The 61 girls killed in Mullativu were not "rebels", just school girls
NGOs and monitors refute government's claim that the orphanage was a "Tamil Tiger base".
Colombo (AsiaNews) There is no proof to support army claims that 61 teenage girls killed in an air raid in northern Sri Lanka were rebel fighters, according to a team of UNICEF representatives and truce monitors. On Monday Sri Lankan planes bombed an orphanage in Mullativu where a first aid training course for girls was underway.
The rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) blamed the Sri Lankan military for the massacre. The government countered the accusation by saying that the place was really a rebel base used as a training facility and any children there were child soldiers and therefore "terrorists".
But a team made up of members of UNICEF and the Sri Lankan Monitoring Mission (SLMM) visited the bombed site on Monday and disagreed with the army version.
"These were children from surrounding schools in the area who were brought there for a two-day training workshop on first aid, by whom we don't know yet," said UNICEF Sri Lanka representative, JoAnna VanGerpen. She said the fact finders were "horrified" at the carnage they found when they went on site. Apart from the high death toll, the attack injured 150 girls.
Sri Lankan government defence spokesman, Keheliya Rambukwella, dismissed the findings of the foreign aid workers and monitors, saying they had not used military experts in their research. "We have studied this for three years They used this place to provide the Tigers with combatants," he said. "If the children are terrorists, what can we do?"
"The fact is that gender or the age limit is of no concern when it comes to training and when it comes to soldiers, because they are carrying arms in order to kill the enemy," continued Rambukwella.
The air raid came as hostilities between the Sri Lankan army and LTTE intensified sharply, fuelling fears of a return to civil war that has dragged on for more than two decades.
Tragically for the people of Sri Lanka, nothing of what they are experiencing in these days is new to them. The accusations surrounding the air raid in Mullativu highlight chilling characteristics of the conflict. Since the early eighties, the LTTE has recruited thousands of Tamils, including minors, to fight in the "liberation struggle". UNICEF claims they have recruited 3,500 children just since the 2002 cease-fire. And many Tamils who do not want to fight are subjected to heavy pressure to contribute at least one member of their family.
The army's response to the "terrorist" threat has often been equally violent resorting to collective punishment and reprisals against the Tamil people. (DV)
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08/01/2008
