasa Suwarajini	15	Female
Thuraisingham Sumana	14	Female
Vigneswaran Vinoyani	16	Female
Thavarasa Rashika	14	Female

[Video] [Full Story]

EPDP Leader and Minister of social Services Douglas Devananda, who condemned the actions of the LTTE, said that as a result of LTTE's forcible conscription of 60,000 children through the propaganda one child from a house only 7 to 8 per cent of the registered students in the Vanni were able to sit the Advanced Level exam this year.

He said he has reliable reports that the LTTE leader was considering increasing the demand to two children from each household when makes his Matyrs Day speech on November 26, 2007.

That was why He was considering to relocate on alternate lands the 2000 or more families who had been displaced from Ariyalai in the Jaffna Town due to the area being declared a High security Zone. The displaced living in temporarily abodes in the coastal areas of Navalady, Maniam Thottam etc. could be prone to pressure and attacks by the LTTE in the future. As they were sandwiched between, the two parties to the conflict the security Forces and the LTTE. [Full Story]

The STF in Ampara yesterday found eight LTTE child cadres hiding in bushes in the area where, the previous night the LTTE claimed, they, together with several other child soldiers were to be handed over to the UNICEF.

As was reported in the Daily Mirror yesterday, the UNICEF said it had no knowledge of any handover of child soldiers by the LTTE in Ampara and with the revelations following the youth at risk, suspicion had been further raised that the lives of the children had been put at risk by the Tigers on the previous night. Reiterating that they had no knowledge of such a handover in Ampara, UNICEF spokesman Gordon Weiss stressed that a large scale

handover of that nature would, in any event, be considered unsafe. Taking into account the latest incident the UNICEF spokesman emphasized the need for both the LTTE and the government to work out a mechanism for the safe return of child soldiers. “It is not safe to march a group of children accompanied by armed forces through an area where there is fighting,” he said. [Full Story]

UNICEF said it had no knowledge of an alleged handover of LTTE child soldiers in Ampara today after the rebels claimed that a group of ‘Tiger’ cubs were attacked by the Special Task Force (STF) last night.

The LTTE claimed that the child soldiers were being transported to Ampara last night in preparation for the handover today when they came under STF attack.

The STF however said they attacked a group of LTTE cadres who were fleeing from Kanjikudichchiaru in Ampara, causing heavy damages to the Tigers. [Full Story]

The Trincomalee Harbour Police conducting investigations into an arrested person on suspicion have identified the suspect to be the LTTE's former "Police Chief" in Sampur. The suspect identified as Kalimutthu Vinodkumar aged 29 years was arrested by the Harbour Police at a roadblock in Trincomalee yesterday (August 23) .

On initial inquiries the suspect had said he was employed under an area dealer for a well known mobile phone company in Sri Lanka.

Vinodkumar has revealed he was recruited to the terrorist outfit as a child soldier, direct from the school. The LTTE recruiters had brain-washed many children like him by showing video footages of terrorist activities at the school and forced them to join the outfit. [Full Story]

Sri Lanka does not seem to be having a coherent diplomatic strategy that involves a comprehensive understanding of her own internal and external interests and that of the ‘mindset’ of U.S. Foreign Service Officers based in Colombo and their superiors in the South Asian and Central Affairs Bureau of the State Department in Washington.

...
And, it is the same Patrick Leahy, on the Senate floor on 18 September 2006 declared: “Politically motivated killings, the recruitment of child soldiers, indiscriminate raids on civilians, targeting of international aid workers, and torture in policy custody are only some of the human rights abuses that have been recently committed as reported by Amnesty International and Human rights Watch…… Road, air and sea links to the Tamil population in the north have been cut, and food, water and fuel shortages are severe.” [Full Story]

With the eviction of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) from Batticaloa, capital of Sri Lanka's Eastern Province, and the Tigers' eventual collapse in the Thoppigala jungle area (Barron's Rock) on July 11, the expulsion of the rebels from their strongholds in the province was complete.

...
The LTTE is currently thought to have roughly 7,000 soldiers, including a significant number of child recruits. Moreover, there are roughly 600,000 civilians in the LTTE-controlled areas, and the LTTE enforces a norm of one person per family to be recruited into its army. Further, all civilians of "fighting age" (including a significant proportion of children, principally aged 14-16, but sometimes younger) are required to undergo two hours of military training every day. While much of this mobilization is coercive, the LTTE would clearly be able to muster a very substantial force for any full-blown conflict with the SLA. [Full Story]

The UN Secretary General called it “unacceptable and unwarranted” and he was not off the mark. The remarks by the Chief Government Whip, Minister Jeyaraj Fernandopulle on the UN Undersecretary for Humanitarian Affairs, John Holmes were remarkable for their inanity. Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama hastened to limit the damage by declaring that Mr. Fernandopulle was not expressing the opinion of the government when he called Mr. Homes ‘a terrorist’ taking bribes from the Tigers. Unfortunately by that time the damage has been done. Now the government is left with two unpalatable choices – either accept the rebuke by Mr. Moon or get into an extremely damaging battle with the UN itself.

...
Then there is the issue of child soldiers. Using children as military slaves is the most unforgivable of the LTTE’s many crimes. This crime made a seminal contribution to the de-legitimisation and isolation of the Tigers internationally. Unfortunately by permitting Col. Karuna’s TMVP to carry out child conscription in areas under government control we have blunted this superb politico-propaganda weapon against the Tigers. Even more dangerously we have enabled Sri Lanka’s image to be tarnished and for our Forces to be accused of complicity in a particularly abominable war crime. Denials will not avail because the evidence is overwhelming. We must ensure that the TMVP ceases all child conscription/recruitment forthwith and releases all child soldiers, immediately. Though such a course of action may cause us some embarrassment initially, in the medium to long term, both the Lankan state and the TMVP will benefit from it. If such remedial measures are not taken, the Tamils and the international community will become even more alienated. [Full Story]

The appeal by Prime Minter Ratnasiri Wickramanayaka to the LTTE cadres trapped in the East to lay down their arms and surrender should be viewed in a positive light notwithstanding the reservations in the minds of many.

Now that the LTTE has been routed in the East the Government would do well to speed up the development process in the Province and for this to succeed it is important that all irritants be removed.

...
One has to take into account the number of conscripts in the LTTE ranks, including child soldiers, who may want to make a bolt for it if there is guarantee of security and a secure life. In fact, there have been many a case of LTTE cadres seeking the protection of the Security Forces. Some of them have been reunited with their families. [Full Story]

Late Lakshman Kadirgamar former Foreign Minister of Sri Lanka who was assassinated by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam was instrumental in re-building and restoring the Jaffna library to its former glory. Former Foreign Minister devoted his time and energy in fighting the LTTE in the diplomatic front. This was disclosed in Chennai at the commemoration of the death anniversary of Late Lakshman Kadirgamar.

...
The Deputy High Commissioner also described the efforts made by the late Kadirgamar in exposing the atrocities committed by the LTTE to the international community and the role he played in creating awareness on the plight of child soldiers who were innocent victims of the LTTE.

Deputy High Commissioner, Amza said that child soldiers were, “…innocent children plucked from their terrified families and subjected to untold hardships and brutalities, deprived of love and affection from their families and education, which is a basic human right of any child”, and pointed out that the forced conscription of children by the LTTE was on of the reasons that prompted up to 20,000 Sri Lankan refugees to come to Tamil Nadu since January 2006 and added that among them, 27% were young children. [Full Story]

A family of five who fled the oppression of the LTTE in the Wanni wants the Government to clear the North as it did in the East if they were to enjoy lasting peace.

“We want the Government to clear the North as it did in the East and establish peace. Only then we will be able to go back to our homes and lead a secure life,” the family of father, mother and three children living under the protection of the Navy told the media yesterday.

They said they witnessed on television how the Navy rescued their people and that is why they decided to travel in a dingy boat risking the elements.

They said they got to know that the Navy rescued people travelling by sea who display a flag. That is why they sneaked around 2.00 a.m. in a dingy boat.

“We posed as fishermen and travelled by boat. My wife and two daughters (aged 12 and 17) slept on the floor of the boat and my son (21) and I operated the boat pretending that we are fishermen. We heard gunshots and thought our lives were over but the Navy rescued us,” the father said. [Full Story]

The United Nations under Secretary General for humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator John Holmes urged Sri Lanka to disarm the Karuna Group after a tour in the Eastern Province in Sri Lanka.

He said it was important to demilitarize the Eastern Province as soon as possible. "It is important that the disarmament of the Karuna faction should happen as soon as possible," he told reporters at a Colombo press conference .

There have been serious allegations of recruiting child soldiers both against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and the breakaway Karuna faction in the Eastern Province. [Full Story]

The Human Rights Watch report is completely biased and only supporting the LTTE. This is an International organisation and it is sad to see that this organisation is supporting the LTTE which is a terrorist group only second to Taliban and al-Qaeda, Highways Minister Jeyaraj Fernandopulle said.

Addressing the weekly press briefing at the Government Information Department yesterday, the Minister said the Human Rights Watch report has stated that the Karuna group recruited 200 child soldiers but forgotten to mention that the LTTE recruited 5,000 child soldiers by May this year. [Full Story]

The black scarf wearing General Secretary of the Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (MDMK) Vaiko has been relatively silent unlike in his usual loud praise for the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in the past few months after it was revealed by the Tamil Nadu police that his political allies were the real culprits for the killing of five and abduction of 12 Tamil Nadu fishermen.

...
Vaiko was commenting on the Sri Lanka Air Force bombing of a military training school where school children had been coerced by the LTTE to join and train themselves in combat warfare. LTTE has been a long culprit named by the UN Children’s fund and other human rights organizations for their recruitment of children for war. Vaiko has been silent over such crimes against

Tamil children by the LTTE. He does not mind Tamil children are being kidnapped from schools ,homes , playgrounds and temple festivals to be forcibly recruited as child soldiers. [Full Story]

Civilians who have managed to escape the LTTE dominated Wanni area reveal that megalomaniac terror chief, V. Prabhakaran has set out a massive child recruitment campaign, ordering each family to give up at least one child to his terror outfit.

A family of seven who arrived at an army point at Senmanthivu in Mannar on Monday (July 30) morning said the families living in terror dominated Wanni have to go into hiding in the jungle at night to save their children from the LTTE's child hunters.

"We had to go into the jungle in the night time to save our children from Prabhakaran's child abduction squad. They come at night time and drag children as young as 12 to their camps" said one of the refugees to defence.lk special correspondent in Mannar.

The family that arrived on Monday comprised the two parents and their four children, two girls and one boy. The father of the family said they were residents of Wattakandal and had to crawl miles through thick jungle to avoid being hunted down by the LTTE terrorists.

"During the day they (LTTE) force us to do fatigue. Not even the elders are spared from the harsh work including digging trenches, building bunkers and etc", the father said.

"Some of the parents whose children had been abducted have suffered mental breakdowns. If you go there you would see many parents cursing Prabhakaran, even in front of LTTE camps. None of us want our children to die as suicide bombers" he further added.

Our correspondent was of the view that the number of refugees coming from the LTTE controlled Wanni would soon swell. He said that on Friday (July 27) 13 people including 8 males and 5 females had arrived at Ulliankulam army roadblock in Mannar. These families from the Adampan and Allankulam areas have told similar stories about the human catastrophe taking place in the Wanni.

According to the information obtained from the civilians, the LTTE hierarchy is showing signs of panic with worsening manpower shortage after the outfit's recent debacle in the East. The LTTE had been seriously weakened by the death of a large number of its members while many were injured or disabled. Also many others had surrendered to the security forces during the humanitarian operation in the East that came to an end in mid- July. [Full Story]

At a Briefing held at the Media Centre for National Security (MCNS) on Monday (06) at 11.00 am, the Hon. Min. Dr Keheliya Rambukwella reminded that it was on 4th August 2006 that the bodies of 17 members of a French NGO ACF were found in Mutur, Trincomalee killed by gunshot injuries arousing wide media publicity.

...
It is clear that it was from the East that the LTTE put pressure on the Government and the International Community in staking a claim for Tamil Ealam. He reminded that the LTTE killed and wounded mostly people of all communities in the Eastern Province. In Kaththankudy and Eravur hundreds of Muslims devotees were massacred in two mosques. The LTTE killed 34 Buddhist priests in Aranthalawa, and even Hindu holy men. Hundreds of innocent villagers including farmers, fishermen of all communities have been killed including over 500 policemen who had surrendered. The Eastern province was also the hunting ground for the LTTE recruiters who forcibly recruited under age children as child soldiers until they were liberated . [Full Story]

Civilians who have managed to escape the LTTE dominated Wanni area reveal that megalomaniac terror chief, V. Prabhakaran has set out a massive child recruitment campaign, ordering each family to give up at least one child to his terror outfit.

A family of seven who arrived at an army point at Senmanthivu in Mannar on Monday (July 30) morning said the families living in terror dominated Wanni have to go into hiding in the jungle at night to save their children from the LTTE's child hunters.

"We had to go into the jungle in the night time to save our children from Prabhakaran's child abduction squad. They come at night time and drag children as young as 12 to their camps" said one of the refugees to defence.lk special correspondent in Mannar.

The family that arrived on Monday comprised the two parents and their four children, two girls and one boy. The father of the family said they were residents of Wattakandal and had to crawl miles through thick jungle to avoid being hunted down by the LTTE terrorists.

"During the day they (LTTE) force us to do fatigue. Not even the elders are spared from the harsh work including digging trenches, building bunkers and etc", the father said.

"Some of the parents whose children had been abducted have suffered mental breakdowns. If you go there you would see many parents cursing Prabhakaran, even in front of LTTE camps. None of us want our children to die as suicide bombers" he further added. [Full Story]

In an article titled "Can Human Rights Monitoring Halt Abuses in Sri Lanka?" co-authors, Philip Alston and William Abresch advocate the need for an International Monitoring Mission that would expose and halt abuses, and by doing so protect the population and create the conditions for a sustainable peace. They also state that one of its authors reported to the General Assembly (UN Doc. A/61/311, September 5, 2006) that "the conflict between the Government and the LTTE is ultimately about a struggle for legitimacy, not territory" (The Fletcher Forum of World Affairs, Summer, 2007, Vol 31:2, p. 30). To state that the conflict is about legitimacy and not territory reveals a misunderstanding as well as a misrepresentation of the facts. This is evident from a statement in the article itself that "One proponent of armed struggle by Tamils suggested that territory matters more than human rights" (Ibid, p.30).

...
In this background, a Human Rights Monitoring Mission would only be monitoring HR abuses. However expansive their terms of reference as well as their competence are beyond current arrangements, such a Mission would in the end amount to an exercise in assigning blame with a greater degree of accuracy than has been done in the past. For instance, in the case of the 17 Aid workers of Action Contre la Faim cited in the referenced article, the SLMM ruled that the Security Forces were behind the Act, when in fact, later evidence revealed that since 7 of the 8 bullets were of a kind used by the LTTE, it was most likely that the LTTE and not the Security Forces who committed the act. Monitoring HR abuses thus becomes an exercise in documentation, with little or no action being possible against non-state actors such as the LTTE. The inability of the IC get the LTTE to desist from engaging child soldiers despite efforts over several years, is also testimony to its lack of influence. [Full Story]

Sri Lanka's Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) are accused of forcing young people to join their ranks, ahead of a possible battle with government forces for the north of the country.

People in rebel-held Kilinochchi say that Tamil Tigers have introduced a policy of demanding one person from each family.

...
"Every home received a letter," one woman who did not want to be named told the BBC.

"They underlined my name and told me that I would be recruited into the LTTE.

"They wrote a date and time and said I should hand myself over at that time.

"If a representative of the family doesn't join, they will come and get him or her instead." [Full Story]

The recent arrests made by law enforcement authorities of members and supporters of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) at about the same time in widely separated parts of the world as Britain, the United States of America, Canada, Australia , France , Switzerland Singapore has proved that this terrorist outfit is a global terrorist organization The LTTE suspects taken into custody and detained in most cases have not been granted bail due to the gravity of the chargers and the finances involved . Some of the chargers against them range from murder, "skimming" credit cards, extortion " rackets" and fundraisers. There were others as money launderers, weapons dealers, ammunition, explosives, surface to air missile and sophisticated communication equipment procurers, illicit satellite telecasters and other illegal financiers.

...
Meanwhile the LTTE is also involved in the forcible recruitment of child soldiers. They have many times made commitments to UN agencies as UNICEF, UNESCO, UNHCR, AI, Save The Children etc and to other organizations as the New York based Human Rights Watch to stop the use of forcible recruitment of children for combat. The LTTE have never ever honoured these pledges . According to recent reports of SCOPP :" the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) and SCOPP agreed that child-recruitment was a serious issue and the SLMM mentioned two complaints of alleged LTTE child-recruitment in Mannar". There are reports from civilians who have escaped from the un-cleared areas into the Government controlled areas that the LTTE has once again activated their earlier order that each family must provide a child to their organization to be trained as soldiers for what they call the "Final war". They have also ordered all males below 45 years to join them so that they can be trained to perform sentry duties. [Full Story]

Dear Mr. Chilcott

I am writing to you as a British who has had a lot of business connections with Sri Lanka in the past and who has traveled widely in and out the beautiful island. As an Englishman who, perhaps has had more living experience by intermingling with the Sri Lankan populace right across the country more than you have been there as High Commissioner recently, I am sadden to note the growing speculation among the majority Sinhala, Muslim and the ordinary Tamil people that you have stepped out of your diplomatic boundaries when you recently visited a newspaper office ( Daily Mirror) to register your concern on alleged violations of free media and human rights violations by Sri Lanka’s Defence Secretary . As a senior Civil Servant with FCO experience behind you, did you ever think of it as stepping out of your diplomatic boundaries? Perhaps you may not have come up to the same level as Mr. D.N.Dixit, a former Indian High Commissioner to Sri Lanka in 1980’s who attempted to interfere with internal affairs of Sri Lanka, but you need to consider yourself very fortunate that unlike Gladstone, one of your former colleagues, who stepped out of his mark, you were not made persona non grata by the Sri Lankan government.

I do not have to brief you on the definition of diplomatic missions as they are established in accordance with the provision of the Vienna Convention on diplomatic relations 1961. Accordingly, “typical consular duties performed by British High Commissions include issuing of passports and emergency passports; registering births and deaths; handling cases of child abduction and forced marriages; and assisting Britons detained or imprisoned like in the case of a Tamil gentleman (British citizen), who was detained by the LTTE terrorists during his visit to Vanni where the top ranks of the British government had to intervene from London to get him released. [Full Story]

Military sources in the East confirmed that nearly 800 LTTE cadres have left the organisation from February till to date, after capturing Thoppigala.

"They have abandoned the organisation. Some of them have gone back to their villages and re-united with their families", Commanding Officer of the 23 division of the East Major General Daya Ratnayake told the 'Sunday Observer', yesterday.

He said that the LTTE had 1500 cadres in the entire Eastern region before the area was captured and according to military analysts the majority of the cadres were from Batticaloa.

"They were taken and kept by force by the LTTE. The majority of the cadres are not ready to join the LTTE", he said.

Maj. Gen. Ratnayake said that according to estimates, 500 to 600 child soldiers were used to fight against the military in the East. [Full Story]

The Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) told the Peace Secretariat yesterday that it had initiated an inquiry into allegations that the LTTE has demanded that every family living in areas controlled by it contributes at least one member to its activities.

The SCOPP also inquired about the widely-reported threat of the LTTE to attack economic targets and the SLMM agreed that this should be investigated.

SLMM and SCOPP agreed that child-recruitment was a serious issue and the SLMM mentioned two complaints of alleged LTTE child-recruitment in Mannar. [Full Story]

Reuters reporting from Kilinochchi last Friday (July 20) said residents in the LTTE heartland in the north said the Tigers are demanding every family contribute at least one member to the movement. They tell of how brothers, sisters, sons and daughters have been taken against their will to camps to be trained as fighters, and how they are helpless to prevent it.

The Secretary Genearl of the Secretariat for Coordinating the Peace Process (The Peace Secretariat) has drawn the attention of the Co - Chairs on the Sri Lanka Peace Process to recent reports that the LTTE is in the process of recruiting one member from each family in areas under its control, for possible military purposes. [Full Story]

Tear drops glitter in her pale eyes when she was asked to reveal her past spent in LTTE camps. With short hair and clad in typical Tamil shalwar kameez with faded floral designs she is yet another innocent Tamil girl to one who sees her. The black pottu makes the dark skinned teenager beautiful.

Elendri is now a 14-year- old is not an ordinary Tamil girl but a lass who can handle operate the deadly T-56 well and destroy the targets given by 'Shamala Akka', who, she says is the head who trained her and her friends.

Childhood innocence reflects in her though Elandri was brain _ washed to be tough to fight with well trained soldiers. Tight lipped, most of the time, when asked about the days before she surrendered to the Commando Brigade of the Sri Lanka Army in Thoppigala.

Elendri is a child solider who fought a losing battle in Thoppigala and escaped from the camp when the LTTE cadres were busy shooting at the Army commandos.

Childhood innocence reflects in her though Elandri was brain _ washed to be tough to fight with well trained soldiers. Tight lipped, most of the time, when asked about the days before she surrendered to the Commando Brigade of the Sri Lanka Army in Thoppigala.

Elendri is a child solider who fought a losing battle in Thoppigala and escaped from the camp when the LTTE cadres were busy shooting at the Army commandos.

Proving that Sri Lankan Army is on a humanitarian mission to liberate Tamil people in the North and East from the LTTE clutches, Elandri who surrendered was safely handed over to the Siththandi Army Camp.

The story of Elendri reflects that the terrorists do not have to honour their own rituals and not even to humanity. They only wanted to fight to achieve their dreams by using innocent Tamils and kids as human shields. No one will believe that she was abducted by the LTTE terrorists, the very day the girl attained puberty. Two motorists forcibly entered their tiny hut and assaulted her drunken father. Her mother was not around and they snatched the girl while she was crying and shouting for help. She screamed and told of her plight. And no one came forward to save her as majority of villagers feared the LTTE.

She said , she is happy to be at home with her family living in Murakottanchena. Never having stepped into a school due to poverty, she innocently says her dream was to study and be with her family. [Full Story]

Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama said although LTTE terrorism would be countered militarily, the outfit is still welcome for talks to sort out matters.

In an interview with Channel News in Singapore Minister Bogollagama said the newly liberated Eastern Province would be made a showcase of democratic pluralism to the outside world.

“Post conflict development is our major theme today and we will ensure peace for all the people of Sri Lanka”, he said.

...
“This is an area that was held by the LTTE. They suppressed the people and recruited children as child soldiers. Today we are happy to announce that the Eastern Province has been entirely cleared and people are free to get about”, Bogollagama stated.

Asked if the Government plans a fight to the finish, the Minister said they (the Government) was only trying to maintain law and order and the security of the people and that of the country as a sovereign state. [Full Story]

The LTTE must immediately keep to its pledge to the UN and return all remaining child soldiers held by it to their families and engage in transparent procedures with UNICEF to reunite remaining child soldiers with their families, states Amnesty International (AI) in a Public Statement on Sri Lanka. AI says it had received reports in April 2007 that the LTTE were active in recruiting children in Madhu in Mannar District in preparation for future military battles in the North.

