Topic started by VP (@ 203.94.74.174) on Mon Oct 6 23:13:01 .
All times in EST +10:30 for IST.

Tamil Tiger rebels abducted at least 23 children just a day after freeing 49 child soldiers, according to independent truce monitors in Sri Lanka.
The Norwegian-led Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission said the children were taken from the eastern town of Valachchenai over the weekend.

Three hundred Tamil students from the main school in the area staged a protest, sitting on the main road and blocking traffic all morning.

They said they would repeat their protest - a rare show of defiance towards the Tigers - until their friends were released.

The Tamil Tigers have denied involvement in the abductions, but BBC Colombo correspondent Frances Harrison says it is hard to imagine who else could be behind such a large number of children disappearing.

Fear

The abductions saw several small groups of children taken away. Some children were taken from a school, others from a Hindu temple where religious ceremonies were under way.

Local police say they are finding it difficult to investigate the abductions because parents are too frightened of the rebels to come forward and make an official complaint.

A spokeswoman for the truce monitors, Agnes Bragadottir, said they were trying to arrange a meeting between the Tiger leadership and the Tamil parents in an attempt to secure the release of the children.

The abductions happened barely 24 hours after the Tigers ceremonially released 22 boys and 27 girls at their political headquarters in the northern town of Kilinochchi.

The 49 children are being accommodated at a halfway home in the area set up by the United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef).

The UN agency plans to open two more such centres in the east of the island.

The conscription of children is regarded a violation of the truce brokered by Norway, which is trying to secure a political settlement to the island's ethnic conflict which has claimed more than 60,000 lives since 1972.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/3168756.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/3168756.stm

Responses:

• Old responses
  
• From: VP (@ ) on: Wed Oct 22 23:11:45
  
  UN praises UTHR (J) for risking lives to protect children
  
  Olara Otunnu, the UN secretary general’s special representative for children and armed conflict, this week applauded the University Teachers for Human Rights (Jaffna) for highlighting violations against children at risk to their own lives.
  
  "I think of the University Teachers of Jaffna (Sri Lanka), putting their lives on the line in order to monitor and report on grievous violations against children," Otunnu said, speaking before the third committee of the UN General Assembly.
  
  The group met on Monday to deliberate on the promotion and protection of children’s rights. On Tuesday Otunnu addressed a press briefing at UN headquarters, calling for an end to "the insurgent scourge of abducting children from their homes".
  
  "As we review the development of this agenda, my thoughts go to some of the people that I have been very fortunate to meet during my visits to zones of conflict," said Otunnu, who travelled to Sri Lanka in 1998. "Many of them are ordinary people, as the world would call them, doing extraordinary things in impossible circumstances."
  
  "Out of the ugliness, hatred and desolation visited upon them by the lords of war, they have distilled the core and beauty of the human spirit," Otunnu told the third committee. "I have been deeply moved and humbled by their example of selfless giving, sacrifice, sheer courage and faith, in spite of everything around them."
  
  Otunnu named several others among those he identified as extraordinary people - men and women (including civil society leaders, youth and humanitarian workers) in Albania, Macedonia, Sudan, Burundi, Rwanda, Colombia, Northern Ireland, Democratic Republic of Congo, Afghanistan, Angola and Somalia.
  
  "I could go on and on," he stressed. "These local men and women deserve much more recognition and support from the international community."
  
  "Although many of them don’t participate in discussions within the main UN organisation, are not named in its reports or even known by name, their work puts into perspective ‘our own very modest contribution,’" he acknowledged.
  
  "Let us listen to them. Let us learn to walk more closely along their side."
  
  The University Teachers for Human Rights (Jaffna) - (UTHR (J) — was formed in 1988 at the University of Jaffna. Among their founding members was Dr. Rajani Thiranagama, murdered by the LTTE in 1989. Her death caused a standstill in their public activities as a constituent part of university life. During the course of 1990, the others who identified openly with UTHR(J) were forced to leave Jaffna.
  
  The organisation’s Web site (www.uthr.org) pledges, however, that they will continue to up-hold the founding spirit of UTHR(J). Their professed aims are, "to challenge the external and internal terror engulfing the Tamil community as a whole through making the perpetrators accountable, and to create space for humanising the social and political spheres relating to the life of our community."
  
