From Special Report No: 13 of the University Teachers for Human Rights (Jaffna), Sri Lanka.
Date of release: May 10, 2002.
This Special Report offers a detailed analysis of the deteriorating human rights situation in the North and East of Sri Lanka against the backdrop of a peace process. While the cessation of hostilities between the Government and the LTTE has brought long overdue respite for the war weary people, continuing child conscription is a painful reminder that optimism is ill founded. Meanwhile, abductions and extortion have in fact increased. Furthermore, moves towards leaving the LTTE in total control of the interim administration, without a time-frame for the resolution of core issues and arriving at a political solution, is smothering any remaining social or political space for dissent in the Tamil community. The community is being thrust into a polity where the most fundamental of rights are neither acknowledged nor observed.

We find that there is a lack of critical scrutiny of the ongoing peace process, particularly, among the civil society. The UNF government appears desperate to sustain the peace process as it sees the process as the only way to stabilize the economy outside the North and East. On the other hand, civil society groups that recognize the need to end hostilities and arrive at a political solution, are faced with a challenge from Sinhalese chauvinists who are openly mobilizing against the peace process and the MoU. As a result, we are increasingly being pushed into polarized positions – for the MoU or against - without being able, critically and constructively, to engage with the ongoing peace process. What we have now is most NGOs avoiding reporting human rights violations in the North-East by the LTTE. This they do in the vain hope of not rocking the peace boat. This failure continues to be a major barrier towards tapping the immense potential for genuine peace in Sri Lanka. It has, moreover, led to a false perception, both locally and internationally, that all is well with the peace process.

The December 2001 general elections in Sri Lanka were themselves marred by terror and a severe lack of political alternatives. The new UNP government successfully carried out a strategy of winning Tamil votes and appeasing the LTTE in the hope of stabilizing the Southern economy. For their part, the LTTE through the use of terror and an appeal to their opportunism brought several Tamil parties together under the TNA umbrella. There was widespread anger in the Tamil electorate at continuing child conscription by the LTTE. The Tamil voters elected TNA candidates overwhelmingly in hope that the LTTE would return their children and end preparations for an offensive in the North. This was a choice made through sheer desperation for peace. Therefore, electoral support for the TNA by no means represents a belief that the LTTE is the sole representative of the Tamil people.

The Government of Sri Lanka by not wanting to offend the LTTE fails to protect its own citizens in the North-East. Since there continues to be an alarming silence among civil society and much of the peace lobby about these abuses – especially child conscription – the so-called peace process amounts to a game of deal-making between the Government and the LTTE. What is needed now more than ever is a genuine push to monitor and report all human rights violations whether by the LTTE or the Government. It is now more than high time for the UN Special Representative of the Secretary General for Children to become directly involved in the monitoring process in Sri Lanka.

Civil society organizations and peace groups must stand up and tell the truth about the worsening situation of the peoples of the North and East. Any level of peace will depend directly on addressing the immediate and desperate need for human security and freedom from terror. It is the duty of the Government, the LTTE, the Norwegian Monitoring Team and the International Community to heed this call for genuine peace with human rights.

Introduction

From 1985 the Tamil people have been clutching at every straw that offered some hope of peace. Economic constraints have driven governments in Colombo to place a high premium on peace, rising to desperation in recent years. There was no lack of opportunity since 1987 for a responsible Tamil leadership to settle for peace with dignity. However, the war has continued to be imposed on an unwilling people, bringing with it steady attrition of the community’s strength. The accompanying suffering and atrocities by the State have provided fuel for propaganda to justify an utterly futile war. It succeeded in portraying the Sinhalese, an essentially peaceful and unwarlike people, as matchless brutes. The Tamils gained nothing by it, even as they became inexorably brutalised.

Political as well as economic crises have precipitated a situation where the global managers have finally intervened. The country now finds itself in a peace process facilitated by Norway. Invariably, such processes are not bound to be ideal in every respect. At present, its direction is governed by the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed by Prime Minister Wickremasinghe and LTTE leader Prabhakaran. Now that a process is on, we all want it to come to the best possible conclusion

With this end in view, we shall examine how the objectives of the process compare with the developing ground situation. We trust that the International Community, which supports the process, will also take the corrective measures necessary. If not, it is in trouble.

