Puligal Today

Wikileaks : Gotabaya sanctioned extra-judicial killings by Paramilitaries

2010-12-16T22:07:00.003-05:00

[TamilNet, Friday, 17 December 2010]
A WikiLeaks cable, dated 18th May 2007 from US embassy in Colombo, accuses Defense Secretary Gotabaya Rajapakse of giving orders to Sri Lanka Army (SLA) commanders in Jaffna not to interfere with Tamil paramilitaries who are "doing "work" that the military cannot do because of international scrutiny. The work referred to in the cable includes extra-judicial killings, extortion, abduction and prostitution by the Tamil paramilitary groups EPDP and Karuna Group. Both groups are led by Ministers in the present ruling Government in Sri Lanka.

* WikiLeaks: Robert Blake, 18 May 2007

Accusing Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan (nom de guerre: Karuna), of engaging in "wide range of criminal activities" to collect funds, US embassy cable adds "Karuna operates prostitution rings out of the IDP camps to "take care of" GSL soldiers, stating that the women "had no choice" but to acquiesce to Karuna cadres' demands."

"Allegations of government complicity in crimes committed by organized paramilitary groups have mounted in the last year [2006]," the cable begins followed by briefs under the following headings:

* Why Government of Sri Lanka finds the [Tamil] Paramilitaries useful
* Paramilitary Groups give the GoSL a measure of deniability
* GoSL has a history of funding Paramilitary Groups
* Karuna Group becomes pre-eminent paramilitary
* Abductions and Killings of Karuna group
* Karuna extends his reach to Jaffna
* Child soldiers of TMVP (Karuna Group)
* Extortion and Prostitution rings run by Karuna
* Making Karuna legitimate
* EPDP: Extra-judicial killings with Military's support

The leading summary paragraphs follow:

Paramilitaries such as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE)-breakaway Karuna group and Eelam People's Democratic Party (EPDP) have helped the Government of Sri Lanka (GSL) to fight the LTTE, to kidnap suspected LTTE collaborators, and to give the GSL a measure of deniability. The GSL, which denies any links to paramilitary groups, has recently touted its efforts to improve its human rights record, such as the re-publication of procedures on arrests and detentions and the appointment of a "One-Man Commission" to investigate reported disappearances.

However, these efforts so far appear aimed more at improving Sri Lanka's image abroad and have yet to produce concrete improvements in the human rights situation. Outside the capital, the incidence of human rights abuses has continued, including extrajudicial killings, abductions, child trafficking, extortion, and prostitution.

President Rajapaksa's government, strapped for cash, has cut direct payments to paramilitaries initiated by former President Kumaratunga and instead turns a blind eye to extortion and kidnapping for ransom by EPDP and Karuna. While many of the charges against the government have been made in public fora, a growing number of trusted Embassy contacts, often at personal risk, have described in detail the extent of the GSL's involvement with paramilitary groups.

On Gotabaya Rajapakse's, a US-citizen, criminal activities the cable says, "Defense Secretary Gothabaya Rajapaksa has authorized EPDP and Karuna to collect the money from Tamil businessmen. This may account for the sharp rise in lawlessness, especially extortion and kidnapping, that many have documented in Vavuniya and Colombo. Even though EPDP and Karuna are each comprised nearly exclusively of ethnic Tamils, the crimes that they commit are almost always against other Tamils."

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I'm not sure who is the editor of this "Eelanaadu France", but he is often right on the money. And it would be timely if I provide the editorial page of Eelanadu France, dated July 10, 2010.

ஆயுதக் குழுக்களின் குறுநிலங்கள் - சேரமான்

அணையாத நெருப்பாக கடந்த ஆறு தசாப்தங்களுக்கு மேலாகக் கொழுந்து விட்டெரியும் தமிழ்த் தேசியப் பிரச்சினைக்கு அரசியல் தீர்வை ஏற்படுத்துவதில் இற்றைவரை எந்தவொரு சிங்கள ஆட்சியாளரும் ஆக்கபூர்வமான நடவடிக்கைகளில் ஈடுபட்டதில்லை. மாறாக தமிழீழத் தனியரசுக் கோரிக்கையின் அடித்தளமாக விளங்கும் தமிழீழ தாயகம், தேசியம், தன்னாட்சியுரிமை ஆகிய முக்கோட்பாடுகளை சிதைத்து, தமிழ்த் தேசியப் பிரச்சினையை ஒரு சிறுபான்மையினத்தின் பொருண்மியப் பிரச்சினையாக சித்தரிப்பதையே தமது மூலோபாயமாகக் கொண்டு, அரசியல் தீர்வு நாடகங்களை ஒவ்வொரு சிங்கள ஆட்சியாளரும் அரங்கேற்றி வந்துள்ளனர்.

