Sri Lanka

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  • A new period of terror

    Sep 19
    In Sri Lanka a white van without a number plate is a symbol of terror and the disappearances that occurred in all parts of the country.
     
    Commissions on Disappearances in the South during the last few years of the 1980s have documented at some length how armed men, travelling in white vans without number plates abducted thousands of people who were never seen again. These reports are available at www.disappearances.org. 
     
    Now such vans have reappeared and do so frequently in the Jaffna peninsular. A report from one family states "the fear of the white van in the day and specially in the night is killing everyone [with fear] in the peninsular."
     
    What the men who come in these vans do is the same as what happened in the South (in the late eighties time of terror).
     
    The Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka (HRCSL) gives the number of the disappeared from the Jaffna peninsular since December last year as 419.
     
    Not all these disappearances are attributed to "armed men coming in white vans without number plates" - which usually means the military. The LTTE and other militant Tamil groups alleged to be working with the military have also been accused of such abductions which end up as disappearances. International human rights groups have accused the LTTE and other militant groups also on that score.
     
    However, in many cases, the suspicion of the family members is that such occurrences are done either directly by the military or with its approval. Such complicity will not come as a surprise to anyone who is aware of the extent of the disappearances that have taken place in Sri Lanka in recent decades. The reports of the Commissions appointed to investigate these earlier disappearances place the responsibility squarely on the shoulders of the state agencies.
     
    In Sri Lanka causing of forced disappearances has been treated by the state as a legitimate means by which to deal with 'terrorism'. The failure to investigate and to take appropriate legal action is also evidence of the state's involvement in such matters.
     
    The fact that the opponents of the government at various times, like the LTTE and the JVP, have taken to violence is used a legitimate reason for the state carrying out forced disappearances and similar modes of the use of extreme violence; that the poison must be killed with poison and that the violence of terrorism must be dealt with by equal or more ferocious violence is an unquestioned part of the state ideology, regardless of which government is in power.
     
    A former Deputy Minister of Defence, Ranjan Wijeratne, was known in the latter part of the 80s as a leader who openly advocated and carried out this policy. The disappearances during that period officially amount to about 30,000 while the other non-state sources have given much larger numbers.
     
    It is today not challenged that except for a handful of cases, the victims of these disappearances were not hard-core insurgents (this of course does not mean that even hard core insurgents can be killed after securing arrest).
     
    The reports of the Commissions of Disappearances mentioned above have demonstrated that most cases of disappearances have happened after arrests which often takes the form of abduction.
     
    For Ranjan Wijeratne and others (political leaders as well as some military and police officers) disappearances were the most practical method of dealing with insurgency.
     
    Disappearances help to do away with the necessity for arrest and detention which can create many legal problems, the keeping of political prisoners, which is again a complicated problem, having trials which requires security arrangements and similar problems which in turn create practical problems for state agents.
     
    Disappearances also help to erase all evidence as secret abductions often end up in the secret disposal of bodies.
     
    If in the use of this easy method some mistakes are made in the arrest of innocent persons, even if they far outnumber any "culprits", that is unavoidable and Ranjan Wijeratne called such acts mere excesses. Talking to parliament he said that these things cannot be done through legal means as that will take too much time.
     
    This same ideological position has never been clearly repudiated by any of the Sri Lankan governments.
     
    Within Sri Lanka at the moment there is no government authority with the capacity to efficiently investigate the disappearances like the one in the case mentioned above.
     
    The Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka (HRCSL) may record some facts of such disappearances but it does not have the capacity to investigate them in any manner that could be called a credible, criminal investigation.
     
    The assurance of some state authorities to the effect that if soldiers are found to be guilty of such acts they would be punished is a mere rhetorical gesture in the face of heavy criticism from local and international sources. There is no state machinery to give credibility to such assurances.
     
    The Asian Human Rights Commission has been pointing out for several years now the deep impasse in the state's criminal justice system which makes it impossible for any gross abuse of human rights to be credibly investigated or prosecuted.
     
    There have been no attempts to cure this situation. Instead with time this situation has degenerated even further.
     
    Now after the virtual collapse of the cease fire agreement the country is entering into a further period of terror in the name of counterinsurgency.
     
  • Death from white vans: the logic of terror
    People disappear, snatched from the streets at all hours of the day by gunmen in unmarked vans. Bodies sometimes appear, shot execution style or riddled with bullets. Sometimes the missing become the ‘disappeared’ and are never heard from again. The effect on the rest of the community is terror.
     
    And, as Sri Lanka’s military, emboldened by recent successes, prepares to step up its campaign against the Tamil Tigers, the rate of killing is inexorably going up.
     
    In August alone, at least 67 Tamil youths and young adults disappeared in the Jaffna peninsula, according to Thurairaja Surendraraja, the coordinator for Sri Lanka’s Human Rights Commission (HRC).
     
    These are apart from the dozens whose bodies have been found shot dead, sometimes with marks of torture.
     
    The HRC puts the number of the disappeared alone from the Jaffna peninsular since December last year at over 400. Apart from the missing, scores of bodies have been found; dumped by roadside, on beaches, thrown in wells.
     
    And people are disappearing – and bodies appearing - in other government-controlled parts of the island too. In Trincomalee, in Batticaloa, in Vavuniya and even in the capital, Colombo.
     
    And whilst they have reached new highs for recent times, ‘disappearances’ are not a new phenomenon in Sri Lanka’s conflict.
     
    Earlier this year reporters with The Toronto Star visited Jaffna to investigate the rising numbers of killings and disappearances - which the paper subsequently reported, had “created a culture of fear among Tamil civilians.”
     
    Even by July, more than 100 Tamil civilians had been killed and 255 had been reported missing in Jaffna so far this year, according to Mudiappah Remadious, a lawyer at the human rights commission.
     
    The strong evidence has Remadious convinced that the Sinhalese-dominated security forces are behind at least 40 of the disappearances and most of the killings.
     
    The rest are under investigation.
     
    A Roman Catholic priest who’d also been recording the human rights violations unfolding around him worried that a government plan to terrify Tamil civilians was working, especially in Jaffna.
     
    “It’s schematized killing,” he told the Toronto Star. “To threaten the people. To keep them under pressure. To send the message that the government can save the life and the government can destroy the life.”
     
    The Sri Lankan military, however, told the paper that its soldiers have nothing to do with the disappearances or killings.
     
    “Civilians get caught in the crossfire also, but there are no organized killings,” says Sri Lanka Army spokesman Brig. Prasad Samarasinghe. “And about the disappearances, of course the army is not responsible for this.
     
    But when pressed, Samarasinghe admits that there may be “a few bad eggs.”
     
    “When you take 1,000 people in the army, you get one or two corrupted people, right,” he says. “If we find them and they are found guilty they will definitely be court martialled and punished.”
     
    But not everyone is convinced.
     
    “There is very good evidence that the security forces have once again started killing civilians and quite indiscriminately,” a Western diplomat in Colombo, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told The Toronto Star.
     
    The HRC, the priest and several diplomats agree that neither the police nor the judiciary is seriously investigating most of the killings and disappearances, the paper reported. “They worry signs of a government cover-up suggest the orders to carry them out may have come from Colombo.”
     
    “You basically have an apparatus in terms of law enforcement and institutional culture, that created this problem in the past, in the nineties. It was never effectively dismantled,” an international analyst who also spoke on condition of anonymity told The Toronto Star.
     
    “Things are switching back to their old ways and tactics,” the analyst said. “Maybe it’s too far to say it’s a calibrated strategy, but the signals and so forth come from the top.”
     
    The terror experienced by the relatives of the victims and other members of their community is multifaceted.
     
    It comes not only from the casual nature of the abductions and killings.
     
    There is the impossibility of finding out what has become of loved ones. Then there is impossibility of securing action from the police –especially when the security forces are suspected of being responsibility.
     
    In another of several urgent appeals issued by Amnesty International in the wake of disappearances in Sri Lanka, this time in the case of several aid workers with the Tamil Rehabilitation Organisation, the typical elements of a military abduction are present.
     
    Amnesty quoted witnesses as saying that “some of those involved in the arrest or abduction were wearing plain clothes and that some had their faces partially covered with black cloth.”
     
    “The [abducting] group arrived in two army vehicles and one white van.”
     
    Yet, when “relatives made inquiries about their [victim’s] arrest and apparent ‘disappearance’ to the [local] army camp … the army denied the arrests.”
     
    Last week the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) observed: “In Sri Lanka a white van without a number plate is a symbol of terror and the disappearances that occurred in all parts of the country.”
     
