While LTTE has been known to recruit children to serve in the armed conflict, a new UN report has also charged the Sri Lankan government of engaging in similar practices.

The Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) confirmed charges made by the UN’s Allan Rock about Government involvement in child recruitment and emphasised that the SLMMM too has supportive evidence.

The SLMM has confirmed allegations made by the UN of involvement of government forces in child recruitment and said that they too possessed evidence to that effect.

“The statement made by the UN official is correct and the SLMM in its second Geneva report released in August also stressed that we had sufficient evidence to prove that the government forces were involved in child recruitment,” Acting SLMM Spokesperson, Helen Olafsdottir told The Morning Leader.

She added that the SLMM would continue to monitor the situation.

In its second Geneva report, the SLMM said that child recruitment and child abduction continued on a relatively high level in June, July and August but unlike earlier months, a majority of the cases reported were not against the LTTE, but against the Karuna group.

“While it is evident that LTTE was behind most of the child recruiting as confirmed by several of the victims and the LTTE, there are also strong indications that the Karuna (group) were behind several of these abductions,” the SLMM report said.

It further said that there were a number of indications that the government was actively supporting the Karuna group. “Known Karuna supporters have been seen moving to and from SLA camps, and it is evident that the security forces and police in some areas are not taking action to prevent armed elements from operating,” the report said.

Latest reports complied by the SLMM too said that abduction were continuing in Batticaloa. “Batticaloa is more tense than the week before and SLMM received complaints of eight killings and 17 abductions (including three children). Numbers are bound to be much higher as parents of abductees have been threatened by the perpetrators not to report to police or international organizations,” it said in its latest situation report.

Meanwhile the UNICEF in a recent report states that the breakaway Karuna faction of the LTTE known as Tamil Makkal Viduthalaip Puligal (TMVP) has recruited 142 child soldiers.

“As of 31 October 2006 there are also 142 outstanding cases of under age recruitment by the Karuna group, all of them boys,” the report said.

However the UNICEF estimates that its database only reflects a third of the actual number of children, because often parents do not report abductions in fear of being harassed by these rebel cadres.

UNICEF was given a mandate to monitor child rights violations of the ceasefire agreement at the Oslo round of Peace Talks in November 2002.

According to the latest statistics, as of October 31, 2006, there are 1598 outstanding cases of under age recruitment by the LTTE. Of these, 649 are under the age of 18, and 949 were recruited while under 18 but have now passed that age.

A news report filed by B. Muralidhar Reddy the Colombo Correspondent of “The Hindu” notes that the report of Mr. Rock has triggered an alarm in the political and diplomatic circles here.

In the words of a western diplomat, “We are shocked that a section of the security forces, whose government is actively engaged in a campaign against the practice of use of children for combat by the LTTE, is now photographing children in villages and facilitating the Karuna group to do the same thing. This is totally unacceptable. If unchecked, the international community might be left with little option but to consider sanctions.” The Hindu” says.