  UTHR (J) releases regular reports, (published unedited in the ‘The Island’) highlighting misdeeds of both the armed forces and the LTTE. In recent times, these outspoken documents have focused the spotlight on LTTE violations, particularly against children. They usually substantiate their allegations with names and details of individual children abducted by the Tigers.
  
  "The UTHR (J) is particularly concerned about the LTTE’s duplicity regarding its continued recruitment of child soldiers," the UTHR (J) said in a recent release, which examined the health of the peace process one year on.
  
  Although the LTTE is now working with the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) to release child soldiers via transit centres, they continue to enlist "new" children through the back door. UNICEF has confirmed that the Tigers were recruiting children again, despite agreeing during peace talks to release existing child soldiers and to stop further abductions. The agency says at least 52 children were recruited in September alone.
  
  http://www.island.lk/2003/10/23/news03.html
  http://www.island.lk/2003/10/23/news03.html
  
  
• From: spineless Sinhala bitch (@ toronto-hse-ppp3703303.sympatico.ca) on: Wed Oct 22 23:23:19 EDT 2003
  
  notice how he posts up this stuff to cover up the monks abusing Tamil refugee children...who are you bitches to pontificate to us about what our kids do, better they join the tigers than get raped by your perverted army of rapists and looters..buncha sick d!ckless fags.
  
  
• From: Invincible Dravidian (@ toronto-hse-ppp3703303.sympatico.ca) on: Wed Oct 22 23:31:23 EDT 2003
  
  if u guys weren't in our country (EELAM) raping our women and killing our kids, noone would have to fight you, if u care so much about tamil children's lives, then get the fvck out of our country!!! You're killing us for a damn line on a map, but don't worry the end for Sri Lanka is near, nearer than ever, there's nothing you can do about it, and u know it...it's just a matter of time. Peace ;)
  
  
• From: Binocular (@ 64.246.11.20) on: Sat Oct 25 23:38:43 EDT 2003
  
  
  ENJOY SRI LANKAN TAMIL CULTURE....
  
  http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3130372.stm
  
  As two men are jailed for life for murder, BBC News Online investigates what is behind the spiral of violence which has claimed the lives of 10 young men in London's 80,000-strong Tamil community in the past three years.
  
  
  SRI LANKAN TAMILS KILLING AND CHOPPING THEIR OWN PEOPLE.... HAHAHAHA
  
  31 Oct 2000: Manah Kumar, Edmonton
  17 Jun 2001: Aravinthan Muthukumarasamy, Ealing
  6 Nov 2001: Sellathurai Balasingham, Mitcham
  19 Feb 2002: Supenthar Ramachandran, Kingsbury
  22 Apr 2002: Suresh Selvarajah, Wembley
  5 Dec 2002: Navalogan Navaratnam, Edmonton
  19 Mar 2003: Thilipan Thangavidel, Ilford
  8 Jun 2003: Partheepan Balasingham, Wembley
  8 Jun 2003: Kishokumar Balachandiran, Wanstead
  30 Aug 2003: Asan Ratnasergam, Wembley
  
  
  
• From: Binocular (@ 64.246.11.20) on: Sat Oct 25 23:41:09 EDT 2003
  
  
  Invincible Dravidian... how about you go back to Tamil Nadu? LOLS. Tamil Nadu is the homeland of the Tamils and Sri Lanka is the homeland of the Sinhalese.
  
  Thanks.
  
  
  
• From: Kandy Kotiya (@ ) on: Wed Dec 10 01:11:21
  
  Why should Tamils stay in Tamil Nadu when we can get Sri Lanka so easily?? I looked forward to the day when Eelam encompasses all of the island, and where will you be, we'll dump you all in Kandy lake ;)
  
  
• From: Kandy Kotiya (@ 67.71.114.131) on: Wed Dec 10 01:12:30 EST 2003
  
  Sri Lanka WAS the homeland of the Sinhalese hahahahahahahaha!!! Byeeeeee, and thanks for the country ;)
  
  

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