டி.எஸ்.சேனநாயக்காவின் காலத்தில் இருந்து மகிந்த ராஜபக்ச வரை இவ்வாறான மூலோபாயத்தையே மாறிமாறி ஆட்சிக்கட்டிலேறிய சிங்கள ஆட்சியாளர்கள் கையாண்டு வருவது வரலாறு. அரசியல் தீர்வு என்பது ‘இன்ஸ்ரன்ற் நூடில்ஸ் அல்ல (உடனடியாகத் தயாரிக்கக்கூடிய நூடில்ஸ் அல்ல)’ என்று அண்மையில் மகிந்த ராஜபக்ச வெளியிட்ட கருத்தை இதற்கான சமீபத்திய உதாரணமாக நாம் கொள்ள முடியும்.
ஆனாலும் ஏனைய சிங்கள ஆட்சியாளர்களை விட தமிழ்த் தேசியப் பிரச்சினையை மிகவும் நுண்ணியமான முறையில் கையாண்டு, தமிழீழ தேசிய விடுதலைப் போராட்டத்தை மழுங்கடிப்பதற்கான காய்நகர்த்தல்களை மிகவும் நயவஞ்சகமான முறையில் முன்னெடுக்கும் ஒருவராக மகிந்தர் திகழ்வதை, அவரது கடந்த நான்கரை ஆண்டுகால நடவடிக்கைகள் கோடிட்டுக் காட்டுகின்றன: ‘குள்ளநரி’ என்று வர்ணிக்கப்பட்ட ஜே.ஆர்.ஜெயவர்த்தனவின் சூழ்ச்சிகளை விஞ்சும் வகையிலேயே மகிந்தரின் நயவஞ்சக நடவடிக்கைகள் அமைந்துள்ளன.

கடந்த 2006ஆம் ஆண்டு யூலை மாதம் மாவிலாற்றில் தமிழீழ விடுதலைப் புலிகளுக்கு எதிராகப் பெரும்போரை சிங்கள அரசு தொடங்கிய பொழுது, அதற்கு முழுமையான ஆசீர்வாதத்தையும், ஒத்துழைப்பையும் மேற்குலகம் வழங்கியிருந்த பொழுதும், யுத்தத்தில் சிங்கள அரசு ஈட்டக்கூடிய வெற்றி, எதிர்காலத்தில் இனப்பிரச்சினைக்கு அரசியல் வழியில் தீர்வு காண்பதற்கான வாய்ப்புக்களை இல்லாதொழித்துவிடக்கூடும் என்பதையும் ஓரளவுக்கு மேற்குலகம் புரிந்து கொண்டிருந்தது.

சிங்களப் படைகளுக்கு பெரும் இழப்புக்களை ஏற்படுத்தும் வகையில் தமிழீழ விடுதலைப் புலிகள் தாக்குதல்களை நிகழ்த்திய ஒவ்வொரு சந்தர்ப்பங்களிலும், ‘இனப்பிரச்சினைக்கு படைவழியில் தீர்வு காண முடியாது’ என்றும், ‘அரசியல் தீர்வின் ஊடாக இனப்பிரச்சினைக்கு நிரந்தரத் தீர்வை ஏற்படுத்த முடியும்’ என்றும், ஒற்றைப் பல்லவியை மேற்குலக சமூகம் பாடிவந்தது. தமது படைவலிமையின் ஊடாக சிங்களத்தின் படைய – பொருண்மிய இயந்திரங்களை தமிழீழ விடுதலைப் புலிகள் நெருக்கடிக்குள் இட்டுச்சென்ற பொழுதும், இனப்பிரச்சினைக்கு அரசியல் தீர்வு காணப்பட வேண்டியதன் அவசியத்தை இந்தியாவிற்கும் சரி, மேற்குலகிற்கும் சரி அடிக்கடி உணர்த்திய முதன்மை சக்தியாக தமிழீழ விடுதலைப் புலிகளின் படைவலிமையே திகழ்ந்துள்ளது.

முள்ளிவாய்க்கால் போருடன் தமிழீழ விடுதலைப் புலிகளின் படைவலிமை பின்னடைவுக்கு ஆளாகிய பின்னர், தமிழ்த் தேசியப் பிரச்சினைக்கு அரசியல் தீர்வை ஏற்படுத்துவதற்கு மேற்குலகமும் சரி, இந்தியாவும் சரி பிரயோகிக்கும் அழுத்தங்கள், சகட்டு மேனிக்கு வெளிப்படுத்தப்படும் கண்துடைப்பு நடவடிக்கைகளாகவே திகழ்கின்றன. கடந்த 1995ஆம் ஆண்டு சந்திரிகா குமாரதுங்கவுடனான பேச்சுவார்த்தைகள் முறிவடைந்த பொழுது, ஒரு அரைமரபுப் படையாகவே தமிழீழ விடுதலைப் புலிகள் அமைப்பு விளங்கியது.