    “Commissions on Disappearances in the South during the last few years of the 1980s have documented at some length how armed men, travelling in white vans without number plates abducted thousands of people who were never seen again,” the AHRC statement said.
     
    The AHRC was referring to the tens of thousands of Sinhala youths who ‘disappeared’ or were abducted and killed by Sri Lanka’s military and, especially, state-backed paramilitary groups during the crushing of the armed insurrection of the Janatha Vimukthi Perumana (JVP) during the late eighties.
     
    When Sri Lanka’s conflict resumed in 1995, in the wake of early military successes against the LTTE, gunmen in white vans quickly began again claiming victims amongst the Tamils.
     
    Amnesty International’s 1996 report notes: “at least 55 people "disappeared" after being arrested by members of the security forces in the east and in Colombo. The bodies of 31 people abducted in Colombo between late April and late August were later found in lakes and rivers in the vicinity.”
     
    “Among them was Vijendra Naresh Rajadurai who had been forced into a white van at Wellawatte, Colombo, on his way home after work. His body and those of four others were found some 60 kilometres to the northeast of Colombo. The victims had been held prisoner, tortured and then killed by strangulation or drowning.”
     
    “Now such vans have reappeared and do so frequently in the Jaffna peninsula,” the AHRC said last week. “The suspicion of the family members is that such [abductions] are done either directly by the military or with its approval.”
     
    “Such complicity will not come as a surprise to anyone who is aware of the extent of the disappearances that have taken place in Sri Lanka in recent decades,” the AHRC says. “The reports of the Commissions appointed to investigate these earlier disappearances place the responsibility squarely on the shoulders of the state agencies.”
     
    And as in the JVP era, the victims of today’s abductions border on the indiscriminate. Those with even the slightest suspicion of supporting the Tamil Tigers is being murdered.
     
    Press reports say even supporters of the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF), Sri Lanka’s oldest Tamil party and now part of the pro-LTTE Tamil National Alliance (TNA) have been abducted and killed in the Army-controlled peninsula.
     
    Sri Lanka’s security establishment has an operating logic, the AHRC points out: For many Sri Lankan “political leaders as well as some military and police officers, disappearances were the most practical method of dealing with insurgency.”
  • No end in sight
    The Co-Chairs communiqué of September 13th from Brussels has suggested that talks resume in early October. It warns that the “failure to cease hostilities, pursue a political solution, respect human rights and protect humanitarian space could lead the international community to diminish its support.”
     
    It is being argued that the International Community is fast losing its patience with the current regime in Colombo – a sense underlined again by the Co-Chairs threat of an iron fist if both the Government and the LTTE fail to reenter a dialogue.
     
    But we have been here before – Tokyo also promised that a failure to resume a dialogue would result in repercussions for Colombo – although as yet little has materialised. If anything the capacity of the Co-Chairs to shape events in Sri Lanka has been overestimated.
     
    This may be one reason why New Delhi has stayed well clear of getting directly involved with Colombo. Where some commentators see the Brussels communiqué as a make or break moment for the Sri Lankan state, I am increasingly convinced that the desire for further involvement by the Co-Chairs is just not there beyond the usual threats of action. Sri Lanka barely figures on the league table of international crises, which at present are dominated by Afghanistan, Iraq, Israel/Palestine and Darfur in Sudan. These are crises that the International Community can barely handle at present and they are unlikely to add Sri Lanka to the list beyond the current remit of the Co-Chairs.
     
    Furthermore, Sri Lanka is seen as coming within India’s regional sphere. With Pakistan (and China by extension) stepping into the breach supposedly left by India’s failure to provide military hardware to Colombo the impression has recently been created of a weakened LTTE
     
    If however the LTTE were seriously weakened given the suggestions of Sri Lankan aerial superiority and the defection of Karuna, then would not the LTTE be suing for peace with the backing of the Co-Chairs? While the LTTE might have suffered losses in recent months, I am skeptical of the irredeemable weakness attributed to them by some commentators in the Colombo media. With the monsoon season soon arriving it will be the SLA, on the offensive, that risks getting bogged down in a guerrilla war.
     
    It is unlikely that the LTTE will be drawn into a major retaliation against the SLA until the Co-Chairs October deadline has passed. So October’s meeting of the Co-Chairs will be a pivotal moment in Sri Lanka’s post-CFA peace process.
     
    Lets assume that there are no peace talks between the two sides and lets assume that the Co-Chairs begin to disengage from the process. Interestingly even though the Co-Chairs issued a sharply worded rebuke to Colombo in the Brussels communiqué, the donor community is already talking of extending the debt moratorium for Sri Lanka. Human rights violations will therefore have to get a lot worse, on a par with the late 1980s and early 90s before aid conditionality is used as a weapon against Colombo.
     
    But by default a disengagement from the modalities of the process initiated by the Co-Chairs in 2002, will increase New Delhi’s role and to this end they have begun engaging the wider Tamil community in both India and Sri Lanka. New Delhi at present will not accept a separate Tamil dominated state on its southern flank. Indeed what the Sinhala nationalists have never quite grasped is that the possibility of Eelam rests more with New Delhi than with Colombo.
     
    Given India can never disengage, the Co-Chairs will in effect leave it up to New Delhi to formulate a response if Colombo opts for a military solution which seeks to ethnically cleanse the East of Tamils and perhaps the Muslims.
     
    India is an astute observer of Lankan politics - they know fully well how entrenched the logic of Sinhalese nationalism is within the apparatus of the state. They understand that it will take an all mighty effort to reform the Sri Lankan state in a pluralist and inclusivist direction. In short India’s response will be determined by how Colombo acts in response to a disengagement from the peace process by the Co-Chairs.
     
    In the event of full-scale war which now seems the most likely scenario, New Delhi will respond only once the tensions in Tamil Nadu become unmanageable. In this regard Colombo needs to think carefully before it launches an all out assault on the LTTE which, given the terrain and political loyalties of the majority of the Tamils in the Northeast, will become a war against the Tamil people.
     
    If Colombo is astute and does not launch an all out assault on the LTTE, but carries on with its ‘shadow war’ it can probably secure adequate support from the West for a significant period of time. But bear in mind that Tokyo/Beijing are not that concerned with aid conditionalities and will continue to provide aid to Colombo regardless of the war.
     
    The prospects for a just resolution of this conflict within a united but federal Sri Lanka is bleak. Indeed the prospect of any kind of resolution is bleak. It will however be shaped on how New Delhi responds to the competing moves of both Colombo and the LTTE. While the Brussels communiqué appears a wake up call for the forces of Sinhalese extremism, it appears unlikely that the warning will be heeded - or that the Co-Chairs will follow their warning through with conviction.
  • India: stable ceasefire ‘essential pre-requisite’ for peace moves
    India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said Monday India's efforts would be to ensure that the current ceasefire holds in Sri Lanka as a pre-requisite for a durable solution to the island's crisis, IANS reported.
     
    Mr. Singh, who is on an official visit to Brazil and Cuba, told correspondents accompanying him that India was in touch with both the Sri Lankan government and Norwegian facilitators.
     
    “And our effort is to ensure that the ceasefire holds and that both parties (the Sri Lankan military and the Tamil Tigers) are scrupulously committed to preserving the ceasefire,” Mr Singh said.
     
    “I think that's an essential pre-requisite before we can move forward to a durable solution,” he added.
     
    Mr. Singh’s comments aboard Air India One came a day before the Co-Chairs of Sri Lanka’s donor community – the United States, European Union, Japan and Norway – held an emergency meeting to discuss the crisis in the island.
     
    The Liberation Tigers Tuesday reiterated their position that a stable ceasefire was necessary for talks.
     
    "Within the context of the military offensives by the Sri Lankan armed forces and their continuing forced occupations of the Tamil homeland, we do consider that the CFA (ceasefire agreement) has become meaningless," Thamilselvan told Reuters.
     
    "However, since the facilitators and the international community are eager to strengthen the peace efforts, the LTTE is also continuing to examine options for strengthening the CFA," he added.
     
    “The opportunities for resuming the talks will be much stronger when the Sri Lankan government ceases its military attacks and all the CFA articles are fully respected and implemented."
  • LTTE urges international pressure over truce
    The Liberation Tigers said Wednesday it is the responsibility of the Norwegian facilitators and international community to ensure the Rajapakse regime adheres to the territorial demarcations, terms and conditions of the CFA and thereby creates a conducive atmosphere for talks.
     
    Speaking to Tamilnet Wednesday evening, the head of the LTTE’s Political Wing, Mr. S. P. Thamilchelvan welcomed the Co-Chairs insistence Tuesday that the Sri Lankan government “must ensure its military abides by the Ceasefire Agreement and implements the pledges from the Geneva meeting in February 2006.”
     