Meanwhile there are increasing reports from news agencies, diplomats and the Peace Secretariat of increased LTTE threats to Tamil families and aid workers in the North, with the LTTE acting to increase its fighting cadres.

Reuters reporting from Kilinochchi last Friday (July 20) said many residents in the LTTE heartland in the north said the Tigers are demanding every family contribute at least one member to the movement. They tell of how brothers, sisters, sons and daughters have been taken against their will to camps to be trained as fighters, and how they are helpless to prevent it. [Full Story]

In Tamil Tiger territory, youths like Rajathurai Ponnambalam are living in hiding to avoid being forcibly recruited by the rebels and sent to fight in a Sri Lankan civil war they don't believe in.

Many residents Reuters spoke to during a rare visit to the rebels' heartland in the north said the Tigers are demanding every family contribute at least one member to a movement widely banned as a terrorist organisation by the likes of the United States, Britain and the European Union. [Full Story]

KILINOCHCHI, Sri Lanka, July 20 (Reuters) - In Tamil Tiger territory, youths like Rajathurai Ponnambalam are living in hiding to avoid being forcibly recruited by the rebels and sent to fight in a Sri Lankan civil war they don't believe in.

Many residents Reuters spoke to during a rare visit to the rebels' heartland in the north said the Tigers are demanding every family contribute at least one member to a movement widely banned as a terrorist organisation by the likes of the United States, Britain and the European Union.

They tell of how brothers, sisters, sons and daughters have been taken against their will to camps to be trained as fighters. They say they are helpless to prevent it.

"They said: 'Your family does not have an LTTE member, so you must join," said Ponnambalam, who is in his 20s and gave a false name for fear of retribution from the rebels. "I did not agree, so they took me away in a vehicle."

"They took me to join the group as a fighter. They showed me about training, about fighting," he added. "I don't want to join. My family depends on me."

He managed to get away. Many others have not been so fortunate, or live in constant fear that they will be next.

The Tigers deny they insist on recruiting one person from each family, but aid workers say the demand was made earlier this year and that the rebels have promised their staff will be exempt.

"There is no strict compulsion as to every family should give a single member," Tiger political wing leader S.P. Thamilselvan said in an interview during a visit to the rebel's de facto state.

"There are families from which you have two or three members (who have) already opted to serve in the LTTE ... but we are very keen to ensure that not more than one person from one family is in the LTTE, because that would be minimizing their family work."

AID STAFF TARGETED
Families receive letters from the Tigers with names of members who must join underlined. Most international aid agencies are having to keep some local staff indoors. Some of them have not been able to leave their compounds for months. "All the NGOs in the area have great concerns towards recruitment policy. We do experience that staff of all the different NGOs are getting abducted or have tremendous pressure towards them because they want to recruit them," said Arne Bangstad, programme manager of Nordic aid agency FORUT.

"We have been promised by the political wing that such recruitment should not take place and that the humanitarian status of the NGOs would be respected. But in practicality, we find that this is not really the case."

Recruitment posters are pasted around Kilinochchi town. Pictures of the rebels' elite Black Tiger suicide wing pepper bus-stands and shop fronts.

"Join with us. Protect our land from the Sinhalese army," the posters say next to a photograph of a rebel fighter in characteristic Tiger-striped fatigues taking aim with an assault rifle.

A giant billboard in the town shows a montage of President Mahinda Rajapaksa holding a noose around the neck of a child slain in the grisly massacre of a family in the northwestern district of Mannar last year, which the rebels and military each blame on the other.

The distant sound of heavy artillery fire across the front lines that separate rebel from government territory serves as a permanent reminder of what awaits those recruited.

FAMILIES HELPLESS
"One of my sons is in the LTTE. He joined 63 days ago. He did not join voluntarily," one elderly man confided, insisting on anonymity. "His mother is not well. After they took him her sickness got worse. What can I do, even if I get angry?"

Another man says his underage daughter joined to meet the quota so that her elder brother could continue to be her family's main bread winner in a district where 70 percent of the population lives below the poverty line, earning less than a dollar a day.

Similar stories abound, and fear is palpable as a new chapter in a two-decade civil war that has killed nearly 70,000 people since 1983 deepens. However families say married couples are generally exempt.

The United Nations Children's agency UNICEF says the Tigers are still recruiting children despite pledges not to. UNICEF listed 1,591 outstanding cases of underage recruitment by the Tigers at the end of May. One child on its records is aged nine.

A United Nations envoy and aid groups have also accused elements of the military of helping to abduct children as soldiers for a band of breakaway rebels called the Karuna faction, which is seen as allied to the government.

The Tigers deny they are recruiting children -- defined as youths under the age of 18 -- and say some youngsters lie about their age to join up and fight. [Full Story]

For four years, R. Ganesh and his wife Lakshmi have held out hope that one day they would see their son safely return to his home in Trincomalee District in eastern Sri Lanka. Lakshmi has hardly stopped crying since the day her only child, Jeggan, then nine years old, was taken away by members of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and forcibly recruited as a soldier.

Jeggan was abducted on 14 December 2002 by four LTTE soldiers, dressed in combat uniforms, who forced their way into the family's house.

"They stuck guns to our foreheads and told us not to scream," Lakshmi told IRIN. "They blindfolded the three of us and told us that we had to fight for the Tamil struggle," she added. "They then took my son away and we have not seen him since."

Despite a ceasefire agreement signed in 2002 between the government and the LTTE, child recruitment has continued by the LTTE and the Karuna faction, which broke away from the LTTE in 2004, according to JoAnna van Gerpen, the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) Sri Lanka representative.

Since 2001, the LTTE has forcibly recruited more than 5,700 child combatants, according to UNICEF, of whom only 1,958 have been released. UNICEF also said that as of 31 May 2007, there were 198 outstanding cases of underage recruitment by the Karuna group, with only 60 released to date.

Since Jeggan's abduction, his parents have lodged complaints with UNICEF and the Trincomalee Police but he has still not been found.

"He will be 14 this October," Lakshmi said. "But I do not know if he is still alive. I pray to God he is."

Hundreds of other parents in the conflict-ridden northern and eastern districts of Sri Lanka continue to hope for the safe return of their children. Exact numbers of forced recruits are hard to determine as many families do not register the abductions, according to humanitarian agencies.

Some children as young as seven or eight have been taken, according to UNICEF. Out of the 1,591 outstanding cases of underage recruitment by the LTTE, 506 are younger than 18.

Families living in fear
Despite a fresh pledge by the LTTE in June to rid its ranks of child soldiers by the end of 2007 and Karuna protestations that it was not involved in child recruitment at all, parents in the eastern and northern districts of Batticaloa, Trincomalee and Jaffna remain unconvinced.

"We are scared to sleep at night as we do not know when our children will be taken away," 48-year-old Jeyaraja Kandasamy from Jaffna, who has two sons, age 12 and 14, told IRIN. He said many other parents have similar fears.

"The war is continuing despite both the government and the LTTE claiming that the ceasefire agreement is in existence," said L. Kumaraswamy, a resident of Vavuniya. "We do not know what to expect in the future, but we fear our children are not safe here.

"The LTTE has made so many pledges that they will not make our children fight, but they have continued with their abductions," Kumraswamy said. "Where are we to go? We won't just give our children away," he added.

The LTTE, classified as one of the world's worst offenders in the recruitment of child soldiers, made similar pledges to rid its ranks of children in 1998 and 2006, but is still accused of recruiting children younger than 18 by both the UN and human rights organisations, as is Karuna.

Andy Brooks, chief of the child protection section of UNICEF in Sri Lanka, told IRIN that a psychosis of fear had developed among children and parents in the north and east. "People are afraid. Parents fear for themselves and the lives of their children," Brook said. "Every child has to be protected and freed from the military struggle." [Full Story]

Tigers are at their best in jungles may it be Thoppigala or Wanni. The last battle to kill the last tiger will definitely be fought in a jungle hideout. It is a known fact that Jaffna is the most important target of the LTTE. The next most important target is not Wanni where they are trapped now, but the East.

...
‘Cheap’ Eastern cadres verses losing family members
Have you ever heard of the LTTE forcibly recruiting children from the North? If you have, it is only a very few instances as the tiger recruitment fields are mainly in the East. This is owing to the fact that the LTTE thinks the Northerners are superior to the Easterners. Thousands of children were conscripted and trained not in Wanni but in the East. This also helped the LTTE to maintain a ‘good name’ in Wanni where its leaders are hiding. It desperately needed this ‘good name’ in order to stop the Wanni dwellers supporting the enemy. Now it is fast losing it as forced recruitment is now taking place in Wanni which will soon result in LTTE losing the support of its neighbours. This has strategic implications. LTTE leaders fear infiltration and treason more than anything else. This is evident in the manner they eliminated the Long Range Unit or the Deep Penetration Unit. With its citizenry increasingly getting frustrated with the losing of their family members to LTTE recruitment, it can be expected that infiltrations would increase in Wanni. Even some of its own dwellers will carryout anti-LTTE activities. A single claymore explosion in Wanni can send shock waves into the manholes where their leaders are hiding. [Full Story]

Amid rising tensions in the north, the Army on Monday said at least 13 LTTE cadres holed up in the Thoppigala jungles in the east had surrendered. There is no comment from the Tigers on the claim.

Going by the military version, perhaps it is after a long gap that so many active cadres of the LTTE have surrendered. The usual practice for the Tiger cadres is to consume cyanide capsule in the event of capture.

The military said eight LTTE cadres had surrendered in Rideetenna on Saturday.

It said the body of a Tiger cadre and a large haul of weapons were recovered in the combing operations. Three child soldiers were in the group which surrendered and others were aged between 19 and 40 years. [Full Story]

In a highly welcome development the UN Security Council's Working Group on Children and Armed Conflict has warned the LTTE of grave consequences if it does not put an end to the recruitment of child soldiers.

This is the way the LTTE should be handled on account of its intransigence and we do hope the UN body concerned would carry out its threat of visiting the Tigers with grave consequences.

This is the moment to watch because the LTTE would be sparing no pains to replenish its depleting combat units in the wake of the military debacles it has suffered in Eastern Sri Lanka. The LTTE which has no moral and other scruples would not hesitate to continue its outrageous practice of recruiting underage children to its combat cadres.

This has, of course, happened in the past but is likely to intensify in the future. If the international community intends cracking down on the Tigers, this moment should be seized. It should be able and willing to translate its threats into action before further atrocities are committed.

Unfortunately to date, the world community has showed little or no signs of carrying out its threats to come down hard on the Tigers on the question of child recruitment. Our memories are yet vivid of how UN Rapporteurs visited the country on issues relating to child soldiers some ten years ago and prevailed on the Tigers to end their pernicious practices in relation to children.

We regret to note that the international community has failed to keep-up the pressure on the LTTE on this score. As a result, child recruitments have continued apace.

We hope the UN has drawn the necessary inferences from these lapses. The LTTE is simply not going to reform or conform to acceptable conduct unless and until it is convinced that the world means business when it says that it intends getting tough with the Tigers. Stern, punitive measures should be imposed on the Tigers and that too very unrelentingly. [Full Story]

Twelve LTTE cadres including three child soldiers fleeing Thoppigala following the Tigers' military debacle surrendered to the Security Forces in Rideetenna, Kunjankulam and Ranseratenne in three separate incidents. According to a spokesman for the MCNS, eight LTTE cadres including three child soldiers surrendered at the Army check point in Rideetenna on Saturday at around 3.30 p.m.

"This was a group of LTTE cadres who were in hiding during the Security Forces operations in the dense jungle of Thoppigala and was now attempting to escape", he added. [Full Story]

Thoppigala, the last bastion of the LTTE in the East, has been captured by Sri Lanka's security forces, early last week. The whole mission to liberate the East, which was planned for a year was completed in a few weeks before the set time frame.

To some people, who do not know their history, Thoppigala will be a mere jungle but to the soldiers who fought to capture this large extent of land, is a major base of the LTTE, which had their air conditioned offices, hospital, armoury and large cemetery.

In an interview with the 'Sunday Observer' Army Commander Lt. Gen. Sarath Fonseka said that the Sri Lankan military never had camps and control in Thoppigala. "We have documents, including the strength of the Army, operation orders and all other records taken from the 1980s, in the Army Headquarters. Anybody who wants to refer to them, we can show them", he said.
Q: Are there any child soldiers among them? A: Earlier there were six girls who had surrendered one month ago. We knew there are another 100 in Thoppigala but we have not come across them so far. So, we do not know whether they have escaped to villages. At one stage, we allowed some parents to go into the jungle about three weeks ago but they never came and met us. We think some children may have come out because the areas adjoining Thoppigala have paddyfields and civilians are working and so there are possibilities for them to go through these areas and enter the populated areas. [Full Story]

The UN Security Council’s Working Group on Children and Armed Conflict has again warned the LTTE of grave consequences if it does not put an end to the recruitment of child soldiers.

While strongly condemning the continuous recruitment and use of child soldiers and all other violations and abuses committed against children by LTTE, the UN Security Council has warned that “further steps may be taken” if the LTTE “does not respond positively to the (UN) message in the coming months”.

Referring to the report of the Secretary General, dated December 20, 2006, which records “a continuous, ongoing and even increasing pattern of abduction, recruitment and use of children by LTTE, despite previous commitments made under the action plan for children affected by war in March 2003”, the UN has urged the LTTE leadership “to immediately end the practice of abduction, recruitment and use of children under the age of 18 and to separate them from its ranks, in conformity with its obligations under the action plan.” [Full Story]

The prestigious "Washington Times " in its editorial of 12th July refers to a recent letter by Reps.David Price and Rush Holt and 48 Congressmen to President George W.Bush including Republicans and Democrats calls "on the administration to step up diplomatic engagement " to help Sri Lanka " to reach a long - term peace ..." The Congressmen concluded that the United Sates of America " has the opportunity to serve as a leader of such a renewed international effort".

The editorial states: "What human – rights violations the government may have to answer for, however, pale in comparison to the barbarity of the Tamil Tigers, who pioneered the use of the suicide bomb and have a track record of kidnapping children and turning them into soldiers... and the United States can play a significant role in facilitating this by targeting and breaking up Tamil Tiger fund-raising networks as well ". A Reuter report notes that a 36 year old Tiger who claims to have fought many battles against the Army has stated that he "joined the movement 19 years ago – which means he has started as a child soldier like those the UNICEF says they are still recruiting . According to a recent UNICEF report the Tamil Tigers have 1591 Child soldiers which "includes 506 who are under the age of 18 and 1085 who were recruited when they were under 18 but who are now passed that age ". [Full Story]

Protests have poured into the office of Ken Livingstone, the Mayor of London, urging him to ban today’s Trafalgar Square rally organised by the LTTE. A global protest campaign has deplored any attempts to open the Trafalgar Square to a banned terrorist organisation.

...
Another group of Tamils wrote to the Mayor saying: “The LTTE continues to kidnap and forcibly conscript children as young six or seven as child soldiers, carry out suicide bombings of civilians, hold members of democratic Tamil organisations in medieval dungeons as prisoners, extort money from people in Sri Lanka, UK and Europe and are engaged in various large-scale criminal enterprises such as drug trafficking and credit card fraud. [Full Story]

Separatist Tamil Tiger guerrillas in green striped camouflage assaulted a mock government fort with gunfire, rockets and pipe bombs in an early morning drill Friday at a secret location in rebel-held territory in northern Sri Lanka.

...
The rebel force, a cult-like army where fighters carry cyanide capsules to swallow in case of capture, is thought to number about 10,000. Human rights groups accuse them of recruiting child soldiers — a practice the rebels say they will phase out by the end of the year. [Full Story]

The Government and the Armed Forces have recorded a historic win by taking full control of the Eastern Province after 20 years under the leadership of President Mahinda Rajapaksa and this massive victory should not be underestimated on any grounds, Information and Media Minister and Cabinet Spokesman Anura Priyadarshana Yapa said yesterday.

...
"Thoppigala was the LTTE's main Eastern Headquarters. This was the first time it fell to the military. Without the capture of Thoppigala, clearing the East would not have been meaningful." Calling it their main training base that also integrated abducted child soldiers, Brigadier said they found hospitals, training bases, torture chambers and cells in the camps inside the forest. [Full Story]

A recent statement released by UNICEF who has had direct talks with the LTTE regarding the release of Child soldiers stated : " ... at least 1591 " underage soldiers " still remained at the end of May 2007 " in the ranks of the LTTE . Amnesty International (AI) referring to the "underage soldiers" state the LTTE "immediately return all remaining child soldiers to their families and engage in transparent procedures with UNICEF to reunite remaining child soldiers with their families".

The figure of 1591 includes the "506 who are under the age of 18 , and 1085 who were recruited when they were under 18 but who have now passed that age". The LTTE has always claimed not only that these underage soldiers have now reached the age of 18 but have also voluntarily returned whenever they were released to continue fighting . They also maintain whenever convenient that the age limit for LTTE recruitment is 17 years and NOT 18 years. The International covenant regarding Child recruitment does not apply to them.

"In April l 2007 received reports indicate the LTTE attempts to forcibly recruit children. "In April 2007 Amnesty received that the LTTE were active in recruiting children in Madhu in Mannar district in preparation for future military battles in the North." . The Our Lady of Madhu Church is a venerated Roman Catholic Shrine in the Mannar district where displaced members of the Tamil community sought "refuge" due to LTTE harassment . Religious dignitaries complained that the LTTE recruiters were attempting to forcibly recruit children from these camps which resulted in people fleeing to government controlled areas despite LTTE attempts to prevent them from doing so. Many families escaped from the Un cleared areas to find peace in government controlled area and to save their children from forcible LTTE conscription. An AI statement reported :" prior to the 2002 ceasefire agreement , the LTTE routinely used children in combat , including high profile battles in which children often suffered high rates of casualties". The report stated : "In the past the LTTE have enforced a one family , one child " policy in areas under their control instructing Tamil "households that each family was obliged to provide a son or a daughter for "the cause" . There is no excuse or acceptable argument for using children as combatants ". It is both ironical and heartbreaking for many parents that while their children are forcibly conscripted as soldiers and dying or being disabled due to injuries , the children and families of LTTE leaders including the leader himself , his spokesmen and others are being educated in the West. [Full Story]

Amnesty International welcomes the release of these soldiers as well as the commitment by the LTTE to stop child recruitment. The LTTE must immediately return all remaining child soldiers to their families and engage in transparent procedures with UNICEF to reunite remaining child soldiers with their families.

UNICEF records a significant drop in LTTE recruitment of children saying that recent releases of children from their ranks outstripped new recruitment. Nonetheless many child soldiers remain in their ranks. UNICEF, which has had direct talks with the LTTE on the release of underage soldiers, said at least 1,591 still remained at the end of May 2007.1 The figure included 506 who are under the age of 18, and 1,085 who were recruited when they were under 18 but who have now passed that age.

The LTTE has a long history of recruiting minors as soldiers. Prior to the 2002 ceasefire agreement, the LTTE routinely used children in combat, including high profile battles in which children often suffered high rates of casualties. Over the last two and a half decades of conflict, families living in the conflict areas of the North and East of Sri Lanka have been targeted for recruitment by the LTTE. In the past the LTTE have enforced a "one family, one child" policy in areas under its control instructing Tamil households that each family was obliged to provide a son or a daughter for "the cause." There is no excuse or acceptable argument for using children as combatants. [Full Story]

Amnesty International has urged Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger guerrillas to stop recruiting child soldiers.

An Amnesty statement said that the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) released 135 child soldiers in June and pledged to rid its ranks of all children under 18 by the end of the year.

"The LTTE must immediately return all remaining child soldiers to their families and engage in transparent procedures with Unicef to reunite remaining child soldiers with their families," it said.

It said Unicef had recorded a significant drop in LTTE recruitment of children. "Nonetheless many child soldiers remain in their ranks."

According to Unicef, at least 1,591 children still remained with LTTE at the end of May 2007. The figure included 506 under the age of 18 and 1,085 recruited when they were under 18 but who have now passed that age. [Full Story]

Amnesty International urged the LTTE to keep up their promise by freeing all their under aged combatants. They also told the LTTE to free these under aged soldiers and handover their custody to their families.

Amnesty International (AI) demands the Tigers to, "immediately return all remaining child soldiers to their families and engage in transparent procedures with UNICEF to reunite remaining child soldiers with their families".

A latest report of AI discloses that hundreds of child soldiers are still engaged in LTTE’s military activities. The Human Rights group further says that out of the several hundreds of child soldiers recruited only 135 are released by 18 June 2007 by the organisation. [Full Story]

To Irene Khan
Secretary General
Amnesty International
The Human Rights Action Centre
17-25 New Inn Yard
London
EC2A 3EA. UK


Dear Ms Khan

Your public statement - AI Index: ASA 37/017/2007 (Public), News Service No: 131, 10 July 2007, titled Sri Lanka: Amnesty International urges LTTE to live up to its pledge to end child recruitment is a sham. Your statement is a lip service to the world at large to show that you are concerned about the LTTE’s child soldiers. Did you also know that right now those very child soldiers are slaughtered in the battlefields of Sri Lanka? But I am curious to know if you are that serious about seeking justice to these kids did you deliver this statement to the LTTE HQ, Eelam House, 202 Long Lane, London or had meetings with these terrorists? Of course not. According to your own charter they are not a government to charge with any wrong doing to bring sufficient publicity and pressure to bear. [Full Story]

A Tamil family who escaped the Tamil Tiger dominated Vidaththal-Thivu area with three children told the Mannar Police that they ran away from their home as the Tamil Tigers were intimidating them to give their children to be recruited as child soldiers.

“The Tamil Tigers have intensified their campaign to recruit children,” the parents told Pallimunai Police Post after braving a potentially hazardous journey of escape through a heavily mined area to reach the police post.

The police said, the family had three children, a girl and two boys aged between 9-17 for whose safety the couple allegedly fled out of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam dominated areas.

The UNICEF, United Nations Children’s Fund has alleged that the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam who are waging a war of separation from the Indian Ocean island Republic of Sri Lanka is holding 1591 children as child soldiers despite their public assurances to release them.

Some of the children are believed recruited as suicide bombers to be brain washed over the years.

The parents reportedly told the Mannar Police that they had been daily visited by the LTTE representatives instilling fear in them and for some time, they had stopped sending the children to school as they feared they would be kidnapped by them in schools and on the way to schools.

The family reached Pallimunai Police Post July 9 during the morning hours and the Police refreshed them with food and drinks as they were exhausted. Later , the security forces traced their relatives who took them into their care. [Full Story]

In an article to the Chennai based English Daily, "The Hindu" of Wednesday (04), the Leader of the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF), Mr Anandasangaree, has stated that: "The LTTE is the main force that deprived the democratic and fundamental rights of the Tamils of Sri Lanka and considerably eroded into their human rights also".