அக்காலகட்டத்தில் தமிழ்த் தேசியப் பிரச்சினையின் அடிப்படைக் கோட்பாடுகளைப் புறந்தள்ளி சந்திரிகா குமாரதுங்க முன்வைத்த அதிகாரப் பரவலாக்க (Devolution of pouuer) தீர்வு யோசனையை ஒப்புவிக்கும் கருத்துக்களையே மேற்குலக சமூகம் வெளியிட்டு வந்தது. எனினும் 1999ஆம் ஆண்டின் இறுதியில் முழுமையான மரபுவழிப் படையாக தமது வலிமையை தமிழீழ விடுதலைப் புலிகள் வெளிப்படுத்திய பொழுது, களயதார்த்தத்தைப் புரிந்து கொண்ட மேற்குலகம், அதன் பின்னர் ஒருபடி மேலேசென்று அதிகாரப் பரவலாக்கத் தீர்வுப் பல்லவியைக் கைவிட்டு, சமஸ்டி (feederalism) முறையிலான தீர்வு யோசனையை வலியுறுத்தி வந்தது.

தற்பொழுது படைவழியில் முழுமையான மேலாதிக்கத்தை சிங்களம் செலுத்தும் நிலையில், சமஸ்டியை விட்டுக் கீழிறங்கி, அதிகாரப் பரவலாக்கத்தில் இருந்தும் பலபடிகள் சறுக்கி விழுந்து, உப்புச்சப்பற்ற அதிகாரப் பகிர்வு (power sharing) வழியிலான தீர்வு யோசனையை மேற்குலகமும், இந்தியாவும் வலியுறுத்தி வருகின்றன. இந்த மெய்யுண்மையை நன்குபுரிந்து கொண்டிருக்கும் மகிந்தர், ஒருபுறம் தமிழீழ விடுதலைப் போராட்டம் மீண்டும் வீரியம்கொண்டு எழுச்சி பெறுவதற்கான புறநிலையை இல்லாதொழிப்பதற்கான எதிர்புரட்சி நடவடிக்கைகளை முடுக்கிவிட்டவாறு, மறுபுறம் உள்ளிருந்து எழும் தீர்வு (Home-grown soluution) என்ற கோசத்துடன் மேற்குலகைத் திசைதிருப்பி ‘இலவு பார்த்த கிளி’யின் நிலைக்கு இட்டுச்செல்லும் நடவடிக்கைகளை கனக்கச்சிதமாக அரங்கேற்றி வருகின்றார்.

இதன் விளைவாக தமிழ்த் தேசியப் பிரச்சினைக்கான தீர்வாக கட்டப் பஞ்சாயத்து முறையை எதிர்காலத்தில் மகிந்தர் முன்வைத்தாலும் ஆச்சரியப்படுவதற்கில்லை. இந்தியப் பேரரசின் திரைமறைவு அனுசரணையுடன் மகிந்தர் முன்னெடுக்கும் இந்த நாடகத்தில், ஏற்கனவே அவரது இரண்டு கண்களாக விளங்கும் டக்ளஸ் தேவானந்தா, கருணா போன்றோருக்கு மேலதிகமாக, தனது நெற்றிக்கண்ணாக கே.பி என்றழைக்கப்படும் செல்வராசா பத்மநாதனையும் மகிந்தர் இணைத்துள்ளார். இதேபோன்று, ஏறத்தாள மூன்று தசாப்தங்களாக இந்தியாவில் அஞ்ஞாதவாசம் புரிந்த செல்வநாயகம் சந்திரகாசன், இரண்டு தசாப்தங்களாக ஒரிஸ்ஸாவில் ஒளிந்து வாழ்ந்த வரதராஜப் பெருமாள் போன்றோர், இந்தியாவின் நிகழ்ச்சித்திட்டத்திற்கு அமைய தற்பொழுது நாடுதிரும்பி மகிந்தரின் அரசியல் நாடகத்தில் இணைந்து கொண்டுள்ளனர்.
ஒருபுறம் தனது தாளத்திற்கு ஆடும் ‘தமிழ்த் தேசிய’ மூலாம்பூசப்பட்ட கைப்பொம்மையாக தமிழ்த் தேசியக் கூட்டமைப்பை மாற்றியமைத்திருக்கும் இந்தியா, மறுபுறம் அதனை சமநிலைப்படுத்தும் வகையில் தமிழ் அரசியல் கட்சிகள் பேரவை என்ற அமைப்பை தற்பொழுது நிறுவியுள்ளது. சிறீலங்கா துணைப்படைக் குழுக்களான ஈ.பி.டி.பி, புளொட், பிள்ளையான் குழு போன்ற ஆயுதக் குழுக்களும், ஆனந்த சங்கரியின் தமிழர் விடுதலைக் கூட்டணி, மனோ கணேசனின் சனநாயக மக்கள் முன்னணி, சிவாஜிலிங்கம்-சிறீகாந்த தலைமையிலான தமிழ் தேசிய விடுதலைக் கூட்டமைப்பு போன்ற கட்சிகளும், செல்வநாயகம் சந்திரகாசனின் அணியினரும் இந்தப் பேரவையில் அங்கம் வகிக்கின்றனர்.