The MoU and Human Rights

The lack of an explicit human rights dimension in the MoU and its implementation orient the process in a way that is intrinsically dangerous. Arguably, however, the basic human rights, civil and political liberties of civilians have been protected by the following provision in Article 2 of the MoU:- viz, "The parties shall in accordance with international law abstain from hostile acts against the civilian population, including such acts as torture, intimidation, abduction, extortion and harassment." Nevertheless, the last four are in fact carried out routinely by the LTTE. The taking of children, many of them under 15, for military service, remains widespread.

These practices are so deeply entwined with the LTTE as an institution that whether it ever intended to do without them needs to be questioned. Were the MoU serious on these matters, they should have been spelt out clearly and reinforced with credible monitoring arrangements. For, it is only then that the civilian population and civil society can play their due role by asserting themselves and constraining the combatants. The very notion of ‘sole representatives’ insisted upon by the LTTE at gunpoint is inimical to a healthy process.

The situation was made worse by the conduct of the Government and the Norwegians, where the nuances of the process gave the Tamil civilians a strong signal that they were being ‘handed over to the LTTE’. There was an attempt by both to suppress, or minimise, mounting, substantiated reports of grave violations by the LTTE, especially regarding the conscription of children. Statements by the Defence Minister exonerating the LTTE were greeted with incredulity in view of contrary reports appearing in his own ministry’s web-site.

It is also clear from the statements of the Norwegian facilitators that they take a very restricted view of violations against civilians. Asked about the Amnesty International report on the LTTE recruiting child soldiers, Vidar Helgessen (Norway’s Secretary of State, Foreign Affairs), told the Daily Mirror (28.3.02) that the LTTE has denied it, while they have been unable to verify it. Clearly, despite being the head of the facilitation mission to Sri Lanka, he has chosen neither to look for the evidence, nor examine what was presented. This appears to be the common line of Norwegian officials. The Peace Support Group which met the Norwegian team on the latter’s initiative was left with the same impression. They have taken the trouble to obtain denials from LTTE functionaries in London and Mallavi without talking to the ICRC, UNICEF and SCF in Colombo.

General Trond Furuhovde, the Norwegian head of the Cease-fire Monitoring Mission, did not want to get drawn into reports of violations compiled by other groups. He would act, he said, only on authoritative complaints made directly to the Mission (Sunday Times 24.3.02 7). This would exclude a host of cases of child conscription and of confiscation of property of those refusing to part with a child, where the families concerned live directly under the LTTE’s gun. Furuhovde told the Island (2.4.02) that none of the complaints examined by him were violations of the MoU, that they were rather criminal matters to be looked into by the Police. This seems to be passing the buck, since the Police, as is widely evident, have been instructed not to act on complaints involving the LTTE.

The Norwegians are trying to play two crucial roles, namely, facilitation/mediation and monitoring. Undertaking the combined responsibility has affected their monitoring function. The present monitoring committees embody locals nominated by the Government and the LTTE. This shows a lack of understanding of political realities in the North-East. The Government’s Tamil nominees are also subject to control by the LTTE and of necessity have limited independence.

The cases presented below in this report are a tiny fraction of similar incidents taking place in the North-East. It would appear that Norwegian officials would dismiss them as ‘rumours’ or as matters irrelevant to their mission. Indeed it is clear from Helgessen’s interview cited above that they are mainly interested in the cease-fire and in dealings between the Government and the LTTE, and not directly in human rights. There would have been merit in this approach if it were stated frankly. There would then have been no need for Norwegian officials to equivocate on matters like child conscription. More importantly, the gaps in the process would have been clearly identified for others concerned to act.

To give one example, a large number of children and adults who escaped from LTTE training camps in the East are now sheltering in areas under the control of the security forces, often close to their camps. What would be their fate in a peace process that amounts to the installation of the LTTE? If one is very reluctant to talk about child conscription, this grave problem is unlikely to be addressed.

What we have now is a very misleading MoU widely observed in the breach, delivering far less than it pretends to, while the Government and the Norwegians give a glowing picture of the peace process. If it is admitted that the kinds of violations presented in this report are taking place unchecked, one needs to be very skeptical about the kind of peace at the end of the process, if indeed there will be peace.

The people thus find themselves utterly powerless. They can see no one who would stand up for them. The message to them is, "You are being sold, if you want to survive, surrender!" The effect on the civilian population is generally very devious. Those looking at the surface could argue that there is nothing fatally wrong.

