TRO helping LTTE child conscription - UTHR (J)

Manjula Fernando

JAFFNA: University Teachers for Human Rights (UTHR) Jaffna, an independent union of tamil academics, in their latest bulletin has accused the LTTE of continued conscription of children, as young as six years and even the disabled.

Based on first hand witness accounts, the report has also accused that some top TRO officials were LTTE intelligence cadres.

The bulletin issued on March 13 tilted ' Infamy in Sri Lanka's North East' describes how the Vanni intelligence kept close links with top TRO officials.

It charges the TRO has been tasked to take over the 40 odd children's homes in the East and that they were helping the LTTE for child conscription under cover. According to the report the LTTE had abducted 40 children between the age of 15 to 6 years in the Palugamam home in Batticaloa after the Sencholai air raid.

"The LTTE started a home in Palugamam, which was run by the TRO. It had around 40 children below the age of 15, down to about 6. Many of them were orphans or children lost during the tsunami and who fell into LTTE hands," the UTHR reports.

These children had suddenly gone missing after the Sencholai air raid and the parents had traced them to the Arivuchcholai home in Batticaloa, the parallel to Sencholai.

The report says when the parents wanted the children back the LTTE tried various ruses to put them off such as promise of good education. But finally when their tricks did not stop parents fighting for the children, they were secretly taken away to cut off their families and relatives.

The report which gives detailed accounts of individual instances of LTTE's brutal child conscriptions, claims the LTTE uses severe methods to acquire children.

The LTTE demands a minimum of one fighting cadre from a family to fatten their military machine and other than in Vanni there is no scruples over the age of the child.

The children who were mentally handicapped and hearing impaired have been forcibly recruited to do minor work such as digging bunkers and farm work.

The report describes the ruthless methods used by the LTTE to punish the captured underaged-deserters.

"The punishment for conscripts caught escaping is to be hung upside down by the toes with a thorny stick from an orange tree placed under folded and tied knees.....The victim is then assaulted all over and buffeted about in the hanging position while he bleeds."