    “It is the Sri Lankan government which, launching major aggression against our controlled areas, has carried out breaches of the CFA of the utmost seriousness. It is therefore the primary responsibility of the [Mahinda] Rajapakse regime to create a conducive environment by respecting the lines of territorial demarcation underpinning the CFA so that the peace process can move forward,” Mr. Thamilchelvan said.
     
    Mr. Thamilchelvan said the LTTE’s position had been unambiguously set out when the Tigers met with a Norwegian delegation led by Ambassador Hans Brattskar on September 6 in Kilinochchi.
     
    There was no change in the LTTE policy since then, Mr. Thamilchelvan said, adding that it had been reiterated in his recent interview with Reuters on Tuesday.
     
    Reaffirming the LTTE’s commitment to the peace process, Mr. Thamilchelvan said it was the responsibility of the Norwegian facilitators supported by the international community to ensure Colombo takes concrete steps towards the speedy creation of a conducive environment for talks.
     
    And apart from forcibly occupying LTTE-controlled areas by military aggression, the Sri Lankan armed forces have also sharply escalated abductions, extra-judicial killings and other abuses against the Tamil people, Mr. Thamilchelvan pointed out.
     
    Mr. Thamilchelvan hailed the international community’s recognition of the prevailing ground situation, particularly welcoming its condemnation of the Sri Lanka Air Force airstrike on Mullaitivu in August which killed 55 schoolgirls.
     
    Meanwhile on Friday, the new head of the international ceasefire monitors in Sri Lanka, retired Norwegian Maj. Gen. Lars Johan Sølvberg, met with Mr. Thamilchelvan and Head of Tamil Eelam Police, Mr. P. Nades for an hour to discuss the prevailing security situation.
     
    Mr. Thamilchelvan had said that the Sri Lankan government was on a war path and pointed out there was no clear position from Colombo on respecting the CFA.
     
    "CFA must be respected one hundred percent and the safety and the security of the people must be respected," LTTE's Peace Secretariat quoted Thamilchelvan as saying to the SLMM chief.
  • Sri Lanka pushing island to ‘full scale war’ - LTTE
    In an exclusive interview with Reuters, the head of the LTTE’s Political Wing, Mr. S. P. Thamilchelvan said the Sri Lankan military’s offensives and continuing forcible occupation of Tamil areas had rendered the 2002 Ceasefire Agreement (CFA) “meaningless” but “since the facilitators and the international community are eager to strengthen peace efforts, the LTTE is also continuing to examine options for strengthening the CFA.”
     
    The full text of Mr. Thamilchelvan’s interview to Reuters follows:
     
    Reuters: What will the Tigers do if the army continues to mount offensive operations?
     
    Thamilchelvan: If the Sri Lankan armed forces continue with their military offensive attacks, violating the CFA in the most serious manner possible, then, unfortunately, LTTE too will be forced, from their current position of having to take defensive military operations, into the situation of having to launch offensive operations. I am afraid there is a possibility that this will turn into a full scale war.
     
    Reuters: Is the CFA now completely dead? Do the Tigers now consider it to be void?
     
    Thamilchelvan: Within the context of the military offensives by the Sri Lankan armed forces and their continuing forced occupations of the Tamil homeland, we do consider that the CFA has become meaningless. However, since the facilitators and the international community are eager to strengthen the peace efforts, the LTTE is also continuing to examine options for strengthening the CFA. In this regard the LTTE continues maintain its communications with the facilitators.
     
    Reuters: Are the Tigers prepared to resume talks with the government and the mediators?
     
    Thamilchelvan: The LTTE is ready for talks. However, the opportunities for resuming the talks will be much stronger when the Sri Lankan government ceases its military attacks and all the CFA articles are fully respected and implemented.
     
    Reuters: What will it take to stop this new chapter of the Sri Lankan war?
     
    Thamilchelvan: The present CFA had greatly contributed to bringing peace in this island that had been torn by two decades of civil war. This CFA helped to avoid large scale war for four and half years and maintain semblance of normalcy. It is only by implementing 100%, this CFA that came into being with the support of the international community and the efforts of the facilitators that this situation can be halted.
     
    Reuters: Do the Tigers think peace talks with this administration are destined to failure given President Rakapakse’s refusal to consider a separate Tamil homeland?
     
    Thamilchelvan: Beyond considerations of what is and what is not useful, everyone must understand what is realistic and come to a common position accordingly. At some point in time in the future, everyone has to arrive at such a realistic and practical position. I believe it will be meaningful if we all continue to search for opportunities to arrive at that realistic position. Mahinda Rajapakse also most certainly needs to change his position. No one can deny the rights of the Tamil people. At some stage everyone must accept this. Therefore Mahinda Rakapakse too must take up a decent position in this regard.
     
    Reuters: What will the Tigers do if the government does not vacate Sampoor?
     
    Thamilchelvan: Since the Sri Lankan government, in violation of the CFA, has occupied new areas that were administered by the LTTE under the CFA, we believe we must take all necessary actions to recover these areas according to the CFA.
     
    Reuters: If attacks by the army on the Tigers continue, will the Tigers bring war to Colombo?
     
    Thamilchelvan: If the Sri Lankan armed forces continue with their cruel war all over the Tamil homeland, and continue to put the people in the Tamil homeland in great misery, I do believe that the spread of this war to all parts of the island will be unavoidable.
  • Army will capture more and more ground, vows Premier
    Sri Lanka’s Prime Minister vowed Friday to capture “more and more” territory from the Liberation Tigers and said the international community was coming forward to help his government root out terrorism from the island.
     
    Ridiculing the LTTE’s assertion that there can be no moves towards peace as long as the Sri Lankan military occupied the Sampur region which it captured last week in a ground offensive, Premier Ratnasiri Wickramanayake said “not an inch of Sampur will be relinquished now or in the future.”
     
    “We will capture more and more territory from the LTTE but not give an inch, even from Sampur,” he told officials in Kohana district from his party, the ruling Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP).
     
    "We are not in the habit of giving away territory we have captured from the enemy" he said.
     
    Mr. Wickramanayake said the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) has more such plans to systematically capture more territory from the Tigers.
     
    “More countries are coming forward to help us with getting rid of terrorism in Sri Lanka by pledging modern weapons to seek them out from any jungle in Sri Lanka,” he said.
     
    “There are modern weapons to seek out terrorists from any jungle in Sri Lanka but we do not have them now,” he explained.
     
    “However friendly countries who have the same interest as us to rid the world of terrorists are coming forward to help us precisely with that kind of weapons.”
     
    Within 5 years of this government in office, it will make that a reality, he said, of ending terrorism. "Nobody can stand against our will.”
     
    Mr Wickramanayake dismissed protests by Tamil parliamentarians and Diaspora over the invasion and occupation of Sampur.
     
    “The TNA MPs who stated we would eat humble pie should we try to capture any part of Sampur are themselves rather quiet today,” he said of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA).
     
    “He asked why the TNA MPs were rather quiet at last Tuesday’s Parliamentary sitting to extend the emergency state by a further month.
     
    “There have been demonstrations around the world against the capture of Sampur. But those who stand by Sri Lanka and support our cause were not involved,” he said.
     
    “The capture of Sampur is to punish those who did stand against us," the Premier said.
     
    60,000 Tamil civilians in areas of Trincomalee and Batticaloa district controlled by the Tigers have been displaced by repeated Sri Lankan bombardments and ground offensives.
  • Rajapakse: LTTE is a ‘dictatorial terrorist group’
    Sri Lanka’s President Mahinda Rajapakse, under pressure from the international community to negotiate peace with the Liberation Tigers launched a blistering attack on the movement during his address to Summit of the Non Aligned Movement (NAM) in Havana, Cuba. Without referring to it by name, he described the LTTE as “a dictatorial terrorist group” and said that “all efforts that have been taken by successive governments, including mine, to enter into dialogue with this group, have so far failed.”
     
    “Terrorism is, without doubt, the most de-humanizing and politically de-stabilizing phenomenon of our time,” President Rajapakse, who speech was published on SriLankan government websites, said.
     
    Addressing the leaders of 118 members of NAM, President Rajapakse theorized on the difference between liberation and terrorism.
     
    “Terrorism and liberation differ from each other, as much as the sky differs from the earth. Liberation, unlike terrorism, is a creative and a humane force. It is a humane vehicle of new visions for the progressive change of power structures on the one side and socio-economic structures on the other. Terrorism, by contrast, is a destructive force, - a de-humanizing force, - that cannot in any way be justified,” he said.
     
