HUMAN RIGHTS REPORT SAYS DUE TO NEGLIGENCE OF UNICEF CHILD SOLDIERS COULD NOT BE RELEASED EARLIER AND SOME DIED
By Walter Jayawardhana reporting from Los Angeles
May 30, 04.45 AM: In one of the most hard hitting reports censuring the Norway managed Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) and the work of the local office of the UNICEF the leading human rights organization among the Sri Lankan Tamils, University Teachers Human Rights –Jaffna (UTHR-J) said that a golden opportunity of releasing thousands of child soldiers in the Eastern Province was lost because UNICEF followed the SLMM policy of appeasing Prabhakaran than protecting the lives of the innocent children by not talking to the renegade leader Karuna Amman.
By this utter negligence of children by the UN agency many children were killed when Prabhakaran forces attacked Karuna’s installations and if renegade leader Karuna did not disband troops many more would have been annihilated , said the report pointing an accusing finger to the UN agency.
Meanwhile , the report , the bulletin no. 36, issued May 29 said , to make up for the loss of cadres in the East caused by the release of child soldiers by Karuna the Prabhakaran section of the LTTE commenced an aggressive conscription drive in the North and in the Trincomalee District where Prabhakaran’s senior officials were sent to oversee the recruitment. “We had independent confirmation that in some areas (for example, Parappankandal and Mannar District) children were being abducted, forced into vans and driven away, “the report said.
The report clearly pointed out that UNICEF wasted the key opportunity by unwilling to talk to Karuna simply for its good relations with the Prabhakaran section of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and that they have shown “more interest in protecting their own international reputations than preventing abuse.”
The report further charged, “This has always been our main criticism of the figures released by the SLMM and the UNICEF that UTHR-J believes have placed too high a priority on maintaining good relations with the LTTE and protecting their reputation.”
It further charged United Nation’s Children’s fund by telling that “The force of so called transit centers for which the UNICEF has paid out large sums of money to TRO (and thus in effect to the LTTE) , and for buildings that did little for child soldiers , stand testimony to the UNICEF’s orientation.”
The report said during March this year Karuna’s deputies were informing in meetings with civilians that they were releasing children in their camps and UNICEF recorded about a dozen of children in Batticaloa as runaways. The report said, “Unfortunately, because UNICEF remained passive during March, unwilling to talk to Karuna, it lost a key opportunity. With a little persuasion, UNICEF might have secured the formal release of child soldiers in Batticaloa and Amparai Districts, monitored their safety and at the same time put pressure on the LTTE(P) in the North to do likewise. Instead UNICEF took its cues from Norway and the EU, isolated Karuna and simply recorded reports from 13 parents whose children had come home during March.”
“By choosing to join the Norwegians’ game of appeasing the LTTE(P), UNICEF in this crisis compromised its main mandate to protect children. This was a tragic waste of the agency’s substantial influence. With the lives of so many children at stake, UNICEF should have been among those voices demanding that Prabhakaran eschew force to resolve the split in his outfit. When Prabhakaran did attack Karuna’s troops on Good Friday, 9th April, children were among those killed, and it could have been far worse had Karuna not disbanded his troops. On 16th April, a UNICEF statement confirmed the deaths of two girls in the fighting, even though activists on the ground known to UNICEF had testimonies of several more child deaths.”
Recording the activities of the mismanaged UNICEF in Sri Lanka and its failure to protect children since it valued its relations with the child abuser the LTTE more than the protection of the children the report also had the following to say against the UN agency:
“Local groups encountered several parents seeking children who have not returned home after the battle at Verugal. Sources in Kiran for example said that five mothers from Kokkadichcholai stopped there on their way to Verugal in search of their children. Other villages have stories of this kind. But as far as we know no organization has compiled a full account of children missing in the wake of the fighting. UNICEF, after a slow start, began registering returnees in mid-April. It also collected new complaints.
