|
|
 |
 |
 |
| Thursday, 11 November 2004 |
 |
|
 |
Security | |
| News Business Features Editorial Security Politics World Letters Sports Obituaries
|
Human Rights Watch slams LTTE for child recruitment The truce with the LTTE has brought fear instead of the expected peace dividend because of the continued forced recruitment of thousands of child soldiers, a rights group said yesterday. The New York-based Human Rights Watch in its latest report accused the LTTE of continuing to enlist boys and girls below the age of 18 years since the Oslo-brokered truce went into effect in February 2002. "The ceasefire has brought an end to the fighting but not to the Tamil Tigers' use of children as soldiers," said Jo Becker, children's rights advocacy director for Human Rights Watch and a co-author of the report. "Many Tamil families who expected a 'peace dividend' now expect an unwelcome visit from armed Tiger recruiters." The rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) used intimidation and threats to pressure Tamil families in the island's North and the East to provide sons and daughters for military service, the report said. When families refused, their children were sometimes abducted from their homes at night or forcibly recruited while walking to school. Parents who resisted recruitment faced violence or detention. Tigers have been criticised in the past by rights organisations such as Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) and by foreign governments over the use of child soldiers. The latest Human Rights Watch report coincides with a visit to Sri Lanka by Norway's Foreign Minister Jan Petersen to try to salvage the island's Oslo-backed peace process. Petersen is due to hold talks with Tiger leader Velupillai Prabhakaran Thursday on the possible resumption of direct peace talks, which have been on hold since April last year when the Tigers walked out of the process. Diplomatic efforts so far have failed to get the Tigers and the Government to the table to politically resolve the conflict. Human Rights Watch said the Tigers have often broken their promises to stop the practice of recruiting children. "Time and again, the Tamil Tigers have pledged to end their use of child soldiers, but each time they've broken those promises," Becker said. "It's time for the Tamil Tigers to live up to their legal responsibilities and stop recruiting children." She said children described rigorous and sometimes brutal military training, including with heavy weapons, bombs and landmines. Children who tried to escape were typically beaten in front of their entire unit as a warning to others. The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), she added, had documented cases of 3,516 children recruited by the Tigers since the 2002 ceasefire. "The agency states that this figure represents only a portion of the total number of children recruited," Human Rights Watch said. It said it also documented the re-recruitment of some 2,000 child soldiers who were de-mobilised by a breakaway regional Tiger commander, V. Muralitharan, better known as Karuna. The main Tamil Tiger group quickly began an intensive campaign to re-recruit Karuna's former forces, including children, the report said. It said the main Tiger forces went from house to house, organising village meetings, sent children letters and made announcements from vehicles demanding that former child soldiers return. They took many children by force, Human Rights Watch said. UNICEF officials here said that the Tigers had formally freed about 1,200 child soldiers but that some 1,300 boys and girls were still believed to be in guerrilla ranks. Some are believed to have run away. Tigers have since last year been freeing small batches of child soldiers to UNICEF-run centres that help the former combatants return to school, but UNICEF has said that Tigers recruited more than they freed in recent times. Tigers deny willingly enlisting children and say poverty has driven some children to falsify their age and join rebels because they had no other way to feed themselves. (AFP) |
|
News | Business | Features
| Editorial | Security
Produced by Lake House |
