Govt. failing to stop Karuna group: HRW

The New York based Human Rights Watch said yesterday that despite promises to investigate child abductions by the Karuna group, the Sri Lankan authorities have taken no effective action to stop abductions.

While saying LTTE was still continuing to recruit children to be used as child soldiers, the HRW said that in February the organisation witnessed how children clearly under the age of 17, some armed with assault rifles, performing guard duty at various offices of the Karuna group's political party, the Thamil Makkal Viduthalai Pulikal (TMVP).

"Human Rights Watch saw a child with an assault rifle guarding the TMVP office in Kiran, home town of the group's leader V. Muralitharan, also known as Colonel Karuna. Other children, some of them armed, were seen in and around TMVP offices in the district, including in Valaichchenai and Morakkottanchenai, where the office is across the road from a Sri Lankan army base," it said.

HRW Asia director Brad Adams said when government troops at a military base looked across the street at children standing guard at a Karuna office and did nothing, it was hard to believe the government was taking any meaningful steps to end the abuse.

He said President Rajapaksa and other Sri Lankan officials have repeatedly said the government would investigate the allegations of state complicity in Karuna abductions and hold accountable any member of the security forces found to have violated the law. But to date, however, the government had taken no effective steps. According to UNICEF, there were 45 reported cases of Karuna child abductions in three months – ten in December, 24 in January and 11 in February.