The tsunami devastation in Thailand didn't prepare Prime Minister Paul Martin for the scale of destruction he saw in Sri Lanka on Monday.

"You'd have to be a stone not to be emotionally affected by this," Martin said after observing a moment of silence at a mass grave for tsunami victims in the hard-hit Ampara region of eastern Sri Lanka.

The day after he visited stricken parts of Thailand, Martin was in Sri Lanka to see first-hand some of the devastation in the Ampara region. More than one-third of the island nation's more than 30,000 tsunami victims come from there.

That is where Canada's Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART) team is operating.

Accompanying his entourage, CTV reporter Joy Malbon said Martin was visibly shaken by what he saw of Sri Lanka's shattered coastline, crushed homes and mass squalor.

"If the prime minister thought he'd seen devastation in Thailand, he wasn't prepared for this," Malbon said, referring to Martin's tour of Phuket, Thailand the day before.

Martin stopped to sip some of the water being purified by  DART as he visited their operations before heading back to Colombo, the capital.

There, he met with the country's president and prime minister, as well as several parliamentarians who represent the Tamil National Alliance. That is the political wing of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), also known as the Tamil Tigers.

Two of those politicians had been denied visas to enter Canada. The federal government feared they were fundraising for the Tigers.

The Tigers are considered terrorists by the United States and Britain, but not by Canada.

In Canada, Conservative MP Jason Kenney told reporters, "they (the Tigers) invented suicide bombers and recruiting children into armies."

The Tigers have been fighting for an independent nation for more than 20 years -- something the Sinhalese majority opposes. Peace talks are at a standstill.

The Tamil National Alliance has expressed concern the Sri Lankan government would not ensure foreign aid reached their supporters.

Although a Canadian community of 250,000 Tamils play an important part in the Liberals' political fortunes in Canada, the prime minister denied such politics were at play.

"I think there comes a time when human beings facing trauma when we should set politics aside," Martin said. He was speaking near a hotel the Tigers had bombed in 1994.

And to that end, Martin said he was satisfied Canadian aid was being distributed fairly through agencies like the Red Cross.

Answering critics who accuse him of consorting with a group known for suicide bombers and child soldiers, Martin was harshly critical of reported incidences of Tamil rebels using children to fight their war.

"I made the point quite strongly that children should be going to school, not the army," he said.

While the parliamentarians did not completely deny that some children have joined the fighting, they said reports they were conscripting child soldiers was simply anti-Tamil propaganda.

"We spoke to the Prime Minister quite frankly I assume the PM is now in a situation to formulate different thoughts on these questions," said R. Sampanthan, National Alliance leader.

The prime minister is in the midst of a nine-day Asian trip that will take him to a total five countries, including Japan and China.

Next, Martin's tour takes him to New Delhi, for a visit that is expected to focus mainly on trade issues. He is not expected to tour regions devastated by the tsunami because the Indian government has not allowed any officials to do so as of yet.

With a report from CTV's Joy Malbon and files from The Canadian Press