10-11-2003, 06:30 AM
<span style='font-size:25pt;line-height:100%'>Tamil Tigers deny abducting child soldiers</span>By Stephen Cunningham
GLENCREE, Ireland (Reuters) - Tamil Tiger rebels on Friday denied accusations by the United Nations children's charity that they have been abducting children to join their fight for a separate state.
As they put the finishing touches to proposals to kickstart the stalled Sri Lankan peace process, the political wing of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) insisted its underage soldiers had joined up of their own free will.
"We consider these allegations to be based on wrong facts, wrong reporting, and a biased campaign of misinformation and disinformation," the group's political leader Paramu Tamilselvan told a news conference.
Earlier this week, the U.N. children's fund UNICEF said the rebel group had abducted children in eastern Sri Lanka just days after it opened a centre to return child soldiers to civilian life.
For the past week, the Tigers' political leaders have been holed up outside Dublin in talks with legal advisers and learning from the Northern Ireland peace process.
Despite signing a Norwegian-brokered ceasefire 19 months ago, the Tigers -- notorious for using children as young as 10 in their fight for a separate state -- have been accused of continuing to recruit children.
UNICEF monitors overseeing the truce reported the abductions in Valachchenai, 230 km east of Colombo.
Tamilselvan denied this and said many children would have nowhere else to go if they were forced to leave the group after losing family members in two decades of ethnic war.
"If the organisation throws them out onto the street, they would become subject to various abuses. We don't want that to happen," he said.
"The people accusing us of recruiting child soldiers... have not really gone to the root cause of the children's sense of being pushed to enroll themselves in the liberation fighting organisation, and what made them decide of their own free will and volition to become freedom fighters," he added.
Officials of the rebel group said a response to a government proposal on power-sharing in the north and east of the island nation would be finalised before the end of the month.
Direct talks, which LTTE abandoned in April after being excluded from an aid meeting in Washington, are expected to start after that, though no firm date has yet been set.
Around 64,000 people were killed in the 19-year fight for a separate state before last year's truce.
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GLENCREE, Ireland (Reuters) - Tamil Tiger rebels on Friday denied accusations by the United Nations children's charity that they have been abducting children to join their fight for a separate state.
As they put the finishing touches to proposals to kickstart the stalled Sri Lankan peace process, the political wing of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) insisted its underage soldiers had joined up of their own free will.
"We consider these allegations to be based on wrong facts, wrong reporting, and a biased campaign of misinformation and disinformation," the group's political leader Paramu Tamilselvan told a news conference.
Earlier this week, the U.N. children's fund UNICEF said the rebel group had abducted children in eastern Sri Lanka just days after it opened a centre to return child soldiers to civilian life.
For the past week, the Tigers' political leaders have been holed up outside Dublin in talks with legal advisers and learning from the Northern Ireland peace process.
Despite signing a Norwegian-brokered ceasefire 19 months ago, the Tigers -- notorious for using children as young as 10 in their fight for a separate state -- have been accused of continuing to recruit children.
UNICEF monitors overseeing the truce reported the abductions in Valachchenai, 230 km east of Colombo.
Tamilselvan denied this and said many children would have nowhere else to go if they were forced to leave the group after losing family members in two decades of ethnic war.
"If the organisation throws them out onto the street, they would become subject to various abuses. We don't want that to happen," he said.
"The people accusing us of recruiting child soldiers... have not really gone to the root cause of the children's sense of being pushed to enroll themselves in the liberation fighting organisation, and what made them decide of their own free will and volition to become freedom fighters," he added.
Officials of the rebel group said a response to a government proposal on power-sharing in the north and east of the island nation would be finalised before the end of the month.
Direct talks, which LTTE abandoned in April after being excluded from an aid meeting in Washington, are expected to start after that, though no firm date has yet been set.
Around 64,000 people were killed in the 19-year fight for a separate state before last year's truce.
http://www.yarl.com/forum/posting.php?mode=reply&t=459
Truth 'll prevail