...
The TULF leader stated that :"The LTTE has forfeited their credibility o speak for the Tamils of Sri Lanka by their atrocious activities perpetrated on the innocent Tamil civilians who have been living like slave s, for several years , amidst constant fear and tensions". It has been the experience of most Tamils living in the north and east to see their children being forcibly conscripted into the LTTE to serve as child soldiers. It has also been the experience of the Tamils living in those areas to be victims of the LTTE "tax collector" which has forced them to abandon their homes to free themselves from the yoke of the LTTE. Today many areas in the East have been "liberated" by the Security Forces to enable them to live without fear from LTTE recruiters. The surrender of 02 LTTE cadres mostly child soldiers with 507 from the East and the successful Government resettlement programme now in progress is ample evidence of the "liberation" of the East. by the Security Forces. [Full Story]

The government challenged the US government’s request to disarm only the Karuna faction and asked why US did not ask to disarm the LTTE as both were terrorists groups which conscripted child soldiers.

Chief Government Whip and Highways Minister Jeyaraj Fernandopulle told the media that the position taken up by the US government was not acceptable.

“Richard Boucher (Asst. Secretary of State for South Asia and the Middle East) has said the Sri Lankan government must disarm the Karuna Faction. Why haven’t they asked to disarm the LTTE? Both are terrorists groups.

Both are recruiting child soldiers,” he said. Referring to a news story carried by a certain website, that the UNP was helping the fleeing LTTE cadres to escape, he said the UNP had done that in the past too.

“It was UNPer who assisted Karuna to escape from the LTTE onslaught. [Full Story]

UNICEF has listed 1,591 outstanding cases of LTTE child recruitment up to end May 2007, and 198 cases allegedly done by a breakaway faction of the terror outfit.

The United Nations Children's Agency reports said both the separatist LTTE and its breakaway faction are still recruiting children as soldiers, despite pledges not to do so, as reported on Monday, July 02.

The UNICEF report also states the LTTE, who have pledged that their ranks will be free of under-age soldiers by the end of this year, have recruited around 130 children since January, while its renegade faction called the Karuna group has recruited around 70.

"The LTTE does still continue to recruit children under the age of 18, despite commitments that they've made to stop," JoAnna Van Gerpen, head of UNICEF's Sri Lanka mission, said in an interview with Reuters.

"We do see that there's been a reduction, but it's difficult to say that's because of the actual reduction in recruitment by the LTTE, or if that is because of an overall prevalence of fear within the community that prevents people from reporting."

Meanwhile, a considerable number of under-age LTTE rookies have surrendered to the Sri Lankan forces, now consolidating defences in the east. [Full Story]

Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebels and a breakaway faction seen allied to the government are both still recruiting children as soldiers, despite pledges not to, UNICEF said on Monday.

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), who have vowed their ranks will be free of under-age soldiers by the end of this year, have recruited around 130 children since January, while a breakaway faction called the Karuna group has recruited around 70, the United Nations childrens' agency said.

"The LTTE does still continue to recruit children under the age of 18, despite commitments that they've made to stop," JoAnna Van Gerpen, head of UNICEF's Sri Lanka mission, said in an interview.

"We do see that there's been a reduction, but it's difficult to say that's because of the actual reduction in recruitment by the LTTE, or if that is because of an overall prevalence of fear within the community that prevents people from reporting."

UNICEF lists 1,591 outstanding cases of Tiger under-age recruitment up to the end of May, and 198 Karuna cases. [Full Story]

Ranjith Soysa Spokesperson of the Society for Peace, Unity and Human Rights for Sri Lanka has asked the UN offices in Colombo to advise how more than US$ 4 million released by Ted Chaiban to the LTTE has been utilised? He further queried how many centres were to be established with this money to rehabilitate child soldiers and how many in actual fact functioned? How many child soldiers were rehabilitated? What was the cost of rehabilitation per child? Did the UN offices reject advise of NCPA and allow the LTTE (recruiter) to attend to the rehabilitation function as well? If the project was unsuccessful and money was pocketed by the LTTE, did the UN take action against the staff responsible?

Ranjith Soysa in an open letter noted ”As an organization with an interest in International Institutions in general and the UN offices in Sri Lanka in particular, we were intrigued to read Mr Fredrick Lyons’ response to the Defence Secretary's comments wherein he says that UN Staff and the staff recruited in Colombo adhere to UN principles and are honour bound to work with complete neutrality. [Full Story]

As the crucial meeting of the co-chairs got underway in Oslo yesterday, an organisation promoting social justice in Sri Lanka called on the co-chairs and India to intensify their political engagement in the country.

...
The SLDF also drew attention to the LTTE’s systematic abuse of human rights standards and made reference to their continued recruitment and use of child soldiers. The UN Secretary General recommended targeted measures against leaders of armed groups who were repeated offenders of child recruitment, and given that children are now being actively used in war, targeted measures should be brought to bear on the LTTE, the SLDP asserted. [Full Story]

The UN Children's Agency, UNICEF, today welcomed the release of 135 child soldiers by the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka, but said it was concerned that many more still remained with the rebels.

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) said yesterday that it had discharged the group of boys and girls under 17 years of age over the past six months, and pledged to rid its ranks of all children under 18 by the end of the year.

The LTTE said it hoped the work done by its Child Protection Authority "will convince people of the determination of the LTTE to… bring the minimum age of recruitment into the LTTE up to international standards by the end of 2007". [Full Story]

Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebels yesterday made a fresh pledge to rid their ranks of child soldiers by the end of the year. The rebels, classified as one of the worst offenders in the world for the recruitment of children to fight, made the same promise in 1998 but have since been accused by the United Nations of recruiting more than they actually freed. [Full Story]

Three LTTE child soldiers who escaped the LTTE camp in the Thoppigala area surrendered themselves to the security forces this morning, Tuesday the 19th of June.

Defence sources said that two of them are girls of 12 and 14 years of age and the other is a 14 year old boy.

According to the surrenders, they had been forcibly recruited to the LTTE organisation and detained in an LTTE training camp in the Thoppigala area for six months. They further stated they escaped as they had to face severe hardships in the LTTE military training and could not bare the harassments of the LTTE terrorists.

Defence sources further said that the three LTTE child soldiers are suffering from starvation when the time they surrendered to the Polwatte Army camp in Batticaloa.

MCNS says, so far a total of 652 LTTE cadres have surrendered to the security forces from February 2002. [Full Story]

Sri Lanka’s Tamil Tiger rebels yesterday made a fresh pledge to rid their ranks of child soldiers by the end of the year.

The rebels, classified as one of the worst offenders in the world for the recruitment of children to fight, made the same promise in 1998 but have since been accused by the United Nations of recruiting more than they actually freed.

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) said in a statement that its “Child Protection Agency” had freed 135 males and females below the age of 17 who were found within their guerrilla army in the past six months.

“The CPA hopes that the work that has been done and the work that is ongoing will ... (bring the) recruitment for the LTTE to international standards by the end of 2007,” the Tamil Tigers said.

The rebels also asked the United Nations children’s agency Unicef to adjust its child recruitment database to take into account the latest batch of child soldiers to be released. [Full Story]

Sri Lanka’s Tamil Tiger rebels on Monday made a fresh pledge to rid their ranks of child soldiers by the end of the year.

The rebels, classified as one of the worst offenders in the world for the recruitment of children to fight, made the same promise in 1998 but have since been accused by the United Nations of recruiting more than they actually freed. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) said in a statement that its “Child Protection Agency” had freed 135 males and females below the age of 17 who were found within their guerrilla army in the past six months.

“The CPA hopes that the work that has been done and the work that is ongoing will ... (bring the) recruitment for the LTTE to international standards by the end of 2007,” the Tamil Tigers said. The rebels also asked the United Nations children’s agency UNICEF to adjust its child recruitment database to take into account the latest batch of child soldiers to be released. [Full Story]

Tamil Tiger rebels on Monday made a fresh pledge to end the practice of child recruitment and said they would free all underage combatants by the end of this year.

The Tigers, who are internationally condemned for the forced conscription, abduction and recruitment of child soldiers, said they had already released 135 boys and girls this year alone.

The rebels had made a similar promise to UNICEF special representative Olara Ottunu in 1998.

This time, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in a statement repeated their pledge to rid their ranks of child soldiers by the end of 2007.

The group has also set up a Child Protection Agency (CPA) to oversee the release of child combatants. [Full Story]

Former Secretary General of the Secretariat for Coordinating Peace Process (SCOPP), Jayantha Dhanapala, said yesterday that time and circumstances would eventually lead the LTTE Leader, Prabahakaran, to change from being a ruthless terrorist to go to the negotiating table.

...
He was also of the opinion that considering Karuna as an ally is important. In this context he explained that the Karuna Fraction has also been accused of the recruitment of child soldiers like the LTTE. “When Former President Chandrika Kumaratunge was asked whether she considers Karuna an ally she said he is a terrorist,” he said, recalling a press conference held in the past. [Full Story]

Human rights violations, free media, discrimination, ethnic cleansing, self determination, homeland, Sinhala army, Sinhala government, Sinhala chauvinists etc are among several terminologies used by the Tamil separatists in order to win the sympathy of the world community through their media network during the last 3-4 decades. The frequency of the use of these phrases comes to its peak whenever the outfit is in trouble.

...
While the documentary film did not utter a word against the LTTE or atrocities committed during the past 18 months by the outfit, dead bodies of the TNA MP Raviraj and Pararajasingham were shown and accused the government, directly or indirectly, for the killing of the two MPs. The film also accused the government for the patronage extended to the Karuna faction for forcibly recruiting Tamil child soldiers and showed dead bodies all around to implicit the viewers a completely different story without any proof or evidence whatsoever. [Full Story]

An underaged child recruit who claims to have been forcibly abducted by the LTTE, militarized and exposed to labour, hours of fatigue, surrendered to the security forces at a road block at Polwattha General area in Batticaloa, yesterday (13) at 10:40 a.m.

The surrendee, a fifteen year old revealed that the organisation no more send sufficient food to the cadres in the front, while many of the eastern cadres were used as scapegoats to sustain the advancing military thrust in Thoppigala.

According to the revelations made by the surrendered rookie, major disputes have occurred between the Wanni and the eastern leadership over the losses in the eastern battle fronts.

Earlier, reports obtained from the surrendees in the east also claimed that Ramesh and Jeyam, both leaders of the eastern fronts were battling a cold war within the organisation.

The Media Centre for National Security said that a total number of 645 LTTE cadres have surrendered themselves to the security forces, consisting 454 alone from the east since 2002.

All the surrendered cadres are being rehabilitated and gradually injected to the normal social life. [Full Story]

An underaged girl told a reporter of Al Jazeera Television that she was kidnapped while going with her mother to visit her grandmother after cadres of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) attacked her mother.

"I was walking with my mother going to see my grandmother," one of the girls told Al Jazeera. "Then the LTTE attacked my mother and took me away," said one of six girls who said they were forced to fight for the terrorist group at Thoppigala, or Barrons Cap Rock area where the group has just lost four terrorist camps.

Tony Birtley of Al Jazeera Television reported from Sri Lanka's Eastern Province that, "In a police station in eastern Sri Lanka, six seemingly ordinary teenage girls wait to be processed.

Their short hairstyles mark them out as female fighters in the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.

Al Jazeera further reported: "Pushpu, another of the girls, says she was taken three months ago as she tended her parents' vegetable garden. Most of the girls are about 16-years-old. Pushpu is only 14.

"The girls were trained to use machine guns and dig bunkers in an area called Thoppigala, bombarded daily by the Army. They say they ran away because they could not bear the hardships of life with the Tigers.

"They say they are innocent victims and that they just want to go back to school, but first they will either be sent to jail or for rehabilitation. The girls' stories are part of a growing problem in Sri Lanka.

"In the east of the country the activities of a Tamil group led by 'Colonel' Karuna, a former LTTE leader, have come under scrutiny. He has started a political party and now his political opponents have disappeared, but there is no direct evidence against him.

"Very few families are prepared to talk about the growing number of abductions. One woman, though, did speak to Al Jazeera. Her 29 year old son, a rickshaw taxi driver, was taken away by two men nearly a year ago. Nothing has been heard since. Al Jazeera interviewed relatives of a Vice Chancellor got disappeared last December.

This is what they reported: "Professor Sivasubramaniam Ravindranth, the vice Chancellor of the Eastern University in Batticaloa, disappeared after attending a conference in Colombo last December. We haven't got even a single call or nothing. We didn't know anything where he is or whether he alive or not," Dushyanthi Malaravan, his daughter, told Al Jazeera.

"But we hope because they can't do anything to him because he is a very kind man, polite, he talks a little but ... no words to say," she said, falling silent. [Full Story]

Ten soldiers and at least 15 Tamil Tiger rebels were killed in heaving fighting erupted Saturday night between Sri Lanka's government troops and the rebels in the northern Vavuniya district, defense officials said Sunday.

Military spokesman Prasad Samarasinghe said the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) began to fire mortars and artillery targeting the Vavuniya Forward Defense Line (FDL) at 9:30 p.m. (1600 GMT) and the Army hit back causing severe casualties to the rebels.

Samarasinghe said 10 soldiers were killed and another 20 were injured in the fierce battle which lasted until Sunday morning.

He said at least 15 bodies of LTTE cadres were found in the battle field, some of them being child soldiers. [Full Story]

Tamil Tigers are making a desperate attempt to re-establish their lost position in the Eastern province of Sri Lanka after the split between Karuna and his army commander, Pillaiyan, weakened the Tamil Makkal Viduthalai Pulikal.Col. Thambirajah Ramesh has managed to make an amphibious landing in the Vakarai - Kathiraveli sea coast with nearly 100 of LTTE cadres with the main objective of disrupting the orderly resettlement of the thousands internally displaced persons.

...
“Asian Tribune” understands that earlier, before the split in the TMVP on May 4th, Pilliayan planned to march into the jungles of Thoppigala and attack the Tigers bases in that area. But the TMVP forces were weakened after the split. Karuna group is left with nearly three hundred cadres, out of which 180 of them are child soldiers below the age of 18 and are under the command of Jeeventiran and Thileepan. [Full Story]

More than 60 fighters were killed in heavy fighting continued for the second day yesterday at the Vavuniya defence lines, military and rebel reports said.

"Fierce fighting is still going on in the Pampaimadu areas on the Vavuniya Forward Defence lines, where hundreds of Tigers launched a heavy attack on the military on Saturday night," a senior military official in the area said. In the retaliatory attack by the forces, 52 terrorists were killed and a large number was wounded. The terrorists who fled in the face of army retaliation had abandoned a haul of arms and ammunition, the Media Center for National Security said.

"LTTE fired mortars and artillery targeting the Vavuniya FDLs at 9 pm on Saturday. Tiger attempts to infiltrate the FDLs during the fire fight were successfully repulsed," an official of the MCNS said. He said child soldiers too were involved in the attack. [Full Story]

The Army successfully repulsed and counter attacked inflicting heavy casualties on the LTTE when the terrorists launched an artillery and mortar fire attack at the troops.

The LTTE was engaged in operations ahead of the FDL, Vavuniya on Saturday (June 2) around 9.00 p.m. and continued the attack till Sunday (June 3) morning involving Child soldiers, the Media Centre for National Security said. [Full Story]

A fierce mortar and artillery duel between Sri Lankan troops and Tamil Tigers killed dozens overnight, the military said on Sunday, but the rebels denied suffering casualties.

The military said 10 soldiers were killed and 20 injured during the clash in the northern district of Vavuniya, the new focus of renewed civil war between the state and separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

Military spokesman Brigadier Prasad Samarasinghe said troops killed 52 rebels, many of them child soldiers, but the Tigers denied any losses and claimed to have destroyed a military armoury. There was no independent confirmation of what happened. [Full Story]

More than 52 Tigers and ten soldiers were killed in fierce battle that erupted ahead of military’s forward defense lines at Vavuniya since yesterday night, the military said.

The recent offensive was launched against the security forces ahead of a proposed visit by the Japanese Peace envoy Yasushi Akashi to the Wanni area.

Tigers launched an artillery and mortar fire at Army troops engaged in operations ahead of the FDL, Vavuniya, in the Mullikulama, Kalmadu area. Child soldiers too were involved in the attack, the military said. [Full Story]

The reported presence of 10 to 12 children with Maoists in Kisinda village where they distributed leaflets on Thursday night has only confirmed their indoctrination into militancy.

...
Curiosity, poverty, lack of education and opportunities, livelihood insecurity push children into joining the ultras. This apart, he says Naxalites draw heavily from the LTTE which has a large cadre of child soldiers. [Full Story]

Many LTTE attacks including three suicide attacks were foiled as a result of information provided by the public, Military Spokesman Brigadier Prasad Samarasinghe said while further appealing to the public to be ever vigilant and assist the Security Forces to thwart any future attacks.

...
LTTE cadres trapped in the Thoppigala jungle had no way of escape, Brigadier Samarasinghe said. “Following fierce fighting in the Thoppigala area, six LTTE child soldiers surrendered to the Security Forces”, he added. [Full Story]

The government says that six women Tamil Tiger cardres surrrendred to an army camp in the East. A defence spokesman at the Army media unit said that the six women were between 14 to 17 years of age and that they had been forcibly taken away by the LTTE.

The LTTE women cardres had been abducted while visiting their relatives and on the way to a Hindu temple.

One of the girls was abducted while going to school. [Full Story]

Today six girls who claimed to be child solders surrendered them self to Siththandi Army camp. These six girls between 14 to 17 years explained that they escaped from Wanni Tiger camps around Thoppigala.

They have also revealed 100 of other child solders suffer without chance of escape. These girls were abducted from several areas of Batticaloa and they were given brief weapon training. Later they were also used as construction workers when setting of camps. Army spokesmen said that the girls will be handed over to Eravur POLICE. [Full Story]

Despite restless LTTE propaganda to white wash its stunning setbacks experienced in the hands of the SL security forces in the eastern frontier, groups of terrorist combatants are surrendering themselves to SL Army camps located in Batticaloa.

Adding to the numbers, six more LTTE child soldiers surrendered themselves at the Army camp at Siththandi, Batticaloa District. According to the defence sources, the surrendees are between 14 to 17 years of age, and had been forcibly abducted by the LTTE terrorists .

It was quoted according to the statements given by the surrendered child combatants, that they had been abducted by the outfit while they were visiting their relatives and on the way to a Hindu Temple. An underage girl who was abducted by the LTTE while on her way to school is also among the surrendees.

All the surrendered child soldiers are female, and they had fled the LTTE defences at Thoppigala, the last terrorist hideout in east, the defence sources further added. The six child combatants had braved crossing the lagoon and arrived at the Siththandi Army camp.

Many Foreign news agencies have reported that the LTTE terrorists were maintaining a tight lip on the recent revelations made by the fleeing child soldiers.

"The children in their leaning ages are being engaged to fight a war that they do not understand why they are fighting for. Hatred in the only theme thought which is discharged under the oath of Ten Commandments of a tyranny of Pirabakaran, he who has personally resorted to secure the lives of his children with luxuries under the guise of asylum in foreign states", a Tamil intellect who refused to disclose his identity one told defence.lk website.

The LTTE is being banned as a terrorist organisation in U.K, U.S.A, India and many other countries including the 25 nations European Union.

The LTTE is a ruthless terror group who fights for a mono-ethnic separate homeland for the Tamil living in Sri Lanka since 1983. It has been the outfit's strategy since its inception to flush out Singhalese and Muslim people from North and East by bloody ethnic cleansing raids. Thousands of civilians, mostly women and children were perished in the most ruthless massacres during its 20 years of terror campaign. [Full Story]

This refers to the Asian Tribune’s publication (25 May 2007) of the Amnesty International Report on Sri Lanka for the year 2006. The publication of the report by Asian Tribune itself is commendable whatever the criticisms that the editorial commentator has expressed on some of the alleged lacunae of the report. The AI report is objective, fairly accurate – except for few instances – and shows the gravity of the deteriorating human rights conditions in Sri Lanka which is a concern for the people living inside and outside the country.

...
The Amnesty Report has catalogued the various violations of human rights during 2006 under the headings of ‘rising civilian deaths,’ ‘internally displaced,’ ‘lack of humanitarian access,’ ‘unlawful killings and impunity,’ ‘child soldiers,’ ‘enforced disappearances,’ ‘torture,’ and ‘death penalty.’

...
What might be controversial are Amnesty’s comments on the recruitment of child soldiers. The main finger undoubtedly is aimed at the LTTE which apparently employed over 1,500 under-age combatants in 2006 according to UNICEF. Amnesty estimated that every month at least 50 children were forced and enlisted for military purposes in the North and the East. Blame on the government is also not spared when the report referring to the Karuna group repeats that “in November, a special adviser to the UN Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict reported that government forces had been actively involved in forcibly recruiting children to the group.” [Full Story]

Six female LTTE child soldiers from Thoppigala, surrendered to the Army at Siththandy camp in the Batticaloa district last Friday, complaining of forcible recruitment and continuous harassment including hard labour.

Brigade Commander Lt. COL. Napagoda speaking to the Daily News, said one girl was 14 years and four others were 16 and the other was 17.

These child soldiers were used at defence positions in the Narakamulla area in Thoppigala. According to Lt. Col. Napagoda, these children were neither provided with any proper equipment, dresses or training. The children had also revealed that many such child soldiers existed who were being forcibly detained by the LTTE.

These child soldiers had also revealed that one of the terrorists killed during the recent confrontation at Talawaya in Eravur was a LTTE leader called Nagulan who had been on a punishment transfer from the Vanni. These children had braved a very difficult terrain coming through marshy lands and the lagoon to escape from the LTTE clutches. [Full Story]

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam rebel group is recruiting fighters, including children, from among refugees living in camps in India's Tamil Nadu state, Sri Lanka's Defense Ministry said.

``It is believed that the LTTE terrorist outfit has infiltrated the Tamil Nadu refugee camps in the guise of displaced and asylum seekers,'' the ministry said on its Web site. LTTE operatives are trying to persuade families to ``get the youngsters to return'' and boost recruitment.

The LTTE hasn't commented on the Defense Ministry statement. It has said it is taking steps to return any minors in its ranks to their families.

More than 16,000 people have fled across the Palk Strait to Tamil Nadu to escape the fighting in Sri Lanka since January 2006, the United Nations said last November. An estimated 60,000 Sri Lankans are in camps in the state that lies about a two-hour boat ride from the South Asian island nation. [Full Story]

The LTTE has asked its agents in Tamil Nadu to recruit cadres from the Sri Lankan Tamil refugee population there, says a report posted in the Sri Lankan Defence Ministry's website www.defence.lk on Sunday.

Writer Rajasingham Jayadevan says that the LTTE has issued instructions to its operatives in Tamil Nadu to get Tamils who had recently fled from North Sri Lanka to come back and join its ranks.

Jayadevan quoted a Tamil living in London as saying that there was a fear that younger members of his family living in Chennai might be forcibly taken away to the Wanni, where the LTTE had its headquarters.

