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UN rejects LTTE overture
By Thalif deen at the United Nations
NEW YORK - The LTTE, in an effort to endear itself with the United Nations, has written a second letter requesting a meeting with Under-Secretary-General Olara Otunnu, the UN Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, but the request has not been granted.

"I have no plans to meet them until the Security Council adopts a new resolution," Mr. Otunnu told the Sunday Times, despite a public assurance by the LTTE that it has stopped recruiting child soldiers. But the UN children's agency UNICEF has accused the LTTE of breaking its pledges and continuing to recruit children even during and after the tsunami disaster.

The LTTE wrote its first letter early this year and Mr. Otunnu made a specific reference to it when he addressed the Security Council last February. Mr. Otunnu told the Sunday Times that his first priority was to ensure that the 15-member Security Council adopted a new resolution, currently under discussion, aimed at imposing severe penalties on governments and rebel groups recruiting child soldiers and abusing children in war zones.

The imposition of "carefully calibrated and targeted measures" could have the desired impact on governments as well as insurgents, he added. Besides travel restrictions on rebel leaders, Mr. Otunnu has also proposed a ban on military assistance, an arms embargo, restrictions on the flow of financial resources, and the exclusion of government and insurgent leaders from any governance structures and amnesty provisions.

Asked how the UN could effectively implement these measures against rebel groups that operate outside the mainstream, Mr. Otunnu said: "Most of the rebel groups are sophisticated political and economic players not only within their own countries but also internationally.''

He said most of them, including the LTTE, have financial assets and political representatives in world capitals, including London, Paris, New York and Washington DC. "They are present at the annual sessions of the Human Rights Commission pushing their point of view. They want good copy in radio, tv and newspapers," he said.

These rebel groups also maintain a brisk illicit transnational trade in commodities, including timber, drugs and diamonds. At the same time, Mr. Otunnu said, rebel leaders also travel abroad to lobby for their cause. If the Security Council resolution is adopted, he said, "there are major levers one can press" to punish these groups.

The sanctions envisaged by the UN, he said, had to suit the vulnerabilities of the groups concerned. "It is not a one-size-fits-all solution," Mr. Otunnu added. According to several human rights groups, the LTTE has recruited over 3,500 children since the group signed a ceasefire with the Sri Lankan government in 2002. In doing so, it also broke a pledge given to the UN that it would cease recruiting child soldiers.

The Security Council has been discussing the proposed resolution since last February. But progress has been slow because Council members have traditionally remained reluctant to use sanctions as an instrument of punishment.

In a report to the Security Council in February, Otunnu listed 17 "situations of grave concern" relating to children, and also named 54 offending parties, including governments and rebel groups.

The 54 include either government forces or rebel groups -- or both in some cases -- in countries such as Burundi, Cote d'Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia, Sudan, Colombia, Myanmar, Nepal, the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Uganda.

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