Human Rights Watch points finger at govt. Tigers and Karuna faction
January 27th, 2007
By D.B.S. Jeyaraj
The latest International organization to place the Government of Sri Lanka (GOSL) in the dock with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and its breakaway Karuna faction known as the Tamil Makkal Viduthalai Puligal (TMVP) is the New York based Human Rights Watch.
The sovereign, democratically elected Government of Sri Lanka is charged along with an organization described as “terrorist” and its renegade off – shoot outfit for involvement in conscription of children and related abductions by the International rights watchdog HRW.
The LTTE has had a relatively longer track record on the question of child soldiers and has been at the receiving end of International criticism for many years.
But the new kid on the block is the TMVP tiger breakaway faction led by its former Eastern regional commander Vinayagamoorthy Muraleetharan alias “Col” Karuna. The Government of President Mahinda Rajapakse is accused of colluding with the TMVP in abducting and forcibly recruiting children in the Eastern province.
In the new 100-page report, released on January 24th , “Complicit in Crime: State Collusion in Abductions and Child Recruitment by the Karuna Group,” Human Rights Watch documents a pattern of abductions and forced recruitment by the Karuna group over the past year.
HRW notes in the report that in consistence with international law, the words “child” and “children” refer to anyone under the age of 18 wherever mentioned in the report.
The HRW has earlier issued two reports about the LTTE’s conscription of child soldiers and its fund raising activity in Canada and Britain.
Interestingly much of the blame against the LTTE for conscripting child soldiers related to its activity in the East. “Col” Karuna was the regional Eastern commander for Batticaloa – Amparai from 1987 to 2004.
The new HRW report is also critical of the mainstream LTTE but focusses more on the Karuna faction involvement and collaboration by Govt security personnel in such abductions and forced recruitment.
Incidently the UN Secretary – General also submitted a report relating to Sri Lanka on Jan 16th to the UN security Council on “Children and armed conflict” in Sri Lanka”. The UN report blamed the GOSL, LTTE and TMVP and urged “sanctions” against the LTTE but let off the TMVP and GOSL lightly in comparison.
The UN Security Council Working Group on Children and armed conflict would take up the Sri Lanka case on Feb 9th this year.UN special envoy Allan Rock who undertook a fact – finding mission to Sri Lanka will present his findings to the working group and participate in discussions.
“Col” Karuna was interviewed by the BBC Tamil service “Thamilosai” on the same day that the HRW report was out. He vehemently denied the charges made by HRW in the report. He accused the HRW of believing false propaganda supplied by the LTTE.
The LTTE has not officially reacted to the HRW report yet but the pro – tiger media in Sri Lanka and abroad have been going to town with the charges made against the Government and Karuna faction. A conspicuous silence is being maintained over the accusations made directly against the LTTE.
Government circles in Colombo were initially indignant. The gut reaction seemed to be that of dismissing the HRW revelations as “vile”, “baseless” and “based on inaccurate information” etc. There was a sudden change within 24 hours. It was now said that the “government was taking the report very seriously” and that ” if there is government involvement they would investigate fully ” etc.
There is speculation among diplomatic circles that “the responses are being modified ” to satisfy the International Community. A key donor conference to determine forthcoming International aid to Sri Lanka is scheduled for Jan 31st.
The GOSL low – key response to the UN Secy – General’s report has also attracted notice. There was a lot of heat generated in the media prior to the UN report. But after it was released there was remarkable “silence”.
This was in striking contrast to the orchestrated protests to allegations made by UN special envoy Allan Rock at a press conference in Colombo. Rock had conveyed the gist of his findings about GOSL complicity in the activities of the Karuna group to President Rajapakse directly. He had also informed the President of his intended press conference.
After Rock made startling disclosures at his press conference and left the Country anti – Rock frenzy was whipped up. His charges were vehemently denied and protest demonstrations were held. Rock was unfairly charged of being an agent of the LTTE. Official Govt propaganda sites continue to wage a campaign against Rock still.
The HRW has in this report spotlighted the actions of the GOSL,LTTE and TMVP but given more emphasis on the TMVP and related responsibility of the GOSL.
A western diplomat opined that this may be due to the fact that the LTTE is a “well – noted culprit” in these matters whereas the “Karuna group and Govt guys guilt is not that well – known”.
The HRW however has urged “targeted measures” against the LTTE for its continuous practice of conscripting and using child soldiers and for dishonouring earlier pledges made in this regard.
The HRW report shows with case studies, maps and photographs, i how Karuna cadres operate with impunity in government-controlled areas, abducting boys and young men, training them in camps, and deploying them for combat.
“The Karuna group is abducting children in broad daylight in areas firmly under government control,” says Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The government is fully aware of the abductions but allows them to happen because it’s eager for an ally against the Tamil Tigers.”
Based on research in Sri Lanka, including areas where the Karuna group operates, the report features testimony from two dozen family members of boys and young men abducted by the Karuna group. They described armed Karuna members forcibly taking their brothers, nephews and sons from their homes, workplaces, temples, playgrounds, public roads, and even a wedding.