Meanwhile, reports from the Wanni said that university students who had gone from Jaffna to the Wanni had been forcibly recruited, according to Jayadevan.

His report also spoke of the LTTE's Intelligence Wing leader Pottu Amman telling his chief, Velupillai Prabhakaran, that a final assault on the Jaffna peninsula could lead to the death of 50,000 civilians and 8,000 cadres. [Full Story]

A defence spokesman at the Army media unit said that the six women were between 14 to 17 years of age and that they had been forcibly taken away by the LTTE.

The LTTE women cardres had been abducted while visiting their relatives and on the way to a Hindu temple.

One of the girls was abducted while going to school.

The spokesperson added that the six women cardres had fled the LTTE camp at Thoppigala to surrender at the Army camp in Siththandi ,Batticoala.

The six women had crossed the lagoon and arrived at the Army Camp.

LTTE spokesperson was not contactable for comment. [Full Story]

The head of an organization that is suspected of funding the Tamil Tigers terrorist group has testified that he considers the Tigers "freedom fighters" and he supports their "activities that would benefit the people." But he denied that his organization, the World Tamil Movement, has sent money to the Sri Lankan guerillas.

In Quebec Court testimony that concluded yesterday, Kathiravelupillai Sithamparanathan, the 84-year-old president of the World Tamil Movement's Montreal office, acknowledged attending a 2004 workshop in Sri Lanka organized by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, or Tamil Tigers.

...
The Tamil Tigers, which human rights groups accuse of enlisting child soldiers and using suicide bombers against civilian targets, are fighting for independence for Sri Lanka's ethnic Tamil minority. In an affidavit used to obtain a search warrant, RCMP officer Denis Boudreau said some members of the World Tamil Movement in Montreal are "known as Tamil Tigers." He said people from the Tamil community "are intimidated by them and feel obliged to give donations, as they know that these individuals are in fact working for the LTTE." [Full Story]

The controversial SLFP proposals were amended last week, to make them more in accordance with the main demands of the JVP and the JHU. The unitary state is in, formally, by name, and Buddhism has been granted the primacy of place. Even as he pandered to the Southern extremists, President Rajapakse made it crystal clear that moderate opinions are of no consequence to him. Obviously the pleas of democratic Tamils for enhanced devolution will go unheeded. Vellupillai Pirapaharan has been granted a much needed political lifeline. How can Tiger Eelam be justified except as a response to a Sinhala supremacist Sri Lanka?

...
Thanks to the LTTE, Lankan Tamils are becoming known in the world not for their cultural or academic attainments but for suicide bombers and child soldiers. By succumbing to the lure of extremism we have short-changed ourselves. Extremism was our original sin and re-embracing is can only bring about mutually assured destruction. [Full Story]

The Government yesterday slammed international rights groups for accusing the Government of blatant and unabated human rights violations while failing to raise a strong voice against rights abuses committed by the LTTE.

A statement from the Government Peace Secretariat (SCOPP) said there should be mounting pressure on the LTTE to agree to a political settlement in Sri Lanka as the Government has always championed and been committed to such a settlement and not a military solution.

...
SCOPP says apart from attacks on civilians, the LTTE also continues to assassinate not only political leaders in Sri Lanka but moderates of its own Tamil community.

“What has the international human rights organisations to say about the LTTE’s continuing to recruit child soldiers well below 18 years of age? Is this not a deprivation of basic children’s rights? Forcing families to yield their young under threat of blackmail and death is something the UN should take very seriously,” it said. [Full Story]

Karuna has agreed to come forward to patch up differences with the rival Commandant Pillaiyan and end the fratricidal warfare initiated by his loyal commanders Iniyabarathi, Veera, Ranjan, Thileepan and Jeeventiran.

The patching up exercise was forced on Karuna and at last he decided to meet alone Pillaiyan and his delegation for a three hour face to face meeting in Colombo.

Asian Tribune learnt that Karuna was interested in having N.S.Krisnar, his confidential advisor from London by his side, but the other delegation objected to his participation.

...
Furthermore no decision was taken up regarding the recruitment of child soldiers.

Recently when the Security Council Working Group on Children and Armed Conflict considering the Report of the Secretary-General on the Situation of Children and Armed Conflict in Sri Lanka, has decided that its Chairman will issue a strong public warning to the LTTE and the Karuna faction stating that further measures will be taken by the Security Council for its continued failure to cease the recruitment of children and to release child combatants.

The Working Group report has urged them to engage with UNICEF to release all children among their ranks and prevent further unlawful recruitment of children.

According to sources, Karuna with the view to build a loyal team for him has invited Jeeventiran, who was in Qatar, and Thileepan from France who were with him before the split with LTTE.

Sources said that those two were elevated to the rank of commanders.

Sources further added that those two were involved in building up their own team and almost all their team members are abducted child combatants. [Full Story]

Continued assistance to combat LTTE terrorism was confirmed by the visiting US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Richard Boucher concluding his three-day visit in Sri Lanka last week.

Boucher who arrived in the country on May 8 also visited the Jaffna peninsula and met civil society leaders including the Government Agent, Jaffna, K. Ganesh.

Boucher told the media in Colombo on Thursday evening that he had clearly understood the LTTE's terrorism including the recruitment of child soldiers, extorting money, killing innocent people and many others. He also said that he was satisfied with the supplies to Jaffna compared to his previous visit to the Northern part of the country in November last year.

However, at the same time, he said that the government has also to be more vigilant about abductions and killings taking place in the country. [Full Story]

Sri Lanka’s terrorists outfit Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam led by its reclusive leader Velupillai Prabakaran and the Karuna Group led by V.Muralitharan alias Colonel Karuna Amman are to be warned for the continued recruitment of underage children.

The Security Council Working Group on Children and Armed Conflict considering the Report of the Secretary-General on the Situation of Children and Armed Conflict in Sri Lanka, has decided that its Chairman will issue a strong public warning to the LTTE stating that further measures will be taken by the Security Council for its continued failure to cease the recruitment of children and to release child combatants. [Full Story]

HRW via BBSNews - New York, May 11, 2007 -- The chairman of the UN Security Council’s working group on children and armed conflict today issued two statements regarding the recruitment and use of child soldiers by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and the Karuna group in Sri Lanka. The statements strongly condemn the continued abduction, recruitment and use of child soldiers, and urge both armed groups to immediately release all children from their forces.

The statement directed to the LTTE further states that if the LTTE does not abide by its commitments to end the use of child soldiers, “further steps may be taken.” Such steps may involve Security Council sanctions against the LTTE, which has been named in several reports to the Security Council for recruiting and using child soldiers in violation of international law.

“Human Rights Watch welcomes the UN Security Council’s strong condemnation of the recruitment and use of child soldiers by both the Tamil Tigers and the Karuna group,” said Jo Becker, child rights’ advocate for Human Rights Watch. “Both groups have now been put on notice to immediately implement the Security Council’s call to stop all child recruitment, and release the children in their forces. The Security Council will want to see results.”

The statements were issued by Ambassador Jean-Marc de la Sablière, the French permanent representative to the United Nations, on behalf of the working group, based on a December report from the UN secretary-general regarding grave abuses against children in Sri Lanka’s armed conflict. [Full Story]

UN: The United Nations is planning to take action against the LTTE for its continued failure to cease the recruitment of children and release child combatants, it was disclosed yesterday.

The Security Council Working Group on Children and Armed Conflict considering the Report of the Secretary-General on the Situation of Children and Armed Conflict in Sri Lanka, has decided that its Chairman will issue a strong public warning to the LTTE stating that further measures will be taken by the Security Council regarding its failure to address these issues.

According to UNICEF, since 2001 alone the LTTE has forcibly recruited over 5,700 child combatants. The Working Group report has called attention to the “continuous, ongoing and even increasing pattern of abduction, recruitment and use of children by the LTTE, in spite of previous commitments contained in the Action Plan for Children affected by war in March 2003,” and has “strongly condemned the continuous recruitment and use of child soldiers and all other violations and abuses committed against children by the LTTE.” [Full Story]

The Security Council Working Group on Children and Armed Conflict is to issue a strong public warning to the LTTE stating that further measures will be taken by the Security Council for its continued failure to cease the recruitment of children and to release child combatants.

The Foreign Ministry here said that the decision has been taken after considering the Report of the Secretary-General on the Situation of Children and Armed Conflict in Sri Lanka.

The Working Group report has called attention to the “continuous, ongoing and even increasing pattern of abduction, recruitment and use of children by the LTTE, in spite of previous commitments contained in the Action Plan for Children affected by war in March 2003,” and has “strongly condemned the continuous recruitment and use of child soldiers and all other violations and abuses committed against children by the LTTE.” [Full Story]

A statement issued by the United Nations said the Security Council working group on Children and Armed Conflict has decided to send a strong message to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and its rival Tamil Makkal Vidutalai Pulikal (TMVP) or Karuna Faction against their engagement of child soldiers in Sri Lanka.

“They have to stop grave violations of children's rights, especially the recruitment and the use of children in the conflict in Sri Lanka",said the statement quoting Radhika Coomaraswami, UN Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict.

Unlike during on a previous occasion, in a report by Alan Rock the press release did not drag the name of the government of Sri Lanka, that led to angry demonstrations then in Colombo in front of the UN offices there.

The release from the UN said, Ms. Coomaraswamy, UN Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict welcomes the recommendations adopted by the Working Group. "These recommendations send a strong message to the LTTE, a repeat offender who has been on the Secretary General's list of violators for four years and to the Karuna faction-TMVP.” [Full Story]

Resisting pressures from the pro-LTTE lobby in the House of Commons to lift the UK ban on Tamil Tigers, Dr. Kim Howells, the Minister for the Middle East, told Parliament yesterday: “I am very much averse to recognizing the legitimacy, if I could put it like that, of suicide bombers, murderers, torturers and rapists. I have been there twice and I have heard these stories myself many times, from NGOs and from Tamils themselves, as well as from Sinhalese and the Sinhalese Government.”

...
The responsibility of the LTTE for violent acts over the years is well documented. It is a proscribed organization under the Terrorism Act 2000. The EU listed the LTTE as a terrorist organization in May 2006. We have repeatedly urged the LTTE to move away from the path of violence. In the absence of a full renunciation of terrorism in deed and word, there can be no question of reconsidering its proscribed status. LTTE involvement in killings, torture, and detention of civilians and denial of freedom of speech is a reality. The LTTE does not tolerate any expression of opposition and its continuing recruitment of child soldiers is a matter of great concern. [Full Story]

Under intense pressure brought by Sri Lanka government through its Paris embassy, a pay television channel broadcasting Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, called Tamil Television Network (TTN), has been closed down at the orders of the French government.

In a Good Bye message broadcast to its viewers, the TTN said they were closing down under intense political pressure.

The TTN operation was conducted out of Paris by the beleaguered LTTE in France, where its leaders have been prosecuted in courts for fund-raising activities by the French government.

The television station, together with other services, were used by the Tamil Tigers mainly to collect money for the coffers to sustain an insurgency with widely practiced terrorism, like attacking civilian buses killing scores of passengers, and defiantly using child soldiers for its war and suicide bombings, targeting both civilian and military victims. [Full Story]

Has Amnesty International been infiltrated by LTTE Tamil Tiger Sympathisers?
In far off Caribbean, where cricket is played to the sound of calypso music, Amnesty International has allowed its activists to use the World Cup event to discredit Sri Lanka . Cricket is a sport; it has nothing to do with politics. Particularly, the politics of Human Rights.

It is unfortunate that a reputed institution like the Amnesty International, has allowed itself to be used in the in political propaganda under the guise of human right activism. This is an unsavoury practice employed by some NGOs with hidden agendas. Such NGOs conceal their political aims under human rights or development aid banners. It is sad that an august, well respected, institution such as Amnesty International has allowed itself to be infiltrated by people with vested interest to use it for their political propaganda.

...
Then there is the issue of abduction of children and indoctrinating them to become killers, the so-called "child soldiers". How has Amnesty International reacted to this vicious stealing of childhood and transforming the childish innocence to become mindless monsters? Just a lukewarm reaction, a slight rap on the knuckles. [Full Story]

In 2002, after the Cease Fire Agreement had come into force, the United States Pacific Command carried out a comprehensive assessment of the LTTE and the Sri Lankan Armed Forces at the request of the US Department of Defense. The result of this study was a top secret report, which was signed by Peter W.Rodman on behalf of the International Security Affairs desk of the US Department of Defense. Copies of this report were given only to the then Prime Minister, Ranil Wickremasinghe, the Defense Minister Tilak Marapone, and the Secretary Defense Austin Fernando. The then President Chandrika Kumaratunga, and the cabinet were kept in the dark about this study. What follows are verbatim extracts from this report.

...
Prabhakaran's local propaganda and recruitment efforts are directed at children and adolescents. Prabhakaran has shown a fondness for children and often engages them in conversation. This sincerity may encourage the younger generation to be future recruits in the LTTE. Prabhakaran believes that the second generation, of youth exposed to the war will fight better than the first. Of the second generation, he has greater faith in the northern population because it has been subjected to more LTTE indoctrination than its eastern counterparts, who are constantly exposed to Sinhalese and Muslim influences. [Full Story]

News reports from UK says, a card clone scam allegedly carried out by the LTTE terrorists have hit thousands of British citizens who use a bank cards to buy petrol. According to the reports millions of pounds have been robbed from the bank accounts of the British Citizens who had bought petrol from filling stations in Edinburgh, Norwich, Bury St Edmunds, Peterborough, Nottingham, Leeds, Bristol and Hull. The reports further indicate that the clone cards have been fabricated using account details and the pin numbers stolen from the customers at the filling stations. It is believed that at least 200 filling stations have been hit by the scam. Meanwhile, doubts are being raised on a possible LTTE link to the alleged scam. According to defence.lk sources, Sri Lankan asylum seekers are being forced to engage in criminal activities in the UK by the LTTE terrorists to raise funds for the outfit. Most of the hardcore LTTE terrorists living in the UK are known to carryout their fund raising activities in guise of charity and humanitarian organizations. The LTTE is a ruthless terrorist outfit fighting for an ethnically pure homeland for the Tamils living in Sri Lanka. It launched its bloody terrorist campaign against Sri Lankan citizens in 1983, which has already claimed over 65000 lives so far. Operating on its extreme racist ideologies the LTTE terrorists have massacred tens of thousands innocent civilians in its ethnic cleansing raids at Sinhalese and Muslim villages. Further, the LTTE has been recruiting Tamil children as young as 12 years, to its baby brigade, and using them as "one-way" or "never to return" fighters at war. The freedom enjoyed by the LTTE terrorists in many a countries has allowed the LTTE to strengthen its activities around the world as well as to act on the behalf of other international terrorist organizations. [Full Story]

Amnesty International (AI) said it had never called for a boycott of sport and looked to the LTTE to prove its words by ceasing abuses, including its attacks on civilians and its recruitment of child soldiers, as well as declare its support for the deployment of international human rights monitors.

In an e-mail to the Daily Mirror, Amnesty International's Asia and Pacific programme Deputy Director Tim Parritt said that AI remained ready to discuss human rights issues with the Government, the LTTE and Sri Lankan civil society organizations and had been seeking access to Sri Lanka repeatedly since last February however without success. [Full Story]

The LTTE has stepped-up into a futile but yet a well furnished terrorist strategy of ruthlessness against humanity, targeting civilians at-will in the north and east tensed zones with utter disregard to basic norms of respect to non-combatants and civilians in a context of internal disturbance.

Reports quoting officials sources said that 44 civilians were brutally killed and over 51 seriously injured in the LTTE's latest escalation of violence claimed in separate incidents in Batticaloa, Ampara, Aralaganwila and Vavuniya since the 01st of April.

Defence sources claim that the LTTE is aiming to curve a situation of uncertainty among the general public, in the north and east, while tactically smothering the raging criticism from the majority Tamils in these areas.

The SL security forces were victorious over the LTTE, flushing the terrorists from the eastern frontier, once a major platform for forcible recruitment and training of child soldiers and suicide bombers. According to reliable sources the LTTE Vanni leadership has issued orders to flame a large civilian catastrophe in the tensed areas, in desperation attempting to focus an extra propaganda mileage in the shades of its deteriorating presence in the local and international Tamil community. [Full Story]

Eight people have been killed and 25 others injured in another terror attack on a civilian bus in Vavuniya. That dastardly claymore mine attack deliberately targeting civilians came close on the heels of the bomb blast in a bus in Ampara on April 02, which killed sixteen civilians. The LTTE is likely to step up attacks on civilians during the festive season, as it is hell bent on aggravating the difficulties of the government on the political front and triggering a backlash. It was on the eve of last Vesak that the outfit attempted an attack on a troop carrier with a view to setting the country ablaze.

Strangely, no human rights group has swung into action either to condemn Saturday's attack or pressure the LTTE to desist from killing civilians. The international human rights organisations are dissipating their energies and funds on sexy yet futile gimmicks. The Amnesty International (AI) is, for instance, still holding on to its ball project, despite strong objections from cricket lovers the world over, even at the risk of its image being sullied. It stands accused of being manipulated by LTTE sympathizers within its ranks to discredit Sri Lanka and demoralise her cricket team.

Why have international human rights organisations chosen to campaign for the protection of civilians from a safe distance through such ineffective means? They must come here and open shop in Colombo and Kilinochchi, as we suggested the other day in these columns, so that they could have a ringside view of what is really happening, without depending on third parties for information on human rights abuses. Recently, a well-known human rights group used allegations published against a former Sri Lankan President in a book as the basis of its campaign to get her stripped of a UNESCO post! UN Special Envoy Alan Rock got into hot water a few moons ago, as he went by hearsay in filing his report on child recruitment in the Eastern Province. He got some facts right but failed to play against the spin of LTTE propagandists and had a pratfall. How sad! [Full Story]

Vinyagamurthy Muralitharan (39), better known as Karuna, has become a household name in Sri Lanka, since his defection from the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in March 2004. He is hated by the LTTE Wanni faction but praised by others keen on defeating the Wanni Tigers. In a wide ranging interview with Ruwan Weerakoon, at an undisclosed location in the east, Karuna spoke about the Tigers’ air capability, the military’s campaign and his own future plans, even as the government completed half its term in office, with parliamentary elections due in three years. He spoke of provincial council elections and the need for a referendum in the east in another two years to determine whether the easterners wish to merge or de-merge with the north.

...
Q: There are strong allegations that you abduct children and Human Rights Watch (HRW) has condemned you on this score. Even UN Special Representative Allan Rock alleged that the army is helping your faction in recruiting child soldiers?
A: It is strange to hear that the SLA is assisting us. Furthermore, we don’t abduct children. I would like to clearly state that nearly 20 of our offices manned by our cadres are functioning in government-controlled areas in the east. So, if those cadres had been recruited forcibly and sent to those offices, they would have escaped by now.

Q: But, couldn’t they be forcibly held by the military?
A: We don’t need to recruit children, since we don’t have a need to strengthen our military. Our military is only for self defence. Furthermore, we don’t need to strengthen our military to infiltrate because the SLA is doing that. It is defeating the LTTE. In areas liberated by the army, we are putting up political offices to help the people to rebuild and resettle in these places. Hence, we don’t have a need to strengthen our military by recruitment. We want to bring a complete stop to this war. [Full Story]

The designation of Sri Lanka’s separatist Tamil Tiger movement (LTTE) as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) in 1997 the United States government and its agencies, by federal law, are prohibited from maintaining any contact whatsoever with it while enjoying diplomatic relations with the legitimate government of Sri Lanka making the U.S. to use its diplomatic and economic tools at its disposal to exert pressure on Sri Lanka to fall in line with US’ accepted norms of good governance and rule of law.

...
“The LTTE engaged in politically motivated killings, suicide attacks, disappearances, torture, arbitrary arrest and detention, interference with privacy, denial of freedoms of speech, press, assembly, and association, and recruitment of child soldiers. Since the August 2005 killing of Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar, the government has regularly renewed emergency regulations that permitted arrests without warrants and unaccountable detentions. In December parliament toughened these regulations to give security forces even broader arrest and detention powers. These regulations restrict the media's ability to report on the conflict. [Full Story]

What bearing has Sri Lankan cricket to its internal politics? None, would be the answer of most right thinking persons on account of the completely disparate nature of the spheres concerned.

This transparently simple point, however, seems to be lost on Amnesty International (AI), which by some skewed logic is confusing this country’s politics with its cricket and causing grave damage to our national interest, besides marring the morale of our cricketers in the Caribbean, who are on a winning streak.

...
Why is not AI speaking -up for the hundreds of civilians who are thus losing their lives in the LTTE’s blood lust? Why is AI silent about the subjugation of the children of the North-East to the cruel dictates of the LTTE? In short, what has AI got to say about the numerous LTTE child soldiers? [Full Story]

The worst bit was when they put on the blindfolds. They were polite about it - apologetic even - it was for our safety and theirs, they said.

But it was still nerve-wracking sitting in the back of a battered old minibus, unable to see, being driven at speed over rough roads to who knew where.

...
The other allegation that has been levelled against Col Karuna's organisation is that it has been active in recruiting child soldiers.

A report by the New York-based Human Rights Watch said hundreds of children had been abducted in the east.

A UN envoy, Allan Rock, accused elements within Sri Lanka's military of helping the Karuna faction to recruit children as soldiers.

"Definitely we have no need to recruit them because we have no need of building up a military body," Col Karuna said.

"At the moment the Sri Lanka government, all three armed forces, are fighting against the Tamil Tigers. We have no need to do so.

"At the same time I would like to tell you clearly, this is also another reason for us to come out of the LTTE.

Karuna's men claim to have carried out several attacks on the Tigers

"Our eastern children had been taken to the northern fighting zone and sacrificed by Prabhakaran. We didn't accept that. Our eastern children should study, they should live in freedom," he said. [Full Story]

On Thursday (22), 51 civilians consisting of 34 males and 17 females from the un-cleared areas of Vilakulam entered Irana Iluppaikulam Area controlled by the Security Forces.

These civilians have revealed to the Security Forces that they left their traditional homes due to continuous harassment by the LTTE terrorists as they are forced to work in the construction of bunkers and work sites. Further they were stationed as a human shield and have deployed LTTE heavy weapons in the close proximity of villages.

Tigers have used these heavy weapons to fire at Security Forces stationed in the Forward Defence Lines. Troops are in the process of necessary measures to neutralize these threats. They also state they live in constant fear as the LTTE extorts money for what they say is the "Final War". However, their greatest fear is that their children will be forcibly recruited into their organization as "child soldiers". [Full Story]

The parish priest of Madu Matha Catholic church charged despite continuous warnings not to do so, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam (LTTE) keep on kidnapping 17 year old minors and young adults among war refugees who have camped themselves in the church premises.

Fr. Emilus Pillai, the parish priest charged that LTTE recruiters enter church grounds and kidnap the war refugees among about 10,000 desolate people who have been living in the church grounds for protection for the last two months. They are Tamil civilians who have fled from the war between LTTE who are also known as the Tamil Tigers and the Sri Lanka security forces.