    “The people of my country have suffered for long years at the hands of a most ruthless terrorist outfit which resorts to the most hateful forms of terror,” he said.
     
    “Suicide bombing, mine attacks, massacres, indiscriminate armed assault, and the forcible conscription of young children for battle, comprise their modes of action,” he said. “They indulge in the progressive elimination of all political leaders, human rights activists, journalists and all those who do not approve their methods and agree with their views and objectives.”
     
    “All efforts that have been taken by successive governments, including mine, to enter into dialogue with this group, have so far failed. Yet, even in the face of extreme provocation, we continue in our attempts to transform this dictatorial terrorist group that engages in violence, into a political force that would engage peacefully with the state and with other political parties and participate in a democratic political process,” he said.
     
    President Rajapakse did not elaborate.
     
     “Let us call upon the Non-Aligned Movement as well as the United Nations to strongly renew the commitment to fight terrorism whenever and wherever it decides to raise its ugly head,” President Rajapakse said.
     
    “At the same time all of us together need to find innovative means and ways to combat terrorism, as it poses a grave threat to the political and economic well-being, sovereignty and territorial integrity of nation states,” he told the NAM leaders.
  • Sri Lanka's war of the words
    While Sri Lanka's government and Tamil Tigers trade daily accusations of truce-breaking and threaten each other with all-out war, observers and reporters keen to understand what is really happening are forced to try and read between the lines.
     
    There was talk of a “stealth war” in December, and now Sri Lanka has reportedly gone to the “brink of full-scale war.”
     
    In those less than 10 months some 1,500 people have been killed despite assurances from both sides that they are continuing to “uphold” a ceasefire arranged by peace broker Norway in February 2002.
     
    Reporters have struggled with synonyms and cliches. “Tenuous”, “crumbling”, “collapsing,” “faltering,” “shaky” and “fragile” have been liberally used to describe the ceasefire.
     
    For bureaucrats on both sides a return to “war” means going back to the pre-truce era when bombing economic targets and civilians was fair game. However, the actual number of killings was far less then than it is now.
     
    “We are not at war,” says government defence spokesman Keheliya Rambukwella. “A low-intensity conflict maybe, but not war.”
     
    Former Swedish brigadier general Ulf Henricsson, who ended his term as a top peace monitor last month, said he could not decide if the country was at war or not. However, he was certain that the truce was holding only on paper.
     
    “It is a problem of a definition,” he said when asked if Sri Lanka was at war. “A Stockholm peace institute had said that if more than 500 people are killed in a conflict during a year, then it is war.”
     
    In May last year, the then truce monitoring chief Hagrup Haukland said the use of a clandestine airfield by the Tamil Tigers was a violation of the ceasefire and the military bombing of it would be “war.”
     
    “If bombs fall, we pull out,” Haukland told the Foreign Correspondents' Association in Colombo.
     
    Instead of pulling out, the monitors have increased their numbers in recent months and government planes have continued to pound secret Tiger airfields and other LTTE targets.
     
    Reporters trying to see things for themselves on the ground face great difficulty getting close to the action, but even so, seven media personnel have been killed this year.
     
    Last month, a Tamil newspaper editor was shot dead by unidentified gunmen.
     
    “Six other journalists and media assistants have been killed in Sri Lanka since the start of the year,” the Paris-based media watch dog, Reporters without Borders (RSF), said.
     
    “The attacks on the press have increased since the resumption of fighting between the government and rebels.”
     
    There is no official censorship, but reporting the nuances is a challenge and some local journalists are adopting self-censorship amid the rising physical and verbal attacks against the media.
     
    “I regret my inability to express myself freely in the light of these constraints and the resultant restraints imposed,” defence columnist Iqbal Athas wrote in the Sunday Times two weeks ago.
  • Sri Lanka sets conditions for talks
    Sri Lanka’s government (GoSL) is demanding a written assurance from Tamil Tiger leader Velupillai Pirapaharan that the LTTE would end its violence before GoSL will agree to hold talks with the Tigers, newspapers reported last Friday.
     
    The government demand was spelled out to Norwegian facilitators by Sri Lankan officials who met Norwegian Ambassador Hans Brattskar last Thursday.
     
    Meanwhile the government’s Defence Spokesman, Minister Keheliya Rambukwella, told the Daily Mirror that Norway had been informed that “a single bullet fired by the LTTE after [Pirapaharan’s] agreeing for talks would compel the government to withdraw from the Ceasefire.”
     
    The Sri Lankan government’s Chief negotiator Nimal Siripala de Silva and Foreign Ministry Secretary H. M.G. S. Palihakkara met Norwegian Ambassador Hans Brattskar Thursday, the Daily Mirror said.
     
    “[They] insisted that Pirapaharan should assure the Government, the Co-chairs and the peace facilitators that his group would end the killing spree,” the paper said.
     
    According to the Daily Mirror, Mr. de Silva and Mr. Palihakkara told Ambassador Brattskar that the Sri Lankan government – and by implication, not the Co-Chairs - would make a final decision as to when and where talks should be held.
     
    The Co-Chairs – the United States, European Union, Japan and Norway – met Tuesday in Brussels welcomed the willingness of both the LTTE and the Colombo government to hold talks unconditionally.
     
    The Co-Chairs also said the LTTE-GoSL meeting “should take place urgently in Oslo at the beginning of October,” adding: “[We] will meet at the end of October to review progress of the talks.”
     
    Defence spokesman and Minister Keheliya Rambukwella told The Island newspaper that on receipt of the demanded letter from LTTE leader Pirapaharan the Sri Lankan government – not the Co-chairs - would fix the date, venue and the modalities for unconditional talks.
     
    “The government will decide the date and venue for the talks,” Minister Rambukwella also told the Daily Mirror.
     
    The government delegation which met Ambassador Brattskar on Thursday “had taken the Norwegians to task” for the Co-Chairs statement Tuesday which said the government was ready for unconditional talks, the paper said.
     
    “They also protested over the facilitators’ charge that government troops were involved in the killing of 17 aid workers and the killing of some 50 school children in a bombing attack at Mullaitivu. They said the accusation was made without sufficient evidence.”
     
    Minister Rambukwella also reiterated to the Daily Mirror that Norway was informed that a single bullet fired by the LTTE after agreeing for talks would compel the government to withdraw from the truce.
     
    He was referring to the frayed Ceasefire Agreement (CFA) signed on 22 February 2002 by Mr. Pirapaharan on behalf of the LTTE and by then Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe on behalf of GoSL.
     
    Friday’s reports appeared to contradict the head of the GoSL’s Peace Secretariat who Wednesday told media that in the wake of the Co-Chairs call for unconditional talks, the government now working on possible dates.
     
    “Having the talks is something that the government is very strongly committed to,” Mr. Kohona told AFP. “What we have to clarify is the date.”
     
    Mr. Kohona’s comments had raised optimism over future talks, given the vehement rejection of the Co-Chairs call for unconditional talks by Mr. Rambukwella – who, though more senior than Mr. Kohona, does not usually comment on the peace talks
     
    "We will put forward our conditions," Mr. Rambukwella told the Associated Press Tuesday night.
     
    He criticized Norway for allegedly not having consulted the government before announcing a date and a venue.
     
    "The government has not been consulted on any future discussions. Norway, or anybody, can't announce dates and venues," Rambukwella told AP.
     
    "We will take it up very seriously, we are a sovereign state, they (Norway) are only facilitators. We have not delegated any of our powers to them," he added.
     
    Last Tuesday representatives of Co-Chairs said they had received “signals” from the Liberation Tigers and the Colombo government that they were ready for talks “without preconditions,” and urged both parties to meet “urgently” in Oslo in early October, saying the Co-chairs would review the progress of the talks later that month.
     
    "We got today the expression of willingness, we got signals from the government of Sri Lanka and the LTTE, to come to talks unconditionally," EU External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner was quoted as saying.
     
    Provided both sides agree, she said, "the meeting should take place urgently, at the beginning of October in Oslo."
     
    Asked about talks earlier Tuesday the head of the LTTE’s Political Wing, Mr. S. P. Thamilchelvan said: “The LTTE is ready for talks. However, the opportunities for resuming the talks will be much stronger when the Sri Lankan government ceases its military attacks and all the CFA articles are fully respected and implemented.”
     
    Ms. Ferrero-Waldner called on both sides to immediately end the violence, which she said was damaging prospects for lasting peace.
     
    "There is a huge challenge, we want both sides back to the table," she said, adding the EU has decided to send experts to Sri Lanka to assist the government with human rights issues.
     
