UNICEF ADMITS THAT WHILE UN AGENCY MONEY IS SPENT IN THE HOPE OF RELEASE OF CHILD SOLDIERS LTTE IS STILL ABDUCTING CHILDREN
By Walter Jayawardhana reporting from Los Angeles
August 06.08.40 AM:A spokesman for the United Nation’s Children’s Fund, the UNICEF admitted that while the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) has agreed with the UN agency to release its mostly abducted child soldiers for rehabilitation and release to their parents, they continued their abductions of Tamil children from Sri Lanka’s Tamil areas.
The UNICEF spokesman in Sri Lanka, M. Nizar admitted that while UNICEF was pouring in money to build centers for the LTTE released child soldiers in LTTE controlled area there were complaints that the Tamil rebel group was abducting children from all Tamil areas. The Sandeshaya, the Sinhalese service of the BBC, was interviewing him, August 6, 2003.
The UNICEF spokesman was speaking on the occasion of the foundation laying ceremony of another rehabilitation center at Ithiyamalai, in the Eastern Province. The UNICEF spokesman said the centers were being built on the promise of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam to release child soldiers of the LTTE. They would be released to the parents after being rehabilitated by the centers he said.
Reports from the LTTE areas say two more centers were being built in Kilinochchi and Mullaitivu, by the Tamil Refugees Organization (TRO) suspected to be under the direct control of the LTTE. The headquarters of the TRO is also in Mullaitivu
The University Teachers for human Rights commenting on the child conscriptions said, “The LTTE had little choice but to rely on child soldiers to sustain its fascist politics, when faced with enormous disillusionment in a shrinking community. It was from the wrecked humanity of the East that it could get them with least resistance. Doing this for the Leader ( Prabhakaran) became also an opportunity for the ambitious Karuna.”
Karuna is a ruthless leader of the LTTE outfit in the Eastern Province, who once massacred 600 surrendered Sri Lanka Police officers during the regime of the late President Ranasinghe Premadasa. Incidentally, Karuna has become a VIP at the UNICEF organized stone laying ceremonies for the rehabilitation centers.
In a recent update report the UTHR(J) said, the effort of the UNICEF, the United Nation’s Children’s Fund dealing with the child conscription of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam is “hollow” and “amounts to a humbug”.
The UNICEF spokesman said though there was reports of LTTE abductions the number of incidents had been decreased than before.
But the report of the UTHR (J) issued July 20, said, “ the impression is being created that the problem of child conscription is under control. But the reality is that in recent months people have been made very conscious of the LTTE’s apparatus of terror through a spate of political killings, and in areas where significant child conscription is being reported, community leaders are afraid even to hint at it”
Meanwhile Dr. Harendra de Silva, Sri lanka’s Child Protection Authority said the release of Child soldiers had become the biggest joke in the world since from one end the children were released and from the other end the children were taken in.
Sri Lanka’s opposition has argued that UN agency’s bold effort to put in Rupees 1.4 billion of foreign money to a LTTE sponsored NGO called TRO was highly questionable. At these UNICEF ceremonies LTTE separatist flags were also reportedly hoisted.