Ripples on the surface and the deeper ramifications

During mid-March 2002, a group of civilians in Manipay, Jaffna, had a meeting with some members of the LTTE. A woman asked them, "Do you plan to tax us again as you did earlier when you were here?" The answer came that taxes are levied everywhere by those in authority. In what was a cold reception, the woman asked again, "Will you catch children as you did earlier?" "We will not take them by force, but if they come to us on their own, we will take them", came the reply. A civilian population used to having their rights trampled upon might feel relieved if things got no worse than this.

However, we see again the problem of the MoU failing to be explicit, as regards the rights and protection the civilians enjoy and ought to reclaim as their own. On the basis of a mere MoU the LTTE has asserted the right not just to extract money under threat, but even to remove children well under the age of consent. This is only the surface of a regime of terror. A seemingly minor breach of the protection owed to the civilian population, lets in the roaring flood – especially given the nature of the LTTE.

Take some of its ramifications. At a regular meeting of principals in one district, a matter came up under any other business. It was reported that several principals had already received letters from the LTTE to collect 8% of the salaries paid to the staff to be handed over to them. The question put to the chairman was what should they do. The chairman who had a family to think about was being asked to decide for everyone. After a pause the chairman blurted out, "This situation may not last for more than a few months. Don’t add to your troubles needlessly." Everywhere, the principals decided to surrender.

This was just one step. The LTTE then started barging into and taking over schools in government controlled areas, showing their videos and conducting propaganda sessions. Principals and teachers had to stand aside as the LTTE took away children who ‘volunteered’. Some principals resisted as that of the school in Palaiyootru, near Trincomalee. No one is going reward them and they are bound to suffer when the LTTE is given the interim administration. Some principals have gone overboard to curry favour with the new masters, haranguing students to join the battle for Eelam.

During the night of 20th March, the Army in Kiran took down banners and decorations that had been put up for the 14th anniversary of Annai Poopathy’s fast to death. The Army maintained that under the terms of the MoU permission should have been obtained. Then the next day the LTTE commandeered several public transport buses and took them to several schools in the surrounding area. The schools included Valaichenai Hindu, Kinniady Saraswathy, Petthalai Vipulanada and Kalkudah Nahammal. The students from 4th standard (9years) upwards were peremptorily ordered to get into the buses. They were taken to Kiran to picket the road and shout slogans at the Army until about 1.00PM. Then they were asked to get back home on their own.

A similar event took place in the area on 27th March when the Army, in Kinniady, stopped 3 members of the LTTE carrying some military equipment. Again the LTTE brought a large number of school children and made them shout slogans. At Valaichenai Hindu, the sports meet was stopped and the school was brought out. The Army avoided a grave incident by releasing the LTTEers.

Using innocent school children in protests of this kind is none other than cynical manipulation. When it becomes part of a war game played in the name of peace, its implications are dangerous. The LTTE has a long history of fishing for incidents to drive its propaganda mills.

Against this backdrop, there are a number of reports in circulation in Batticaloa on the fate of conscientious teachers who tried to stand up for their children. One such teacher confronted the leader of an LTTE press gang, by asking him how he joined the group. The LTTE man replied that he had joined voluntarily. The teacher replied, "That is the correct way for people to come into your movement. But today, you are ordering parents to hand over their children. This is utterly wrong". The LTTE man left without responding. That same night, a group of LTTEers came to the teacher’s house and gave him a thrashing.

We have thus a glimpse into the deeper ramifications of compromising with LTTE terror by winking at seemingly light matters as ‘tax collection’ and barging into schools. It is enough to destroy the protective function of civil society. By pushing its advantage the LTTE has acquired complete license to regiment society in the manner of an army marching under orders. Under these conditions trying to follow up the conscription of children becomes almost meaningless. Earlier LTTE attempts to conscript children used to result in protest. It led to angry remonstrations and people often complained about it to others in the army-controlled area. Today there is silence and resignation. They have been sold out.

The peace process has indeed brought some unquestionable benefits. Behind it, however, the widespread misery that is being inflicted on the ordinary civilians by the LTTE is largely being blacked out. That there is very little discussion about its consequences for the peace process itself, is alarming. As concerns the loss of their young to a dreadful military machine, the last 8 months for the Tamils in the East have been worse than any past round of disappearances caused by the State Forces. Hundreds of young have been removed by the LTTE from areas under its control and now it is mainly a mopping up operation in pockets that have resisted or escaped. Those who have imposed this ignominy on society use legitimising rituals in an attempt to cloak the harsh reality.