    "We rejoice at the announcement conveyed by both the government and LTTE to our Norwegian facilitator that they are willing to come to talks without any conditions," Japan’s Special Envoy Yasushi Akashi was quoted by AP as saying.
     
    Norwegian International Development Minister Erik Solheim told BBC’s Sinhala Service, Sandeshaya, that both parties informed the facilitators of their willingness to come back to the table.
     
    “The international community insisted that the two parties sit immediately and also stop the violence,” he told bbcsinhala.com.
     
  • Terrorised Tamil traders flee to India
    Several Tamil traders and businessmen have fled Sri Lanka following a spate of killings and abductions that activists say has led to one of the most traumatic periods for the island's minority community.
     
    The flight of the Tamils has been reported from the eastern port town of Trincomalee, a region that has seen terrible violence involving the military and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). Many have made it to India.
     
    The businessmen's hurried exit - quite different from the thousands of mainly poor Tamils who have reached Tamil Nadu - comes after the unprecedented mass displacement of Tamils and Muslims in the northeast.
     
    Among the businessmen who have left Trincomalee after being threatened are the owners of a leading cycle store, another store that has existed in the town for 40 years, a business providing mobile services, three hardware stores, a centre dealing in aluminium fitters, a transport company and a hotel.
     
    According to them, they had to take the threats seriously because some of their colleagues who ignored similar threats got killed later.
     
    Trincomalee residents provided the names of the businesses but requested that they be not published. They said they feared that local authorities might end up taking action against the establishments for publicising their grievances.
     
    A senior member of the chamber of commerce has also fled Trincomalee, locals told IANS. "We have information that a Sinhalese (extremist) gang has prepared a hit list of 40 prominent Tamils of Trincomalee," one Tamil source said.
     
    And what is happening in Trincomalee has spilled over into Colombo in the form of threats, extortion and abductions directed at Tamil businessmen. Many of them are conveniently dubbed as LTTE sympathisers.
     
    A Sri Lankan official admitted that many ordinary Tamils in the capital were gripped by a "fear psychosis" but claimed that the authorities were doing all they could to end a wave of targeted shootings and abductions for ransom.
     
    But residents say there is no end in sight to the crime wave.
     
    "The last six months have been the worst period for Tamils compared to any six months since militancy began (in 1983)," said one Tamil resident in Colombo.
     
    The dominant fear among the businessmen in Trincomalee is death -- at the hands of gangs they allege are linked to security forces or anti-LTTE Tamil groups. The LTTE too has been blamed for many murders, turning the region into a killing field.
     
    A worse situation prevails in the Jaffna peninsula, where fighting that erupted in August between the military and the LTTE has virtually cut off the sprawling region, leading to crippling shortages and long hours of curfew. The prices of essential commodities have soared. Some commodities are simply not available.
     
    None of those who shared information with IANS was ready to be quoted by name.
     
    International aid agencies have put the number of people displaced in Sri Lanka's northeast, the virtual war zone, at well over 200,000. Most of them are Tamils, although Muslims have also been hit hard in the east.
     
    "Thousands of poor Tamils have fled Mutur East and Sampoor and moved into LTTE areas further south. Many are living under trees or have shifted into government territory," said a Tamil source.
     
    Newspaper reports speak of gunmen in Colombo coming in vans or on motorcycles without number plates and grabbing people they want.
     
    A few have been released after being abducted. Others have disappeared without a trace. In some cases the victims were murdered and the bodies dumped for families to find.
     
    Several Tamil businessmen who were kidnapped from Colombo's roads were released reportedly after their families paid ransom running into millions of rupees.
  • History Repeats
    The bloody confrontations between the Sri Lankan armed forces and the Tamil Tigers that marked late July and August have subsided. But this is a mere pause. Despite the exhortation of the international community, the Sri Lanka military is preparing another offensive in Jaffna. Colombo's determined aggression is fuelled by a confidence that the LTTE is militarily weak. As has always been the preference, the southern polity again believes a military solution is feasible. Consequently, this confidence has underpinned a number of moves by President Mahinda Rajapakse's government that are pointedly antithetical to dialogue, ethnic reconciliation and negotiated peace. The proclivity of Sri Lankan leaders to heap vitriol on the LTTE, even though the former claim an interest in constructive negotiation with the latter, is one. The complete and defiant disregard for international calls for urgent talks is another - along with pointedly derogatory comments about Norway and Oslo's senior facilitators - is another.
     
    But perhaps the most telling sign of the nature of the Sri Lankan state is the manifest transformation in its attitude towards the Tamil people. Amid the government's mocking assertions about being concerned about the Tamils' welfare, Colombo's military has unleashed a campaign of terror amongst them. Each week scores of people are being abducted and 'disappeared.' The bodies of many others picked up by the 'white van' death squads are being dumped along roadsides. Many others are being shot out of hand on the streets of the Army-controlled towns in the Northeast. The masked killers depart casually afterwards. These tactics are not new to Sri Lanka - nor indeed to any country that has witnessed a major counter-insurgency campaign where human rights are discarded at the outset. The logic is terror. But it is not merely one of denying guerrillas the support of the public; it is about teaching the upstart minority a lesson on whose country Sri Lanka is.
     
    The international community's response to this appalling state of affairs is also straight out of the history books: murmurs of disquiet amid manifest apathy - whilst specific bi-lateral interests are pursued anyway. In the past few years the Co-Chairs - the United States, European Union, Japan and Norway - have hectored much about human rights. Yet amid the Sri Lankan military's sustained campaign of extrajudicial killings, the best the international community can manage is a feeble call to prosecute 'those responsible' and to demand 'independent monitoring.' The call for the latter is, understandably, being made vociferously at the UN's Human Rights Commission in Geneva this week. But, as the Tamils across the Northeast will attest, it is not a question of monitoring, but of protection. With the international community demonstrably unable to restrain the Sri Lankan military from its now undisguised excesses, what is the point of better monitoring?
     
    The Sinhala south's confidence that a military solution can be effected also permeates its wider political moves. It remains very much to be seen if the much-vaunted SLFP-UNP arrangement will emerge and, more importantly, if it does whether it will be on a basis that can allow a lasting and just solution to emerge. If there's one thing the entire international community is agreed on, it is that a bi-partisan offer is a sine qua non for a solution. This is true. But, as the international community also insists, any southern offer must meet the legitimate aspirations of the Tamils. The Tamils have ample experience of governance of both mainstream Sinhala parties. The international community has fervently maintained faith in the present UNP leadership. The Tamils know full well why the UNP won't take an open and strong anti-war stance. We also know why the 'main opposition' won't take the lead in mobilizing resistance to the state's militarism or even to the wave of abductions and killings occurring not only in Jaffna, Batticaloa, Trincomalee and Vavuniya, but even in the capital.
     
    And it is not just that the Tamils doubt the southern polity will come up with a credible powersharing arrangement. More importantly, the Tamils also doubt the international community can hold Colombo to any deal. The past few years have demonstrated the impotence of the international community, including the self-styled Co-Chairs, in this regard. Competing interests, diplomatic orthodoxy and tepid commitment to the Tamils' wellbeing are demonstrably to blame. Just consider the serial failures of agreements reached within the Norwegian peace process - not least the much-vaunted P-TOMS. India is taking a more pro-active approach to peace, but other actors are providing countervailing dyanamics. And amid the prevarication, Sri Lanka's deepest ethnic tensions are surfacing.
  • Death squads unleash wave of terror
    Death squads run by Sri Lanka’s military are killing dozens of Tamil civilians in the Jaffna peninsula each week. Many more are being killed in all the Army-controlled districts. People are disappearing and bodies are being dumped every day in Trincomalee, Batticaloa, Amparai and Vavuniya.
     
    Masked Army-backed paramilitaries and troops in plainclothes are knocking on doors in the middle of the night and calling their victims out. Many people are being dragged off the streets in broad daylight in the unmarked minibuses and vans, collectively referred to as ‘white vans’.
     
    Many of those abducted simply disappear. The bodies of others are found dumped by the road side or secluded spots, bearing the signs of torture and riddled with bullets or single, execution-style gunshot wounds.
     
    Emboldened by a new-found sense of battlefield superiority over the Liberation Tigers, Sri Lanka’s military has unleashed a campaign of terror amongst the Tamil community, mirroring a similar campaign unleashed against the Sinhala youth during the late eighties.
     
    The counter-insurgency campaign was directed against the Marxist insurrection launched by the Janatha Vimukthi Perumana (JVP).
     
    This campaign is directed by Sinhala unltranationalists in the Sri Lankan military and state sympathetic to the JVP’s hardline anti-LTTE, anti-Tamil politics.
     
    An average of six people are being abducted or killed each day in Jaffna.
     
