UN action against LTTE for child recruitment

UN: The United Nations is planning to take action against the LTTE for its continued failure to cease the recruitment of children and release child combatants, it was disclosed yesterday.

The Security Council Working Group on Children and Armed Conflict considering the Report of the Secretary-General on the Situation of Children and Armed Conflict in Sri Lanka, has decided that its Chairman will issue a strong public warning to the LTTE stating that further measures will be taken by the Security Council regarding its failure to address these issues.

According to UNICEF, since 2001 alone the LTTE has forcibly recruited over 5,700 child combatants. The Working Group report has called attention to the “continuous, ongoing and even increasing pattern of abduction, recruitment and use of children by the LTTE, in spite of previous commitments contained in the Action Plan for Children affected by war in March 2003,” and has “strongly condemned the continuous recruitment and use of child soldiers and all other violations and abuses committed against children by the LTTE.”

The Working Group, chaired by the Permanent Representative of France to the UN was attended by the members of the UN Security Council.

Ambassador Prasad Kariyawasam, Permanent Representative of Sri Lanka to the UN, addressing the Working Group on this occasion stated that Sri Lanka endorses the strong message that has been delivered to the LTTE.

Further prevarication on their part, he said, must entail further serious consequences.

The Ambassador emphasized that Sri Lanka, as a long-standing member of the UN, and as a party to all seven core UN Human Rights Conventions, works with all UN mechanisms in promoting human rights, democracy, pluralism and the rule of law, as well as advancing international peace and security in defeating terrorism and violence in all forms and manifestations.

He pointed out that in the meantime, the actions by the non-state actor, the LTTE, abnegates well-established international norms, and subverts the will of a section of the people it claims to represent.

He remarked that for the sake of peace and security Sri Lanka cannot allow such a terrorist agenda to flourish in any part of the country, and that the Government is of the firm view that a group which uses children as tools of terror, holds children to ransom, and denies children their future, deserves only a strong and decisive response.

The Working Group report also refers to the use of child combatants by the Karuna faction, which according to the UNICEF has as of March 2007, 194 outstanding cases out of 285 children known to have been recruited by them.

The Working Group report, condemning the recent recruitment and use of child soldiers and all other violations and abuses committed against children by the Karuna faction, has said it will also issue a strong public warning to the Karuna faction.

The Working Group report has urged them to engage with UNICEF to release all children among their ranks and prevent the further unlawful recruitment of children.