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has documented more than 200 cases of child recruitment by the Karuna group in Sri Lanka’s eastern districts, where the group is active. But the real number is certainly much higher due to underreporting.
Children are not the only targets. HRW found that the Karuna group has abducted and forcibly recruited hundreds of young men between ages 18 and 30. HRW knows of only two cases in which the Karuna group abducted girls. It generally targets poor families, and often those who have already had a child recruited by the Tamil Tigers.
According to the HRW report ” At least since June 2006, and probably before, the Sri Lankan government has known about the Karuna abductions. The districts of the east where they have taken place are firmly under government control, with myriad military and police checkpoints and security force camps”.
“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 written extensively about the Tamil Tigers. “The government’s collusion on child abductions by the Karuna group highlights its hypocrisy.”
In one incident in June 2006, the Karuna group abducted 13 boys and young men, holding some of them for a while in a shop across the street from an army post. Some of the parents pleaded with the soldiers to intervene. Two soldiers spoke with the Karuna group members, parents told HRW , but the soldiers did not stop the abduction.
On the same day in another village, soldiers from the Sri Lankan army gathered seven boys and young men in a field, checked their IDs, and took their photographs. Members of the Karuna group arrived that night and abducted four of the seven, although it remains unclear in this instance whether the army forces were deliberately acting in collusion with the Karuna group.
After abducting boys and young men, the Karuna group often holds them temporarily in the nearest office of its political party, the TMVP, which are routinely guarded by the Sri Lankan military or police. Parents told HRW that they either saw their abducted sons in these offices or TMVP officials confirmed to families that they had been there.
After a few days, the Karuna group usually transfers abductees to one of its camps in the jungle about 10 kilometers northwest of Welikanda town in the Polonnaruwa district, about 50 kilometers northwest of Batticaloa town. Welikanda is where the Sri Lankan Army’s 23rd division has its base.
The area is firmly under government control, as is the main A11 road from the eastern districts to the Welikanda area. Travel through the area necessitates passing through numerous army and police checkpoints, and transporting abducted youth to the camps would have been impossible without the complicity of government security forces. The Karuna camp at Mutugalla village is near a Sri Lankan army post notes HRW
“Not only do government forces fail to stop the abductions, but they allow the Karuna group to transport kidnapped children through checkpoints on the way to their camps,” Becker says.
HRW said that the Sri Lankan police are also complicit in their unwillingness to seriously investigate complaints filed by the parents of abducted boys and young men. In some cases, the police reportedly refused to register parents’ complaints. In other cases, the police registered the complaint but failed to undertake what the family considered a proper investigation. In no known case did the police secure the child’s release observes the HRW report
In a November interview with HRW , Karuna denied allegations that his forces were abducting or recruiting children. He said his forces had no members under age 20, and that they would discipline any commander who tried to recruit a person under that age. He subsequently made commitments to the UN to issue policy statements banning child recruitment, to release any child found among the Karuna group’s ranks, and to provide UNICEF with access to his camps.
On January 2, 2007, the TMVP, Karuna’s political party, provided UNICEF with regulations for its military wing, stating 18 as the minimum age for recruitment, and specifying penalties for members who conscript children.
There is no sign yet that these commitments are being honored. Local human rights activists and international agencies report that the Karuna group continued to abduct boys and young men in November and December 2006.
“The government must stop making excuses and launch a serious and impartial investigation of government complicity in Karuna crimes,” Adams said. “If the government won’t investigate, then it must allow an independent, international inquiry.”
The LTTE has long abducted children into its forces, and used them as infantry soldiers, intelligence officers, medics, and even suicide bombers.The new report also includes updated information on Tamil Tiger child abductions and urges the UN to impose targeted sanctions on the group because of its status as a repeat offender.
The UN should insist that the Karuna group immediately adopt and implement an action plan to end all recruitment and use of child soldiers, and consider targeted sanctions if it fails to do so, Human Rights Watch advocated.
On February 9, a UN Security Council working group on children and armed conflict is scheduled to consider reported violations against children by all parties to Sri Lanka’s armed conflict. The working group will make recommendations for Security Council action.
HRW has also called on the LTTE, TMVP, and the GOSL to stop the recruitment of children. The Karuna group and the Tamil Tigers should immediately release all children among their ranks, it said.
Human Rights Watch has published more than fifteen in-depth reports on the recruitment and use of children as soldiers by governments and non-state armed groups throughout the world.
Reports have previously documented the practice in Angola, Burma, Burundi, Colombia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Lebanon, Liberia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Sudan, and Uganda.
A previous Human Rights Watch report on child recruitment in Sri Lanka, “Living in Fear: Child Soldiers and the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka,” was published in 2004.
The current report is based on a month-long research mission in Sri Lanka in October 2006. It presents information from 24 interviews with 20 families of abducted boys and young men in the districts of Amparai, Batticaloa, and Trincomalee (16 mothers, four fathers, two sisters, one grandmother, and one aunt), as well as witnesses to abductions.
In addition, Human Rights Watch spoke with Sri Lankan human rights activists and humanitarian aid workers, as well as foreigners working in Sri Lanka with international humanitarian organizations.