“By around the 20th May UNICEF had registered over 1600 returned children, and had a list of some 374 unresolved cases of child soldiers in Batticaloa-Amparai. Roughly one in five of those children, who returned home after Karuna disbanded his troops, were on a UNICEF list dating from late March that documented 481 unresolved cases for Batticaloa & Amparai. It thus appears that UNICEF had recently received several scores of new complaints from parents whose children had not returned home.
“UNICEF, like other international agencies, had ignored Karuna and the interests of child soldiers during the 40 days of his rebellion. When on 16th April UNICEF finally made a public statement about events in the east, it was to welcome the LTTE(P)’s release of a group of Karuna’s captured or demobilised child soldiers: “On Tuesday 13th April, the LTTE formally released 209 children and the UNICEF assisted in reunifying them with their families”. This was great PR for the LTTE(P). UNICEF’s release suggested that the LTTE(P) had willingly released the children who were going home by the hundreds.
“In fact the 209 children UNICEF said were released in Kathiravelly on 13th April were freed largely as a result of spontaneous protests by their parents, which forced the LTTE(P)’s hand. We understand that several others in this captured group may have been executed. UTHR(J) understands from witnesses that rather than a formal ceremony, the LTTE(P) began to let the children in its custody go in an ad hoc manner, when UNICEF staff heard about the releases and went to investigate.
“The UNICEF statement was widely reported and repeated in the media, which grew increasingly effusive. For example, the BBC reported to the 6th May, “After the recent revolt …in the east...the Tigers released or sent home more than 1300 child soldiers”. That number clearly refers to Karuna’s disbanded army. But the LTTE(P) was able to claim that they had released all child soldiers in the East and to ignore the UNICEF’s demand that they should do the same in the North.
“Prabhakaran’s forces were not responsible for the thousands of released cadres who headed home when Karuna disbanded his army. Instead these troops were considered fair game for re-recruitment.
“Insistent mothers had also converged on Karuna’s camps, demanding that he release their children. We confirmed from sources on the ground that Karuna began releasing children from his main base in Tharavai days before the fighting that commenced on 9th April, and that all remaining children were asked to go home on the evening of Easter Day, 11th April.
“The mothers’ activism belies the frequent claims that poverty has made Tamil parents more tolerant of their children joining the LTTE.
“A witness at the Mankerni army checkpoint about mid-day on 11th April saw three children, girls of 13, 14 and 17 years being escorted from Batticaloa to Kathiravelly by their parents. The children, who were of Veddah origin and were victims of the mass conscription drive from late 2001, had been asked to go home several days earlier by Karuna’s group, LTTE(K). Fearing what lay in store for them, they had taken shelter at the homes of others released with them and sent word to their parents to collect them.
“Two days later on April 13th, the LTTE(P) started releasing former Karuna cadres in Kathiravelly. Contrary to press reports, this release was neither ceremonial nor organized. Child and adult soldiers had been going home all morning, on bicycles and transport provided by well-wishers. UNICEF arrived about 11.00 AM in time to take charge of about 269 of those who remained. In retrospect it was presented as a ceremonial release by the pro-LTTE TamilNet. It referred to the release of 269 cadres, including 168 children, from Karuna’s faction who had ‘rejoined’ the LTTE.
“We have verified that a large number of those released had surrendered to LTTE(P) – a number reported earlier by TamilNet as 300. This number accounts for about half of Karuna’s forces present in Verugal and is consistent with other reports. It does not account for the significantly larger numbers released on that day.
“We know from other reports that some of Karuna’s cadres on their way home had been picked up and detained by the newly arrived LTTE(P) – e.g. at Manalpiddy in Batticaloa South on April12th morning. The LTTE(P) was certainly keen to reabsorb the younger of Karuna’s cadres, without whom they were confronted with a huge problem of lack of personnel. The April 13th release appears to have been precipitated by parents, who were angered that some of their children had been killed treacherously or after they had stopped fighting (see below).
“Some reports said that parents had placed obstructions on the road and refused to let the northern party move in. A senior citizen told us that angry parents demanding their children had assaulted a high-ranking LTTE leader named Senathy with what appeared to be a broomstick or tool handle. This was after he had either on 10th or 11th April given parents an evasive reply to queries about their children. Senathy who had been in charge of Batticaloa town had gone over to Prabhakaran after Karuna’s rebellion. In that mood the LTTE(P) was left with little choice.
