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SRI LANKA: Rights Group Blasts Child Abuse on All Sides

Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS, Jan 24 2007 (IPS) - The New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW), which has relentlessly denounced a Tamil separatist rebel group for recruiting child soldiers in the northeast of Sri Lanka, is now pointing an accusing finger at the government in Colombo for complicity in similar crimes.

In a detailed 100-page report released Wednesday, HRW says a breakaway faction of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) – called the Karuna Group – is not only recruiting child soldiers but also doing it with the implicit support of the Sri Lankan government, with whom it has been cooperating against the LTTE.

The government, HRW says, is violating international law by "facilitating child recruitment" and using the Karuna group as "a proxy force" in its conflict with the Tigers.

In earlier reports, HRW has lambasted the LTTE not only for abducting children and deploying them as soldiers but also for extorting money from Sri Lankan expatriates – specifically in Canada and Britain, and other European countries.

"After years of condemning child recruitment by the Tamil Tigers, the government is now complicit in the same crimes," says Jo Becker, child rights advocate at Human Rights Watch, who has been closely monitoring the activities of the LTTE.

"The government&#39s collusion on child abductions by the Karuna group highlights its hypocrisy," she said.

Asked whether the ongoing crisis in Sri Lanka warrants its inclusion on the agenda of the U.N. Security Council, Becker told IPS: "HRW hasn&#39t taken a position on whether Sri Lanka should be included on the Security Council agenda or not."

On Feb. 9, she said, a Security Council working group on children and armed conflict is scheduled to consider reported violations against children by all parties to Sri Lanka&#39s armed conflict. The working group will make recommendations for Security Council action.

Last week a U.N. report on "Children and Armed Conflict in Sri Lanka" called for the imposition of "targeted" U.N. sanctions on the LTTE and its leadership for violating international law by continuing to recruit child soldiers.

"On the issue of sanctions," Becker said, "we are urging the Security Council to impose targeted sanctions on the LTTE because it has now been listed in four consecutive reports of the (U.N.) Secretary-General for recruiting and using child soldiers."

She said the Security Council has stated in the past that it will consider sanctions against groups that show no progress in ending their use of child soldiers.

Asked if Karuna&#39s group should also be subjected to similar sanctions, Becker told IPS: "Because the Karuna group was listed for the first time in the secretary-general&#39s last report (in October) on children and armed conflict, we believe it should have the opportunity to take steps to end its recruitment of child soldiers before sanctions are considered."

If it does not stop its recruitment of children and is listed again by the Secretary-General, Becker said, then the Council should consider sanctions.

In its current report, HRW says the abduction of children by the Karuna Group is taking place in areas "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."

Pointing out that the Sri Lankan government is aware of such abductions, the report says that throughout 2006, the Karuna Group has abducted and forcibly recruited at least 200 Tamil children in Sri Lanka&#39s eastern districts. But the real number is up to three times higher due to under-reporting.

Titled "Complict in Crime – State Collusion in Abductions and Child Recruitment by the Karuna Group," the report includes as detailed interviews with parents and children caught up in the crossfire in the eastern and northern provinces.

The U.N. report released last week makes identical charges against the LTTE and the Karuna Group. Both rebel groups have been asked to cease all recruitment and use of child soldiers, including abductions.

The HRW report says that throughout the two-decade long civil war, the LTTE has consistently recruited and used children in armed combat.

The LTTE has deployed children in mass attacks during major battles and used them as infantry soldiers, security and intelligence officers, medics and even suicide bombers.

"Now the Sri Lanka government through a proxy force is implicated in some of the same abuse," HRW says.

The report also says that both the government and the Karuna Group have repeatedly denied any coordination between them. "But for residents of Sri Lanka&#39s eastern districts, government complicity in Karuna abductions is an obvious fact."

The report urges all donors – the United States, India, the European Union, Norway and Japan – to pressure both the Karuna Group and the LTTE to immediately end their recruitment and use of children, as well as "the Sri Lankan government to take feasible steps to stop child recruitment and abductions by the Karuna Group."

In a report released last year, HRW said the LTTE was subjecting Sri Lankan Tamils living in Canada, Britain and other Western countries to "intimidation, extortion and even violence to ensure a steady flow of funds for operations in Sri Lanka and to suppress criticism of human rights abuses."

"The culture of fear is so strong that even Tamils who do not support the Tamil Tigers feel they have no choice but to give money, knowing they are funding political killings and the recruitment of children as soldiers in Sri Lanka," HRW said.