4. Pongu Thamil: Politics of the Oppressed or Oppressive Politics?

Pongu Thamil and commemorations of selected dead are among other means used to impose the stamp of conformity on society. The Hindu described the Pongu Thamil celebration in Vavuniya on 3rd March in the following terms: "It could have been a scene out of the Cultural Revolution in China or out of youth parades in Hitler’s Germany. Slogan-shrieking school children carried placards saying, "Our choice is LTTE, we choose Tamil Eelam" and frenzied teenagers chanted "Our leader is Prabhakaran"…A delirious girl, screaming "Tamil Eelam is our desire", had to be carried away on a stretcher by medical personnel…"

An announcer describing the event as an earthquake that would rock the conscience of the world, as the Tamils’ demand for freedom and self-determination, added, "We are no longer afraid of speaking out. Today is the day for letting our feelings boil over." The report which described the proceedings as ‘theatrical, high on drama and emotion’, followed by speaking of a red shirted contingent of college students setting a giant replica of a soldier’s boot on fire. Then followed a woman introduced as having lost a child to the ‘freedom struggle’ lighting a flame over a map of the ‘Tamil Homeland’, and then a group of boys in scout-like uniform carrying a picture of the LTTE leader onto the stage.

These rallies have also pushed heavily on deifying the LTTE leader as the collective life of the Tamil Nation. The Hindustan Times reported on the rally in Trincomalee on 19th March where participants, prominent among whom were TULF MPs, wore badges bearing the LTTE leader’s image. They raised their hands ‘in a Nazi-type salute as they swore allegiance to him and the LTTE’. (It may perhaps be a mere coincidence, but the famous posters, where an LTTE man is shown leading two children by the hand towards the distant sunset, have been identified as being very similar to those used by the Nazi SS in wartime Europe.)

A particular inspiration behind these proceedings has been the street theatre group associated with the Department of fine Arts, University of Jaffna. Some of its key individuals have long worked in tandem with the LTTE.

The group trained animators throughout the North-East. One of the group’s earlier notable performances was in the Killinochchi area in the wake of the forced exodus from Jaffna in late 1995. A large number of displaced children were then on the streets. In this street drama performance, an actor coming in a van frantically raised the alarm about the Sri Lankan Army raping women and massacring civilians. The children in the audience were invited to get into the van to save the people under attack and to teach the marauding Army a lesson. The children eager for a joy ride were driven away not to be seen again by their parents. Pongu Thamil is an extension on a grand scale of the ideas developed over the years.

Senior TULF leaders have objected to critics who have read warlike overtones in Pongu Thamil by holding that it is a mass movement for peace. However, there was no peace and joy in the expressions of TULF leaders as they swore oaths of fidelity to the LTTE and its leader at the Trincomalee Pongu Thamil (see photograph, Sunday Times 24.03.02). They looked more like men (and a woman) haunted by a spectre of death. Questions were raised within the TULF as to whether the leaders looked at the slogans they endorsed by their participation. Among these were warnings to the United States: ‘Amayappohum Thamil Eelatthil America Thalayidathe’ (‘America, don’t you poke your head into the birth of Tamil Eelam that is imminent’). The leaders replied that they need to go along with such things for pragmatic reasons! The Eelam struggle is unique for the readiness of people to commit suicide for pragmatic reasons!

However, a chilling reminder of the mindset behind the Pongu enterprise was manifest in a welcome speech to the newly arrived LTTE officials at Nallur Kanthasamy Kovil, Jaffna, on 8th April 2002. The speaker was the student union leader in the University of Jaffna, who was a pioneer of the Pongu movement along with a drama don. He said, "Tamil Eelam remains our goal and this Government must come to a settlement with us. If it fails, Jaffna will become the burial ground for the 40 000 soldiers stationed in the peninsula."

More pertinently, is Pongu Thamil the politics of an oppressed people in search of peace with dignity? The answer is clearly NO. It is an attempt to engineer a fatal identification between the Tamil people and the leader of a movement steeped in murder. Apart from several thousand Tamil people, this group has calculatedly massacred thousands among Muslims and Sinhalese who too have their home in the North-East. Where do they belong in the scheme of peace? Unlike 25 years ago, Tamil Eelam is no longer the cry of the oppressed.

To be clear, the Muslims in the North-East are victims of the violence of organised Tamil chauvinism, just as the Tamil people were victims of the State inspired Sinhalese chauvinism. There can be no comparison between the violence of Muslim home guards and the deliberate and planned massacres inflicted on the Muslims by an institution representing the Tamil mainstream. Yet the Muslims have remained moderate in their politics, yearning for reconciliation.