“Many parents expressed irritation that UNICEF, which had done very little up to that time to help their children, was suddenly up and about asking for details. Meanwhile, parents and children who had been reunited were facing varying threats from the LTTE(P), which was applying pressure on released cadres to rejoin. A loudspeaker announcement made in Valaichenai town on 12th May said that all those released must rejoin. Other reports from rural areas are more chilling. A civilian reported second hand that in Murunthanai beyond Vahaneri, the LTTE(P) had threatened to shoot those who did not rejoin. There were a number of such reports from rural areas. Significantly, when UNICEF planned to inform parents to register children released, its partner, the TRO, objected to more independent NGOs like Sarvodaya being called to help.
“The fact that the issue raised international concern, eliciting statements of support from Human Rights Watch and the Coalition Against Child Soldiers, owed much to the resistance shown by mothers to the re-conscription of their children, and the persistence of other active groups on the ground. The LTTE(P) was forced to lay off for a while. In Batticaloa-Ampara itself, the parents remain defiant, frequently swearing that their children would be removed from them only over their dead bodies. Yet sympathetic folk who talk to them at greater length soon realise that beneath the defiance there is immense uncertainty and fear. They have neither support nor material means of resistance.”
Analyzing the aftermath of the Karuna release of the child soldiers the report said new child recruitment plans were launched by the Prabhakaran led LTTE and as usual when contacted by the media the UNICEF downplayed it.
The report said, “The BBC (6th May) heard new reports of ‘aggressive’ conscription in the North and contacted UNICEF. UNICEF once again downplayed the true gravity of the problem, acknowledging four confirmed cases of child conscription in Vavuniya during May (as against 11 in April) and saying it hoped that these were isolated incidents owing to persons ‘who were not acting under orders from the leadership’.
“In fact this response from UNICEF came after about ten cases of child conscription were reported in the government-controlled Vavuniya district. Their ages were mainly 13-15 (report from the website http://www.tamilnewsweb.com, a translation of which is given in the Appendix). These reports in the government-controlled area against a backdrop of graver accounts from the LTTE-controlled area nearby made it clear that this was an organized, systematic campaign on the orders of the top leadership. In fact other reports said that the political wing in Jaffna had been ordered to bring in 400 cadres by force or otherwise. Once again the UNICEF was unaccountably misleading. Reports of conscription and violence against resisting parents have since multiplied.
“The trauma suffered by conscripted children and their parents, sometimes driving them to suicide, is a phenomenon we have consistently documented in our reports. The sudden return of hundreds of these children, all with stories to tell, provides fresh and graphic insights into the cruelty they have experienced.
· A 14-year-old boy who came home to rural Batticaloa following disbandment by Karuna will not leave his mother’s side. He even sleeps with her to make up for missing the last years of his childhood.
· Parents of two boys in rural Batticaloa hid their eldest son by moving him from place to place thinking the younger son of about 15 would be safe. The latter cried and screamed when an LTTE abduction gang arrived a year ago. He was violently removed though the parents resisted. They have not seen him since.
· In Mandur in January 2003 LTTE cadres called a 16-year-old boy, who has now returned home, to help them push a stalled vehicle. When the boy failed to turn up at home later his mother, began searching for him from camp to camp. Twelve days later, she managed to sneak into a training camp where she confronted hundred children under training. On seeing the children’s attention diverted, the trainer who was with his back to her turned in alarm, and upon seeing her blew his whistle to dismiss the children. The mother saw her son leave reluctantly. When she demanded her son the trainer sent her to another official. When she was sent from one person to another she realized it was futile and gave up.
· A farmer in Batticaloa who refused to give the LTTE a child two years ago was taken hostage and tortured. Subsequently they took his son who had yet to reach his teens and released the father. When the son later escaped, the father was again beaten badly. The child escapee eventually went back to the LTTE to spare the family further torture and forfeiture of their livelihood.