He said, “First we told them not to enter the church premises armed and banned all such people from entering the church premises. Now they come unarmed and forcibly take away 17 year olds and young adults to be recruited for the war.” [Full Story]

Sri Lanka rejected any unsolicited foreign monitoring of its human rights amid growing international criticism against abductions and the recruitment of child soldiers.

“We would not allow any unsolicited monitoring of rights in the embattled island, but would invite eminent persons from time to time to assess the situation,” government Defence spokesman Keheliya Rambukwella said.

He also said that “Many eminent persons have visited Sri Lanka at the invitation of the government... that is because we have nothing to hide. But, that is by invitation.” [Full Story]

Sri Lanka stepped up the war against the Tamil Tiger separatists. The five year old Ceasefire Agreement is in tatters and the Government seems more and more determined to pursue a military solution. With widespread reports of abductions and disappearances, extra judicial killings and torture, is today’s Sri Lanka to be like to General Pinochet’s Chile. My guest today is the Sri Lanka’s Foreign Minister.

The 'Hard Talk' program was aired in the BBC World Service on 15 March.

Given below the full transcript of the Hard Talk programme – the Talk show by one of BBC Hard Talk Show anchors Mr. Allan Little had with Rohitha Bogollagama, - Sri Lanka’s Minister of Foreign Affairs who was in London recently on an official visit.

Question: Let me tell you, you must be aware about what the Human Rights Watch says about him. It says that Karuna faction has abducted and forcibly recruited at least 200 children in Sri Lanka’s Eastern district and at least since June, the Sri Lankan government has known about the abductions, the areas where they are taking place are firmly under Government control and with military and police, security check points and security forces.
Minister: This is why we are going very hard on child recruitment. This is a country where we don’t have child labour and nor can we permit child soldiers and we took this matter up even with the LTTE that they had numbers considered by the LTTE in February 2006 was numbering around 5,400 and this came out at the Geneva round 1. Ultimately our declaration at the Joint Committee at the Geneva 1 talks spell out clearly that the LTTE should give up recruitment of children. At the same time I must come to Karuna’s factor. Karuna has conceded that there had been child soldiers and it is a matter that is concerning us and we now see that the areas that have been cleared of the menace will be dealt with a rule of law and even Karuna’s recruitment will have to be stopped .

Question: There is evidence that the vans carrying these abducted child soldiers pass through Sri Lanka security forces check points without being challenged, without being searched and at that point towards a level of collusion by elements within the Sri Lankan security.
Minister: I totally deny that. There can’t be elements of collusion by security forces with anyone taking children and in the event we are in a position to detect, we are the first to detect and bring them to law enforcement. But at the same time, Karuna has also released some numbers and also UNICEF has said that Karuna has these numbers that you are just speaking about and we want to see that no one is permitted to recruit children as soldiers or enlist them in terms of this conflict that we are currently facing.

Question: Do you know that Alan Rock Minister he came to Sri Lanka as a Special UN Envoy and did a detailed study on this, interviewed people who had witnessed people their children being taken away in unmarked white vans passing through Sri Lankan security force check points unmolested and taken away to camps. Their parents themselves visit these camps and they are within stone throw away in many cases where the Sri Lankan security forces are based.
Minister: In fact this is one unfortunate situation on a fly –by- night operation, I don’t know how people have gathered so much of evidence.

Question: Do you say Alan Rock, UN Special Envoy is a fly-by- night operator.
Minister: What I say is people make certain conclusions. But these conclusions have to be well tested. That is where law enforcement is absolutely necessary. I have the highest respect in terms of every distinguished visitor coming to the country to make an assessment and contribute towards bringing this conflict to an end. Having said that still, when it comes through, certain criminal elements have to be dealt with. After all kidnapping is a criminal issue and its an offence. These are matters that need investigation and thereafter prosecution.

Question: This claim investigated by Alan Rock, the Special Envoy and he says that I have concluded that certain elements of the Sri Lankan security forces are complicit in the abduction of children by the Karuna faction and at least some elements in the security forces have facilitated and sometimes participated in those abductions.
Minister: This is one problem, the facilitation, the participation, in various degrees of involvement and that needs investigation and the absence of such investigation, you go by hearsay you come up with conclusions is the most deplorable type of situation that one will be put to test. Currently, there are several commissions sitting on the human rights violations.

Question: But Alan Rock in the 10 days visit to your country seems to have uncovered more about what’s going on there then your police force.
Minister: In fact the police force now today, we had a serious situation.

Question: No prosecutions. Not a single prosecution.
Minister: Prosecutions lie on the basis of evidence. We have to seek evidence.

Question: Why is Alan Rock in a 10 days visit able to get evidence by interviewing multiple family members who have suffered?
Minister: So, this is where all reports are currently being investigated. [Full Story]

Two terrorists were killed while many others were believed to sustain heavy damages, when a group of LTTE terrorists clashed with an Army clearing patrol, at Senddimalai, few miles north of Peraru General area - Trincomalee, on Sunday the 18th of March, at 05.00 p.m.

Military sources said that a group of around 40 LTTE terrorists opened fire towards the SL Army troops on patrol, who had immediately retaliated inflicting heavy losses to the terrorists.

Meanwhile, defence sources said that the SL Army troops recovered a T-56 assault rifle, and added that further information were not available as the troops are engaged in search and clearing operations in the area.

A SL Army soldier was also killed during the confrontation.

Meanwhile, three forcibly abducted underage child soldiers have surrendered to the Muttur Police, who were being handed over by the ICRC officials in the area. The youth around 17 years, from the Maligativu village in Muttur said that they were forcibly conscripted by the LTTE before the security forces triumphed in East. [Full Story]

An open appeal of Gajan Kanagarajah who lives in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada is published below with the hope of some international help will be forthcoming for the release of his niece who has been forcefully taken away for military training by the LTTE. The rare letter speaks volume of the desperate situation facing the Tamils in the LTTE controlled Vanni area in Sri Lanka.

This letter is reproduced from the Eelanasam website. This letter has been given the widest publicity with the hope that it will reach the Fourth Session of the UN Human Rights Council meeting currently considering Human Rights violations in various countries including Sri Lanka.

The letter is a rare testimony of child recruitment by the LTTE.

Gajan Kanagarajah
5299 Landsborough Avenue,
Mississauga, ONTARIO
L5R 3X1
T.Ph: 416 939 2064

17 February 2007

To Whom It May Concern:

I am a citizen of Canada and presently living in Canada for the last fourteen (14) years. I was born in Kilinochchi, Sri Lanka. I have four (4) brothers and five (5) sisters. I have two sisters still living in Kilinochchi, Vanni district, Sri Lanka.

I am writing this letter seeking your help to secure the release of my niece PATHMASEELI KANAGARAJAH who was forcibly taken by the LTTE on 9 February 2007 from her home in Kilinochchi. I state that one of my two sisters still living in Kilinochchi is Sooriyavathana Kanagarajah and she has five children; four (4) daughters and one son. The eldest daughter is married and lives in Toronto and all other children (three daughters and the son) are still in Kilinochchi, Sri Lanka. One other daughter is also married and lives separately in Kilinochchi. The rest of the children, two daughters and the son live with my sister and her husband. They live at Vinayagar Lane, Vaddakachchi, Kilinochchi, Sri Lanka. [Full Story]

Schools are being turned into makeshift refugee camps in eastern Sri Lanka to cope with the influx of more than 40,000 civilians who have fled fighting between the army and Tamil Tigers in early March.

"We walked from nine in the morning and finally got here in the night. Government officials and others are looking after us with food and other things," refugee Devi Rajakrishna said.

...
A senior military officer, a park warden and six others were feared killed in a rebel attack in a wildlife reserve in the northwestern district of Mannar after witnesses reported seeing slain bodies in the distance.

“There are no major bases in the east except in Toppigala area. But there can be small, small incidents like ambushes or a claymore mine. Those types of things will be there but there will be no major bases and the LTTE will not have control over the civilians. That is the most important thing. So, they can't abduct people, they can't recruit child soldiers. Last year itself, they have taken 6,000 child soldiers by force in the eastern province itself. Those things will not be there once the civilians are coming under government control," Samarasinghe said. [Full Story]

The semi-official organ of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam(LTTE) , the Tamil Net, admitted that a suicide cadre of their organization , known as a Black Tigress about whom a Norwegian documentary film has been made was a child kidnapped at the age of 12 years.

This is the first time that they publicly admitted that some of the child soldiers they kidnap are turned to be walking bombs, obviously by brainwashing.

Quoting the synopsis of the Norwegian film, that has been made with the consent of the LTTE, the Tamil Net said, "When civil war permeates your childhood, it is impossible to escape. At 12, she disappears from her mother, falling into the hands of the guerrilla," describe the producers in film synopsis. Taking a child without the consent of the parents is kidnapping.

Commentators said the synopsis itself somewhat justifies the kidnapping of children for the war, a practice of the LTTE, that has been universally condemned by all human rights organizations in the world including the United Nations. All Tamil organizations opposed to the Tamil Tigers have accused the Norwegian government for turning a blind eye to the barbaric practice of kidnapping children for war and imprisoning them in their abominable military barracks subjecting them to child abuse and occasionally sexual abuse by some military trainers.

One such supervisor had committed suicide in the Eastern province when a child soldier got pregnant.

The Tamil Net reported, "For the first time the Tamil Tigers have allowed a foreign film team to "hand-pick, follow, interview and dig deep," into the lives and faiths of two female Black Tigers, according to the producers of a documentary film titled "My daughter the terrorist," which made its World Premiere to a full house at Parkteatret in the Norwegian capital Oslo Monday(March 12)."

Admitting the practice of conscripting child soldiers , the Tamil Net said, Beate Arnestad, the director of the 58 minutes long documentary film, follows two young, Catholic females, with the nom de guerre 'Dharsika' and 'Puhalchudar', who have been LTTE fighters since their teens and have become part of LTTE's elite force, the Black Tigers." [Full Story]

CHILD RIGHTS: Academic research looks a pretty weedy sort of opposition when pitched against military might. But for those fighting the use of child soldiers in conflicts it is proving a considerable weapon in the campaign to prevent this form of conscription. Hundreds of thousands of young people have been co-opted into wars over the years. In the 1980s it was widely held that children who fought alongside adults were heroes and martyrs. They are still often depicted as being somehow braver than grown-ups.

The advent of lightweight, cheap but deadly automatic weapons, which can be easily handled, paved the way for women and children to take their places on battlefields. Child conscription is a planned political and military strategy fuelled by a ruthless logic.

Children are often more useful than adults because they can be more easily manipulated and are more vulnerable to idealistic appeals; they are economical because they don’t have to be paid as much, or indeed often anything at all, and they eat less; training and maintaining discipline over young ranks are also easier.

There are many siren voices, including those in the West, that justify or manipulate conflicts that employ children. There are also those among the international community that tacitly justify it on grounds of poverty, hunger or lack of education.

Diaspora populations in Western countries who support a conflict may also turn a blind eye to child conscription or may even justify it as heroism or martyrdom. Therefore, it is not always easy to convince communities that conscription of any child is wrong.

During efforts in the 1990s in Sri Lanka to find a definition of childhood sexual abuse, a telling link was uncovered between that and the situation of child soldiers.

Young people cannot volunteer, even if they appear to want to do so, for sexual relations or for participation in armed conflict for one compelling reason.

They are unable to comprehend such complex acts, which even adults find difficult to understand (at least the adults are supposed to). [Full Story]

On the 01.11.06, I went with my Tamil friends to visit Dachau concentration camp near Munich, Germany. It was set up in 1933, by Heinrich Himmler, one of Hitler's henchmen. Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany on the 30th of January 1933. Barely 50 days later, Dachau was opened by Himmler, who was then Chief of Police for Munich.

The SS, Hitler's brutal task force, took control of the camp on April 11th of 1933, and almost immediately the infamous history of atrocities commenced. The camp served the purpose of holding anyone the National Socialist Party considered to be a political opponent to their rule: initially these were Social Democrats, communists, trade unionists and monarchists. Soon after, Jehovah Witnesses were arrested, followed by Jews, Romanies (gypsies), homosexuals, clergies, the mentally ill and the disabled. Other similar camps in Poland and Czechoslavakia also held nationalists from different nations who were opposed to the German occupation.

...
More people died in the East of Sri Lanka than in any other Tamil area in Sri Lanka. There are well over 6000 widows there and over 5000 child soldiers, large proportions of them were from the East. They have nowhere to run to, no relations to give them a free ticket to escape to the West. Putting together scattered information, it is estimated that about 65.000 people have lost their lives, including nearly 20.000 liberation fighters and nearly 5000 child soldiers. In Sri Lanka today, the killing continues, as do abductions and disappearances. [Full Story]

The victims of tyranny and oppression in un-cleared areas held by the LTTE terrorists are slowly being pushed to the wall with suicides since elderly parents find it difficult to bear up continuing loss of their beloved children at the expense of LTTE conscription and abductions.

Three mothers and one father had consumed poison in disappointment and desperation after their children living in Pandirichchan, Mannar had been abducted and conscripted to the LTTE while four of those children were at home.

Two mothers and one father died after swallowing poison and another mother is still lying in Mannar hospital in critical condition as a result of this inhuman act. Those affected parents had approached the LTTE leaders many times and pleaded for the release of their children but to no avail.

Two of those parents had actually died in Adappan rural hospital before they were brought to Mannar hospital.

LTTE Tigers, notorious for child conscription and abductions despite concerns expressed by many agencies including UN, continue their atrocities unabated regardless of many requests. The UN as well as child protection authorities both here and abroad severely reprimanded the LTTE for their inhuman behavior.

Continuing LTTE harassment and forced conscription attempts now hurriedly being undertaken in un-cleared areas confirm the fact that the LTTE was running amok due to the fast dwindling popularity of the organization and lack of resources.

Defence sources said that during recent days 13,685 civilians fled from uncleared areas and sought security forces protection, as the LTTE terrorists intensify their attacks against the security forces, civilians fear abduction of their children and other harassments [Full Story]

In an interview with Boston Globe Sri Lanka’s Foreign Minister alleged that a Federation of Tamil Sangams in the United States were raising funds for Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.

In an interview with the newspaper’s Farah Stockman the minister said , the Boston Tamil Association of Boston diverted money collected for the victims of Tsunami for the arms procurements of the LTTE.

The foreign minister of Sri Lanka has accused several US-based charities, including a Boston-area cultural association, of raising money for the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, a militant separatist group in Sri Lanka that the State Department has classified as a terrorist organization, the Minister told the newspaper in a story datelined March 17. [Full Story]

This is another canard used by parties with vested interests to halt the anti-terror onslaught. It is important to analyse the alleged grave human rights situation purportedly caused by the government.

1. There are no politically motivated human rights violations concerted by the government. Compared to the happenings during the time we didn’t have media freedom, there are no such acts today. Then it was planned, concerted and colluded acts by the then governments to kill, injure, seriously intimidate, burn or otherwise destroy political opponents and their property. In wide contrast political opponents have complete freedom, even to violate the law and the Constitution or to support terrorism without any punishments!! No where else they get so much freedom. Even in the UK, average Tamils are fearful to talk for the LTTE fearing they be branded as terrorist supporters.

...
4. Army and navy operations were carried out with extreme care in avoiding civilian settlements and civilians. Restraint of our gallant forces is unseen in contemporary warfare anywhere in the world. This is even more magnified when considering the fact that we are faced with a barbarian terrorist group that has no regard for children (child brigades), women (virgin killers) and pregnant mothers. [Full Story]

This is a true story of a sixteen year old Tamil boy who had escaped form the clutches of the Tamil Tiger leaders in the East. He reveals his horrendous experience he had at the hands of the LTTE.

The child soldier identified as Kliraza Ganeshlingam, told the security forces that he had been serving as a child soldier in the LTTE and escaped the outfit due to the unbearable sexual harassment committed by the senior LTTE leaders in the camp.

Ganeshlingam surrendered to the Security Forces (Sri Lanka) on Saturday, the 16th of September 2006.

Ganeshalingam revealed that he had to undergo rigorous military training at Kandalkadu camp, where he was trained to use T-56 machine guns and hand grenades.

When asked about his battle experiences, the boy told he was sent on the mission to attack the Kattaiparichchan army camp, in August 2006, with 75 other cadres of which only 50 could survive at the end of the mission.
Watch Video

UNICEF in Sri Lanka is urging those involved in the alleged recruitment of underage child soldiers to prepare action plans based on the UN Security Council Resolution No 1612, calling on the offenders to prepare a time bound Action Plans to halt the practice.

Recently Joanna Van Gerpen, Head of UNICEF in Sri Lanka was in Vanni, met S.P. Tamilselvan, Head of the Political Division of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam to urged him to prepare a time bound Action Plan to halt the practice of recruiting underage children as child soldiers.

Joanna Van Gerpen, UNICEF Head in Colombo when speaking to “Asian Tribune,” indicated that the Action Plan has to be based on the UN Secretary General’s Report to Security Council of 11 January and that of the Ambassador Allan Rock’s report dated 09 February which was recommendation to the Working Group of the Security Council. [Full Story]

With both the LTTE and the Karuna faction still actively recruiting child soldiers, the UN child rights group UNICEF yesterday urged the parties to turn “words into deeds” even as Government defense spokesman Keheliya Rambukwelle averred that a plan was already in motion to probe the involvement of certain elements of the military in the recruitment.

The LTTE meanwhile accepted it had a large number of child recruits in its ranks and following discussions with UNICEF last week agreed to put forward an action plan within the next few days to release all underage child recruits.

According to latest UNICEF figures there were 1710 outstanding cases of child recruitment by the LTTE out of which 707 were underage and the remaining 1003 were below the age of 18 at the time they were recruited but are now over the stipulated age. [Full Story]

In a hard-hitting riposte to The Guardian newspaper which referred to President Mahinda Rajapakse as "mindless" as a terrorist bomber, Sri Lanka's envoy here has accused it of "grave factual inaccuracies and general bias."

Referring to a comment piece by foreign correspondent Jonathan Steele on February 9, High Commissioner Kshenuka Senewiratne's reply published only on Saturday, almost three weeks after the offending article, dismisses several of his assertions and his attempt to whitewash the Tamil Tigers, officially known as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.

...
The Guardian's attention is drawn to the fact that only the other day the United Nation's security council working group on children and armed conflict recommended that targeted measures be imposed against the LTTE for recruiting over 18,000 children as combatants because it is a repeat offender. [Full Story]

The Ceasefire agreement (CFA) should have been abrogated with the first violation committed by the LTTE. Instead, the SLMM, which was formed to monitor the CFA violations, has been turning a blind eye for over five thousand odd violations committed by LTTE.

It has become a fashion for the Ambassadors, High Commissioners and other international bigwigs to legitimise the LTTE terrorist outfit on par with the government when atrocities, abductions and killings are mentioned in this conflict. To dilute the heinous crimes committed by the LTTE the SLMM always blames both parties in the same tone and also asks both parties to refrain from such atrocities. We have never come across these bigwigs pointing the finger at the LTTE only. As reported in the media, look at the following statement made by Ambassador Hans Brattskar at a recent conference organised by the National Peace Council.

Ambassador Brattskar said that so far neither party had abrogated the CFA and it was his strong hope that they would soon see the need to secure its full implementation as it continues to be violated by both sides with a spate of killings, abductions and other human rights abuses, including child recruitment.

Mr. Ambassador, can you please substantiate the above statement with facts and figures? Has the GoSL forces killed innocent civilians? (Other than those caught in crossfires, which only the Western world is allowed to escape with by calling it "collateral damage")? No. Has the GoSL forces abducted any children or adults and forced them to join the forces? No. Has the GoSL forces recruited child soldiers? Has the GoSL forces killed Hindu priests? Has the GoSL forces killed university students? Has the GoSL forces used claymore mines to kill innocent civilians? [Full Story]

“In their quest for a mono-ethnic one party separate state for a fraction of Sri Lanka’s Tamil population living in the north and east, the LTTE, over the years, has employed the strategy of creating humanitarian situations in these areas to further their political agenda and to win international sympathy for their cause,” says Sri Lanka ambassador in Washington Bernard Goonetilleke to many queries by concerned Americans regarding the situation, many consider as deteriorating on human rights and humanitarian fronts but progressing on the military front breaking the spine of the Tamil Tigers. On the issue of protecting the IDPs, Goonetilleke says:

...
“The government is fully aware of the need to ensure the physical safety of IDPs in refugee camps. However, given the prevailing security situation, with the LTTE mingling at will with IDPs to keep them under their control, to recruit child soldiers etc., it is not always possible to provide uncompromised security to the IDPs, However, in addition to local law enforcement agencies, all camps housing IDPs are accessible to "the ICRC and to other international humanitarian agencies. The government is doing its utmost to ease the situation of IDPs in cooperation with international humanitarian agencies and local and international NGOs. However, though the government is committed to the security of the IDPs, the LTTE is equally determined to achieve political objectives at the expense of the IDPs. For instance, the LTTE denied security guarantees to the ICRC to escort vessels carrying relief supplies to the Jaffna Peninsula. Despite LTTE intransigence, the government makes every effort to provide food, other essential supplies, fuel, medicine and safe shelter to IDPs.” [Full Story]

Many Tamil people living in Northern areas controlled by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) are faced with the problem of increased tiger conscription. Intensified forcible recruitment since June last year has resulted in an estimated 10, 000 persons being inducted into the LTTE over the past eight months.

A significant feature of this recruitment drive is that the bulk of those conscripted are over the age of seventeen. This is in striking contrast to earlier practice where thousands of children were forcibly recruited.

Technically what is going on now in the tiger - dominated north is not a child conscription campaign. It is a campaign of abductions and forcible recruitment of the over seventeen. Even those under 18 are deemed children but the LTTE for some reason has lowered it to 17 in its areas. Those aged 17 are not sent to the frontline till they turn 18 claims the LTTE. They are used as helpers in camps till they become 18. Whatever the LTTE may say the universally accepted legal position is that all those under 18 years of age are children.

Though International standards decree that all persons recruited under the age of eighteen are child soldiers the LTTE takes up the age of 17 as its standard in recruiting cadres.

Though the LTTE has been avoiding conscription of those under 17 years there have been cases where minors were taken as hostages to pressurise older family members into joining up.

The intensification and acceleration of the LTTE campaign to forcibly recruit those between 17 and 35 into their ranks directly has caused much resentment amid the Tamil people. They have no way to resist or protest. Some have gone into hiding. Others have found ways to leave or escape from those areas. Those detected of trying to escape have been punished. The LTTE has also infiltrated the Govt controlled areas of Mannar , Vavuniya and even Jaffna districts and abducted people. The full force of LTTE conscriptions is faced by the people of Kilinochchi and Mullaittivu districts. The LTTE which boasts of a parallel administration has set up its monitoring apparatus in the un-cleared areas. [Full Story]

Despite its significance it is a story that went largely unreported and unnoticed in Sri Lanka – the Tigers have flatly rejected a UN demand to increase their minimum recruitment age to 18. The LTTE’s insolent response to the UN comes at a moment when the Security Council’s Special Working Group on Children and Armed Conflict is considering the imposition of targeted measures against the LTTE for persisting in child conscription. In this context the nihilist Tiger reaction is a boon to us, since it can be used to worsen the international isolation of the LTTE. As Philip Alston, the UN Special Rapporteur on Extra-Judicial Killings, pointed out the Eelam project cannot succeed without international legitimacy. And no other issue has hurt the LTTE’s quest for international recognition as that of child soldiers. It would be no exaggeration to say that the issue of child soldiers is the Achilles Heel of the Tiger.

