Tamil Tigers deny forcing children to take up arms

[Mathivathanan]

<span style='font-size:25pt;line-height:100%'>Tamil Tigers deny forcing children to take up arms</span>
1 hour, 6 minutes ago

DUBLIN (AFP) - The political leader of Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebels has denied accusations by the UN agency for children that the group has been abducting youngsters and enrolling them in its armed forces.

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), who demand self determination in the north and east of Sri Lanka, Friday ended five days of internal talks in Ireland focusing on a power-share plan ahead of a final peace deal for the embattled South Asian island.

"We consider these allegations to be based on wrong facts, wrong reporting, and a biaised campaign of misinformation and disinformation," LTTE chief Paramu Tamilselvan told journalists at a final press conference near Dublin, referring to the UN claims.

Earlier in the week, the United Nations (news - web sites) Children's Fund (UNICEF (news - web sites)) accused the rebels of having kidnapped children in eastern Sri Lanka, only days after the UN group opened its first transit home in Sri Lanka to demobilise underage soldiers.

Tamilselvan said children who had lost their families in decades of bloody conflict were joining the Tigers on their own initiative.

"If the organisation throws them out onto the street, they would become subject to various abuses. We don't want that to happen," he added.

Tamilselvan also said that the Sri Lankan government would receive a response by the end of the month to its proposals for sharing power in the north and east of the island.

The LTTE delegation in Ireland involved 11 negotiators and support staff. Two Sri Lankan government civil servants addressed the participants as well as a number of international academics, legal and constitutional experts.

Peace negotiations were suspended in April after the Tigers accused the Sri Lankan government of failing to deliver on promises made at six rounds of talks since September last year.

LTTE claimed not enough was being done to rebuild war-ravaged parts of the northeast and demanded more of a role in the administration of reconstruction funding.

In the 1980s, the LTTE resorted to violence to achieve a separate state, Tamil Eelam, in the north and east of Sri Lanka.

A peace process was initiated in December 2001 with Norwegian government mediation. A ceasefire was negotiated that came into force in February 2002.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor...a_tamil_ireland

[Mathivathanan]

<span style='font-size:25pt;line-height:100%'>LTTE's Child Soldier Drive Gains Momentum </span>

10 October 2003

COLOMBO, Oct 10 (OneWorld) - Last week, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rebels kidnapped five schoolboys from eastern Sri Lanka, even as a new report says they have intensified their child recruitment drive, abducting children from schools and temples: making a mockery of recent efforts to rehabilitate child soldiers.

The boys were abducted along with 17 other youths, most of them aged below 20.

Ironically, the rebels also handed over 49 child soldiers to the UNICEF for rehabilitation in their new transit camp.

The boys from Valachchanai in the Eastern district of Batticoloa were abducted last Saturday while playing in the village council grounds after a tuition class.

After the abduction, parents and teachers of the abducted boys rushed to the LTTE office in Valachchanai, but the rebels denied any involvement in the incident.

This Monday, irate villagers, clergy and teachers staged a joint protest in the LTTE - controlled area.

The following day the rebels held a press conference admitting the children were with them.

Deputy leader of the LTTE's political wing in the Batticoloa district, Krishnan claimed that, "The children joined us voluntarily, we didn't abduct them."

The UNICEF office in Colombo issued a statement condemning the abduction - "The continued recruitment of children is completely unacceptable, and this type of action undermines the work and commitment of the LTTE towards making the Action Plan for Children Affected by War, a success."

But civil society groups feel UNICEF should have put the screws on the rebels much earlier.

Remarks the research officer of a leading Colombo-based nongovernmental organization, "There's strong evidence that UNICEF was aware of the major recruitment drive in the East and had proof that the LTTE had recruited nearly 1000 minors in July alone."

Most of these children were directly recruited from schools, during visits by LTTE leaders.

He adds, "Had the UNICEF exposed the rebels at that point, the LTTE would have been pressured to reduce the pace of the recruitment drive."

But as the chairman of the National Child Protection Authority (NCPA) Professor Harendra De Silva says, "We understand UNICEF's dilemma. To expose the LTTE then would have prevented the rebels from sending child combatants to the rehabilitation camp."

He condemns UNICEF in no uncertain terms, remarking that, "It has failed in its duty to take the LTTE to task, which would have prevented hundreds of children from plunging into their hands."

It appears the latter have again stepped up their recruitment drive.

In a report released this week, Sri Lankan human rights watchdog, University Teachers for Human Rights (UTHR), has slammed the LTTE, noting that, "Contrary to all expectations of the agreement signed with the UNICEF to oversee the demobilization of child soldiers, the LTTE has once again intensified its conscription programme, renewing its demand for one child per family in several eastern districts, while making aggressive intrusions upon school children in the North."

The UTHR (J) further alleges that in a new move the LTTE is targeting children attending religious festivals, a factor which is forcing parents to avoid taking children to such ceremonies.

