LTTE- guardians of Human rights

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) has taken on the role of guardians of Human rights. The LTTE must bear in mind that thirty (30) countries have listed them as a terrorist organization thereby placing them among the world’s most ruthless terrorists as the Al-Qaeda.et.al. It was the LTTE which very recently boasted that it was they who introduced and popularized the use of the suicide ‘ bomber’ and not Al-Qaeda.The countries that hav listed the LTTE as a terrorist organization include USA, India, Canada, Australia, Malaysia, and the twenty five (25) countries of the European Union (EU). They comprise more than half the world’s population including USA the most powerful country in the world. It also includes India with a population of over I billion people. Many factors have brought the LTTE to notoriety as a terrorist organization. Among them are the brutal massacre of innocent civilians, extortion, drugs and weapons smuggling, assassination of all opponents, torture, and worst of all the forcible conscription of children as child soldiers. These child soldiers are not only used for intelligence work but are used as front line troops in armed assault exposing them to certain death. The LTTE deftly denies they recruit child soldiers even to UN organizations as UNICEF, UNHCR, Al and the Human Rights Watch based in New York. The world also detests and condemns the use of ‘suicide bombers’ – a pregnant woman was used as a suicide bomber in April 2006 in the attempt to assassinate the Commander of the Army LT Gen Sarath Fonseka. A pro- LTTE website has quoted the Sri Lankan Human Rights Commission (SLHRC) in Jaffna regarding the disappearance of 160 persons since December and the ‘number has steadily has steadily increased after the stepping up of search operations by the Sri Lanka Army. The LTTE has also taken on issues as the displacement of Tamil people from the Jaffna peninsula. Over 60% of the Tamil people live amongst the Sinhalese and the Muslim communities seeking safety and to protect their teenage children from forcible conscription. It was also a few days ago that the chief LTTE negotiator and theoretician Anton Balasingham accepted that it was the LTTE which assassinated the former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. The LTTE and its sympathizers had until now repeatedly denied their complicity in the assassination and even tried to implicate a third party. However The Commander of Jaffna Major General Chandrasiri has given an assurance to the SLHRC for the Jaffna District that a Committee will be established to investigate these disappearances. This will determine the truth of these allegations. Meanwhile it is evident that the LTTE raises these issues of ‘disappearances’ and ‘displacement’ to regain whatever sympathy and prestige they once have had among the international community. Their effort will be vain until they renounce violence, lay down their arms, renounce child conscription, stop killing innocent civilians opponents and get back to negotiations and democracy.