இதில் கே.பி, கருணா போன்றோரை இணைத்துக் கொள்வதற்கு டக்ளஸ் தேவானந்தா முற்பட்ட பொழுதும், சித்தார்த்தன், ஆனந்தசங்கரி, மனோ கணேசன் போன்றோரின் ஆட்சேபனை காரணமாக இந்த முயற்சி கிடப்பில் போடப்பட்டிருப்பதாக தெரிவிக்கப்படுகின்றது. இதேநேரத்தில் தம்மிடம் சரணடைந்து தமது எதிர்ப்புரட்சி நடவடிக்கைகளுக்கு ஒத்துழைப்பு வழங்கி வரும் தமிழீழ விடுதலைப் புலிகளின் முன்னாள் உறுப்பினர்களைக் கொண்ட ஆயுதக் குழு ஒன்றை கே.பி தலைமையில் உருவாக்கி, அதனை அரசியல் கட்சியாக பதிவு செய்வதற்கான நடவடிக்கைகளில் மகிந்தர் ஈடுபடுவது தொடர்பான தகவல்கள் தற்பொழுது அரசல்புரசலாகக் கசியத் தொடங்கியுள்ளன.

ஏற்கனவே புலம்பெயர்வாழ் தமிழீழ மக்களிடையே குழப்பத்தை ஏற்படுத்தி அவர்களின் உளவுறுதியை சிதறடிக்கும் நாசகார பரப்புரை நடவடிக்கைகளில் கடந்த ஓராண்டாக கே.பி குழுவினர் ஈடுபட்டு வரும் நிலையில், மீண்டும் தமிழீழ தாயகத்தில் ஆயுதப் போராட்டம் தலைதூக்குவதை தடுத்து நிறுத்துவதற்கான யுக்தியாக, தற்பொழுது வடதமிழீழப் பகுதிகளில் கே.பியின் கட்டுப்பாட்டின் கீழ் இயங்கக்கூடிய ஆயுதக் குழுவை களமிறக்குவதற்கு மகிந்தர் தயாராகுவதாக தெரிவிக்கப்படுகின்றது. கோத்தபாய ராஜபக்ச, பசில் ராஜபக்ச ஆகியோரின் ஏற்பாட்டில் இது தொடர்பாக கடந்த சில நாட்களுக்கு முன்னர் டக்ளஸ் தேவானந்தா, தர்மலிங்கம் சித்தார்த்தன், கே.பி ஆகியோருக்கு இடையில் பேச்சுவார்த்தை ஒன்றும் இடம்பெற்றிருப்பதாக தகவல்கள் வெளியாகியிருக்கின்றன.

இதனை முழுமனதாக டக்ளஸ் தேவானந்தா ஏற்றுக் கொண்டுள்ள பொழுதும், இதனை ஏற்றுக் கொள்வதற்கு சித்தார்த்தன் தயக்கம் காட்டியிருப்பதாக தெரிவிக்கப்படுகின்றது.
ஏற்கனவே தென்தமிழீழத்தை கருணா, பிள்ளையான் ஆகிய இரு துணைப்படைக் குழுக்களிடம் ‘குறுநிலங்களாகப்’ பங்குபோட்டு, தனது எதிர்ப்புரட்சி நடவடிக்கைகளை முன்னெடுத்து வரும் சிங்களம், அதே பாணியில் வடதமிழீழத்தை ஈ.பி.டி.பி, புளொட் ஆகிய இரு குழுக்களிடமும் பங்குபோட்டுள்ளது. இதில் வன்னிப் பெருநிலப்பரப்பின் தென்புலப் பகுதிகள் புளொட் குழுவின் ‘குறுநிலமாகவும்’, யாழ்ப்பாணக் குடாநாடு ஈ.பி.டி.பி குழுவின் ‘குறுநிலமாகவும்’ மாற்றப்பட்டுள்ளது.

ஒருபுறம் தமிழீழ தாயகப் பகுதிகள் தோறும் சிங்களக் குடியேற்றங்களை நிறுவித் தனது ஆயுதப் படைகளைப் பரவவிட்டிருக்கும் சிங்களம், மறுபுறம் தமிழீழ மக்களிடையே சமூக விரோத செயல்களையும், தமிழ்த் தேசவிரோத சிந்தனைகளையும் தூண்டிவிடும் நோக்கத்துடன் தமிழீழ தாயகப் பகுதிகளை ஆயுதக் குழுக்களின் குறுநிலங்களாகத் துண்டாடும் நடவடிக்கைகளில் ஈடுபட்டு வருகின்றது. இதில் குறிப்பாக வன்னிப் பெருநிலப்பரப்பின் வடபகுதிகளையும், யாழ்ப்பாணக் குடாநாட்டையும் கூட்டாக குறுநிலங்களாக குத்தகைக்கு எடுப்பதற்கான இணக்கப்பாடு, டக்ளஸ் தேவானந்தாவிற்கும், கே.பியிற்கும் இடையில் ஏற்பட்டிருப்பதாக தெரிவிக்கப்படுகின்றது.