The abducted include 14-year-old Kandasamy Kumar and 16-year-old Daniel Yogeswaran.

Kumar was abducted on September 20 while observing a religious ritual at a temple in Batticoloa. LTTE men blindfolded him and took him away.

Yogeswaran was abducted on September 9, while attending a temple festival in Eravur, Batticoloa.

Last Saturday's abduction reminded residents of Batticoloa district of a similar mass abduction in January this year, in which ten 16-year-old youths were abducted by the LTTE while returning from a tuition class.

Even the Sri Lankan army acknowledges that child recruitment continues unchecked.

Says the Officer in Charge of the Valanchanai unit, Major Berty Perera, "Abduction and recruitment of children have come to stay in the Eastern province. Since much of it occurs in LTTE-controlled areas where we lack access, no one knows the exact number of children abducted or voluntarily recruited."

He adds that, "Last week's incident received publicity because it occurred in the border of the government controlled area."

The Sri Lankan government appears to be helpless in controlling the LTTE. As Minister of Water Management, Lakshman Seneviratne, declares, "We strongly condemn the recruitment and abduction of minors by the LTTE, and request UNICEF to exercize their mandate to the maximum and put an end to it."

For his part, though, LTTE official spokesperson, Daya Master dismisses the charges against them as baseless. "We deny all the abduction charges, which are made by spoilers of the peace process. There's a strong campaign to tarnish the LTTE's image," he says.

He claims that, "Children have joined us voluntarily, and we hope to send them back to their parents through the rehabilitation program."

http://www.oneworld.net/article/view/70153/1/

[Mathivathanan]

<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.

http://www.yarl.com/forum/posting.php?mode=reply&t=459

[Mathivathanan]

HUMAN RIGHTS GROUP SAYS UNICEF REHABILITATION CENTER COULD BE USED BY THE TERRORISTS TO SEND SPIES AND ASSASINS IN TO SOCIETY
By Walter Jayawardhana reporting from Los Angeles

The University Teachers for Human Rights-Jaffna (UTHR-J), a leading human rights organization among Sri Lanka Tamils charged that the UNICEF funded children's rehabilitation centers could be used by a terrorist group to unleash terror by releasing selected children as spies and assassins in to the society.

The human rights group, led by Tamil academics, with long experience about terrorism associated with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), especially against the Tamils themselves, said in its 17th Special Report issued October 7 that the rehabilitation centers built with millions of dollars supplied by the United Nation's Children's Fund could be possibly used by the terrorist group to further advance its terror by releasing selected youth into society … to act as spies and assassins.

Speaking through experience the human rights group said, Where there is opportunity the LTTE has no inhibitions.

In a deal described as scandalous the United Nations Children's Fund manages the rehabilitation centers with an organization called Tamil Rehabilitation Organization (TRO) an arm of the very terrorist group, the LTTE, who continues to abduct children to be conscripted in their guerilla army. The rehabilitation centers are expected to rehabilitate such military trained children abducted by the terrorist group from their schools and homes before being released to the parents.

The UTHR-J in its report said, there is the real possibility that the LTTE would further advance its terror by releasing selected youth into society through these transit centers to act as spies and assassins. Where there is opportunity the LTTE has no inhibitions.

Even without other benefits from abducting children, it had become good business for the terrorist group to continue doing so to earn hard foreign currency , other critics have charged, describing the rehabilitation program as an incentive to continue the crime.

Attacking the plan of Ted Chaliban, the local head of the UNICEF in Colombo, the Special Report of the UTHR-J said, UNICEF's Action Plan: Addressing the needs and care for the children in the North East affected by war has come under considerable comment and criticism in the media. Portions of the agreement reads remarkably like an LTTE propaganda piece, punctuated by practical input from UNICEF. It is not surprising. International NGOs, besides other agencies have been encouraged by the international community to engage with the LTTE as virtually a parallel state. The result has been a war of nerves paralleling the disastrous progress of the peace process. The LTTE came on top by effectively telling the agencies, If you want to be in business accept our terms. Once the majority kowtowed, the exceptions felt the sting of the TRO police. The TRO the Tamil Refugee Organization is UNICEF's partner in the Action Plan.

We deal with some of the remarks made by UNICEF's country director Ted Chaiban, responding to many of the criticisms in a television interview with Frederica Jansz on 18th August 2003. On the question of why situate the centres in LTTE-controlled areas rather than government controlled areas where many of the parents will have easier access to their children and where centres suitable for the care of such children already exist, Chaiban's answer was that this was a process. Without a process, he said, whatever the protestations made, the children would not come back. Your best chance of getting your child is to go through this process, he added, or you don't get your child back. Although Chaiban did not use the word, a member of his staff spoke of compromise in private with reference to the Action Plan.

As for what goes on at the transit centres, Chaiban said that UNICEF staff would be joint supervisors. On ensuring that the LTTE does not take back children returned to their homes, Chaiban said that UNICEF has limited staff, but the children would have regular visits from government child probation officers.