    In August alone, at least 67 Tamil youths and young adults disappeared in the Jaffna peninsula, according to Thurairaja Surendraraja, the coordinator for Sri Lanka’s Human Rights Commission (HRC).
     
    The HRC puts the number of the disappeared alone from the Jaffna peninsular since December last year at over 400.
     
    Press reports say the targeting borders on the indiscriminate. People who put up posters for political rallies supportive of the LTTE or even supporters of political parties sympathetic to the LTTE are being murdered.
     
    In Batticaloa, a vicious shadow war between Military Intelligence-backed paramilitaries and the LTTE has escalated with many people being killed. Terror has gripped residents.
     
    Even in Colombo, scores of Tamils have been abducted. Many are businessmen, from whose families millions of rupees are being demanded as ransom. Some are released on payment. Others are turning up dead.
     
    In Vavuniya paramilitary groups backed by Sri Lankan military intelligence are stepping up the terror campaign also.
     
    And as in Jaffna and Batticaloa, the gunmen here are also robbing houses at will.
     
    A United Nations investigator said Tuesday that ‘political killings’ continued in Sri Lanka and called for international human rights monitors to be sent to the island.
     
    Philip Alston, U.N. special reporter on extrajudicial, arbitrary and summary executions was addressing the U.N. Human Rights Council, which is holding a three-week session to examine abuses worldwide including in Sri Lanka.
     
    "Many people are killed for the purpose of keeping them from speaking freely, assembling freely, participating in politics, and so on," he added.
     
    Despite the involvement of Tamil paramilitaries, many residents have no doubt who is behind the masked campaign. As one family told the Asian Human Rights Commission: “the men spoke irregular and unfamiliar Tamil but fluent Sinhala”
     
    Whilst they have reached new highs for recent times, ‘disappearances’ are not a new phenomenon in Sri Lanka’s conflict.
     
    Earlier this year reporters with The Toronto Star visited Jaffna to investigate the rising numbers of killings and disappearances - which the paper subsequently reported, had “created a culture of fear among Tamil civilians.”
     
    “It’s schematized killing,” A Roman Catholic priest told the Toronto Star newspaper.
     
    “To threaten the people. To keep them under pressure. To send the message that the government can save the life and the government can destroy the life.”
     
    “There is very good evidence that the security forces have once again started killing civilians and quite indiscriminately,” a Western diplomat in Colombo, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told The Toronto Star.
     
    “Things are switching back to their old ways and tactics,” an international analyst who also spoke on condition of anonymity told The Toronto Star.
     
    “Maybe it’s too far to say it’s a calibrated strategy, but the signals and so forth come from the top.”
  • Continuing violence in the Northeast
    September 3

    Baskaran Suresh, 31, the owner of a garage at 5th Cross Street in Jaffna and a native of Sandilipai, was shot dead in Jaffna by unidentified men on motorbikes.

    C. Mathan, 28, of 4th Cross Street Pt. Pedro and a tailor by profession, was shot dead in Jaffna in a separate incident by gunmen on a motorbike.

    SLA soldiers cordoned off several hamlets in Karaveddy, Vadamaradchi and conducted a search. Around 600 villagers were herded to a temple and were interrogated in front of masked spotters, with 3 detained for further interrogation.

    Anathamoorthy Sathiyaseelan, 28, was abducted while he was ridding in a motorbike from Chavakachcheri to Kaithady.

    Selvarajah Iynkaran, 24, a trader, was abducted from his house in Kopay South by men in a white van.

    The SLN handed over 56 members of 16 Tamil families and seven boatmen to Talaimannar Police on a report that they were taken into custody in Mannar Sea as they were attempting to flee to Tamil Nadu to seek refuge. Forty-two of them were taken into custody while fleeing in three boats and the rest were arrested while staying in a church in Thalvupadu.

    Paramilitary gunmen attached to the SLA Batticaloa Palpody camp rounded up Pethalai and Pattiyadichenai in Valaichchenai-Kalkudah in Batticaloa and shot and killed three Tamil civilians in the area. A group of paramilitary cadres who claimed that they were conducting a search operation in the area Sunday evening took three victims to the roadside and shot them. Thiayagarajah Senthooran, 22, owner of a hair dressing saloon and a resident of Pattiyadichenai, was taken out of his house on School Road and shot and his pregnant wife was attacked by the paramilitary cadres. Shanmuganathan Nagendran , 26, father of one, was taken out of his house on Nagathambiran Kovil Road in Karunkalichcholai and shot dead. Kandiah Karunakaran, 23, father of one and a native of Vakaneri and a resident of Peithalai, was shot close to his house on Vishnu Kovil Road. He succumbed to injuries later in the Batticaloa Teaching Hospital. Local civilians allege the killers were EPDP gunmen. Paramilitary cadres of the EPDP and Karuna group operate from a camp attached to the Batticaloa Palpody SLA camp.

    September 2

    Reginald Jesudasan, 31, an Actuarial Manager at Union Assurance in Colombo and the son of a retired Tamil Inspector of Police, was found dead at Thotalanga, Grand Pass in Colombo after being abducted on Friday night as he left work. The victim’s body, bearing marks of severe torture, was wrapped up from head to knees with polyethylene. Since 20th August more than 25 Tamil civilians including females have been abducted in Colombo and its suburbs.

    SLA troops conducted a cordon and search operation in Manipay, Jaffna, and detained 15 persons, of whom 10 were later released.

    Gunmen shot and killed Ganesharajah Thiyagarajah, 28, father of two and a former paramilitary cadre of the EPDP, in Eravur, Batticaloa. He was shot while returning along School Road after closing his shop for the day.

    September 1

    A SLA Lance Corporal was killed and five troopers wounded in a claymore blast when a group of SLA soldiers on a road clearing patrol were ambushed near Karaveddy Predeshiya Sabha office in Vadamaradchi, Jaffna. The SLA re-imposed the curfew in Vadamaradchi sector from Friday noon and launched a cordon and search operation in Karaveddy. Several civilians were assaulted by the soldiers following the attack. Lance Corporal Ratnayake was killed and Lt. Tharsan, 22, Lt. Thisanayake, 28, Corporal Nimal, 22, soldier Sandirasena, 28, and Thilakaratne, 43, were wounded in the attack and rushed to hospital.

    A planning officer attached to a Sewalanka Tsunami reconstruction project was shot dead at his home in Karaveddy, Jaffna. His 55 year-old mother, who attempted to block the killers, was also killed by the armed men. The officer’s wife and brother were admitted to hospital with injuries. The family had gathered to hear a news broadcast when unidentified armed men stormed their house and opened fire. The bodies of Sathiyamoorthey Selvaroopan, 25, and his mother, Sathiyamoorthy Thangaratnam, 55, were taken to hospital. Selvaroopan’s wife Shopana, 21, is a undergraduate at the University of Jaffna, and his brother Gajaroopan, 20, is in shock, according to staff at Manthikai hospital.

    A Tamil woman, employed in the computer section of Maharaja Televion (MTV), was abducted in Wellawatte, Colombo and released later in the day (see separate story).

    Three employees, including a female Finance Director of the Aero Lanka Air Line, were abducted in Colombo by unidentified persons in a white coloured van on 22 August, according to a complaint lodged with the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka (HRCSL). Longendrarajah Gomathi, 36, was abducted from her residence located along Porupana Road in Valgambaya Mawatte in Ratmalana. Abductors who conversed in Sinhala had taken the computer and other documents from her house. Earlier on the same day, Lal Premaretna, 28, and Lal Premaretna, 25, were abducted, from their residence in Borella.

    Armed gunmen from the ENDLF, a paramilitary group working with the Sri Lankan military, forcibly occupied the Trincomalee district office of TELO, after chasing away party officials and two families residing in the office, said Ranga, the Trincomalee District Organizer of TELO. The TELO leader and TNA parliamentarian Selvam Adaikalanathan, condemning the forcible occupation of TELO office said the party would initiate legal action against the intruders. The party has lodged a complaint with the Inspector General of Police and the SLMM, according Vino Noharathalingam, another parliamentarian of the party. “As a democratic party, represented in the Sri Lankan Parliament, we have the right to run party offices. Nobody can deny our right to run our political offices. Noone would be allowed to forcibly occupy our right to run our political offices,” said Mr. Adaikalanathan.

    August 31

    A police constable was injured when unidentified men lobbed a grenade in front of the Chenkalady Vellimalai Pillayar Temple in Eravur, Batticaloa district. The grenade attack targeted three policemen on their way from Chenkalady police station to buy provisions. A Tamil youth was arrested by the Police regarding this incident.

