Situ improving but more needs to be done - UN

The haunting spectre of child soldiers

Numerous reports have been filed by international agencies on the humanitarian and human rights crisis in the last eight months or so.

Those like Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, International Jurists Commission, the International Crisis Group, the UN umbrella grouping - the Inter Agency Standing Committee have filed extensive reports on the current situation Sri Lanka. Most have been critical of the government's role.

The latest in the list is the report compiled by the International Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) titled 'Civilians In The Way Of Conflict - Displaced People In Sri Lanka,' that came out last week. Most of the concerns raised by IDMC researcher Kavita Shukla have been aired by many in the past year. The IASC office in Colombo has already compiled an 82 page report under 'Conflict-Related Internal Displacement In Sri Lanka' that deals extensively and in detail on specific incidents. Ironically the report is yet to be made public though parts of it were reproduced in The Sunday Leader on September 2.

Highlights

The IDMC report highlights growing concern among observers over child recruitment. Though numbers have dropped compared to the past, UNICEF says that current figures are higher than recruitment rates and there is still lingering worry. The Shukla report said that IDPs were worried about underage recruitment by both the Tigers and the Karuna faction.

"Although the LTTE may no longer conscript children in large numbers the threat to children living in areas under LTTE control has not necessarily decreased, impacting on the plans of IDP families that wish to return. The LTTE has introduced a quota policy whereby one person per family has to join the group, and children are at risk of losing a parent or the family breadwinner. Under the one-person-per-family system, Tamils between 17 to 30 years are at the highest risk of being recruited," the report on the Tigers said.

K Group berated

The breakaway Karuna Group did not fare much better - "The Karuna Group was in July 2007 more frequently engaged in under-age recruitment than the LTTE.  The children recruited by the Karuna faction are sometimes armed and act as local guards, especially in the Batticaloa District. Although the Karuna faction has made assurances that it would cooperate in efforts to end the recruitment of children, there appears to be little commitment by the group to improve its practices."

In fact the SLMM two weeks ago made the charge that the Karuna Group was involved in abductions and under-age recruitment in Batticaloa and Trincomalee. The monitors last week said that its members had come across an armed under-aged boy from the faction moving about in public in Batticaloa.

"On patrol in the Valachchenai area on September 18, SLMM monitors observed an armed civilian boy on a road block in the village of Kinnayadi. The boy appeared to be about 14 years.  SLMM learned from sources in Batticaloa that child recruitment by the TMVP/Karuna Group was consistent in the district, with one or two cases reported every week," the monitors said in their weekly situation report for the third week of this month.

SLMM said that it continued to receive complaints against Karuna's political outfit, the TMVP on child recruitment.

UNICEF reports

UNICEF also backed the SLMM reports and officials told The Sunday Leader that TMVP kept recruiting minors into their ranks.

A progress report on the current situation in Sri Lanka is to be presented to the UN Security Council Working Group on Children and Armed Conflict next month.

"In October this year we will be presenting a report to the Security Council Working Group. The Secretary-General will present the report, monitoring the six grave violations and some of those violations relate to humanitarian access and to attacks on schools and hospitals," UN Special Rapporteur for Children and Armed Conflict, Radhika Coomaraswamy said.

Coomaraswamy told the UN Human Rights Council that there was improvement in the situation in Sri Lanka, but added that the Karuna Group continued to operate with impunity in some areas.

"I must also say there are some positive steps that the government has adopted and we welcome its adoption of a zero tolerance policy on child recruitment. It has also voluntarily submitted itself to the 1612 process and it has set up a committee to investigate allegations. There are some positive steps with regard to the LTTE as well. For the first time the numbers taken in are less than those being released but of course there are many more to be released," she said, adding, "but the Karuna faction continues to function with impunity, much of it in the government-controlled areas. So we welcome the notion of this committee to investigate these abductions."

Findings not revealed

The government is yet to make public any findings of the committee.

The IDMC report indicated that there was a sense of disillusionment within the humanitarian community here that UN agencies have grown soft on the government faced with the latter's public criticism.

"Human rights organisations have declared that there has been a gradual loss of will among critical international agencies, including UNHCR, to publicly raise concerns about the government's violations during the process of return. Additionally, it has been noted that UNHCR's statement that return was taking place in line with international protection standards was utilised by the government to silence critics, especially local critics of the return process," it said.

TMVP running riot in the east - SLMM

For the second week running, the SLMM has come down hard on the Tamileela Makkal Viduthalai Pulikal (TMVP), detailing that the group was acting with impunity in the east and the authorities were not taking any action.

The SLMM situation reports for the past two weeks have said that the TMVP continued with abductions, including those of minors, extortion and was running its own parallel legal system.

"The TMVP/Karuna Group remained visible in the Eastern Region (ER). The TMVP/Karuna Group reportedly operates a parallel legal system, summoning people to their offices and taking them into custody. Persons in TMVP/Karuna Group custody are often subject to severe physical abuse and threatened with death," the SLMM said.

"The TMVP/Karuna Group continued to extort money from local businesses, and was reportedly involved in harassing civilians. The SLMM received several complaints of persons being summoned to TMVP offices, threatened or harassed. The SLMM moreover learned that the TMVP/Karuna Group was forcing fishermen to sell them fish at half the price. The authorities were aware of the problem and were investigating the matter. All in all, the TMVP/Karuna Group activities added to a situation of general insecurity for the civilian population."

The apparent power of the TMVP is such that even constituent parties of the government like the EPDP have found themselves helpless in the face of intimidation. "According to Eelam People's Democratic Party (EPDP) and Eelam People's Revolutionary Liberation Front, Pathmanabha Wing (EPRLF-P) members in Batticaloa, neither the EPDP nor the EPRLF-P report cases to the police as generally no action was taken. On 18 September the EPDP distributed pamphlets charging that the Sennan Padai, a clandestine organisation of the TMVP/Karuna Group threatened people who voiced a difference of opinion to that of the TMVP/Karuna Group," the SLMM said.

Early this month an EPDP member was killed in Valachchenai while distributing party literature. SLMM said that TMVP was suspected of carrying out the murder.

The TMVP was also accused of abductions and kidnappings: "SLMM received several complaints regarding abductions in the ER this week, most of them involving the TMVP/Karuna Group. On September 17, a female civilian (45) was reportedly abducted and beaten by the TMVP/Karuna Group in Kalmunai, Ampara, and accused of assisting the LTTE. On September 20, a male civilian (22) was reportedly abducted in Kallar, about 20kms south of Batticaloa. A male social worker (40) was abducted by unknown gunmen in Alenkerny, 2 km south of Kinniya, on September 22. On September 23, a former LTTE cadre was reportedly abducted by a group of armed men in police uniforms in Batticaloa town. On  September 17, a civilian male (23) went missing between Thambalagamam and Trincomalee."

Two weeks back the SLMM had raised the concerns contained in the reports at the weekly meeting with the Government Peace Secretariat. "The SLMM expressed concern about reports of continued abductions and disappearances in the east. SCOPP said it would look into the matter," the Peace Secretariat said.