Child soldier pictures at Thamilselvan funeral:

Are HR groups and Media blind ? - Keheliya

Rafik Jalaldeen

Human Rights Watch and other International Organisations maintained a deafening silence on LTTE child recruitment withholding credible evidence while the media too failed to highlight such instances, Defence spokesman Minister Keheliya Rambukwella said.

He was referring to the large attendance of child soldiers at the funeral of LTTE Political Wing leader S.P. Thamilselvan.

Speaking at the weekly security news briefing, Rambukwella noted that certain international organisations and human rights bodies blamed the Government when Thamilselvan was killed in an aerial attack but did not utter a word on the presence of child soldiers to mourn Thamilselvan.

“A UNICEF delegation had gone to Kilinochchi in 2005 and found over 1,300 LTTE child soldiers. The UNICEF delegation obtained a promise from Thamilselvan to release the child soldiers but he reneged the promise to the UNICEF,” the Minister said.

Rambukwella pointed out that Human Rights Watch and other international organisations “are playing partial and blind roles and heaping the blame on the Government.”

UN Special Envoy Allan Rock had made a comment that he possesed credible evidence that the Security Forces were not only helping the Karuna Faction to recruit child soldiers but also taking part in child recruitment. The Government kept asking him to prove this with credible evidence but he failed to do so, he added.

He challenged Rock and Human Rights Watch with evidence in the Government’s possession showing that the LTTE was directly involved in child recruitment.

“Let them break their silence now”.

He said: “Human Rights Watch and International organisations are blind not to spot child soldiers in the pictures taken at Thamilselvan’s funeral. When it concerns Karuna all human rights groups raise their voices but when it is Prabhakaran they fall silent”.

Rambukwella reiterated that the LTTE was recruiting young mothers as suicide cadres but this matter was not taken up by the media or any human rights organisations.

“We have reliable information that the LTTE had recruited young mothers forcibly to their outfit and trained them as suicide cadres.

This matter however did not gain exposure in the media and did not catch the attention of human rights groups,” he added.