UTV | COLOMBO – The Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam (TGTE), which has started legal action in the UK to lift the proscription on the LTTE, has never shown any remorse over child soldiers, Lord Naseby, the President of the All Party British Sri Lanka Parliamentary Group said yesterday.
Speaking during the debate on Global Human Rights Sanctions Regulations 2020 in the House of Lords of the UK, Lord Naseby said the TGTE started a legal action in the courts in the UK to lift the proscription on the LTTE on Wednesday.
He said, “I want to focus, though, sadly, on the LTTE which we proscribed in 2001. It was succeeded by the Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam—TGTE—itself proscribed in Sri Lanka. It is staffed and organised by former LTTE people.
The TGTE espouses an ideology which is almost identical to that of the LTTE; it has never denounced violence or the terrorism of the LTTE; it disseminates propaganda worldwide, targeting young people, mainly Tamils, with commemorative events, waving LTTE flags and the black tiger, et cetera.
Worst of all, I think, it has never shown any remorse over child soldiers. UNICEF stated on 31 July 2005 that 5,081 underaged soldiers were recruited, 40% girls and 60% boys, and at the end of the war, 594 was the small number that were left.
Still, in this country, we have Mrs Balasingham, who was the arch recruiter and trainer of the child soldiers, residing comfortably in the United Kingdom. That is a challenge we need to face.”