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Increase in political killings - Amnesty | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Amnesty International says that 2005 witnessed large numbers of politically-motivated killings in Sri Lanka - mainly in the east but increasingly in the north as well. It says that the majority were "apparently" committed by the LTTE. However, the report does say members of the breakaway Karuna faction also killed civilians and LTTE cadres. And it adds that the security forces reportedly took part in several extra-judicial killings of civilians. The report also refers to several high-profile assassinations during 2005, including that of the foreign minister, Lakshman Kadirgamar, and the LTTE chief in Batticaloa and Ampara, Kaushalyan. Amnesty also says that the LTTE failed in 2005 to live up to commitments to end the practice of recruiting children as soldiers. It says that after a lull following the tsunami, recruitment of children actually rose. The group also takes the government to task for not doing more to tackle torture and abuses by the police. It says that during 2005, there were "numerous" reports of torture in police custody, sometimes resulting in deaths. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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India's frustration with Sri Lanka over Tamils