Sri Lanka army dismisses UN child soldier claim

Colombo, Nov 14: Sri Lanka's army has dismissed a UN envoy's charge that elements within the security forces are helping renegade rebels to abduct children as soldiers to fight the Tamil Tigers, voicing deep revulsion.

Allan Rock, Special Adviser to the UN Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict in Sri Lanka, said yesterday his mission had found credible evidence that troops were involved in child abductions.

''The mission's conclusions based on 'eye-witness evidence' that the 'government security forces are actively involved in these criminal acts' deserve a deep sense of revulsion,'' Army Headquarters said in a statement faxed overnight.

It said Rock's findings were ''completely misleading''.

But Rock told reporters on Monday that President Mahinda Rajapakse, under increasing international pressure to halt mushrooming human rights abuses, had vowed to probe the allegations and punish those responsible.

Nordic truce monitors suspect links between some elements of the military and a breakaway group led by a former rebel commander called Karuna, and have accused troops of at the very least turning a blind eye to attacks.

''One very disturbing element that confronted us ... has to do with the complicity and participation of some elements of the government's security forces in the forcible abductions by Karuna of children (in the east),'' Rock said.

Rock said the Tigers also continued to recruit children as fighters, failing to honour pledges to desist in the face of international dismay.

The Tigers, who deny recruiting children and say any in their ranks lied about their age to join, promised to release all under-age rebels by January one. 2007, he added.

UNICEF lists 1,598 outstanding cases of under-age recruitment by the Tigers, 649 of which are still under the age of 18. The agency also lists 142 outstanding cases of under-age recruitment by the Karuna group.

Around 3,000 troops, civilians and rebel fighters have been killed this year amid the worst fighting since a now tattered 2002 ceasefire.

Reuters