The New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW), which has relentlessly denounced a Tamil separatist rebel group for recruiting child soldiers in the northeast of Sri Lanka, is now pointing an accusing finger at the government in Colombo for complicity in similar crimes.

In a detailed 100-page report released last Wednesday, HRW says a breakaway faction of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) called the Karuna Group is not only recruiting child soldiers but also doing it with the implicit support of the Sri Lankan government, with whom it has been cooperating against the LTTE. The government, HRW says, is violating international law by “facilitating child recruitment” and using the Karuna Group as “a proxy force” in its conflict with the Tigers. In earlier reports, HRW has lambasted the LTTE not only for abducting children and deploying them as soldiers but also for extorting money from Sri Lankan expatriates, specifically in Canada and Britain, and other European countries.

“The government’s collusion on child abductions by the Karuna Group highlights its hypocrisy,” says Jo Becker, child rights advocate at Human Rights Watch, who has been closely monitoring the LTTE’s activities. Asked whether the crisis in Sri Lanka warrants its inclusion on the agenda of the UN Security Council, Becker said: “HRW hasn’t taken a position on whether Sri Lanka should be included on the Security Council agenda or not.” On February 9, she said, a Security Council working group on children and armed conflict is scheduled to consider reported violations against children by all parties to Sri Lanka’s armed conflict. The working group will make recommendations for Security Council action. Last week a UN report on “Children and Armed Conflict in Sri Lanka” called for the imposition of “targeted” UN sanctions on the LTTE and its leadership for violating international law by recruiting child soldiers.

Titled Complicit in Crime — State Collusion in Abductions and Child Recruitment by the Karuna Group, the report includes detailed interviews with parents and children caught up in the crossfire in the eastern and northern provinces. The UN report released last week makes identical charges against the LTTE and the Karuna Group. Both groups have been asked to cease all recruitment and use of child soldiers, including abductions. The HRW report says that throughout the two-decade long civil war, the LTTE has consistently recruited and used children in armed combat. The LTTE has deployed children in mass attacks during major battles. “Now the Sri Lanka government through a proxy force is implicated in some of the same abuse,” HRW says.

The report urges “the Sri Lankan government to take feasible steps to stop child recruitment and abductions by the Karuna Group.” In a report released last year, HRW said the LTTE was subjecting Sri Lankan Tamils living in Canada, Britain and other Western countries to “intimidation, extortion and even violence to ensure a steady flow of funds for operations in Sri Lanka and to suppress criticism of human rights abuses.” “The culture of fear is so strong that even Tamils who do not support the Tigers feel they have no choice but to give money, knowing they are funding political killings and the recruitment of children as soldiers in Sri Lanka,” HRW said. — IPS