    A police constable who was shot by armed man succumbed to injuries. He was identified as Meerasahibu Riyal, 37, father of three. The shooting took place along Punnaikuda road in Eravur police division in Batticaloa district. Armed man in hiding had shot the policeman when was on his way home after duty from Eravur police station.

    About one hundred Tamil civilians were arrested in Vavuniya town in a combined cordon and search operation by SLA soldiers and the police. They were taken to Vavuniya Police Station and subjected to severe interrogation. About eighty of them were released Friday after being fingerprinted and with one surety each, said Mr. Sivanathan Kishore, Vanni district parliamentarian.

    August 30

    Nadarajah Guruparan, news manager of Sooriyan FM Radio broadcast from Colombo, was abducted on his way to work Tuesday morning and released the next day (see separate story).

    K. Thavarajah, 44, a father of 4, from Kayanmadu was killed about 200 metres from the Vavunatheevu SLA camp, while he was returning home from Batticaloa town. The soldiers allowed the man to cross the check point after questioning him and then shot him dead.

    The SLA released the mutilated bodies of 16 Tamil youth in Vavuniya, claiming they were Tamil Tiger cadres. The genitals of some of the youth had been hacked off and the faces of some bodies had been burnt off by acid. The bodies of 10 youths were claimed by their families in Vavuniya, with the families saying the men had gone missing after leaving for work. The LTTE accepted the remaining six bodies to see if they are those of 7 cadres who went missing while on a patrol. The SLA had earlier displayed the bodies of sixteen youth and said they were LTTE cadres who attacked its front defence lines at Puvarasankulam in Vavuniya.

    Seven Tamil civilians were arrested during a combined cordon and search operation by SLA troops and Police along Vavuniya-Horowopottana road following the shooting of a home guard by unidentified persons. The arrested people were staying in welfare centres located in Vavuniya town and they were taken into custody while returning from their worksites.

    August 29

    Two bodies with gun shot injuries were found near Kandaswamy temple, in Vavuniya, where an attack on the SLA left a soldier killed and another injured.

    Jesuthas Deminian, 31, was shot dead at Kali Kovil Road, between Clock Tower Road and Kannathiddy Junction in Jaffna town.

    Ariyaratnam Sathyaseelan, 26, was shot near Muththirai Junction, along Chemmani Road.

    Tamil civilian Periyathamby Veluppillai, 27, a fisherman by profession and a father of two, of Kalmadu in Valaichchenai, was shot and hacked to death by SLA soldiers and paramilitaries at Kannahipuram, Batticaloa. He took refuge in a neighbouring house when unidentified gunmen tried to abduct him from his home. He was shot in the leg as he was trying to escape. Gunmen thereafter conducted a search operation in the area with the help of SLA and took him out of a house where he was hiding. The gunmen fired indiscriminately at him and chopped his head and face with axe and knives despite plea by occupants of the house not to shoot him as there were children inside.

    August 28

    Sellathurai Gopalasingham, 53, the former President of the Supparmadam Fisheries Society, was abducted from his house situated close to a SLA High Security Zone (HSZ) and shot dead by gunmen. His body was found close to Kali Temple in Supparmadam. The assailants went to his house, took him for questioning to Athisoodi Pillaiyar temple and shot him in his head.

    Rasaratnam Ganeshalingam, 40, was shot dead at his home in Thampalai in Achchuveli, while curfew was in force.

    August 27

    At least seven SLA soldiers, wounded in a claymore attack at Selvanagar, a SLA controlled gateway towards LTTE controlled Muthur East, were rushed to Polonnaruwa hospital.

    Armed men set fire to building which functioned as the political office of the LTTE in Jaffna. Armed men on foot set fire to the two-story building, which has been closed since the LTTE’s political wing withdrew from Sri Lanka Government controlled areas in December 2005.

    Seventy-six Tamils, including 8 women, were arrested during a combined search operation by Sri Lankan Military troopers and Police in Colombo and its suburbs. Road blocks were put up on main roads leading to Colombo centre and all vehicles were thoroughly checked. According to the police, 68 men and 8 women were arrested during the search operation in Borella, Kotahena Bambalapitiya, Kollupitya and Wellawatte, between noon and midnight.

    August 26

    Six SLA troopers on a road clearing mission were killed in a bomb explosion between Eluthumadduval and Muhamalai. Four troopers were wounded in the explosion. The military claimed the bomb was an ‘improvised explosive device’.

    Sithamparapillai Sivashankar was shot dead by men who followed him, while he was ridding in a motorbike along KKS in Mallakam. The assailants escaped with his motorbike.

    C. Vijeyakantharasa, 38, was shot dead near police station in Punnalaikadduvan while the curfew was in force.

    Armed men shot and killed two members of the same family on Udhayan Street, Sithandy, Batticaloa. The civilian victims, the brother and sister who had come to visit their sick mother, were identified as Sinnarasa Wimalakumari, 44, and Sinnarasa Ratnavel, 36. Armed men who approached their hours called them out by name. When the sister and brother answered the door, both were gunned down at close range. The killings took place in the wake of two attacks on SLA troopers in the area. An SLA soldier, K. M. Sisirakumara, was wounded 3 hours before the killings, in a shootout near Vanthaumoolai school. On Friday, an SLA trooper, W. Vasanthakumara, 34, sustained injuries when a group of gunmen attacked a SLA road clearing patrol in Mavadivembu, Nagarkovil area.

    August 25

    Armed men on a motorbike shot dead a worker employed by the UN agency UNOPS in Amparai district at Munaiyoorkalam in Thambiluvil, Amparai district. The man, identified as P. Jestly Julian, 29, a native of Komari and father of two, was taken from his office to Munaiyoorkalam and shot.

    A SLA soldier in mufti and another person were shot dead in Vavuniya. The soldier was identified by an SLA officer who visited the site, as D. M. Dissanayake, 33, while the other man was identified as Andare Uppul, 30. Both are natives of Anuradhapura. Nine mm bullets were recovered from the site.

    STF personnel from Navatkerny, a suburb of Batticaloa town, where an STF patrol was targeted in a grenade attack, shot and killed five Tamil men in the nearby New Muhathuvaram Road Cemetery Junction. The killings were carried out by STF men as “revenge killings” for the grenade attack, civilians said. The STF claimed the five were Tigers carrying weapons. Meanwhile, the STF trooper, Hevajalage Jayantha, 25, wounded in the grenade attack at Navatkerny, later succumbed to his wounds. The STF men went inside a rice-mill, asked for a vehicle, and left the rice-mill as there was no vehicle available. Few minutes later, the STF counter-insurgency men came back to the site in a Jeep and a truck, and picked five Tamil youths, including a rice mill worker and gunned them down near the railway track in the area. Two of the victims were identified as Tharmarajah Anandarajah, 28, and Soosaipillai Sutharsan, 26.

    Motorbike riding gunmen shot and killed a fish salesman, C. Lingeswaran, 40, near Kaddudai Junction, in Manipay, Jaffna, after following the trader as he rode to work in a motorcycle.

    A LTTE cadre was killed and two policemen riding in a three-wheeler were wounded in a shootout on Thambiluvil Road, Amparai. The LTTE cadre was gunned down when the policemen retaliated after an attack, police claimed. Meanwhile, LTTE Political Head in Amparai, Jeya, said the person shot dead was a political cadre of the Tigers. Mr. Jeya said STF personnel gunned down Mr. Sudar, 21, and said Sudar was a political cadre who had gone to the town, controlled by the Sri Lankan armed forces. STF claimed that a micro handgun, its magazine, hand grenade and a cyanide capsule were found on the deceased. The policemen wounded in the shootout were identified as M. Dharmaratne, 35 and W. Abeyaratne, 33.

    August 24

    Paramilitary cadres operating with the SLA in Batticaloa district, sent Sathyaseelan Tharsan of Market Road in Thimilathivu, 19, on a motorbike with explosives towards an LTTE Forward Defence Line (FDL) and detonated the bike. Denying a SLA claim that five Tigers were killed in the Karuna Group suicide attack, the LTTE said the bike exploded 80 meters away from the Tiger FDL in Vavunatheevu. The boy was an innocent captive of paramilitary cadres, LTTE Batticaloa district political head Mr. Daya Mohan said. “Sathyaseelan Tharsan was abducted by an armed group few days ago and he was sent to our FDL in a motor bike fitted with a bomb. The bomb in the motor bike was detonated by remote control when Sathyaseelan Tharsan was about to reach the FDL. The bomb exploded about 80 meters away from the FDL”, he said.

    A SLA soldier from Kommathurai camp in Eravur, Batticaloa, was injured when armed men ambushed a group of soldiers on patrol duty in Vantharumoolai.

