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| Friday, 25 February 2005 |
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The United Nations yesterday condemned the use of child soldiers in conflicts around the world, calling on the LTTE to end once and for all its practice of conscripting children as fighters. The UN Security Council also called for a monitoring and reporting mechanism to track child recruitment and other children's rights violations. The United Nations Security Council said it has started considering the proposal for such an instrument from Secretary-General Kofi Annan. The new resolution would be aimed at "ending the recruitment or use of child soldiers in violation of applicable international law and other violations and abuses committed against children affected by armed conflict situations, and promoting their reintegration and rehabilitation." It did not make clear whether it would impose sanctions or "targeted measures" against those who recruited children, a key request made earlier in the day by Olara Otunnu, the Secretary-General's Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict (CAAC). The LTTE, named in this year's report, notified him in a letter he received just yesterday of "their readiness to enter into dialogue, using the framework of the monitoring and reporting mechanism," he said. He called on the LTTE leadership to embark immediately on tangible actions, leading to a time-bound action plan to end, once and for all, the practices of recruitment, abductions and use of children as soldiers. He made his remarks during a special Council session convened to review the problems facing child victims of wars and his third report on the situation. The situation of vulnerable children has improved in just a few years, mainly under Security Council leadership, Mr. Otunnu said, but too many of them were still being brutalised by parties to conflicts, with UN field representatives complaining of lack of security, access, cooperation and especially an organised and functioning mechanism for monitoring and reporting at the country level. "Over 250,000 children continue to be exploited as 'child soldiers' - used variously as combatants, porters, spies and sex slaves," Otunnu said. He reported that the number of child soldiers had fallen by 50,000 over the last year because of greater awareness of the problem and the fact that some conflicts had ended. But he called for sanctions and political measures against governments and groups that continue the abuses, saying "carefully calibrated and targeted measures" are effective. "The time has come to subject those who recruit and use child soldiers to the full force of national legal systems and the International Criminal Court," said Rima Salah, deputy executive director of UNICEF. A report by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan listed 42 armed groups in 11 nations that should be punished for recruiting or using children in war. On the list are Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ivory Coast, Somalia, Sudan, Uganda, Myanmar, Nepal, the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Colombia. "The Council has on previous occasions expressed its intention to take concrete and targeted measures against these (offending) parties. "The targeted measures should include the imposition of travel restrictions on leaders and their exclusion from any governance structures and amnesty provisions, the imposition of arms embargoes, a ban on military assistance and restriction on the flow of financial resources to the parties concerned." Meanwhile, former Canadian Foreign Minister Lloyd Axworthy has urged the Canadian Government to take a strong stand against the LTTE, on the issue of continued recruitment of child soldiers. Axworthy made this call when he was interviewed by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in its program series "Whose Truth". He said the Canadian Tamils have a close association with the present Canadian government and that Prime Minister Martin should use this connection to remind the Canadian Tamil community that the LTTE is committing an international crime. He explained that recruitment of child soldiers is an international crime and it is clearly embedded in the Canadian Criminal Code. He pointed out that the Rome statute, which made child soldier recruitment an international crime against humanity, was a Canadian initiative and Canada should naturally take this important move to stop LTTE's child soldier recruitment. The Canadian Tamil Community, he said, should be asked to tell the Tigers that they cannot continue with this crime. Axworthy said Tamil Tigers had been recruiting child soldiers for many years. Human Rights Watch estimated the extent in thousands. Reports are coming that with lots kids let loose by the tsunami disaster, the use of child soldiers by the Tigers had increased, he added. CBC's "Whose Truth" program focused on tsunami fund raising activities in Toronto, in particular about the destination of the millions of dollars donated by Toronto Tamils to the Tamils Rehabilitation Organisation, an LTTE front organisation. He said the government must make a real effort to make zero tolerance legislation about the funding of organisations that use violence or terror. This, he added, would help dry up community support to organisations such as the Tigers. |
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