முள்ளிவாய்க்கால் போரின் பொழுது புதுமாத்தளன் பகுதியில் இருந்து தப்பியோடி சிங்களப் படைகளிடம் சரணடைந்த தயா மாஸ்ரர் போன்றோர் இதில் முக்கியமான பாத்திரத்தை வகிப்பதாக கூறப்படுகின்றது. தற்பொழுது வடமராட்சியில் சுதந்திரமாக நடமாடும் தயா மாஸ்ரர், ஈ.பி.டி.பியின் பாதுகாப்புடன் கட்சிப் பரப்புரைகளில் ஈடுபடுவதாக அங்கிருந்து கிடைக்கும் தகவல்கள் தெரிவிக்கின்றன. இதேபோன்று கே.பி – டக்ளஸ் அணியின் அனுசரணையுடன் தடுப்பு முகாம்களில் இருந்து விடுவிக்கப்பட்ட தமிழீழ விடுதலைப் புலிகளின் முன்னாள் ஊடகப் பணியாளர்கள் சிலரும், மூத்த ஊடகவியலாளர்களும் தற்பொழுது கே.பி குழுவிற்கான பத்திரிகை ஒன்றைத் தொடங்குவதற்கான முயற்சிகளில் ஈடுபட்டிருப்பதாக தகவல்கள் வெளியாகியுள்ளன.
கடந்த 1980களின் நடுப்பகுதியில் தமிழீழத்திலும், பின்னர் இந்தியாவிலும் தமிழீழ விடுதலைப் புலிகளின் மூத்த உறுப்பினராக செயற்பட்ட கே.பி, டக்ளஸ் தேவானந்தாவுடன் நெருங்கிய தொடர்புகளைப் பேணிவந்திருந்தார். சமூக விரோத நடவடிக்கைகளில் ஈ.பி.ஆர்.எல்.எவ் குழு ஈடுபட்ட பொழுது, அதற்கு எதிராக நடவடிக்கை எடுப்பதற்கு தமிழீழ விடுதலைப் புலிகளின் மூத்த தளபதிகள் முற்பட்ட பொழுது, தனது நண்பரும், அப்பொழுது ஈ.பி.ஆர்.எல்.எவ் குழுவின் இராணுவத் தளபதியாகவும் விளங்கிய டக்ளஸ் தேவானந்தாவைக் காப்பாற்றுவதற்காக, அதனை கே.பி கடுமையாக ஆட்சேபித்திருந்தார்.

முள்ளிவாய்க்கால் போருக்குப் பின்னரான இரண்டு வார காலப்பகுதியில், தனது பால்ய நண்பர்கள் சிலருடன் நேரடியாகவும், தொலைபேசியிலும் கலந்துரையாடிய கே.பி, இனிப் புதிய பாதையில் தான் பயணிக்கப் போவதாகவும், மாவீரர் நாள் என்பது தமிழீழ விடுதலைப் புலிகளின் போராளிகளுக்கும், தமிழீழ விடுதலைப் புலிகளின் நேச அமைப்புக்களைச் சேர்ந்த போராளிகளுக்குமான நினைவு நாளாக மட்டுமன்றி, சகல இயக்கங்களையும் சேர்ந்த ‘தோழர்களுக்கான’ நினைவு நாளாக மாற்றப்பட வேண்டும் என்று வலியுறுத்தியதோடு, மாவீரர் நாளை நவம்பர் 27இல் இருந்து வேறொரு நாளிற்கு மாற்றியமைப்பது தொடர்பான யோசனையையும் முன்மொழிந்திருந்தார்.

இதேபோன்று, முள்ளிவாய்க்கால் போரின் இறுதிக்கட்டங்களிலும், அதன் பின்னரும் டக்ளஸ் தேவானந்தாவுடன் நெருங்கிய தொலைபேசித் தொடர்பாடலில் கே.பி இருந்ததாக தெரிவிக்கப்படுகின்றது. இவ்வாறாக, ஒருபுறம் ‘இன்ஸ்ரன்ற் நூடில்ஸ்;’ பற்றிப் பேசிக் கொண்டு அரசியல் தீர்வு நாடகத்தை அரங்கேற்றியவாறு, மறுபுறம் தமிழீழ தாயகத்தை ஆயுதக் குழுக்களின் குறுநிலங்களாகத் துண்டாடியும், புலம்பெயர்வாழ் தமிழீழ மக்களிடையே குழப்பத்தை ஏற்படுத்தியும், தமிழீழ தேசிய விடுதலைப் போராட்டத்தை நிரந்தரமாக சிதைக்கும் இலக்குடன் தனது எதிர்ப்புரட்சி நடவடிக்கைகளுக்கான காய்நகர்த்தல்களை மகிந்தர் முன்னெடுத்து வருகின்றார்.