Unlike Pongu, a genuine movement for peace should be able to transcend communal and group divisions and mourn for all victims of violence, in a common resolve to end all violence. A mature peace movement of Tamils should be able to mourn for the Muslims killed at prayer in their mosques at Kattankudy and the Muslim women and children hacked to death by the LTTE in Eravur (see our Reports 7 & 8). LTTE theoretician Balasingam would call this digging up old stories. But the LTTE is all the time making selective use of the dead to suppress other people’s right to their grief. Moreover, nothing has changed in the LTTE’s nature or agenda for more than two decades.

The imposed commemoration of Poopathy as the only one among the many who died at that time worthy of being mourned is a sordid reminder of what the LTTE represents. Indeed hundreds of the victims during that period were murdered by the LTTE. Poopathy was a middle-aged mother from Batticaloa who fasted to death in early 1988 voicing the LTTE’s demands.

This imposition is moreover a warning to expunge from the record the murder of those not deemed human by the LTTE. For thousands of mothers whose sons and daughters were slain by the LTTE, or joined different groups and were killed by the security forces, or whose children are being carried away now as conscripts, their right to grief, and to tears, has been crudely suppressed. Abolished in the name of the god whom they must obey. This is the ‘freedom’ Pongu rallies and their like signify.

This feeling of anxiety about these "uprisings" was expressed in the lecture titled "Collective Trauma" delivered by Prof. Daya Somasundaram at the Annual Sessions of the Jaffna Science Association, University of Jaffna, 3rd April 2002:

"One can understand the need at this crucial time to mobilize the masses, as in the ‘Pongu Thamil’ , to show strength and a united voice to strengthen the LTTE’s hand at negotiations. On the other hand, we have to create a "culture of peace". The leaders may negotiate for peace but for it to be sustainable it has to come from the bottom. The peace process is very fragile. If we leave it to the leaders they may break it as they see fit (according to their perceptions or interests). Mass mobilization will lead to flash points and triggers. But obviously there is a general yearning for peace. This has to come through.

"Community level peace building activities have to be initiated. The mode of thinking and acting has to change from a conflict-habituated system of suspicions, grievances, ethnocentrism, violent solutions and confrontation to a peace system with give and take, accommodation, flexibility, forgiveness, non-violence and a wider world view. A fixed belligerent posture should not be engineered or orchestrated, but a creative response should be allowed to grow independently and spontaneously from below. Only then can genuine peace be sustained."

We quote below an extract from a poem written by a resident of the East that has already appeared in print. For well-known reasons, the author needs to remain anonymous:

Pongu Thamil an uprising!

Seeing all those people

Can I ask each one of them,

"What brought you here?"

Being part of such a massive crowd

Does it make you feel the futility of striving,

Struggling against the tide you’ve stepped into?

Think again;

I know it is easier to merge with them

They speak my language, are part of my culture

Not an alien culture hostile to me

And so, I am ready to celebrate, be one of them

I even forget what I need to stand up for

I looked around for at least one face,

For one person who may cry "foul"!

Nobody did, no one dared

A mass of humanity without a heart

A poem without a poet,

A story without an author

We have mentioned that child conscription lay at the origins of Pongu Thamil and remains inseparable from it.

5. The Continuing Pressure of Children

Contrary to denials by the LTTE leader and the claim by the LTTE spokesman, Mr. Balasingam, that young children who came to them are being handed back to the parents and receipts obtained, any change appears to be merely cosmetic. Reports of a high incidence of conscription have been appearing for 8 months, and continued into the month of May 2002. There are no indications of any qualitative change on the ground.

5.1. The Untold Story

Mas. Kathirkamathamby Pathmasri (15) of Vilavedduvan, Navatkadu, Batticaloa District, was taken by the LTTE on 14th March 2002. He escaped and returned home on 1st April. The LTTE area leader, Mohan, came home in search of him the same day. Having found Pathmasri, he began assaulting him mercilessly with the intention of taking him back. Watching helplessly and unable to bear the sight of her son being mauled, Pathmasri’s mother, Mrs.Pathmavathy Sivakolunthu (47), took poison and was admitted to Batticaloa Hospital, where she recovered.