Unfortunately Sri Lanka today finds herself unable wield this most potent politico-propaganda weapon against the LTTE – because we have managed get ourselves tainted by the same malediction. The UN Security Council’s Special Working Group on Children and Armed Conflict is also considering the detailed charges made by Ambassador Alan Rock against Col. Karuna’s TMVP and sections of the Lankan Armed Forces. Mr. Rock has accused the TMVP of engaging in child conscription in the liberated East; and he has stated that a section of the Lankan Army is colluding with the TMVP (both charges have been made independently by two organisations with impeccable anti-Tiger credentials, the Human Rights Watch and the UTHR). As a result, instead of working with the UN and other international agencies to ensure that the proper punitive actions are taken against the LTTE for child recruitment/conscription, Sri Lanka is being compelled to engage in verbal gyrations to defend herself from charges of complicity in this most vile of crimes. Instead of going on the politico-propaganda offensive against the Tigers, we are compelled to make ineffectual attempts to defend ourselves, in a manner that is convincing none but ourselves. [Full Story]

We write to thank you for adopting the Paris Commitments, another worthy step to put a complete stop to the zero -tolerance issue of child soldiers.

The Ministers who gathered in Paris reaffirming their collective concern at the plight of these children committed to following among other measures.

(1) To spare no effort to end the unlawful recruitment and use of children by armed forces or groups in all regions of the world .

(2) To make every effort to uphold and apply the Paris principles wherever possible in political, diplomatic, humanitarian, technical assistance and funding roles .

(3) To adhere to the principle that the release of all children recruited or used contrary to international law by armed forces or groups shall be sought unconditionally at all times.

(4) To fight against impunity, and to effectively investigate and prosecute those persons who have unlawfully recruited children under 18 years of age into armed forces or groups.

(5) To use all available means to support monitoring and reporting efforts at the national, regional and international levels on violation of child rights.

(6) To fully cooperate with the implementation of targeted measures taken by the Security Council against parties to an armed conflict which unlawfully recruit or use children.

(7) To ensure that armed forces or groups having recruited or used children unlawfully are not allowed to secure advantages during peace negotiations and security sector reforms.

As you are aware, one of the organizations violating the rights of the children is the LTTE also known as Tamil Tiger Terrorists operating in Sri Lanka. In spite of studies completed and measures proposed by UNICEF, Human Rights Watch, Save the Children, Amnesty International etc, the LTTE continues to recruit children as soldiers. In keeping with the Paris Commitments and the UN Resolutions on child soldiers, it is absolutely necessary to consider enforcing the declared objectives. In the case of the Tamil Tigers they have a history of using child soldiers as cannon fodder in the clashes with the Sri Lankan Defence Forces. The LTTE proceeded on a recruitment drive and an abduction binge to beef up their cadres depleted by last tsunami. UNICEF has stated that more than 1,600 children have been abducted or conscripted to join the LTTE from tsunami relief camps. Since signing of the Ceasefire Agreement with the Sri Lankan Government in 2002, the LTTE has recruited nearly 3,500 children according to authoritative human rights organizations. There are stories in the Save the Children reports of molestation of both young boys and girls who are in LTTE captivity.

Besides, the LTTE has openly rebuffed the efforts of UN Secretary General's special envoy, His Excellency Olara Otunu to halt this war crime. This wilful rejection of the UN agreement by the LTTE questioned the will of the UN to implement its own resolutions.

Therefore, to meet the objectives of all Nations who endorsed the Paris Commitments, it is necessary to take effective action to compel organizations such as the LTTE to stop recruitment of child soldiers and provide opportunities for the existing child soldiers to free themselves and lead a normal life.

The biggest obstacle to achieve the Paris participants' objectives in Sri Lanka is the intransigence of the Tamil Tigers who are kept alive by the funds received from the Western countries and some of the foreign funded NGOs. To date, in countries like the USA, Canada, the UK, Norway, Denmark, Belgium, Holland ,Germany, France, Switzerland, Italy, South Africa, Australia and Malaysia, the LTTE activists and their front organizations such as TRO, TRRO, WTM, etc are engaged in fund collections .The annual remittances to the LTTE from these countries are in the region US$30- 50 million and 95% of the funds collected are used for the arms purchases to keep the terrorist war alive, unfortunately with the help of child soldier brigades.

The Tamil Tiger propaganda machinery eulogising LTTE terrorism and the achievements of the fighting cadres provides the impetus for the LTTE activists in the Western countries to swell their fund collections. The LTTE websites, news papers, radio, TV channels operate from countries such as France, the UK, Norway, Switzerland, Germany, Canada, New Zeland and Australia.

In the final analysis, you will no doubt agree that the sacred objectives of the Paris Commitments cannot be realised without the Western countries, South Africa and Malaysia taking steps to stop funding of the LTTE as well as clamping down on terrorist propaganda churned out in the Western capitals. It is quite apparent that closing one's eyes to the LTTE and their fronts will not put a halt to forcible child recruitment, and make it a willing partner to disband the child soldier brigades.

We request you as a party to the Paris Commitments of February 2007, to take urgent steps to starve the LTTE of Western funds and propaganda facilities to pressurise them to release nearly 8000 child soldiers they claim to have and to stop future recruitment.

Let Paris Commitment 2007 be an unshakable commitment to the humanity. [Full Story]

The recently agreed Paris Commitments cannot be realised without the Western countries, South Africa and Malaysia taking steps to stop funding of the LTTE as well as clamping down on terrorist propaganda churned out in the Western capitals. It is quite apparent that closing one’s eyes to the LTTE and their fronts will not put a halt to forcible child recruitment, and make it a willing partner to disband the child soldier brigades.

Australian based Society for Peace, Unity and Human Rights for Sri Lanka (SPUR) pointed out that in countries like the USA, Canada, the UK, Norway, Denmark, Belgium, Holland ,Germany, France, Switzerland, Italy, South Africa, Australia and Malaysia, the LTTE activists and their front organizations such as TRO, TRRO, WTM, etc are engaged in fund collections . According to SPUR, the annual remittances to the LTTE from these countries are in the region US$30- 50 million and 95% of the funds collected are used for the arms purchases to keep the terrorist war alive, unfortunately with the help of child soldier brigades. [Full Story]

Q: Child soldiers have become a major issue in the international arena. The Sri Lankan State is also accused of assisting certain groups to recruit children. How do you respond to this?

A: We have been a party to all international conventions which ensure children’s well-being. The Sri Lankan Government would never ever encourage or permit the recruitment or engagement of children in war efforts or terrorist or military pursuits.

Children are our treasure, wherever they are. We will never allow any other agency, group, organisation or movement to make use of children to fill in their cadres. [Full Story]

SRI LANKAN PRESIDENT MAHINDA RAJAPAKSA, in an interview with the BBC, said that the Government's peace pact with the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) was a mistake.

"Today we realise we have made a mistake. Through the peace pact, we've demarcated areas called LTTE controlled areas, and they have taken over the rights of the people through this pact.

In the LTTE controlled areas, no political parties can function, people cannot walk anywhere in freedom, and the children are being forced to join the armed forces of the LTTE. These rights should be given back to the people" he said. [Full Story]

Sri Lanka
Main article: Military use of children in Sri Lanka
In Sri Lanka, thousands of children are believed to be in the ranks of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), a rebel group banned as a terrorist organization by a number of countries including the United States, Canada, India and the European Union.

Since signing a ceasefire agreement in 2001, the latest available UNICEF figures show that the LTTE has abducted 5,666 children until July 2006, although the organization speculates that only about a third of such cases are reported to them. Sri Lankan soldiers nicknamed one unit the Baby Battalion, due to the number of children in it. In response to widespread international condemnation of alleged children recruitment practices, the LTTE had enacted laws (taking effect in Oct. 2006) to make children recruitment illegal in its territory. [1].

More recently, the para-military group known as the Karuna Group, which is apparently pro-government splinter group from the LTTE, has been held responsible for the abduction of children according to UNICEF and Human Rights Watch. [2][3] [Full Story]

Two Advanced level students of Government School at Kaluwankerni in Valachchenai had been abducted by the LTTE terrorists on yesterday afternoon (Friday the 9th of February), defence sources said.

The two students whose names are Thilovan and Devdason were reportedly kidnapped while returning to their homes after the school.

However, the parents of the students have not complained to the police so far, fearing that such act may antagonize the terrorists and make them to kill the children in revenge. The two mothers of the students are said to have gone this morning to Karadiyanaru LTTE dominated area to see whether they can get their children released.

Meanwhile, on the same day UN special representative Allen Rock submitted his report to the UN authorities with regard to the Child Soldiers in Sri Lanka. [Full Story]

The LTTE website pathivu.com has published an exclusive picture of an LTTE child soldier holding a submachine gun in its frontline war effort. Pathivu.com is a LTTE front website which publishes exclusive terror pictures on a daily basis.

Whilst international outcry on engaging child soldiers in warfare is reaching momentum, the LTTE is not concerned about international concerns. The photograph is published in the LTTE front website just after the UN conference in Paris on child soldiers this week.

The photograph is also published at the time the United Nations Security Council is about to take up the issue of use of children in warfare in Sri Lanka.

The report presented to the Security Council by the outgoing UN Secretary General Kofi Annan is to be considered at the Security Council meeting in a few days.

The LTTE is heavily dependent on child recruits and recent drive in its Vanni confirms, it has recruited all the children over 12 years for military engagement in the area. [Full Story]

Ambassador Allan Rock, Special Adviser on Sri Lanka to Radhika Coomaraswamy - Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict, in his report to the Working Group of the UNSecurity Council has emphasized for target sanctions against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam

Earlier, the Report of the Secretary General on Children and Armed Conflict in Sri Lanka Ref. No: S/2006/1006 was released on 20 December 2006, to the UN Security Council.

Though the report was submitted by the UN Secretary General, in fact, according to sources, the report was actually prepared by Radhika Coomaraswamy, and by her Special Advisor on Sri Lanka, Ambasador Alan Rock. [Full Story]

Internet giant ‘YouTube’ has been invaded by LTTE propaganda videos. ‘YouTube’ who has just done a deal with Google for $1.65 Billion seems to be providing free services to a Banned terrorist group.

‘YouTube’ is the latest American company to welcome with open arms a terrorist group responsible for the murder of a Sri Lankan head of state and an ex Indian head of state, a group which has dragged a country in to a separatist war no one wants and over 70 thousand left dead from the terrorist attacks and fighting. Many investors think YouTube is a place to make money from adverts. It seems any money to be made from adverts on the LTTE video download pages will be ‘blood money’, you can find the videos by putting LTTE into the YouTube search engine.

Victims of LTTE attacks will be outraged by LTTE propaganda videos. It is a clear case of American companies supporting international terrorism during the so called ‘war on terror.’

The ‘No Reply’ from YouTubes complaint department showing complete contempt to the suffering of the Sri Lankans, Indians and also the Tamils living under ‘land arrest’ and forced into refugee camps by the LTTE's fighting that no right minded Tamil want's.

‘Google’ and ‘YouTube’ are inciting others to act hatred and support terrorism by allowing to host LTTE propaganda video films. You would not find a Sri Lankan or Indian multi-billion $ company hosting Al-Qaeda beheading videos, but with a quick search on YouTube you can find videos LTTE killing civilians in Sri Lanka.

‘YouTubes’ insults to victims of terrorist attacks and international business who have been killed or attacked over the years by the LTTE, terrorist groups, like Al-Qaeda uses the internet but if any one knows history you will find the world leaders in internet terrorism was the LTTE long before Bin Laden even dreamed of attacking America or the first head was chopped off in Iraq and the video was posted on the internet.

Google and YouTube should learn fast to police their own web-site's before boasting to the worlds press about their Billion dollar deals as some find LTTE videos hosted by them offensive not just personally but to the entire humanity in the world!

Velupillai Prabaharan, the LTTE leader is one wanted by Interpol, but his speeches, LTTE battle clips, and child soldiers are all clear on some of the videos I have watched on the videos beaming from You-telecom’s headquarters, the new base for Tamil tiger terror media wing. You can see some of the videos hosted by this all American company here.

What can be done? Complain to YouTube search the web-site and mark all the inappropriate LTTE video clips you will find, flag them as inappropriate button just under each film, and complain to YouTube.com’ and make the internet a ‘LTTE free zone.’ [Full Story]

UN Working Group is due to meet today to consider a highly controversial report on child abduction and recruitment in Sri Lanka amidst allegations and counter-allegations regarding the author of the report Ambassador Allan Rock, Special Advisor to the UN Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict. Though the report in the main accuses the Tamil Tigers of the north and the break-away group of Karuna faction in the east as notorious abductors of children Rock has also stated that security forces of the Sri Lankan government “are supporting and sometimes participating in the abductions and forced recruitment of children by the Karuna faction.”

The Sri Lankan government and the Karuna faction have challenged this statement separately. Ambassador Rock who made a 10-day visit to Sri Lanka in November, 2006 was accused of being allied too closely to the LTTE agents in Canada. He faced a heavy barrage of attacks which alleged that he was incapable of producing an objective report because of his closeness to the Tamil Tigers in Canada. Karuna faction has accused Rock of toeing the Tamil Tiger line of attempting to blacken their image purely to cover-up Tiger crimes against children. [Full Story]

MORE THAN 5,000 children have been recruited in Sri Lanka since 2001. And despite the ceasefire signed in 2002, the threat of recruitment and re-recruitment continues to be so strong that in some areas parents are afraid to let their children leave the house.

This was disclosed by Save the Children in a global update on Child Soldiers released in the UK on February 5th.

Richard Mawer, Country Director with Save the Children in Sri Lanka, noted an ongoing and increasing fear by parents: "We are finding in some areas, particularly in the East, that many parents are keeping children above 14 at home for fear of recruitment. This means they are not attending school, are not playing with their friends outside, and are not participating in many of our Children’s Clubs activities."

He further noted that, "We are receiving reports of an increased number of families seeking to send their children to Colombo and even the Middle East for work so that the children can be protected from recruitment. We are also seeing parents marrying off girls at young ages, as a means to protect them from re-recruitment pressures." [Full Story]

Amidst claims by the LTTE to have released some of its child recruits, representatives of over 50 countries including Sri Lanka meet in France for a two day conference, on Sunday and yesterday to look at ways to demobilise and rehabilitate more than 250,000 child soldiers all over the world.

The conference, sponsored by UNICEF and France's Foreign Ministry, will focus on strategies to prevent child recruitment and help reintegrate former child soldiers into society, while looking at ways to help girls, particularly vulnerable to sexual abuse and accounting for nearly 40 percent of recruits in certain armed groups, organizers said. [Full Story]

Fifty-eight countries, including Sri Lanka today agreed to take action to protect children from being recruited as soldiers in wars.

News Agency reported that the 58 countries that signed up to the so-called Paris Commitments at the end of a two-day conference included 10 of the 12 nations where an estimated 250,000 children bear arms.

The purpose of the conference held in Paris from Feb 5-6 was the adoption by the states present of a text called the Paris Commitments to stop the illegal and unacceptable use of children in armed conflict. [Full Story]

A spokesman for the Tamil Makkal Viduthalai Pulikal (TMVP) is reported to have told a group of US Embassy officials at a recent meeting that it intends to contest elections in the future. Prabhakaran’s erstwhile military commander and TMVP leader Karuna, now on a campaign to extricate the Eastern Province from his former boss’s grip, seems to be playing his cards right.

...
Unlike the mainstream politicians who have skeletons securely hidden in their cupboards, Karuna has most of them out in the open. He stands accused of using child soldiers. UN Envoy Allan Rock, who has named the Karuna Group in a UN report for abducting children, may be an LTTE sympathiser contracted to fix the outfit, but Karuna will have to put his house in order if he is to prove that he is different from his former boss, who is going places in a litter carried by cubs. Before venturing to contest elections, Karuna will have to release all child combatants he is reported to have within his ranks forthwith and desist from acts of violence against civilians. That is the best way he can help re-democratise the Eastern Province and banish terror from that part of the country. [Full Story]

Amidst claims by the LTTE to have released some of its child recruits, representatives of over 50 countries including Sri Lanka meet in France for a two day conference, on Sunday and yesterday to look at ways to demobilise and rehabilitate more than 250,000 child soldiers all over the world.

The conference, sponsored by UNICEF and France's Foreign Ministry, will focus on strategies to prevent child recruitment and help reintegrate former child soldiers into society, while looking at ways to help girls, particularly vulnerable to sexual abuse and accounting for nearly 40 percent of recruits in certain armed groups, organizers said.

''Children are being recruited unlawfully to participate in armed conflicts as soldiers, messengers, spies, porters, cooks or to provide sexual services,'' Ann Veneman, the head of the United Nations children's agency, UNICEF, said in a statement before the two-day conference, which began on Sunday. ''This is taking place every day, violating children's rights and compromising their futures.''

The LTTE peace secretariat said following the introduction of its own Child Protection law in rebel held areas, focus has been given to the prevention of underage recruitment. [Full Story]

Sri Lanka’s Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama told Gulf Times that the government is determined and taking bold steps to cut the funding lines of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) which is engaged in an insurgency against the government of Sri Lanka. [Full Story]

A day before the UN Security Council working group was slated to study special envoy Allan Rock’s report on abductions by the Karuna faction, the group led by V. Muralitharan, alias Karuna Amman slammed the New York based Human Rights Watch (HRW) for making similar charges against his outfit in a report released two weeks ago.

Karuna Amman however lauded the landmark weekend visit undertaken by President Mahinda Rajapakse to Vakarai saying it gives the Tamil people hope of the commitment of the Rajapaksa regime to resolve the continuing ethnic conflict despite the signing of a cease fire agreement which today remains only on paper.

...
In a letter adressed to the Advocacy Director of HRW Ms. Joe Becker the political arm of the Karuna faction, the Tamil Makkal Viduthalai Pullikal (TMVP), has charged that afidavits contained in the 100 page HRW report titled ‘Karuna Group Abducts Children for Combat - Government Complicity in Forced Recruitment of Young Tamils’ was collected in collaboration with the LTTE.

“You state that you received our letter too late for it to be reflected specifically in the report. We think that this is not good enough reason for HRW to rush to judgment against us. Your urgency to publish a one-sided report is not a valid reason to damage the reputation of our organisation. We see it as an attempt to avoid our offer for your agents to investigate the allegations in the affidavits collected by your agents with the collaboration of the LTTE,” the TMVP said. [Full Story]

Sri Lanka is taking bold and determined steps, to cut the funding lines of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollegama told the Gulf Times yesterday.

Bogollegma, who took over as foreign affairs minister a week ago, was transiting through the Doha International Airport while returning to Colombo after a four-day tour of India and Germany. [Full Story]

SRI Lanka is taking bold and determined steps to cut the funding lines of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), South Asian country’s Foreign Minister Rohita Bogollegama told the Gulf Times yesterday. Bogollegma, who took over as foreign affairs minister a week ago, was transiting through the Doha International Airport while returning to Colombo after a four-day tour of India and Germany. Sri Lankan foreign secretary Palitha T B Kohona was also accompanying the minister.

...
Recalling that the United Nations had termed LTTE as perpetrators of violence in a number of its resolutions in the last few years, he said one of the resolutions had termed the outfit as a violator of norms on the issue of recruitment of child-soldiers. “Unicef had also expressed concerns over the forcible recruitment of children by the LTTE in the last few years,” said the minister. Contrary to the undertaking it had given to Unicef against enlisting children for combat, the LTTE is still going ahead with their recruitment, the minister pointed out. [Full Story]

Tamil Thamil Makkal Viduthalai Pulikal (TMVP), headed by Karuna Amman, has accused the Human Rights Watch (HRW), based in New York, of publishing one-sided reports against them without first visiting their bases in the east to verify the allegations of TMVP holding child soldiers, even after facilities were offered for HRW to conduct their investigations.

Rebutting the charges made by HRW, S.Padhmini TMVP's Political Secretary has asked Ms Joe Becker, Advocacy Director Children's Rights Division Human Rights Watch."to provide us (TMVP) with your reasons for not accepting our offer to contact us or our Leader and to check the veracity of the allegation against our political party, Tamil Makkal Viduthalai Pulikal."

She states that HRW collected affidavits against the TMVP with the assistance of Tamil Tigers agents -- the arch rivals of the Karuna Group. She wrote: "We are ready to provide you with sworn statements from people who have seen your Human Right Watch officials going around with LTTE agents and preparing affidavits alleging that our cadres were involved in child recruitment. It is regrettable that HRW officials have become victims of the manipulated propaganda machine of the LTTE. [Full Story]

The elite commando unit of the Sri Lanka Police, the Special Task Force, (STF) in its twenty-first victory inside the dense jungles of Kanjikudichcha Aru successfully overran a training base of Child soldiers after some resistance from the rebels of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), on Thursday February 1.

Military spokesman said the abominable camp, named ‘Jeevananda Base’ was a military garrison, where the LTTE kidnapped and hid hundreds of Eastern Province teenagers secretly, giving them a crash military course before sending them to battle fields.

There are reports that some of the child combatants were sometimes physically abused and also rarely sexually exploited by their trainers, regardless strict moral codes had been imposed on them. Attempts to escape from the camp had been sometimes punished with death. [Full Story]

An LTTE child soldier surrendered himself to the Army camp at Dehiwatta in Serunuwara last evening (Thursday the 1st February).

The 16 year old child soldier Thyagarajah Prasad told police that he had been abducted by the LTTE terrorists in March 2006.

"LTTE leader "Rusian" and two of his companions forcibly took me along with my friend to their camp in Sampur while we were going for an extra tuition class in Serunuwara" he said.

Thyagarajah was a student at Kiliveddi Government School and was expecting to sit for the G.C.E Ordinary Level exam in 2006.

"Rusian stopped us at the 56th mile post junction and asked us to join the LTTE. When we said that we wanted to sit for the exam, he and his companions started beating us. We tried to run away but could not make it as they followed us by two motorbikes" the surrendee added.

"At the Sampur LTTE base we met another 22 child soldiers and 35 adults who were undergoing military training. All the children were abductees like us" the surrendee further revealed.

Thyagarajah however, could not attended to the training for about 20 days since his legs had been badly injured due to brutal attack of the abductors.

When the Army captured Sampur, the LTTE cadres took us to their camp at Mavilachcheni in Upparu area. There again I was given a 10 days training with other children and asked us to be prepared to fight with the Army"

Meanwhile, Thyagarajah's mother who had been looking for her missing son got to know his whereabouts from another child soldier who had escaped form the outfit.