· Two years ago, LTTE cadres abducted a girl of twelve from rural Batticaloa. When the girl refused to leave, her parents, grandparents and five brothers and sisters were beaten in her presence. The girl was taken away screaming that she would rather be killed than taken. The girl and her abductors have all returned home. She is now 14.
· A boy was removed from home by the LTTE five years ago, at the age of 8. He is now back home and says he was used for tending goats in the jungle, alone much of the time. He has a long way to catch up in education and communication skills with those of his age.
“Our reports over the last 32 months have been full of such cases. But the desecration of a community by their self-acclaimed and donor-backed “liberators” is now out in the open. That the tragedy is ongoing, with renewed conscription by the LTTE in the North-East must be acknowledged and addressed. The rehabilitation of former child combatants and protection and assistance to their families is equally crucial.
“We will now be clear about the numbers and the fact that the stories are not isolated cases but evidence of an endemic problem.
Since May 2002 when we released Special Report 13, we have estimated the number of LTTE conscripts (mainly children) in Batticaloa, Trincomalee and Amparai at more than 5000 and considerably more in the entire North-East, including Jaffna and the Vanni.[1] We always considered these very conservative figures. In fact, because conditions such as the intensity of recruitment and proportion of complaints reported to authorities vary tremendously from locale to locale the actual numbers could be much higher. Not surprisingly, communities experiencing intensive recruitment drives are ruled by a climate of fear that inhibits parents from making complaints.[2] This is an important point. Too often agencies such as the SLMM and UNICEF have promoted the perception that the data they publish tells the whole story.
“The first concrete statistic from the LTTE on child soldiers came from Mr. Sinnaiah, its representative on the Batticaloa Local Monitoring Committee (LMC), who twice told the LMC in September 2002 that the LTTE had in all 12,000 children in their custody.
“An SLMM spokesman Teitur Torkelsson told journalists later that Mr. Sinnaiah had denied saying this, and suggested that the actual number was around 2000.[3] We know now that Torkelsson’s estimate was extremely low, and although the figure attributed to Sinnaiah appeared at the time to be very high, he may not have been far from the truth.
“In January 2003, after downplaying the issue for months in the face of mounting evidence, representatives of the SLMM finally acknowledged that child conscription by the LTTE was indeed a serious problem, and that they were receiving numerous complaints. One SLMM monitor told reporters he thought complaints received by his mission amounted to only about twenty-five percent of the total incidents of child conscription (see Sp.R No.16).
“A girl who was in Karuna’s Meenaham base until disbandment in April 2004 said Karuna had a fighting cadre of 4,200, all from Batticaloa-Amparai. Agencies that have been visiting Karuna’s discharged fighters believe that more than half are children, and that girls out-number boys. Of twenty-three returnees to the village of Vahaneri west of Valaichenai, more than 75% were children.
“In April 2004, the SLMM revealed that out of 1,469 complaints received in the North-East since it began monitoring in February 2002, 1,122 of them were ceasefire violations pertaining to ‘child recruitment.’ This is a small fraction of the total that excludes children abducted during the six months prior to the ceasefire when conscription was particularly intense in Batticaloa.
“UNICEF had 1,269 unresolved cases of child recruitment in its database at the end of March 2004, after Karuna launched his rebellion, but when his troops were largely intact. As noted above, when UNICEF began recording children released as Karuna’s army disbanded, the agency found that only about one in five children was in its database. Some children, killed in Verugal or taken to the North, will naturally remain unaccounted for. The fact that the number of unresolved cases with UNICEF in Batticaloa-Amparai had reduced from 481 at the end of March to just 374 in mid-May suggests that a very small fraction of the 1600 children it registered as having returned home were on its database. The 374 also include new cases of children who failed to return home after the recent events.”
The report further said, “Child soldiers released from Karuna’s army have chilling stories to tell of their experiences under the LTTE. Their testimony makes clear that recruitment is ongoing, and the traumas experienced by children and families are profound. As more parents gather the courage to go public with their complaints, the true scope of the problem is emerging, exposing the half-truths of organisations that have shown more interest in protecting their own international reputations than preventing abuse”