Mas. P (17) of Trincomalee went with the LTTE after a propaganda meeting on 15th March 2002. He was taken for training to Raalkuli, about 5 miles from Alankerni towards Mutur. This is evidently a smaller training camp where those brought are kept for less than two weeks before being sent to the base at Koonitivu. He escaped on 21st March. According to his testimony, 175 youths were under training at Raalkuli, of whom 75 were under 15 years of age. Of the latter, above a dozen were about 10 years old.

The following four children escaped from the LTTE’s training camp in Uppaar, near Alankerni, and surrendered to the Police at China Bay, Trinco District, on 6th April 2002, They have stated they were forcibly taken.

Mas. James Ganeshton alias Mathan (age 14) of main Street, Anandapuri, 3rd Mile Post, Trincomalee. Taken 12th February 2002.

Mas. Nishantan Shanmugam alias Vamadevan (14) of Pulithevanager, 3rd Mile Post, Trincomalee. Taken 15th March 2002.

Mas. Varatharajan Krishnan alias Eelaventhan (15) of 233. Mariamman Kovil Rd, Gandhi Nagar, Trincomalee. Taken 14th February 2002.

Mas. Satyaseelan Kuhathas (16) of 294/19. Puthukkudyiruppu, Thuwarankadu, 3rd MP, Trincomalee. Taken 16th February 2002.

Mas. Balakrishnan Latchumanan (17) of 3. Alady Rd., Thonikkal, Vavuniya, has been in the custody of the Vavuniya Police since January 2002. He was recruited in 1999 at the age of 13.

Saved by Muslim villagers: A 15 year old boy from a Trincomalee suburb was taken along with two other boys of about the same age by LTTE recruiters who had screened action videos in early March. The boy’s mother is a well-known craftswoman. Later on, this boy and one of his two companions escaped from their training camp near Mutur. Some days later, local Muslim villagers contacted parents of the escapees and informed them that the boys were with them. They explained that the boys had come to the Muslim village and sought help. The Muslims were keeping the boys until the search for them was called off. The boys were duly restored to their parents.

Signing away one’s life: In early March, the LTTE stopped 3 students down Court Road, Trincomalee, after a tuition class. The three were persuaded to sign their names on blank sheets of paper. Later the LTTE went to the home of one of the boys and showed the parents a signed letter, where the boy had ostensibly volunteered to join the LTTE. They demanded the boy. The parents questioned the boy and refusing to give their son, explained the true position to the LTTE. Likewise, in the homes of the other two boys. The LTTE left after dropping dark hints that they would take up the matter again.

Mas. Suresh (15) of 6th Colony, Dehiwatte, Allai Scheme, south of Mutur, was forcibly taken away by the LTTE last November, after a propaganda meeting.

Mas. Suthahar Singarasa (16) of Verugal, Trincomalee District, who was schooling in Eechchilampattai, was forcibly taken away by the LTTE during March 2002.

Shorn, but safe: In early April, 20 girls made an escape from the LTTE training camp near Kudumbimalai in the interior of Batticaloa. Subsequently, soldiers from the Kaluwankerny camp lying in ambush to apprehend LTTE infiltrators, saw four figures crossing the water at Mavadiodai, whom they at first took to be males. On summoning them, the soldiers discovered that the four were girls with their heads shorn. The four were sent to Batticaloa and released to their families. They do not know what became of the other 16 who escaped with them. The shearing of heads is a practice adopted by the LTTE to make it difficult for escapees to hide. The four girls are: Vinothini Pakiarasa (aged 17) and Ranganayaki Vyramuthu (19), both from Kokkuvil, Batticaloa District, and Kalanithy Tharmarasa (16) and Vasanthakumari Murugesu (16), both from Vinayagapuram, Thirukkovil 3, Amparai District.

All four said that they had been abducted, the latter two while returning from tuition.

Missing: Mas. Mariyanayagam (17) was a student at St. Michael’s Batticaloa, who went missing after attending a computer class in early March. After looking high and low for him for over two weeks, his mother and sister concluded that he must have been forcibly taken by the LTTE.

Into the Crocodile’s Jaws: During February 2002, 5 youths, including Mathialagan (16) of Thampalakamam, escaped from the LTTE training camp at Eechchantivu, south of Mutur, with pursuers hot on their heels. Three of them succeeded and went into hiding. Two of their number, according to the survivors, had been carried away by crocodiles while crossing a waterway. The LTTE later visited the homes of the escapees and threatened the parents with severe consequences if their sons were not handed over.