இவற்றின் நடுநாயகமாக விளங்கும் கே.பியை நியாயப்படுத்துவதற்கு அவரது குழுவினரும், அவர்களின் ஊடகங்களும் முற்படுவது இதில் நகைப்புக்கிடமானது. ஈழத்தமிழினத்தை ஏமாந்த சோணகிரிகளாக நினைத்து, புலம்பெயர் தேசங்களில் கே.பியால் இயக்கப்படும் இந்தக் ‘காகிதப்புலிகள்’ நிகழ்த்தும் அறிக்கைப் போர் இதிலும் எள்ளிநகையாடலுக்கு உரியது.

நன்றி:ஈழமுரசு

New Evidence of Sri Lankan Army War Crimes Against Tamils by Channel-4 Shock the World

2010-12-05T05:23:00.025-05:00

The horrifying nature of these war crimes that committed by Sri Lankan armed forces against Tamils during the last phase of Wanni war in 2009, I’m sure anyone would not dare to watch it, begs the world once more for the important of war crime tribunal to be called against those responsible war criminals- Mahinda Rajapaksa and his brothers.

If I reveal in what nature one of the women victims, Isaipiriya, in Channel-4 video, got caught with Sri Lankan armed forces that would give more room to understand the gory details of the evil acts that committed by Sri Lankan armed forces. Before that I give you a quick snapshot of her profile.

When many crossed into government controlled area on May 17, 2009, people asked Isaipriya to join with them. And she told them, while changing into “panjabi” dress, that she will join them shortly with her husband, Sriram. Until this point, she never fought at battle field. And it all indicates that she and many other Tamil girls were raped and killed by Srilankan armed forces in cruel ways, along with other killed Tamil men in this Channel-4 video clip. I’m afraid that her husband’s body may have been in this clip given both reached the army together. In this nature this kind of war crime evidence coming out is highly unlikely. And that means 100s of Tamil women may have been victims of such Sri Lankan army war crimes.

See this link for horrific images of these war crimes.

---- stay tuned, more info shortly -----

Horror videos from Lanka - India Times Editorial

2010-12-03T21:39:00.001-05:00

The airing of videos by a television channel in the United Kingdom, which show members of the Sri Lankan armed forces executing Tamils , shown to be stripped and shot, during the last phase of the offensive against the LTTE, is threatening to rock President Rajapaksa’s visit to the UK.

While it is reported that the videos are not verified, and as the Sri Lankan government claims the video is merely an elongated version of the clip shown last year (and which Colombo called unsubstantiated), the videos posit the need to have an institutionalised arrangement that not only looks into alleged human rights violations by the Lankan Army, but also aids and abets the wider devolution of powers that must be part of the post-offensive measures in Sri Lanka.

Indeed, there is much worry about on that count. The defeat of the LTTE must not be translated into a defeat of the legitimate political aspirations and needs of the Tamil minority.

It has been globally acknowledged that a process of political devolution, which ensures a greater role for minorities, is the only long-term solution to the ethnic strife that ravaged the island-nation for years.

On his part, President Rajapaksa has recognised the need to share power. But the hard reality is that precious little by way of progress towards that goal can be evinced.

On the contrary, there is a growing feeling that there is a concerted attempt to delay and stymie the process of that devolution and political reform. The problem also is that, riding on the success of the army and a certain Sinhala consolidation — which has definite traces of chauvinism — the Rajapaksa regime, comprising a surprisingly large number of Rajapaksas, is tightening its stranglehold on power and the institutions of the state.

This has also meant a certain amount of authoritarianism against political opponents and critics, including sections of the media and individual journalists. The videos may yet be unverified, but there is no way for Colombo to shake off allegations of wrongdoing other than setting up mechanisms to both probe rights violations and work on political devolution.

DbsJeyaraj and his Changing Stripes!

2010-11-22T19:45:00.005-05:00

One can ponder why a person like DbsJeyaraj often overlooked among Tamil journalists considering their work involved in the Tamil or English media channels, by pro-Tamils. Many who were familiar with Dbsjeyaraj in the past know his involvement of RAW, India’s intelligence agency, during the IPKF days of Jaffna in late 80s, while he worked as a reporter for Hindu newspaper, which was nothing but a mouth-piece of Indian government. And it is all well-documented. What we do not know how far he kept his contacts with the RAW since then.

