The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam are waging a campaign in eastern Sri Lanka to abduct former child soldiers for their  forces, Human Rights Watch said today. Over the last three weeks, the armed opposition group has intensified efforts to re-recruit child combatants released by Colonel Karuna, a renegade rebel commander defeated by its forces in April.

According to the U.N. Children's Fund (UNICEF) and local human rights groups, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) are forcibly abducting children from their homes and threatening parents who dare resist or complain about the abductions. The
armed group is believed to be focusing on abducting small groups of children rather than large groups, so as to slowly rebuild its forces without attracting too much attention. Its members have been going to villages in the Batticaloa district of eastern Sri Lanka, banging on doors, threatening parents with dire consequences in the event of non-compliance, and abducting 8 or 9 children from each village.

Typically these children are transported on motorised rickshaws to the nearby lagoon. To evade army checkpoints, they are sent on boats to the Tigers' Vaharai camp. Local sources have heard the Tamil Tigers threaten to immediately kill parents
who complain or try to get information about their abducted children.

Another method of forced recruitment is through personalised letters to the parents, ordering them to attend meetings where they are addressed by one of the LTTE area leaders in Batticaloa.

Although some parents have organised themselves in order to resist the LTTE pressure, there is considerable fear of reprisal in small communities with little or no government presence. The Tamil Tigers' ruthless and unforgiving tactics have
terrified parents, children and human rights workers, who have no recourse to real protection from the Sri Lankan government.

The Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which protects children in armed conflict, prohibits the direct use of any child under the age of 18 in armed conflict and prohibits all use of children under 18 by non-state armed
groups. Sri Lanka is a party to the protocol, which came into force in February 2002.

"The Tamil Tigers are blatantly violating their obligations under international law and ignoring the efforts of UNICEF to protect these children," Thapa said. "Children are being used to fill the ranks of the Tigers, while their parents face harsh
retribution if they try to prevent it," said Tej Thapa, South Asia for Human Rights Watch.

[Source: Human Rights Watch. For the full article, visit:
http://www.humanrightswatch.org/english/docs/2004/06/28/slanka8976.htm]