What follows is a very small sample mainly from the conscription that has been taking place in the army-controlled area of Batticaloa District that is known to have increased after the signing of the MoU:

Mas. Karunathas Mylvaganam (16) of Veppavedduvan, Pankudaveli, taken 28th Jan.02

Mas. Sritharan Tharmalingam (15) of Kiramakkottu Veethy, Araiampathy, taken 3rd Mar.02

Mas. Nishanthan Sittiravel (16) of Thalavai, Morakkatanchenai, taken 12th Mar.02

Mas. Pratheepan Pakiarasa (15) of Post Office Road, Kiran, taken 23rd Mar.02

(The case of another boy taken from the same area on the same day is given in the next section.) Cases pertaining to April are given in Chapter 8 below.

5.2. Conscription of very young children

Campaigns about child soldiers tend to isolate children under 15 taken into an armed group. But in the Tamil case in Sri Lanka, this is just a reflection of the whole society being conscripted. The question of choice, whether child or adult, does not arise.

Mas. Duraisamy (11): Duraisamy of Kothiawalai resides at Pavatkodichenai, Unnichai, Interior Batticaloa, where he is a cultivator. In late March 2002, the LTTE went to his home and demanded a child in accordance with their scheme of one child per family. Despite Duraisamy’s strenuous objections, the LTTE took away the eldest of his three children, a boy of eleven years. According to local sources, this remains the norm.

Mas. Karunakaran (10) is the 10-year-old son of Nallaih Karunakaran, of Unnichchai, a man who suffered from polio as an infant, and now ekes out a living by working as a labourer and collecting firewood. The LTTE demanded and took his son after mid-March 2002. The boy was taken to a training camp in the interior. However, the boy, who had been herding cattle in the area knew the ins and outs of the place. He escaped and now lives with an uncle who had converted to Islam and resides in a Muslim area.

Mas. Pakiaratnam Suthanthiravel (14) of Post Office Road, Kiran, was forcibly conscripted on 23rd March 2002.

The following two children were forcibly taken by the LTTE after 22nd February 2002, when the MoU was signed:

Miss. Kumuthu Thiagarasa (13) of Mahilavedduvan (not attained age)

Mas. Babu Thambimuthhu (13) of Unnichchai

The two following children, both orphans, who were looked after by Pastor (Miss) Rajini Thancharatnam of Bethania Gospel Fellowship, Trincomalee, were abducted by the LTTE:

Miss. Kumari (12) was abducted in January, when returning from school. (Her parents had committed suicide.)

Mas. Yoshua (14) who was adopted by Miss.Thancharatnam, was abducted in early March 2002.

Miss. Thancharatnam brings up several orphans. Those familiar with her establishment have testified that the children received abundant warmth and love from her and there is no question of the children having gone to the LTTE willingly without a word.

Mas. Jeyakavithan Kalirajah (12) of Ward 10, Ahambaram Street, Trincomalee, was removed from school by the LTTE after a propaganda blitz in January 2002. During April, after the LTTE office in town was opened the boy’s father, Kalirajah, and his mother went there and pleaded to be shown their only son. The LTTE political officials told Kalirajah that he had been in a group that conscripted youth for the Indian inspired TNA in 1989. For this reason, they said, he has no right to ask for his son!

Kothiyavalai, Kannankuda, Batticaloa District : On 10th October 2001, the LTTE did a roundup of this village in the interior. It then took away 67 children of whom 36 were girls and 31 boys. Many of them were very young.

The names of some of them follow:

Miss.Thanalatchumy Panchacharam (13)

Miss. Kamalanayaki (14)

Miss. Lingeswary Yoganathan (13) of Kuruvichaiyady Munai

Many tragedies concerning child conscripts are widely known, but only a tiny fraction can be, or have been, tracked down to their source. For example, several weeks ago, Electricity Board men in Batticaloa went into the LTTE-controlled village of Kokkadichcholai to attend to some work. They encountered an angry mass of villagers in an uproar. The electricity men were virtually chased off. The protest was against the LTTE that had conscripted a 13-year-old girl. The Electricity men were told that this girl had died in the training camp. Such spontaneous protests are quickly and effectively suppressed by the LTTE and nothing gets outside.

In another instance, in March, a family forced to surrender a child, handed in a retarded boy of about 15. The LTTE beat up the boy and dumped him. The boy was treated in hospital. We have so far been unable to track down the details and what happened to the family afterwards.