"My mother came to visit me to the camp and asked me to escape the tiger camp before getting killed. Few days after, I managed to escape and went to a refugee camp in Vakarai with my mother" he said.

"Since the LTTE cadres came looking for me, we had to move in to many refugee camps and finally we managed to escape to Valaichchenai and stayed in a refugee camp for 5 months. On 31st December we came to Habarana and from there we came to home at Serunuwara" he added.

SL Army officials handed over the youth to the Serunuwara police station . The police sources said that the surrendee was produced to the magistrate court this morning and will be sent to a Rehabilitation centre. [Full Story]

The Police Special Task Force troops marching ahead in their operation "Definite Victory" (Niyathai Jaya) seized another LTTE base called "Jeewananda Base" located inside the Kangikadaichi Aru jungle yesterday( Thursday the 1st of February).

The STF sources said that this camp which is located further inside the woods had been used by the LTTE terrorist to train child soldiers. The sources further revealed that unlike in the previous occasions, the STF had to confront with some resistance form the terrorists. However, after a brief confrontation the terrorists had taken to their heels leaving the camp to the STF. [Full Story]

Alan Rock, former Canadian ambassador to the United Nations and onetime federal cabinet minister in Canada’s former Liberal government, who concluded after a special fact finding tour in Sri Lanka last November on the issue of the recruitment of child soldiers that not only the Tamil Tigers but also the break-away Karuna Group under the patronage of the Armed Forces was enlisting child soldiers to its ranks has now put UN Secretary General’s integrity into question.

Rock was in Sri Lanka in November 2006 on behalf of the UN’s special representative on child soldiers on an investigation mandated by the UN to report the issue of underage enlistment for military combat, an issue first brought to light by the UNESCO. [Full Story]

Canada's National Post (1/26) reports that former Liberal Cabinet minister and UN ambassador Allan Rock is the target of an apparent campaign to discredit him as he prepares to address a Security Council panel on child soldiers in Sri Lanka.

Rock visited the South Asian country in November on behalf of the UN's special representative on child soldiers, but his finding that the government in Colombo is helping a group recruit child soldiers has upset pro-government forces. The finding has been particularly embarrassing to the government, which for years has criticized the Tamil Tigers for employing child soldiers. [Full Story]

The Leader of the Tamil United Liberation Front [TULF], Mr. Veerasingam Anandasangaree wrote to the new elected Secretary General of United Nation Mr. Ban Ki- moon, under the head line 'The Last call to the LTTE'.

"In this small Island of ours we talk of freedom, democracy, fundamental rights, and human rights violations. We have various organisations and institutions both foreign and local to protect these rights. Within minutes of an accident taking place, the Police come to the spot. When a crime is reported the Police visit the scene of the crime immediately. For a small dispute with the neighbours the police is there to inquire into;" said Mr. Anandasangaree on letter to the Secretary General.

...
Furthermore, he claimed. , " The LTTE had abducted more than ten thousand youths for recruitment to their fighting cadre in Kilinochchi and a similar number in Mulaitheevu also. In addition to this, youths abducted from Government controlled areas like Mannar, Vavuniya and Jaffna , are also recruited as fighters. It is now clear that the LTTE also have a hand in the abductions that take place in White Vans in Jaffna . All abductions during the day-time are undoubtedly by the LTTE. No one else will dare to abduct during day time.

"The training period for the LTTE cadre varies between 2 and 4 weeks before they are sent to the battle front. Those who resist training or refuse to co-operate are assaulted badly and if by chance anyone dies he is hung by the neck to give the impression that he had committed suicide;" he observed.

"The latest tactics of the LTTE is to wait till dark and after the inmates go to bed they force open the house and take whoever they want to join the fighting cadre. In certain cases when the parents plead with them for the release of their children, they are released on conditions that they will be brought and surrendered at their office at a future date. Out of fear some parents keep their promise and the children so surrendered are declared as if they had joined voluntarily. Parents who resist arrest are severely beaten and the children are taken away inspite of the curse showered on them by the angry and heat-broken parents" Mr.Anndasangaree added.

"I take full responsibility for all what I have said here. The people who had been living in areas under the control of the LTTE had sacrificed enough and it should be noted that all their sacrifices, tolerance and sufferings were all borne by them for the sake of their children. Now with a demand from the LTTE for one person from each house-hold they are prepared to defy the LTTE and revolt against them. They are also prepared to welcome and give all co-operation for a friendly army that will give an undertaking to give protection for their lives and properties inspite of any provocation that they may have to face, while engaged in the process of liberating them," the TULF leader said. [Full Story]

Re: Rock fights ‘smear’ tactics
Asoka Weerasinghe Gloucester, Ontario, Canada
January 30, 2007
The Editor
THE WINDSOR STAR
Windsor
Ontario


Dear Editor:
Former Canadian Ambassador Allan Rock has little choice but to fight the ‘smear’ tactics that he is accusing the Sri Lankan government of. He says that they are trying to undermine his credibility before he prepares to present his report to the UN on child soldiers in Sri Lanka. His exercise to hang on to his “credibility”, is certainly going to be a Himalayan task. If there is indeed a “fight” between Allan Rock and the Sri Lankan government, you bet the Sri Lankan government has taken its gloves off and is outside the squared circle and it is a street fight now, as they believe that Allan Rock accusing the Sri Lankan Government Armed Forces playing a part in the abductions of children to help the Karuna group to be trained as child soldiers, is a bucket of hog-wash.

Allan Rock’s credibility fell apart long time ago together with his colleagues of the Canadian Liberal Party when they decided not to ban the world’s most ruthless terrorist organization, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (aka, Tamil Tigers) for 13 years, when other nations, like the US, UK, Australia, India, Malaysia, the Czech Republic, and now the EU countries banned them. Not that the Liberals were smart about it, but the only reason was that they did not want to antagonize the immigrant and refugee Tamil community in the Greater Toronto Area where ten of its ridings depended on their bloc vote of 100,000. He might as well admit it, as the last Liberal Minister of Justice, Irwin Cotler admitted to the editorial board of the National Post, that not banning the Tamil Tigers was due to the pressures of domestic politics. [Full Story]

The United Nations and international human rights organisations have long campaigned against recruiters of child soldiers, urging their prosecution as "war criminals".

But the first break came only last week when the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague decided to arrest Thomas Lubanga, a founder and leader of the Union des Patriotes Congolais (UPC), on charges of conscripting children in the current insurgency against the government of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

...
In Sri Lanka, for example, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), which has been fighting a separatist war in the northeast of that country, has had a long record of using child soldiers as well as a record of breaking commitments, according to the Sri Lankan government. [Full Story]

"Neither God not man can help Prabhakaran now. He is a mental patient. He can never be reformed, although some people hope in vain that he will change.''

TMVP Leader Vinayagamoorthy Muralidaran alias Karuna Amman made this observation during an interview with the Derana television channel last week (Thursday, Jan. 25). The interview was conducted in Tamil and translated into Sinhala.

According to Karuna not one in the Eastern Province today supported the Tigers and soon they would be isolated in the North too, since people there are waiting to escape from Prabhakaran's clutches. LTTE is on the decline, he emphasized. [Full Story]

Allan Rock, the former Canadian justice minister is under attack by the Sri Lankan government and newspapers in Colombo for his alleged links to the Tamil Tiger terror group.

Rock, who was an advisor to the United Nations Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict on Sri Lanka is close to “top level international agents of the Liberation Tiger Tamil Eelam [LTTE], the Colombo-based Sunday Standard reported in a front page article.

“According to our sources in Canada, there is a very close friendship between Allan Rock and lots of LTTE front organisations and their agents, who are directly involved in raising funds for the LTTE in the Tamil Diaspora of Canada,” the paper said. It published a photograph of Rock with two men identified as friends of “Waterloo Suresh”.

Waterloo Suresh or Suresh Sriskandarajah, a University of Waterloo engineering graduate was arrested in Ontario last August during a U.S. anti-terror probe.

Court papers stated he used his student status to mask his work for the Tamil Tigers terrorist organization and recruited other students to act as couriers to smuggle equipment to Sri Lanka, U.S. authorities allege.

Media reports described the 26-year-old, of Waterloo, Ont., as having worked in Canada to aid the victims of the 2004 tsunami, being an accomplished athlete and academically gifted, and having completed his electrical engineering degree on two scholarships. [Full Story]

Fredrick the Great was correct; it is not in the nature of man to learn from his own mistakes; or from anybody else’s for that matter. The Tigers would not have had to face so much international odium if they did not engage in child conscription. The LTTE was banned by the EU and Canada mainly because of its use of child soldiers; it is facing UN sanctions solely due to that crime. Whatever the military gains from child conscription, these are obviously dwarfed by its heavy political costs.

Child conscription is not just an abomination; as the experience of the LTTE demonstrates, it is the kind of stupid crime that boomerangs on the criminal. This self-evident truth should have motivated anti-Tiger Tamils to steer clear of such destructive and self-destructive practices. Unfortunately there are indications that Col. Karuna’s TMVP too is conscripting children in the cleared areas of the East. The evidence comes from, among others, two unimpeachable sources – the UTHR and the Human Rights Watch (HRW).

During the heyday of the Third Peace Process (when many ‘patriots’ were silent), these two organisations, through their publications, exposed the crimes of the LTTE, including child conscription and political assassinations. Their persistent efforts helped change international public opinion about the Tigers, by revealing the bloody reality behind the alluring façade of the Nordic Peace. When organisations with such impeccable credentials accuse either the regime or some anti-Tiger Tamil party of a misdeed, it is not possible to airily dismiss these as ‘enemy propaganda’. [Full Story]

UNICEF has recorded 5956 abductions carried out by the LTTE for forced recruitment between January 2002 and December 2006, with 1012 of these being children under the age of 15 years which is considered a war crime, stated the Sri Lankan United National Association of Canada(SLUNA), in its latest press release, on 27th January.

The association, a dedicated body in the Human Rights field internationally, revealed these stunning figures in its brief media release as a reply to the HRW report dated 24th January, 2007.

The full text of the press release follows.

We wish to state at the outset that we have applauded the previous research and reports of the Human Rights Watch organization on the mass scale abduction and child recruitment by the internationally designated terrorist group known as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), and their extortion of members of the Tamil Diaspora in Canada and other Western countries to launch their final war to establish their mono-ethnic Tamil separate state in the north and east of Sri Lanka. We have been most impressed by the fearlessness and genuine interest of the key members of HRW in safeguarding the human rights of all individuals and especially that of children who are more susceptible to abuse. [Full Story]

Sri Lanka rejected yesterday allegations by a human rights group that its security forces supported recruitment of child soldiers, but pledged an “independent” probe into the charges.

The government said New York-based Human Rights Watch lacked evidence to backup its allegations of military support for enlisting child soldiers, relying instead on “unsubstantiated” claims from a UN official. [Full Story]

Former LTTE commander, and the TMVP leader, has said that the LTTE led by Velupillai Prabhakaran cannot win the war in Sri Lanka even if God helps him. In an interview to the Sinhala language TV channel Derana on Thursday, the TMVP leader said Prabhakaran's outfit, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), was losing internal strength and outside support and had got isolated from the world, which had dubbed it a terrorist organisation.

Denies recruiting children
Denies recruiting children accused by the United Nations and the donor countries for abducting children and training them to be soldiers in his anti terrorist wing, the Politician turned former terrorist asserted: "We do not recruit children. Nor will we ever do it."

He said that he had offered to prove to UNICEF that he had no child soldiers.

"We do not need to recruit children as we do not have a large fighting force. We have a small number purely for self defence," he explained.

The TMVP leader claimed that he had opposed child recruitment when he was in the LTTE and that he had left the LTTE because Prabhakaran was recruiting children. [Full Story]

January 26, 2007
The Editor (Letters)
THE OTTAWA CITIZEN
Sir:
Re: Rock accused of consorting with Tamil terrorists

Apparently former Liberal Justice Minister and Attorney General Allan Rock is the target of an apparent smear campaign as he prepares to address the UN Security Council panel on child abductions and soldiers in Sri Lanka.

Allan Rock was an unfortunate choice to begin with for this ten day assignment in Sri Lanka knowing his bias towards the Tamil Tigers as a former Liberal parliamentarian. He hit the skids the very moment he accepted this assignment from Radhika Coomaraswamy, the UN envoy for Children and Armed conflict, an ethnic Tamil herself. [Full Story]

Sri Lanka rejected on Friday allegations by a human rights group that its security forces supported recruitment of child soldiers, but pledged an “independent” probe into the charges.

The government said New York-based Human Rights Watch lacked evidence to backup its allegations of military support for enlisting child soldiers, relying instead on “unsubstantiated” claims from a UN official.

Human Rights Watch released a 100-page report on Wednesday accusing the military of collaborating with a breakaway rebel faction to recruit children in its battle against main rebel group the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). The report cited UN special representative Allan Rock who accused in November the breakaway faction known as the “Karuna group” of rounding up youngsters to be enlisted. [Full Story]

Sri Lanka today rejected New York based Human Rights Watch allegation that government’s security forces are supporting the recruitment of child soldiers by the Karuna faction.

The Sri Lankan government peace Secretariat said that Human Rights Watch lacked evidence to backup its allegations of military support for enlisting child soldiers, relying instead on unsubstantiated claims from a UN official. [Full Story]

SL Defence Ministry officials say that the government will take serious note on the allegations leveled off by the HRW against the Security Forces. The officials further assert that the investigations are already on progress since UN special representative Allen Rock made similar allegations last year. However, the government has found no concrete evidence to prove any of the charges made either by Allen Rock or by HRW so far.

US based Human Rights Watch today (Wednesday the 24th of January) has charged the security forces with aiding the Karuna faction for forcibly recruiting the child soldiers. A report issued by the organizations says, at least 200 children had been abducted during 2006, in the Eastern Province. However, the organization suspects the actual number is at least three times higher as majority of the incidents has not been reported. It says that the Karuna group has also recruited hundreds of men between 18-30 years. [Full Story]

Leader of the Karuna faction, Vinayagamoorthi Muralidharan alias Karuna denies abducting children to recruit as child soldiers.

In an interview with the BBC Tamil Section, Karuna was responding to the allegations levelled against his group by the Human Rights Watch.

"We totally deny this; because we have no necessity to abduct children or increase the strength of our forces by inducting them", he said.

Karuna said they have an armed force of a limited number which is for self-protection.

This force is to protect Karuna cadres and its political wing activists from the "murderous attacks by the LTTE", he said.

"So there is no need for us to increase this strength", Karuna said.

He said LTTE which is facing severe cadre shortage is indulging in child recruitment.

Saying it is wrong to level such accusations against them, Karuna said his cadres are not colluding with the government forces in child conscription.

There is no need for the army to get children conscripted in our ranks, as the army is also in a strong position at present, Karuna added.

Govt.reaction
Defence spokesman, Minister Keheliya Rambukwella reacting to the Human Rights Watch report said government has begun an investigation into the alleged accusations.

Asked certain elements of the army had been involved and colluded with Karuna faction in child recruitment, Minister Rambukwella said he could not comment until investigations are over.

When told that Human Rights Watch also asking the government to close down camps belonging to Karuna group which are operating in government controlled areas, he said action will be taken if investigation reveals if there are any.

Referring to UN special representative, Allan Rock's report which is similar to the findings of the Human Rights Watch, Minister Rambukwella said government is still waiting for credible evidence as cited by Allan Rock to investigate. [Full Story]

SL Defence Ministry officials say that the government will take serious note on the allegations leveled off by the HRW against the Security Forces. The officials further assert that the investigations are already on progress since UN special representative Allen Rock made similar allegations last year. However, the government has found no concrete evidence to prove any of the charges made either by Allen Rock or by HRW so far.

US based Human Rights Watch today (Wednesday the 24th of January) has charged the security forces with aiding the Karuna faction for forcibly recruiting the child soldiers. A report issued by the organizations says, at least 200 children had been abducted during 2006, in the Eastern Province. However, the organization suspects the actual number is at least three times higher as majority of the incidents has not been reported. It says that the Karuna group has also recruited hundreds of men between 18-30 years.

The 100-page report said areas where the Karuna abductions took place were "firmly under government control, with myriad military and police checkpoints and security force camps."

"No armed group could engage in such large-scale abductions, and then hold and train the abductees for combat in established camps, without government knowledge and at least tacit support," it said.

Commenting on the above allegations the ministry officials explained that the HRW has not analyzed the actual situation in the Eastern Province. It should be noted that unlike in the Northern Province, there were no clear-cut boundaries between LTTE dominated areas and the government controlled areas in the Eastern Province. Before the ceasefire, the outfit was absorbed in to the community that distinction between the LTTE cadres and the ordinary civilians had been an extremely strenuous task for the law enforcement authorities. [Full Story]

Five Tamil teenagers abducted by a Tamil militant group were handed over to the police in Sri Lanka by the ICRC.

Polonnaruwa SSP, Jayantha Wickramasinghe, told BBC Sandeshaya that the five youths were kept in a training camp in an unidentified location by a "terrorist organisation". [Full Story]

The Tiger guerrilla bases captured by the Special Task Force (STF) in this week’s operation in the Kanjikudichchi Aru jungles were used as their main base for operating tax collection, training and military operations, according to the STF.

Seventeen bases that had dominated the Kanchikudichchi Aru area in the Ampara district have now been brought under control of the STF. Combing operations in the surrounding areas are in progress to rid the area of rebel activities.

...
STF intelligence reports indicated that LTTE cadres from these camps were involved in the forcible recruitment of children from areas such as Thirukkovil, Sagama and Kolavil.

The reports indicated that the tuition class, comprising 23 children and 2 teachers who were abducted and later released were detained at one of these bases in Kanchikudichchi Aru

Sinhalese who predominate the villages of Siyambalanduwa, Lahugala, Hulannuge, Bakmitiyawa, Pannalgama and Manthottama have been under continuous threat from the rebels. On many occasions these hapless people were forced to make payment to the LTTE. [Full Story]

Vaharai is a humiliating defeat for the Tigers and a significant triumph for the state and the government of Sri Lanka (and Col. Karuna’s TMVP). However Vaharai is not the end of the Fourth Eelam War or the end of the LTTE. That is one very good reason why our reaction to the victory in Vaharai should not be a repetition of our reaction to the Sampoor victory. Post-Sampoor we succumbed to the sin of Hubris; Sampoor made us arrogant towards Tamils and the world, intolerant of dissent and criticism and disinclined to devolve power. The result was a loss of support for the Lankan cause in the international arena (it also led to the debacle of Muhamalai).

...
Currently our approach to this critically important report consists of celebrating the anti-Tiger parts while ignoring the clauses which are unfavourable to us. We have publicised the strictures on the LTTE and ignored/downplayed the strictures on us. This is what the Tigers used to do, whenever the UN or some other international player criticised their anti-civilisational activities such as child conscription. That method, while helping to submerge the problem in the short term, brought them proscriptions in the medium term and may bring them UN sanctions in the near future. [Full Story]

Sri Lanka’s Defense spokesman and cabinet minister attacked United Nation’s diplomat and former Canadian Liberal Party minister Alan Rock for failing to adopt an inquiry procedure “which is not up to internationally accepted methodologies” before accusing Sri Lankan security forces about child soldiers.

Defense spokesman Keheliya Rambukwella’s statement accusing the ultra-liberal Canadian politician was published in the government’s Defense Ministry website with a photograph of Alan Rock taken years before with colleagues of Waterloo Suresh who was arrested by US authorities following a sting operation for materially supporting a banned terrorist organization , the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) or Tamil Tigers.

Though the Defense spokesman did not say anything about Waterloo Suresh and Alan Rock, a Sunday English newspaper, that published the photograph originally January 14 , said Allan Rock was involved with the terrorist group for whose benefit Rock has brought out those UN accusations and alleged the diplomat of friendship with the terrorist group. [Full Story]

There is an important role for internationally funded relief agencies, in conflicts like Sri Lanka's. Powerful foreign governments have no less a role. Their assistance in conflict resolution and humanitarian aid cannot be stressed more. But at what cost? Where must independent countries draw the line when interference moves beyond humanitarian concern? It must certainly be at a level far earlier than the Rajapaksa government is willing to believe it timely.

...
In a global economic scenario where natural resources of developing countries attract greater 'humanitarian' interest towards them, Germany has a less than desirable record. Its interest in Congo is sharply attributed to the countries rich reserves in diamonds, gold and copper. The involvement of German buisinessman Karl-Heinz Albers has been under serious scrutiny in this regard. In fact he was accused by the United Nations as one of the main financiers of the rebels. It is reported that he was instrumental in paying as much as US$ 250,000 monthly to the Congonese rebels to fund his mining operations. The German government stands accused of ignoring the allegations despite its knowledge of the use of child soldiers to provide security to these mines. [Full Story]

Gripped with fear and anxiety, a group of young child soldiers-to-be, who surrendered to the Special Task Force (STF) following the fall of a key LTTE base in Ampara, made a fervent appeal to be reunited with their families once again.

“We want to go home,” was the quick reply to a question raised by the media from five young boys aged between 16 and 20 dressed in plain black T-shirts and shorts. They were presented at the weekly defence news briefing in Colombo yesterday.

The young boys, all residents of Tirukkovil, Ampara, were allegedly abducted by the LTTE during last year and held at the rebel camps in Ampara. According to one youth there were some 70 child soldiers undergoing training at the camp at the time the five boys were abducted out of whom 20 managed to flee.

“We never joined. We were abducted. We feel safe now,” 18 year old Murugan* said adding that he was abducted by a group of rebel cadres who tricked him to come out of his home by calling for assistance to move a damaged vehicle. The five escapees said they were not given weapons training but instead had to undergo strenuous physical training and were also tortured and brutally assaulted every time they made an attempt to escape the clutches of the LTTE.

“Our parents don’t know we managed to escape. If we were not abducted we will still be studying,” * 16 year old Parameshwaram* said. [Full Story]

Defence Spokesman Hon. Minister Keheliya Rambukwella stated that the much publicized KANJIKUDICHCHIARU Bases inclusive of the "Stanley Base" did not offer the resistance expected when the STF overran it during Operation "Niyathai Jaya". Today (17), altogether 17 LTTE 'satellite' bases have been captured. It was from this complex complete with torture chambers, ammunition and explosive dumps, generators, trucks, etc the LTTE engaged in terrorizing the area with forcible conscription of children and youth the last being when they abducted two teachers and 23 children in December returning from extra classes. 114 youth boycotted the GCE 'O' level in protest.

...
The capture of the Kanjikudichchiaru complex exposed the fact that the LTTE had continued to terrorize the entire area, through child conscription, torture, human and narcotics smuggling and other illegal activities. The LTTE had also begun the cultivation of "Cannabis" and was collecting the harvest for export as a revenue earner after failing its objectives of re-opening the A-9 road for extortion. [Full Story]

In an open appeal to the people and leaders of Tamil Nadu, TULF leader V. Anandasangaree, has called on them to set aside prejudices deliberately created by the LTTE not only against the Sinhalese but also against the democratic Tamil parties and groups. He has urged them to approach the resolution for the ethnic problem with an open mind and persuade the LTTE to stop its killings of Tamils, mainly aimed at provoking communal riots.