Anyone familiar with the North-East would know instantly that this exercise is flawed. The presence of UNICEF staff at a transit centre in an LTTE-controlled area means very little. It is the TRO staff who would exercise real control. After all, INGO (International NGO) staff operating in the LTTE-controlled areas know well that if they visit a village, LTTE intelligence would come shortly after they left, to inquire who said what. Further, under the present conditions of terror, government child probation officers could hardly report anything adverse to the LTTE.

More than anything that Chaiban was asked, there is the real possibility that the LTTE would further advance its terror by releasing selected youth into society through these transit centres to act as spies and assassins. Where there is opportunity the LTTE has no inhibitions.

Chaliban's defense of the UNICEF's process is rather like the semi-official Norwegian defense of another process the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU). One of its controversial features is the free movement of (on paper) unarmed LTTE cadres in government-controlled areas. We are told: Peace needs a process: The MoU is something both sides have negotiated, agreed to and signed. Your best chance for peace is to go through the process. Otherwise you will not have peace.Coincidence?

With most organizations that have a little sense of shame, the compromises of UNICEF and other INGOs would be relatively harmless. But with the LTTE, before they quite realized where they were going, it had made a significant start towards making them partners in crime.

The UTHR(J) charged that the notorious intelligence services of the LTTE , who were capable of the assassination of the former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in India under the leadership of Pottuamman are currently roaming Tamil villages collecting information about individuals responsible for releasing data about abducted children: As for the children, LTTE intelligence operatives and their agents move among the people questioning them on what they know about the children being taken, whether they are being taken by force, who said what and so on. Things are far worse than they were early this year. The UNICEF's attempts to deal with the problem have been dictated by the international community's ill-starred approach to the present peace process, along with unhelpful euphemisms.

The UTHR(J) report said contrary to the agreement signed with the UNICEF the LTTE has intensified its child abductions: What in our judgment was the most important context behind the incident has not even been reported. Contrary to all expectations and the deal signed with the UNICEF, the LTTE has once again intensified its conscription programme. Reports of conscription in significant numbers in the area came from Karaitivu, Veeramunai, Akkaraipattu, Thambiluvil and Vinayagapuram since mid-August. The LTTE's renewed insistence was one child per family.

Veeramunai, the sizeable Tamil village closest to the scene of the two murders above was visited by the LTTE on 15th August. It forcibly took away 14 youths. Karaitivu and Mandur are quite close and several Tamil villages lie in Sammanthurai West AGA Division. Resistance though passive was intense and people were hiding their children or sending them out. The Muslims were killed two days after the LTTE visited Veeramunai (which is incidentally under government control!) and it came back to Veeramunai a week later on the 24th and took away at least 5 persons. A Muslim backlash was useful and contriving one was not out of character with the LTTE's record.

http://www.go2lanka.com/stories/091003b.html

[Mathivathanan]

<span style='font-size:25pt;line-height:100%'>Tamil Tigers deny forcing children to take up arms </span>Friday, 10-Oct-2003 4:20PM

DUBLIN, Oct 10 (AFP) - The political leader of Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebels Friday denied accusations by the UN agency for children that the group has been abducting youngsters and enrolling them in its armed forces.

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), who demand self determination in the north and east of Sri Lanka, Friday ended five days of internal talks in Ireland focusing on a power-share plan ahead of a final peace deal for the embattled South Asian island.

"We consider these allegations to be based on wrong facts, wrong reporting, and a biaised campaign of misinformation and disinformation," LTTE chief Paramu Tamilselvan told journalists at a final press conference near Dublin, referring to the UN claims.

Earlier in the week, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) accused the rebels of having kidnapped children in eastern Sri Lanka, only days after the UN group opened its first transit home in Sri Lanka to demobilise underage soldiers.

Tamilselvan said children who had lost their families in decades of bloody conflict were joining the Tigers on their own initiative.

"If the organisation throws them out onto the street, they would become subject to various abuses. We don't want that to happen," he added.

Tamilselvan also said that the Sri Lankan government would receive a response by the end of the month to its proposals for sharing power in the north and east of the island.

The LTTE delegation in Ireland involved 11 negotiators and support staff. Two Sri Lankan government civil servants addressed the participants as well as a number of international academics, legal and constitutional experts.

Peace negotiations were suspended in April after the Tigers accused the Sri Lankan government of failing to deliver on promises made at six rounds of talks since September last year.

LTTE claimed not enough was being done to rebuild war-ravaged parts of the northeast and demanded more of a role in the administration of reconstruction funding.

In the 1980s, the LTTE resorted to violence to achieve a separate state, Tamil Eelam, in the north and east of Sri Lanka.

A peace process was initiated in December 2001 with Norwegian government mediation. A ceasefire was negotiated that came into force in February 2002.

http://www.ptd.net/webnews/wed/ae/Qsrilank...d.RvlU_DOA.html