With the kind of background he has had in the past, his work often comes under scrutiny, especially from the pro-Tamils’ point of view. Because of the public scrutiny, he had trimmed down his criticism of LTTE or hardly any criticism at all, for the last decade in which time LTTE was a formidable force in SL. Ever since the military debacle of LTTE in May 2009, things had changed dramatically- so had Dbsjeyaraj’s stripes. Using the current circumstances- many people, even the pro-Tamils, are quiet sceptical of LTTE’s decisions during the peak of Wanni war in 2009 - DbsJeyaraj gradually paced his attacks against both LTTE and Tamil interests. What I cannot understand why a person like Jeyaraj who portrays himself a warrior in his articles has selective amnesia- undermining the LTTE only - while he never talks about the federal solutions, nor Tamil grievances. And the low point of his attacks comes in his latest article which stamps “Tamilnet” as a LTTE channel. So much as Tamils valued the Jaffna library, which was burned by Sinhala mobs in 1983 riots, Tamils should not lose Tamilnet that is a vital resource for them, and that should be protected at any cost against all the external powers. I do believe that most of his writings are anything but vague. And it is time for him to change his mentality of “if sabotaging LTTE endangers the Tamil interests, so be it”.

What is Project Beacon? - a Lesson for Ages!

2010-05-30T22:16:00.009-04:00

It is a must read an article that was written by Dr. C.P.Thiagarajah on Nov 1, 2007. If Dr. T can know about these things - Project Beacon - in 3 years advance, why not LTTE hierarchy? It shows that Co-Chairs played the game to perfection with Tamils. For full article, please go to the below Link

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World Democracies Wake up: Stop Sri-Lankan Terror

By: Dr C P Thiagarajah
Courtesy: TamilCanadian - November 1, 2007

There is consensus in world opinion for a political solution based on the UN accepted ‘traditional homelands of Ethnic minorities principle’. However the co-chairs of the aid giving nations appeared to swim against the tide. If as reported in the Tamil Editors.com the involvement of the co-chairs in the 'Three Year Plan' of GSL military solution were true it would be the biggest fraud of the IC. It would be a stab in the back for the Tamil polity. The co-chairs were killing the foetus of Tamil Eelam in the womb. It was alleged that this plan code-named ‘Project Beacon’ was first presented to the Co-Chairs to the peace process in Sri Lanka, namely United States; European Union; Norway and Japan, during December 2005 in the Norwegian capital Oslo. The initiative was to have started on May Day 2006. According to the proposal, the project would be completed by May Day 2009, and an additional two years would be required thereafter for 'mopping up' operations.

Project Beacon divided LTTE administered areas as at December 2005 into three coastal sections. The basic plan was to 'softening up' of sections by means of air raids and multi-barrel rockets; diversionary 'mini-offensives' in parts of other sections, and virtual siege of the area concerned for up to twelve months if necessary.

Project Beacon warned the co-chairs that there may be 'significant' civilian casualties during 'softening up' activities and 'apparent humanitarian crises' during sieges. Consequently, it was feared that the Tamil Diaspora would take to the streets of their host nations highlighting Tamil civilian casualty and genocide. The plan provided the co-chairs with the names of key Tamil activists who may lead such mass demonstrations in some 12 countries. The plan requested that these individuals be arrested on 'charges of terrorism', thus 'giving a clear warning to the Diaspora on the consequences of demonstrating against the government of Sri Lanka'.

Sri Lankan begged that it did not have the financial capacity to procure all the arms and ammunition necessary. It requested that the Co-Chairs to indirectly play a part. They take more responsibility for civil services, in particular in southern Sri Lanka, to ensure that more government money could be siphoned off to the military activity with very little impact on the day to day lives of the Sinhala public.

The Co-Chairs unanimously agreed that the Three Year Plan was viable and 'militaristically sound'. The Co-Chairs agreed to abide by the two pre-conditions and review the plan as per necessary some three to four months following each May Day. Political observers might put two and two together and conclude that the IC’s silence over human suffering deaths and genocide in GSL Eastern war might be due to help the GSL in the project beacon.

This period Tamils would like to forget, can they?

2010-05-09T14:31:00.011-04:00

What was in this girl's mind that time?

Everything was denied for this little kid from parents to food. Unthinkable!!!

Family had become dysfunctional, so six years old kid forced to take care of her little sister in these horrendous circumstances?

Just no words to describe this!

These pictures can tell 1000s of the stories. Why I posted these images is just purely getting the word out that many families need your real help. It's not the time for arguing whose fault and what. And one thing is for sure that ultimate justice maybe delayed but won't be denied down the stretch.

Sri Lankan tells of asylum death voyage

2010-04-11T20:21:00.000-04:00

TWELVE of Pararasasingam Paheertharan's fellow travellers drowned, including brothers aged 13 and 14 employed as crew, after people-smugglers herded him and 38 other Sri Lankan Tamils on to an ill-equipped fishing boat for an ambitious journey across the Indian Ocean.

