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| Sinhala nationalists, carrying an effigy of UN Special Advisor Allan Rock, protested opposite the UN headquarters in Colombo on Nov 21. Photo Dinuka Liyanawatte/ Daily Mirror. |
As Sri Lanka’s government angrily rejected findings by a UN envoy that troops are forcibly conscripting Tamil children for their paramilitary allies fighting against the Tamil Tigers, international ceasefire monitors said they also had evidence of the practice.
The special advisor to the UN Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, Allan Rock, told reporters in Colombo Tuesday (Nov 14) that he had evidence of direct involvement of Sri Lanka troops in forcibly enlisting children for the paramilitary Karuna Group.
Not only does Mr. Rock’s findings implicate the Sri Lankan armed forces in the forcible conscription of children for combat, they also reinforce accusations that the military is supporting anti-LTTE paramilitaries.
The LTTE has long protested that despite the 2002 truce, Sri Lanka’s military has been waging a murderous campaign against Tiger supporters and cadres using paramilitary groups like the Karuna Group, led by a renegade LTTE commander.
"Sri Lankan security forces rounded up children to be recruited by the Karuna faction," Mr. Rock said at the end of a 10-day mission to study the situation of children in the embattled island.
"We encountered both direct and indirect evidence of... [troops’] complicity and participation," Mr. Rock further said, adding there was both eyewitness and anecdotal evidence to back up his claims.
Mr Rock said he had evidence that security forces travel to villages and photograph Tamil children who are later forcibly recruited by the Karuna Group. Children as young as 13 or 14 have been taken.
And amid indignant denials by the Colombo government, the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM), which is tasked with overseeing the fragile 2002 truce, said it endorsed Mr. Rock’s findings.
Mr. Rock’s comments triggered a surge of Sinhala nationalist outrage.
Demonstrators led by hardline Buddhist monks demonstrated outside the UN office in Colombo on Monday (Nov 20), shouting slogans and waving placards that questioned the motives of both Rock and the UN.
The Sri Lankan government accused Mr. Rock of being a Tamil Tiger sympathizer.
"He [Rock] has attended a LTTE fund raising event in Canada," Keheliya Rambukwella, minister of Policy Planning and the government defense spokesman, told reporters.
"A responsible member of the international community would not have made such unfounded public statements in such an irresponsible manner," said Sri Lanka’s Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera.
"Even if they were true, a person of that nature should have had the decency to bring it to the notice of the government discreetly."
However the SLMM said it would soon be providing its own evidence to support Mr. Rock.
"We have known for some time that there is a level of co-operation between certain elements of the security forces and the Karuna faction," Acting SLMM Spokesperson, Helen Olafsdottir said.
"The statement made by the UN official is correct and the SLMM in its second Geneva report released in August also stressed that we had sufficient evidence to prove that the government forces were involved in child recruitment," she said.
"We are compiling more information and will present the government with a comprehensive report on the matter."
In its report to the second round of talks in Geneva in October, the SLMM said that child recruitment and child abduction continued on a relatively high level from June to August but unlike earlier months, the majority of the cases reported were not against the LTTE, but against the Karuna group.
The SLMM said that there were a number of indications that the Sri Lankan government was actively supporting the Karuna group.
"Known Karuna supporters have been seen moving to and from SLA camps, and it is evident that the security forces and police in some areas are not taking action to prevent armed elements from operating," the SLMM report said.
Latest reports complied by the SLMM too said that abductions were continuing in Batticaloa.
“Numbers are bound to be much higher as parents of abductees have been threatened by the perpetrators not to report to police or international organizations," the SLMM said.