...
"The LTTE has lost its credibility to speak for the Tamils of Sri Lanka, by its atrocious activities perpetrated on innocent Tamil Civilians who are living like slaves, for several years surrounded by constant fear and tension. The recklessness, with which the LTTE cadres act, is the main cause for the large scale displacement of people from their homes. Those who can afford have fled to foreign countries and some others moved to India, although getting into LTTE held areas is much easier than taking a risk and leaving by boat to India. All those who go to India are not simply refugees. They want their children to be saved from being enrolled as child soldiers and also want their children educated, which facilities are denied to them due to regular demonstrations and protest marches in which children are compelled to participate. Calls for frequent "Hartals" by the LTTE upset normal life. The Tamil people in Sri Lanka are now convinced that a separate Tamil State is not at all possible and that the LTTE can never succeed in getting it. The LTTE may be reluctant to concede this obvious fact." [Full Story]

The elite Special Task Force (STF) troops gained control over another LTTE strategic base at Kangikadaichi Aru, Ampara on Tuesday the 16th of January.

The SL security forces launched a "Defensive Military Operation", on the boarders of Batticaloa and Ampara, beyond the perimeters of the un-liberated areas. Initial reports from Ampara said, the captured terrorist base was stocked with looted humanitarian aids, sent in provision for the thousands stranded in the tensed eastern frontier.

Meanwhile, military sources revealed that chambers used for torturing of innocent civilians and child soldiers were also discovered, within the LTTE base premises. [Full Story]

Taking orders from their Commandant DIG Nimal Lewke dressed in jungle fatigues who was personally present at the forefront of the forest fighters, victorious elite commandos of the Special Task force of the Police bagged two more small Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) military garrisons in the thick jungles of the Ampara District, Monday in the besieged Eastern Province of Sri Lanka.

...
The LTTE who operated from these Sri Lankan Eastern Province jungle garrisons in contrast killed thousands of people and kidnapped thousands of Tamil children to be trained as child soldiers in those abominable jungle hideouts . Signs are there they felled acres and acres of trees in those virgin forest reserves to raise funds for war. [Full Story]

TULF leader V. Anandasangaree has asked Tamil Nadu to act with care and caution in its dealings with the Sri Lankan ethnic problem and not allow its people to be swayed by the emotional speeches of local politicians ignoring their negative fall out in Sri Lanka.

In an open letter to the leaders and people of Tamil Nadu Sangaree said Tamil Nadu can play a balanced constructive role between the national interest of India and the basic aspirations of the Tamils in Sri Lanka.

...
"Those who could afford, have fled to foreign countries and some others moved to India. All those who go to India are not simply refugees. They want their children to be saved from being enroled as child soldiers and also like to have their children educated which facilities are denied to them due to regular demonstrations and protest marches in which children are compelled to participate. [Full Story]

Sri Lankan children are being abducted to fight as soldiers in the bloody island conflict by separatist Tamil Tiger rebels and a breakaway group known as the Karuna faction, the Secretary-General has warned in his latest report to the Security Council, calling for an immediate end to the practice and recommending “targeted measures” in response.

Commenting on the report, which was issued today along with another dealing with the problem in Nepal, the Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict Radhika Coomaraswamy, said both documents show the ongoing attempt by the world body to end the global scourge of recruiting children as soldiers, along with other violations of children in times of conflict. [Full Story]

Torture chambers allegedly used by Tamil Tigers to punish escaping rebels and informers, including women fighters, have been found at guerrilla camps in eastern Sri Lanka, the Defense Ministry said.

The camps were uncovered by a Special Task Force, comprising of specially trained anti-terrorist commandoes who last week seized control of four rebel bases and seven smaller camps in the eastern Ampara district, the Media Center for National Security said in a report posted on its Web site late Monday.

At one of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam camps ``torture chambers and lockups were established to torture escapees and informers including women cadres,'' it said.

The alleged torture cells were small, said the report, adding that ``many of the surrendered LTTE child cadres have repeatedly revealed the harassment meted out to them by the LTTE if they are caught escaping.'' [Full Story]

TST: There is a misconception that the UN Security Council, which is concerned with international peace and security, is taking up the issue of Sri Lanka and child soldiers thereby "internationalizing" our problem. How valid is this? And isn't the upcoming meeting only a meeting of the Working Group, not a meeting of the Security Council?

P.K: The upcoming meeting now scheduled for February, and not January 15, is NOT a meeting of the Security Council. It is a meeting of the Security Council Working Group on Children and Armed Conflict. The Working Group, chaired by France, is composed of all members of the Council, and was established pursuant to SC Resolution 1612 of 26 July 2005. The Working Group meets in closed session to: Review the reports of the monitoring and reporting mechanism (MRM) referred to in paragraph 3 of resolution 1612 (2005); review progress in the development and implementation of the action plans mentioned in paragraph 5 (a) of resolution 1539 (2004) and paragraph 7 of resolution 1612 (2005);consider other relevant information presented to it; make recommendations to the Council on possible measures to promote the protection of children affected by armed conflict, including recommendations on appropriate mandates for peacekeeping missions and recommendations with respect to parties to the conflict and address requests, as appropriate, to other bodies within the United Nations system for action to support implementation of Security Council resolution 1612 (2005) in accordance with their respective mandates.

The monitoring and reporting mechanism seeks to monitor six grave abuses, namely; killing or maiming of children; recruiting or using child soldiers; attacks against schools or hospitals; rape or other grave sexual violence against children; abduction of children; and denial of humanitarian access for children.

The situation of Children and Armed Conflict in Sri Lanka is being considered by the Working Group because the LTTE was one of the parties listed in the Secretary-General's Report on Children and Armed Conflict since 2005 as a party committing grave violations against children.

The UN deals with member States and not with non-state actors. Therefore, the Working Group cannot consider a report regarding violations committed by a non-state actor, in isolation of the member State in which the non-state actor operates. Thus the consideration of the situation of Children and Armed Conflict in Sri Lanka. However, this does not mean that Sri Lanka situation in general has come under Security Council agenda, and it has not. [Full Story]

In one of the biggest blows to the internationally banned Tamil Tigers the UN Secretary-General’s report on Sri Lanka has recommended that that “targeted measures be undertaken against LTTE political and military leadership” for violations of children’s rights.

...
The full text of the recommendation published exclusively in the Asian Tribune reads: “Although limited progress has been made in the release of some children from the LTTE over the last three years, the LTTE’s refusal to completely cease recruitment and use of children, release all children remaining on the UNICEF database, and engage in transparent procedures for release and verification of demobilization merits that targeted measures be undertaken against LTTE political and military leadership.” [Full Story]

In a report to be presented to the United Nations Security Council, "The Island", reported Saturday (13) United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon has for the first time recommended "targeted measures" against the LTTE political and military leadership due to the group’s continued refusal to completely cease the recruitment and use of children.

The report further says, 'although limited progress has bean made in the release of some children from the LTTE over the last three years, LTTE's refusal to completely cease recruitment and use of children, release all children remaining on the UNICEF database and engage in transparent procedures for release and verification of demobilization, merits that targeted measures be undertaken against LTTE political and military leadership.". [Full Story]

The LTTE has once again reneged on a pledge - this time made to Allan Rock - to release all children from their ranks, Human Rights Minister Mahinda Samarasinghe said yesterday (Saturday the 13th of January).

Rock, envoy of the UN Secretary General's Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, Radhika Coomaraswamy, said after a visit late last year that the LTTE had promised to "work with UNICEF, commencing immediately, to accelerate the release from their ranks of all children..."

He said the LTTE had pledged to complete this process by January 1, 2007. They had also committed to better training for their military commanders in relation to recruitment, and a process of discipline for those who do not comply.

"Nobody is talking about this," Samarasinghe said in an interview. "The LTTE has not kept its promise and it's incumbent on the international community to call their bluff. There must be some mechanism to see monitor the Tigers. It's not the first time they have promised to release all child recruits. This is typical of them." [Full Story]

Three LTTE fugitives surrendered to the Security Forces this morning (Thursday the 11th of January) said that the LTTE is running a concentration camp for child soldiers at Iralaikulam in Batticaloa.

The three youth aged between 17 to 23 years arrived at the Army roadblock at Mavadivembu in Batticaloa around 7.45a.m. The youths further revealed that they had been abducted by the LTTE during the first week of January and were forced to join the terror outfit.

One of the fugitive who was also an underage LTTE rookie told defence.lk , that he had to risk his life fleeing the LTTE camp in which he had to undergo unbearable torment.

"There were over 50 other children in the camp who had been abducted by the LTTE and forcibly given military training" he added. [Full Story]

Reports that the LTTE has computerised its 'national registry', while reading 'anti-national' from the standpoint of the Sri Lankan State, should be welcome, however. If and when completed, it would possibly for the first time that the LTTE would have undertaken a head-count of the kind in the areas under its control. In turn, this could provide the base and the material for future verifications whenever the question of 'Tamil population' under the LTTE's control and 'rule' became a debatable issue in any peace negotiations for power-devolution.

...
For all this, however, the Government's charge that the LTTE would be freely recruiting child-soldiers when the SLMM monitors were away at Colombo is serious. It is ironical that the very same SLMM should have come under attack from the LTTE and near-boycott after European Union nations forming part of the monitoring mission banned the militant outfit. It's anybody's guess if the LTTE's computerised 'national register' would identify 'child soldiers' as such otherwise. [Full Story]

Two renegade child soldiers of the LTTE terrorist outfit surrendered to the security forces at Polwatta, Valachchena- Batticaloa, on Saturday, the 06th of January at 04:00 p.m.

The two child soldiers are said to be residents at Sittandikudi area. They confessed that the LTTE has abducted them a few months ago in the same area.

The surrendered child soldiers revealed that they have undergone combat training for three months in the Thoppigala, Illuppadichena camp.

The boys further said that they decided to runaway as they couldn't bear the brutal training and harassment of the LTTE. It was further revealed that these child soldiering farms were used to fulfil the sexual desires of the senior LTTE members.

These underage boys and girls exposed to prolonged sexual abuses, as a result are believed to suffer from traumatic stresses, whereas the International community is urged to pressurise the terrorist outfit to except the norms of children rights and renounce violence immediately. [Full Story]

THREE TIGERS, VIJAYAKUMAR (23), K SADEESHWARAN (17) and ROJAN (18) who were under military training at an LTTE Training camp surrendered to the MAVEDIVEMBU Army road block due to the unbearable cruelty they had undergone.

They had been kidnapped by the LTTE and forcibly taken to a camp in KARADIYANARU area and given a military training.

Since the signing of the Ceasefire Agreement (22.2.2002), 554 (officially reported to authorities) LTTE members have surrendered to the Security Forces and the Police.

The surrender of these three LTTE members due to the cruel and inhuman treatment they had experienced may be a frequent occurrence. However, in the light of the LTTE boast to the International community that they do not conscript child soldiers rings hollow and is only confined to words. [Full Story]

Three surrendered LTTE soldiers who were abducted and conscripted freshly to the LTTE guerilla army including a minor said the Tamil Tiger garrison run at Iralaikulam in the besieged Batticaloa District of the Eastern Province in Sri Lanka have about fifty more fresly conscripted child soldiers.

A 17 year old child soldier who surrendered said there were over fifty child soldiers at the camp undergoing military training at the moment.

All three who surrendered to a Sri Lanka Army roadblock post at Mavedivembu in Batticaloa were not children except one, and the group was between the ages of 17 and 23. The three youth who arrived at the road block at 7.45 a.m. January 11 said they were abducted and conscripted during the month of January by armed guerillas of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) or Tamil Tigers as they are popularly known.

"There were over,” said the 17 year old recruit,” 50 other children in the camp who had been abducted by the LTTE and forcibly given military training"

Two of those who escaped from the abominable Tiger garrison were young adults who were actually well employed at the time of abduction. They were employed gainfully at the Mitsui Cement Company at Trincomalee and abducted by the LTTE armed recruiters while they were on their way to visit their parents, they said.

One of them was quoted having said,"We had good jobs and never had any intention to join the LTTE and become a suicide looser. That's why I risked my life in fleeing their (LTTE) camp".

The defense sources said that three escapees are form Kalavanchikudi , Kalladi and Batticaloa town areas. The Sri Lanka Army said steps were being taken to hand over the three conscripts to their parents.

The LTTE denied having recruited any children for military purposes.

The defense sources further revealed that 554 LTTE cadres have surrendered to the security forces since the year 2002. [Full Story]

Three LTTE fugitives surrendered to the Security Forces this morning (Thursday the 11th of January) said that the LTTE is running a concentration camp for child soldiers at Iralaikulam in Batticaloa.

The three youth aged between 17 to 23 years arrived at the Army roadblock at Mavadivembu in Batticaloa around 7.45a.m. The youths further revealed that they had been abducted by the LTTE during the first week of January and were forced to join the terror outfit.

One of the fugitive who was also an underage LTTE rookie told defence.lk , that he had to risk his life fleeing the LTTE camp in which he had to undergo unbearable torment.

"There were over 50 other children in the camp who had been abducted by the LTTE and forcibly given military training" he added.

It is further revealed that two of the three fugitives were employees of Mitisui Cement Company, Trincomalee and were abducted while they were on their way to see their parents.

"We had good jobs and never had any intention to join the LTTE and become a suicide looser. That's why I risked my life in fleeing their (LTTE) camp" one of the youths told defence.lk.

The defence sources said that three fugitives are from Kalavanchikudi , Kalladi and Batticaloa town areas. The steps are being taken to hand over the surrenders to their parents.

The sources further revealed that 554 LTTE cadres have surrendered to the security forces since the year 2002. [Full Story]

Allan Rock, the Special Advisor to the UN Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, on a flying visit lasting ten days covering areas far apart as Colombo, Ampara, Batticaloa, Kilinochchi and Jaffna, has naively rushed to conclusions, making wild accusations of complicity by members of Sri Lanka’s Security Forces in the abduction and forced conscription of underage children by the Karuna Group which broke away from the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in 2004, on mere hearsay presented to him.

...
The SLMM now claims that they too were aware of cooperation between the beak-away Karuna faction and the security forces, even though they did not raise the issue until now for reasons not given. The recent faux pas where the SLMM representative in Batticaloa area, one Tveitan, assumed that five youth who had been abducted had been taken by by Karuna’s men, where he sought the help of the Sri Lanka Army to have them released, only to find that the LTTE were the real culprits, as one of the abductees had later been released following the intervention by a senior LTTE cadre, is a case in point, that clearly shows the bias and incompetence of the SLMM. Whilst Rock’s main mission should have been to deal with the LTTE’s continued abduction of under age children and using them as frontline soldiers including suicide attacks, strangely, he was side- tracked by the SLMM and the Dollar scrounging foreign funded NGOs’ that are pretending to agitate for peace by attempting to vilify the government and prop up the terrorists.

Rock made some scanty remarks about the LTTE’s child recruitment referring to their assurance of taking steps to release all of their child soldiers by January 2007, whereas the LTTE has scoffed at the UN despite their earlier undertaking to take similar measures as per their pledge given to the UN’s Special Representative, Mr. Olara Otunnu. UNICEF went on to grant Rupees 30 million to the Tamil Rehabilitation Organization ( which is an arm of the LTTE that funnels funds raised for supposed humanitarian work towards weapons procurement ) for construction of a few shabby half-way homes costing a fraction of the grant, which remained unoccupied, as only a token lot of children numbering around 35 were released at the outset and none thereafter. [Full Story]

The Police Special Task Force (STF) personnel captured a huge terrorist camp named "Stanley Base" located in Kangikadaichi Aru in Ampara this afternoon (Monday the 8th of September).

The STF sources said the terrorists having failed to withstand the STF's retaliatory thrust, deserted the camp leaving most of their belongings. The marching STF personnel entered into the " Stanley" base's parameters around 2.p.m and presently consolidating their defences in the area.

...
Further, the camp has been used to hoard abducted children from various areas in the Eastern province and to train them to be suicide bombers.

Two sub camps, an Intelligence cell, a large warehouse filled with dry rations that had been robbed from aid convoys, a circuit bungalow were also found in the area. [Full Story]

"Killings of innocent people are major part of the campaign of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. My deputy was also gunned down by the LTTE. That was the first time I saw such a horrible killing. We need Australian support for bringing LTTE to the negotiation table. It can be done only by blocking the funding to the LTTE which is channeled through its Tamil Diaspora" Dr Palitha Kohona said.
...
On addressing the Australian Parliament on 16 June 2006 Senator Steve Hutchins said" "Acts of Violence are not the actions of a group seriously attempting to consolidate peace. These actions are the actions of cold-blooded killers who are not interested in bringing to a conclusion the conflict that is tearing their country apart. If they were serious ,there would be no child soldiers, no suicide bomb attacks on civilians and no assassinations of members of the government”. [Full Story]

The Sri Lankan Special Task Force (STF) this evening captured a LTTE main camp known as ‘Stanley base’ in Kanjikudichcharu in the Ampara district and recovered a quantity of arms and ammunition.

Military Spokesman Brigadier Prasad Samarasinghe revealing this to the media said that LTTE has used this camp as a base to open fire at many places around this area causing heavy threats to the security and the civil lives.

A STF spokesman said that four STF personnel were wounded in the fighting and a search is underway to find the Tigers who had escaped into the jungle.

A Tiger spokesman however denied the government claim although confirmed a battle in the area.

Media Centre for National Security said that capture of the camp is considered as a significant and a strategic step forward as the Tiger terrorists were posing severe threat at the security forces from this camp. Continuous targeting of the security forces position in the area by the LTTE provoked the STF to clear the area and bring it under their control.

It is also reported that LTTE was housing a large number of child soldiers conscripted by them in this camp. [Full Story]

The elite commando forces of the Sri Lanka Police , the Special Task Force overran one of the largest Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) jungle bases in the besieged Eastern Province of Sri Lanka that has been also widely used as a combat training center for child soldiers. The large base named Stanley was successfully captured by the special Task force when cadres of the LTTE decided to abandon it after a pitched battle with the police Special Task Force (STF).

The STF said three of their men sustained injuries in the battle and were admitted to Ampara Hospital. Camp Stanley, named after a military leader of the LTTE is at Kanjikudichcharu in the Ampara District ( coordinates 7. 10-12N, 81.46-48 E)and the take over by the STF happened at 2 p.m. January 8 , the Ministry of Defense said. A spokesmand said, Stanley, the leader after whom the base is named was also among the people who fled. Independent reports show that the LTTE is severely hampered by a severe shortage of manpower in the area. [Full Story]

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) or the Tamil Tigers as they are popularly known are believed to be facing the final onslaught by the security forces of the Sri Lankan government barely clinging on to the few square miles of land at Vakarai, in the Eastern theatre of war in Sri Lanka.

As Sri Lanka Air Force fighter jets have started pounding their main supply base of Mulativu intelligence reports show the main weakness facing them today is a severe shortage of man power which they unsuccessfully attempt to correct by child recruits whom they try to send through a crash inapt guerilla training in their jungle camps.

Many years ago, with the help of India, the Tamil separatist forces were controlling vast areas of the Eastern province but lost all that support altogether after they decided to assassinate scion of the Nehru dynasty in India , former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, by a suicide bomber.

Thereafter they lost their popular support in the area when their own Eastern Province leader, Vinayagamoorthy Muralidharan, popular known as Karuna left them and decided to attack them instead the Sri Lankan security forces which was his target earlier. [Full Story]

South Asia, which extends from the Hindu Kush to the Malay Peninsula, is a region full of turmoil. This area has experienced a series of conventional and low-intensity conflicts after World War II. Rather than pre-colonial or colonial legacies, the issues behind these conflicts are traceable to the post-colonial era. Rob Johnson analyses the nature

...
Transnational links among the insurgents and the use of child soldiers are the chief characteristics of south Asian intra-state wars. In Sri Lanka, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam is conducting a guerrilla campaign for an independent eelam in the Jaffna peninsula. Most of the LTTE fighters are children and 40 per cent are girls. The LTTE acquires arms from Philippines and Pakistan. [Full Story]

The print media reported that the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) plans to curtail its monitoring activities for a "short period" as it re-groups and reconsiders its operations in the wake of continuing hostilities between the government troops and the LTTE.

Apart from the PA, UNP, SLMC and the TNA, the other main political parties, namely the JHU, the JVP and all other patriotic Sri Lankans want the SLMM to pack up and go as its presence in Sri Lanka in this conflict had done more harm than good.

It's a well known fact that from day one of the establishment of the SLMM under the CFA, it has been mollycoddling the LTTE terrorist outfit, ignoring and whitewashing the thousands of atrocities committed including murders, abductions, recruiting child soldiers etc. There are many instances where the SLMM had been very quick in making erroneous statements against the legitimate government. [Full Story]

The SL Defence sources vehemently decline pro-LTTE efforts to entertain a forged accusation of a civilian catastrophe in Mannar, seeking International sympathy to smother the worsening ground situation in the North and East against the terror outfit.

It is believed that the civilians claimed injured were those forcibly held under the LTTE captivity, used for fatigue work. Many are believed to be fishery folks, forced to provide labour in the barren stretch of land. Dozens of women and children are also believed to be further confined in petite spaces with worst living conditions of any nature.

Military officials state that the precision air strikes on Tuesday(02), has caused grave damages to the LTTE and these sudden misinformation campaigns are used to conceal the true facts of its existing child soldiering farms in Mannar.

Thus, the International community must urge the LTTE to facilitate humanitarian organisations and independent media sources from gaining verified claim from the area.

Women and children were believed held captive in human farms, while the males provided labour through hardships in the military construction sites of the LTTE. [Full Story]

The government yesterday accused the LTTE of recruiting children again on a mass scale in the absence of the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) which had curtailed its operations in the North and East to regroup in Colombo.

Government Defense spokesman Keheliya Rambukwelle said the SLMM was considering moving its operations from the conflict affected areas to Colombo owing to security concerns and had suggested operating a ‘rapid deployment force’ from the city.

“We have intelligence reports that the LTTE is carrying out mass scale child soldier recruitment in the absence of the SLMM,” Minister Rambukwelle said.

The monitors have curtailed their district operations and told the government peace secretariat (SCOPP) on Sunday that their mandate under the CFA signed in 2001 was to record violations and not monitor claymore mine explosions or fighting between government troops and the LTTE.

“They told us they are here, for example if a cow is stolen by a neighbour, to report that. I am not exaggerating. That is what they said. They also said there is a security risk for the monitors because of landmines and claymore mines,” Minister Rambukwelle told the weekly defense media conference yesterday. [Full Story]

A 16-year-old school student from a Colombo school has escaped from a LTTE training camp and surrendered to the Kiran Army camp today around 6.45 AM.

The Sri Lankan military said the teenager is a resident of Karthivu, Ampara, and had studied at Kotahena Hindu Central College. According to his statement, he had been kidnapped while on his way to a G.C.E. examination centre on November 8.

The boy had received weapons training at a Tiger camp in Karadiyanaru. [Full Story]