Sri Lanka gov't asks UN envoy for evidence on accusations

The Sri Lankan government said Wednesday it had asked the UN special advisor Allan Rock to provide credible evidence to support his accusations against the government security forces.
Keheliya Rambukwella, minister of Policy Planning and the government defense spokesman, told reporters that "the government has asked him to provide evidence so that we can deal with it."
Rock, the special advisor to the United Nations Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, had charged that the military of working hand in glove with the child recruitment carried out by the renegade faction of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rebels led by Karuna alias Vinayagamurthi Muralitharan.
Rock in his statement issued on Nov. 13 here at the end of his 10-day mission said he had evidence that security forces travel to villages and photograph Tamil children who are later forcibly recruited by the Karuna faction.
Rock said Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse had promised him a full investigation into the allegations.
The government also accuses Rock of being a sympathizer of Tamil Tiger rebels. "He has attended a LTTE fund raising event in Canada," Rambukwella said.
The local press had taken Rock to the task for leveling accusations against government forces as the condemnation on child recruitment is usually associated with the LTTE rebels.
The military was quick to deny Rock's accusations and the president's office said the press had misreported Rock's comments.

S.Lanka says donors misled by U.N. envoy, monitors

COLOMBO, Nov 22 (Reuters) - Nordic truce monitors and a U.N. envoy have misled Sri Lanka's main financial donors about ceasefire violations by the military, the government said on Wednesday.
Hours earlier, the United States, Japan, the European Union and Norway condemned the government and Tamil Tiger rebels for "systematic ceasefire violations".
President Mahinda Rajapakse's government has repeatedly rejected allegations by international truce monitors of troop involvement in extrajudicial killings during a surge in violence this year.
United Nations envoy Allan Rock has also accused elements of the military of helping to abduct children to turn them into soldiers for a renegade rebel faction.
"The co-chairs would have been influenced by Allan Rock and the SLMM (Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission) and that is misleading," government defence spokesman and cabinet minister Keheliya Rambukwella told Reuters hours after the donors issued their damning statement.
Rambukwella said neither Rock nor the SLMM -- who have both been vilified by government officials and state-run media -- had provided the government with proof of troop involvement in abuses, despite requests.
While the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) have violated a battered truce thousands of times since it was hammered out in 2002, monitors cite an alarming rise in violations by the military this year.
"Obviously on the basis of national security, we have to react on certain issues. That can be ... systematic erosion or violation of the ceasefire," Rambukwella added. "But this becomes inevitable unless the LTTE change their stance of terror."
More than 3,000 civilians, troops and rebel fighters have been killed in military clashes, naval battles, ambushes, aerial bombings this year.
Many ordinary Sri Lankans fear a conflict that has killed more than 67,000 people since 1983 could escalate and spread across the island.
So far, most of the violence is confined to the northeast, where the Tigers run a de facto state they want recognised as a separate homeland for minority ethnic Tamils.
"The co-chairs view with alarm the rising level of violence in Sri Lanka that has led to significant loss of life and widespread human rights violations," the donors said in a statement issued out of Washington overnight.
"The co-chairs condemn the continued and systematic ceasefire violations by government of Sri Lanka and LTTE," it added.
"The co-chairs particularly condemn the LTTE for initiating hostilities from heavily populated areas and the government of Sri Lanka for firing into such vulnerable areas and killing and wounding innocent civilians."
The government and the rebels have ignored international pleas to halt violence that has forced tens of thousands of civilians from their homes and into camps.
The donors also called on both sides to set up demilitarised zones to protect civilians.
They also appealed to the government to reopen the main north-south highway that runs through rebel territory to the northern army-held Jaffna peninsula.
The government has offered to reopen the A9 highway for a one-off aid convoy to drive to Jaffna, but the Tigers say that is not good enough and want the road -- seen as a key revenue source thanks to levies charged -- reopened permanently.