5.3. Ongoing patterns of child enticement/conscription

The LTTE commenced compulsory recruitment on a massive scale in the Batticaloa District last August. This followed huge losses in recent years and the drying up of recruits from the North, where resistance was building up. The LTTE’s slogan in Batticaloa is one child per family and is still being implemented. The conscription was pursued with vigour even as the Southern polity ran into crisis last year and the tragedy in New York created an environment unfavourable to the LTTE. The same vigour was kept up even as the government changed and a Norway brokered peace process was in prospect. The typical scene in the rural villages was LTTE recruiters arriving in tractors and departing with a trailer load of children, leaving behind the village in anguished mourning.

Whenever international institutions (e.g.AI) protested with concrete cases, the LTTE prevaricated, tried to make out that the eastern leader, Karikalan, was acting on his own against policy, announced an inquiry, and, in effect, played for time. However, in September last year, much publicised representations were made to the LTTE by Bishop Swampillai and other religious leaders in Batticaloa. If there is any basis for relief in reports of outright forced conscription having declined, it is merely that the task in interior Batticaloa is nearing completion. Now it is mopping up.

The LTTE’s attention is now diverted towards recruitment in areas previously under army control into which it has been allowed entry for ‘political work’ as stated in the MoU. The pattern is the same as that in Jaffna in the early 1990s and in the Vanni recently - barge into schools, or corner children on streets and squeeze them psychologically. Although, the numbers are again very high, it has not made news like driving tractors into a village and shovelling in children. The children are now taken away more discreetly. Often they are made to sign a letter of consent and are subsequently led away in smaller numbers, often in public transport, to contact points.

In several marginal areas or those where the security regime imposed by the state has been resented, there is also susceptibility among children to LTTE propaganda. These are often also areas where the Tamils have long felt economically, territorially and electorally threatened. This susceptibility has been greatly enhanced by demonstrations like Pongu Thamil and Annai Poopathy celebrations. Certain such areas are Trincomalee and Amparai Districts and others like Vavuniya and Cheddikulam.

An important feature to be borne in mind is strongly suggested by the large number of escape attempts by recruits. This is that, of those taken away by the LTTE after being emotionally drugged, nearly all of them want to escape immediately afterwards. We receive further confirmation of this from the LTTE shearing the heads of girls and the fact that those who have succeeded in escaping are mainly children in their latter teens.

By early May, there was a further acknowledgement from the LTTE that the problem of escaping children was indeed phenomenal. About the beginning of May, several parents of conscripts went to the training camp in the Unnichchai area to see their children. They were turned back after being told by the LTTE that that they were in the process of shifting the camp further into the wild interior because many had escaped.

While the agony of missing their home must be greater for children in their early or pre-teens, they would be deterred by the severe hazards involved. The training camps are in wild interior areas and hazards from elephants and crocodiles to marshes have been encountered in cases presented in this report. Moreover, the punishment for those caught is severe (e.g. the assault of the 15 year old boy above). There is no doubt that only a fraction of escapees succeed and an even tinier fraction of escapes and attempted escapes come to light. Initially the longing to escape is high, until broken and entrapped in the organisation’s workings.

6. Some Regional Traits in Child Conscription

6.1. Trincomalee

Although the peace process is the context behind the LTTE being given open entry to the government controlled areas, LTTE members barging into schools say not one word about peace. It is all about war. In a typical encounter, LTTE recruiters take over a class while the teacher is asked to stay away. The opening gambit to the children is: "Why do you want to waste time studying? You are not going to get jobs!" Then comes, "Who is going to come to your defence when the Army rapes your mothers and sisters and murders your fathers and brothers? Is it not ourselves?" The pressure is then built up, all the time appealing to an individual’s sense of guilt and shame.

The total number of children recruited, after the signing of the MoU (22.2.02), from a single school in a Trincomalee suburb - Chelvanayakapuram High School - is placed at well over 100. We give below a small cross section of those taken:

Grade 8: Miss. Vimalakanthi (13) and Miss Kalaivani (14)

Grade 9: Mas. Thayan Joseph (14) and Mas.Saran (15)

Grade 10: Miss. Rasani (15), Mas. Thevanayagam (15),

Miss. Nilun(16) and Mas. Sasitharan (16)

Grade 11: Miss. Nilun (16) , Miss. Vijayakumari (17,

Miss. Samuthiura (17), Mas. Chnadiranesan (16), and

Mas. Nilantharan (17)

The pattern is commensurate with that reported by the escapee above from the training camp at Raalkuli in March. The total number taken recently from Trincomalee town alone is estimated at above 1000. The total for the East is estimated at more than 5000.