    Armed men riding a motorbike shot dead Vasuthevan Raguthevan, 26, the driver of a three-wheeler, at Sathurukondan, Batticaloa, when he was about to leave to Batticaloa town.

    A claymore mine exploded on Talaimannar Road in Pesalai, Mannar district targeting a group of SLN soldiers on patrol. Four soldiers were on duty at the site, but no casualties were reported. Two Tamil youths were taken into custody by SLN soldiers in a cordon and search launched immediately after the explosion.

    A Christian Church of the Apostle priest has been missing in Jaffna since August 11, according to a complaint made by a fellow priest at the Jaffna office of the HRCSL. Rev. Fr. Vincent Vinodharaja, 35, father of one, was last seen leaving his home in Meesalai in Thenmaradchi.

    August 23

    A group of armed persons, believed to be paramilitary men working with the SLA, entered the Jaffna District Secretariat of the Tamils Rehabilitation Organisation (TRO) and smashed computers and accessories and set-fire to the building, destroying tools and data inside the office. The TRO Jaffna office, opposite the UN officials’ residence and close to many UN offices including UNHCR, UNICEF and UNDP, and several international organizations, is located 200 meters away from the SLA checkposts at Kailayapillayar temple. At least six armed men entered the office, forced the watchman to leave the premises and stayed at the office for two-hours destroying the tools, documents and data, finally setting fire to the office. The events took place during curfew hours. TRO officials said all the documents including the North East Community Organisation Restoration and Development (NECORD) project documents, were destroyed. The NGO officials estimated at least one-million worth of equipment, tools and accessories were lost in the attack. The Fire Brigade, notified by another NGO in the area, only managed to save the building complex from total destruction.

    Armed men shot dead Ms Balasingham Puvaneswary, 40, along Aboobucker Road close to Vaitheeswara Junction in the heart of Jaffna town. She was shot when she came out of her house on the orders of assailants.

    Armed men entered the premises of Nelliaydi Central College in Jaffna and destroyed the memorial and the statue of the first Black Tiger, Captain Miller. The statue, interpreted as the symbol of the destruction of Nelliyadi SLA camp during Eelam War I in 1987, was later hidden and saved by the residents during the occupation of Jaffna in 1996, before being raised again in 2002. Armed men entered the college premises and bound the hands of the watchman and destroyed the statue and the memorial.

    Unidentified men riding in 3 cars abducted three Tamil youths in a lodge on Grandpass Street in Colombo 14. The lodge owners have informed their relatives and police about the abduction. The abductors had claimed they were taking Kunasegaram Mahindan, Kandasamy Sreetharan, both from Varani in Kodikamam and Ramakrishnan Rajkumar from Trincomalee, for interrogation.

    Armed men shot dead Mr. Shanmugarajah Suthakar of Bharathipuram, an auto driver, on Beach Road in Trincomalee town. The assailant had hired Suthakar’s three-wheeler and later shot the driver.

    Mr. Malaka Gunawardene, 19, a police constable, was killed in claymore mine explosion near the office of the Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) located along Batticaloa Ottamavadi road. He succumbed to injuries on admission to hospital.

    Mayuran, 20, father of two, was killed in a landmine explosion when he was on his way to collect firewood in no-man zone located in Vaddamadu jungle area. He succumbed to his injuries when he was taken to the Special Task Force (STF) camp located in Sagamam.

    August 22

    Sri Lanka Police recovered a claymore fitted to a bicycle used for selling vegetables at Borella in Colombo city. An officer of the Traffic Police on patrol first noticed the abandoned bicycle and on inspection found the claymore mine. A SLA bomb disposal squad rushed to the site, in front of a shop, and deactivated the claymore mine. The claymore mine weighed about 10 kg could have been placed in the bicycle targeting an important personality, police claimed.

    Rev. Fr. Thiruchelvam Nihal Jim Brown, 34, Parish Priest of Allaippiddy, Jaffna, was reported missing since 20 August, according to a news release issued by the NorthEast Secretariat of Human Rights (see separate story).

    Armed men shot dead Mrs. Manoharan Rajini, 40, mother of four, in front of the welfare centre at Sakkotai in Vadamaradchchi, Jaffna district, where she had been residing on being displaced from Palaly, which is located in the SLA HSZ. SLA soldiers arrested 22 year-old Annalingam Ajanthan within 15 minutes of the attack, alleging he had been in the shooting incident. But Ajanthan’s parents appealed to the HRCSL in Jaffna that Ajanthan was an innocent who had been arrested by the SLA to falsely implicate him in the killing.

    An alleged SLA informant, Perumal Chandrakumar, 44, was shot dead at Kilavi Thoddam in Karaveddy, Jaffna. Separately, a vegetable vendor, Kandiah Ganeshalingam, 34, was shot dead by assailants travelling by car while he was on his way to Chunnakam public market soon after the curfew was lifted.

    Three people were shot dead by unidentified men in separate incidents in Trincomalee. Mr. Balachchandran, a three-wheeler driver, was shot dead at Murugapuri. Another Tamil youth, abducted a day earlier, was found dead in Sampaltivu with gun shot injuries. The unidentified body of a third person was found in Iqbalnagar.

    August 21

    The bodies of two women washed ashore in Pungudutivu, Jaffna district. Civil authorities said that these two bodies belonged to Tamil civilians drowned in mid sea while fleeing from Talaimannar in Mannar district to seek refuge in Tamil Nadu. Several residents of Mannar and Trincomalee have reportedly fled from the Mannar coast to Tamil Nadu by boat due to volatile situation in the North East. Some of these civilians are reportedly drowned when their boats capsized while fleeing.
  • Tamil parties protest abductions, disappearances
    Tamil political parties Friday said they are going to hold awareness meetings among Tamil people in Colombo from this week against the increase of abduction by the intelligence service of the Sri Lanka Army (SLA).

    Several Tamil youths in Colombo had been abducted by SLA intelligence unit in past and immediate action should be taken to stop this, they said.

    Mr. T. Maheswaran, Colombo district parliamentarian of the main opposition United National Party (UNP), Mr. R.Yogarajan, Vice President of the Ceylon Workers Congress (CWC), Mr. P. Chandrasekaran, Nuwara Eliya district parliament and Mr. P. Radhakrishnan, Colombo district parliamentarian of the Upcountry Peoples Front ( UPF) and Ms Padmini Sithambaranathan, Jaffna district parliamentarian of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) held a joint press briefing.

    But Mr. Chandrasekaran, leader of the UPF is a Minister in the United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA) government. Mr. Radhakrishnan of UPF also holds the post of Deputy Minister. CWC is now a constituent of the UPFA government and its President Mr.Arumugan Thondaman holds a cabinet portfolio.

    UNP MP Mr. Maheswaran said that it has been reported that about thirty Tamils had been abducted in Colombo recently, according to the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka (HRCSL).

    Even Mr. Maheswaran’s niece, an employee of well known Colombo media group, was abducted last week, but released a day later.

    Six armed men, riding in a white-van, abducted Thavarajah Thavamani, 26. More than 10 Tamil civilians, including three females, have been abducted in Colombo city and its suburbs during in just one week, weekend reports said.

    “Every one knows that army intelligence unit has been responsible for these abductions. We directly blame the Government for this. We would move for a debate in the Parliament when it resumes its sitting on Tuesday. The Government should answer to these abductions in Colombo,” Mr. Maheswaran said.

    “Extra judicial killings are taking place in Colombo and North East. The President is keeping silent although he knows the force behind these crimes. Well-planned pogrom against Tamil people is taking place,” Mr.Maheswaran said.

    TNA MP Ms Sithambaranathan said in the last two months about 61 Tamil civilians were reported disappeared in Jaffna district.

    Fifty persons were reported disappeared since August 11 alone, she said, adding that some more complaints are yet to be registered with the HRCSL.

    A nineteen year old advanced level student Renuka Selvarajah of Uduvil Girls College was reported abducted when she was on her way to buy provision after curfew was lifted.

    Mr. Chandrasekaran, said the SLA intelligence unit is monitoring his activities even after he become a minister.

    “Recently when I came out of State Rupavahini Corporation premises after attending a programme I saw a white van halted close to my vehicle. When my security officials went near to the while coloured, persons seated inside it said they were from army intelligence unit. I immediately brought this matter to the notice of Inspector General of Police (IGP),”said Mr.Chandrasekaran.

    The government should take responsibility for the abduction of Tamil civilians in Colombo and in the North East. Tamil parties should exert pressure on the government to take step to stop these abductions, said Mr. Chandrasekaran.
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