Radhika says her position at Geneva not reflected

Special Representative of the UN for Children and Armed Conflict and UN Under-Secretary General Ms. Radhika Coomaraswamy writes to The Sunday Times saying that the article we published in our city edition last week did not ‘fully represent’ her intervention at the UN Human Rights Council sessions in Geneva.

The Sunday Times said that Ms. Coomaraswamy, ‘in a report’ to the UNHRC, highlighted in particular the adoption of zero tolerance in regard to child recruitment, the commitment in relation to the Security Council Resolution 1612 and the action taken in setting up a committee to investigate allegations of complicity against elements of the security forces in the alleged abductions and recruitment of children by the LTTE breakaway group - the Karuna faction.

The news item said that she said it was unfortunate that the LTTE did not commit to the full, releases of children under the age of 18 years, and this she noted was in contravention of applicable national and international law.

Ms. Coomaraswamy has sent us a copy of her ‘report’ from which we quoted, and find it's the same thing. She says that she appointed former Ambassador Allan Rock as her Special Advisor to visit Sri Lanka, and that he found that “the LTTE had not complied with previous commitments; that under-age recruitments continue and several hundred children as verified by UNICEF have not yet been released.”

She also refers to how Ambassador Rock found ‘credible evidence’ that certain elements of the Sri Lankan Army ‘may have’ aided the Karuna faction abduct children in Government-controlled areas. The reference to the LTTE not committing to the release of children under 18, is taken word for word from her report.

What Ms. Coomaraswamy adds is that there was an ‘interactive dialogue’ following her 'report'. There, she says she was asked ‘numerous questions’ about developments in Sri Lanka, and that she pointed out some ‘positive developments’ on the part of both the Government and the LTTE.

She says the Government has adopted a zero-tolerance to child recruitment (what we reported), and submitted itself voluntarily to the Security Council Resolution 1612 (what we reported), and has appointed a Committee to inquire into Allegations of Abductions of Recruitment of Children for use in armed conflict (what we reported).

What she says we did not report was that she also said that, according to UNICEF, for the first time, “release of children is greater than recruitment” by the LTTE, “though there are many more to be released” (what we reported).

She says she said that the Karuna faction, however, continues to recruit children with impunity in Government-controlled areas and this new Committee has a very important role to play to investigate such matters.

Ms. Coomaraswamy adds this: “In response to questions on humanitarian consequences of the 'war', I replied that the report to be tabled before the Security Council in October will chronicle any violations relating to the denial of humanitarian access and attacks on schools and hospitals”.

An interesting aside is that the UN Under-Secretary's report to the Geneva based UNHRC contains findings on Children and Armed Conflict in Sri Lanka, Sudan, Burundi, Congo, Israel and the occupied Palestinian Territories and Myanmar - but nary a word on Iraq.