For reasons of security, many people spoke to Human Rights Watch on the condition that the report not mention their names or other identifying information. Therefore HRW has omitted details about individuals and incidents where it believed that information could place a person at risk.
On November 21, 2006 HRW wrote to Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse and to the Ministry of Disaster Management and Human Rights to ask for information about government attempts to investigate abductions and forced recruitment by the Karuna group .. A follow-up letter was sent in early December. As of January 15, 2007, neither the president’s office nor the ministry had replied.
On November 22, HRW wrote a letter regarding abductions and forced recruitment to V. Muralitharan, a.k.a. Colonel Karuna .. V. Muralitharan contacted Human Rights Watch by telephone on November 29, and his views are reflected in this report.
On November 28, HRW wrote to S.P. Tamilselvan, head of the LTTE’s political wing, to ask about LTTE efforts to end the use of child soldiers.. SP Tamilselvan replied in a letter dated December 5, 2006
The HRW has made several recommendations to the LTTE, TMVP, and GOSL in the new report. It has also recommended certain measures to the governments of donor nations,UN security council and all member states of the UN.
Among recommendations made to the LTTE and TMVP are to:
-Immediately stop all recruitment of children, including voluntary enlistment as well as recruitment effected by abduction or other force or coercion;
-Immediately cease the forced recruitment of all persons;
-Immediately cease the use of children in combat operations;
-Immediately release children and all others forcibly recruited and cooperate with UNICEF in ensuring their safe return to their families.
-The recommendations made to the Government are re- produced in full here because of its importance –
-Immediately end all cooperation with the Karuna group in the recruitment of children and in abductions;
-Immediately launch an investigation into the involvement of government security forces in the recruitment of child soldiers and abductions by the Karuna group, and hold accountable those complicit, regardless of rank;
-Take immediate steps to locate children recruited and all others forcibly recruited by the Karuna group and secure their return to their families, with follow-up protection;
-Together with UNICEF conduct unannounced inspections of the Karuna camps and TMVP offices listed in this report and others recently established;
-Close all camps of the Karuna group in government controlled areas that are used for the recruitment and training of children;
-Enact and enforce criminal penalties against individuals and groups who recruit children under the age of 18 into armed groups;
Instruct the police to actively investigate all reported cases of abduction of children and all others by the Karuna group, and take disciplinary or criminal action against those who fail to do so;
-Cooperate with humanitarian agencies to create corridors of safe passage for international agencies and monitors to investigate and follow up on reports of child and forced recruitment in areas of LTTE control;
-Work with donor governments to establish an international human rights monitoring mission under United Nations auspices to monitor government, Karuna group, and LTTE violations of human rights and international humanitarian law, including abductions and child recruitment;
-Amend the Emergency (Prevention and Prohibition of Terrorism and Specified Terrorist Activities) Regulation No. 7 of 2006 to exclude as an offense the participation of children under the age of 18 in groups engaged in terrorism, and the participation of any person based on having been forcibly recruited;
-Submit to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child Sri Lanka’s overdue initial report on compliance with the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict;
-Ratify the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.
All governments of donor nations have been presented with the following list of recommendations:
-Urge the Karuna group and the LTTE to immediately end all recruitment of children and all persons forcibly recruited, and to release all children and abductees currently in its forces;
-Urge the government of Sri Lanka to take all feasible measures to
end the involvement of government security forces in the recruitment–whether forced or voluntary–of children and the forced recruitment of all persons by the Karuna group;
-secure the release and return of all children recruited, and all persons forcibly recruited, by the Karuna group and
-conduct a thorough investigation of individuals involved in such recruitment, and bring them to justice, regardless of rank;
-Donor Governments have also been requested to “Work with the Sri Lankan government to establish an international human rights monitoring mission under United Nations auspices to monitor government, Karuna group, and LTTE violations of human rights and international humanitarian law, including child recruitment and abductions”.
The UN security Council has been asked the following:
” In light of the LTTE’s continuing use of children in its forces and in accordance with Security Council Resolution 1539 on children and armed conflict (April 22, 2004) and Security Council Resolution 1612 (July 26, 2005), adopt targeted measures to address the LTTE’s persistent failure to end its recruitment and use of child soldiers. Such measures could include the global imposition of travel restrictions on leaders and their exclusion from any governance structures and amnesty provisions, a ban on the supply of small arms, a ban on military assistance, and restriction on the flow of financial resources”.
All member states of the UN have been urged by the HRW to:
“In accordance with Security Council Resolution 1379 on children and armed conflict (November 20, 2001), use all legal, political, diplomatic, financial, and material measures to ensure respect for international norms for the protection of children by the parties to the conflict. In particular, states should unequivocally condemn the continued recruitment and use of child soldiers by the Karuna group and the LTTE, and withhold any financial, political, or military support to these groups until they end all child recruitment and release all children currently in their forces”.
The HRW is expected to remain actively vigilant on the issue concerned by monitoring all related activity on ground and by engaging officials of the Sri Lankan Government as well as the LTTE and TMVP.
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