Rights Issue Needs Higher Place in Talks - Analysts

by Feizal Samath

COLOMBO, Feb 3 (IPS) - Sri Lanka's peace talks, now entering its sixth month, could lose credibility unless human rights issues are pushed even higher up at the top of the agenda, rights activists here warn

''Unless human rights issues are discussed the credibility of peace talks would be at stake,'' says Dr Rohan Edirisinha, director of the Centre for Policy Alternatives, a private think tank.

As the fifth round of talks are held this week in Berlin, rights groups are pushing for a separate memorandum of understanding on human rights between the government and Tamil rebels, to be monitored by a committee of foreign and local experts.

The current memorandum between the two sides, in force since early last year, covers the ceasefire and is monitored by a Norway-led committee.

The Feb.7-8 talks will take up the issue of human rights and allegations of large-scale conscription of children by the Tigers - who at the last round of talks said they were ''not recruiting'' youngsters and would not do so in the future.

This week's talks will have Martin, a former secretary general of Amnesty International, in attendance to provide advice on the human rights perspective and help shape a human rights agenda as part of the peace process.

His role was agreed upon by the government and rebel sides at the January talks in Thailand, and came after pressure to address the issue of rights in the nearly two-decade conflict, under which the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) has been fighting for a homeland for minority Tamils.

During a three-day visit to Sri Lanka last week, U.N. Children's Fund (UNICEF) executive director Carol Bellamy won the latest assurances from the rebels that they would not recruit children to their ranks.

But she conceded that similar assurances have been given in the past -- and that the Tigers have not always followed up their words with deeds.

”I have been involved in these things long enough not to be naive about assurances, whether from the government or from non-state parties,” she said. She said the LTTE could prove it is serious about stopping recruitment -- and about returning child combatants to their families -- by developing a concrete action plan.

''We are however hopeful the LTTE will keep to its word,'' she added.

Some 350 children have been returned by the rebels to their families since November 2001, while 730 reported cases of child recruitment yet to be resolved, says UNICEF.

Human rights groups claim that hundreds have been recruited by the rebels during the ceasefire.

The University Teachers for Human Rights, a Colombo-based group comprising Tamil academics opposed to the LTTE, says the rebels have been demanding one child per family in the eastern town of Batticaloa. ''The demand of one child per family was aired openly at a public meeting on Human Rights Day (Dec. 10, 2002) by top LTTE leaders,'' it said in a statement.

Analysts say the LTTE's change into a non-militant force - which it committed in earlier peace talks -- will not happen overnight. In this context, they said, civil society and other groups must put the pressure on the rebels on human rights issues.

The 'Island' newspaper, in a Feb. 1 editorial, accused peace groups of neglecting children's issues in order to be able to keep claiming success for the peace talks.

''The UNICEF director cannot take the easy path of some of the peace-seeking ambassadors in Colombo have done; Save the Peace and Damn the Children. That is exactly what has been happening for the past year,'' said the paper, which has been critical of Colombo's handling of the peace process.

The Ceasefire Monitoring Mission has said there is evidence of the Tigers conscripting more than 300 children up to November. Save the Children Norway, a child rights group, estimates that the LTTE could have anywhere between 2,000 to 4,000 child combatants.

Jehan Perera, director at the National Peace Council, believes the answer to the human rights issue lies in civil society pressure building up in the north itself - the area most affected by the conflict -- against rights violations.

''There is no other way. Can the local or international community punish the Tigers? What sanctions can they impose?'' he asked.

The Non Violent Peace Force, a Canadian-based NGO working on the lines of the Peace Brigade, is sending three volunteers in the next few months to work on building civil society structures in the rebel-dominated north.

''Whether the LTTE will allow them to work there, remains to be seen. But the group wants to help set up peace-building structures in the north,'' Perera said. The group has worked before in Israel, Palestine and South America.

CPA's Edrisinha, who will be in Berlin as a resource person in a government-rebel subcommittee on political structures, said the proposed human rights agreement would be a kind of charter covering issues like freedom of speech, expression, women and children's rights, and right to dissent.

He said similar agreements have been implemented in other war-torn countries like Guatemala and El Salvador.

Meantime, many are also are watching the health of Tiger chief negotiator Anton Balasingham, who is suffering from a kidney ailment that makes traveling long distances difficult. The venue for this week's talks was shifted by Norwegian mediators from Thailand to Berlin, much closer for the London-based Balasingham to travel to. (END/2003)