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SLMM:LTTE responsible for 90 percent breaches of the truce last year
Vasana Wickremasena in Colombo,
2:50pm SLT, Wednesday January 22,2003.
The LTTE is responsible for over 90 percent of the
ceasefire agreement violations during last year, the
Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission said yesterday.
“The total number of ruled violations from the
beginning of the Ceasefire agreement until December
31, 2002 is 556. Thereof, LTTE is responsible for 502
violations and the Government forces for 54
violations,” SLMM Spokesman Teitur Torkelsson said.
“The most common violations of LTTE during the year of
2002 were 313 cases of child recruitment, 89 cases of
abductions of adults and 41 cases of harassment. The
most common violations of the government forces during
the same period were 20 cases of harassment, 13 cases
of extortion and seven cases of restriction of
movement,” Mr. Torkelsson said in a statement.
“Decreasing amount of complaints and violations of the
ceasefire agreement between the government and the
LTTE has been the overall development in the ceasefire
during the last months. This is a positive and ongoing
development. The SLMM is still receiving complaints
about Child Recruitment of LTTE, and even though their
number have clearly been going down the last months,
SLMM would like to see an immediate end to this
practice.’
“The total number of valid complaints received by SLMM
in December was 142. 118 complaints were made against
the LTTE and 24 against the government forces. In
December, nineteen cases were already ruled as
violations of the LTTE and one case as a violation of
the Government forces. The most common ruled
violations of LTTE in December were ten cases of
abduction of adults, six cases of child recruitment
and two cases of harassment. The one ruled violation
of the government forces in December was a case of
harassment,” the SLMM said.
“Most of the complaints received by SLMM in December
were in Batticaloa district which received 61
complaint, all against LTTE. In December 46 complaints
were received in Jaffna, thereof 24 against LTTE and
22 against the Government side. Other districts
recorded much lower number of complaints, 16 were
received in Vavuniya, 12 in Mannar, 7 in Ampara and in
Trincomalee only 1 complaint was received by SLMM.’
“A clear downward trend in the number of ruled
ceasefire violations can be seen in the last months.
Violations of LTTE went down from more than 50 cases
in September, to under 40 in November and being only
19 in December. Violations of the Government side went
from 5 in September to none in November and only 1 in
December. The same downward trend can also be seen in
the number of received complaints about child
recruitment of LTTE, where complaints went down from
more than 60 in September to 38 in November and down
to 28 in December,” the SLMM said.
Published: Wed Jan 22 03:51:46 EST 2003
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