In the first interview about last November's tragedy, soon to be examined by the West Australian coroner, Paheer said the people-smugglers promised passengers they would be transferred to a bigger vessel after two or three days sailing from Negombo, on Sri Lanka's west coast.

"After 10 days travelling we realised we were deceived by them," he wrote in an email after The Australian visited him in detention on Christmas Island last week.

"After 27 days travelling, our vessel had a hole -- we tried to remove the ocean water but we couldn't control it," Paheer wrote.

He emptied two oil canisters, tied them together and hung on in big waves after the boat sank 350 nautical miles northwest of the Cocos (Keeling) Islands on November 1.

Most survivors were taken aboard the LNG Pioneer, while others were rescued by the Taiwanese fishing vessel Kuamg, which was first to respond.

The former student union activist told how he was rescued at 3am on his 32nd birthday after eight hours in the water.

All 27 survivors, including a 15-year-old boy, remain in detention on Christmas Island.

Paheer and four other survivors await a decision on their claims for asylum, while seven have received initial rejections and can ask for an independent review.

"We never forget it, every day at night we see our people, who are shouting `please help us' from the ocean," he said.

Paheer is among those asylum-seekers who typically pay up to $US10,000 ($10,700) to try to get to Australia from Indonesia or, in his case, from Sri Lanka.

One Customs officer told The Australian he was astonished that so many dilapidated asylum boats made it as far as they did.

The dangers of the journey from Negombo to Christmas Island did not bother the people-smugglers who took Paheer's money, and for Paheer it seemed worth the risk.

Paheer recalled how, as a passenger who spoke good English, it was his job to radio for help at about 1am on November 1, when it became obvious the boat was in trouble.

Nine hours later, a fishing boat appeared. "We waved towards it, it came near us, we explained our situation, then the boat captain said `we informed the Australian government, they sent a ship'," Paheer said.

"Around 6.30pm we saw a ship coming towards us -- unfortunately before the ship came near us our vessel sank.

"I saw that some of us were swimming towards the ship, others shouting here and there, in front of me I saw three people sink into the ocean."

One body was recovered. Those who died included the boat's captain and his young nephews, brought to work as crew. A rescued 19-year-old arrived at Christmas Island with the other survivors last November believing his father had been rescued by another boat.

It was a police officer's duty a few days later to tell the young man his father was not coming, and was believed drowned.

Sri Lanka's traitorous politics

2010-04-01T15:27:00.001-04:00

By Savitri Hensman -guardian.co.uk

"A murderer is less to fear. The traitor is the plague," declared Roman statesman and orator Marcus Tullius Cicero over 2,000 years ago. Accusations of treachery still sting. But in Sri Lanka in recent decades, the term "traitor" has been flung about with wild abandon, raising questions about what loyalty people might owe to a nation and what this might mean in practice.

Last year, a civil war ended with the crushing defeat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), but this has not brought national harmony and reconciliation. Instead, an authoritarian culture has taken hold in which disagreement with the powers that be is labelled as disloyalty to the nation. The general who led the successful military campaign against the LTTE, Sarath Fonseka, became highly critical of the current president, Mahinda Rajapakse, who with his brother Gotabhaya, the defence secretary, also claimed credit for the victory.

Fonseka unsuccessfully stood as an opposition candidate in this year's presidential elections. Some government supporters labelled him as a traitor, and he was arrested. In the runup to parliamentary elections, he is facing trial by a military court.

A political culture built on mistrust of diversity and disagreement took hold 30 years ago. The government tried to tap into fear of and rivalry towards Tamils among the Sinhalese majority. In the world view promoted by industries minister, Cyril Mathew, in his 1979 work Diabolical Conspiracy, those not Sinhalese Buddhists were particularly prone to be treacherous. In the days of British rule "a very special partiality was shown to the minorities and they were given valuable and privileged opportunities. In this crafty way the British rulers were able to obtain all the information regarding the efforts of the majority people for a united stand, from the beholden and grateful minority communities". This was a gross distortion of history, but helped to fuel suspicion and supposedly justify abuses of power. Harsh repression alienated many Tamil youth, swelling the ranks of an initially tiny militant movement fighting for a separate state.

It was not just ethnic and religious minorities who came under attack: anyone who questioned the regime risked arrest or death. After unleashing violence against Tamil civilians in 1983, the government banned much of the opposition including the main Tamil party and Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), supported largely by discontented Sinhalese youth, supposedly for undermining national security.

This fuelled support for the Tamil nationalist movement as well as a JVP rebellion. Soon the JVP, too, was labelling those its leaders disapproved of as traitors and violently targeting them The LTTE also set out to stamp its authority over the Tamil people, detaining or killing "traitors" – rival Tamil nationalists, moderates and anyone suspected of being critical of its policies, which included terrorist attacks, ethnic cleansing and child conscription.

Meanwhile, human rights activists such as idealistic young opposition MP Rajapakse risked their safety to publicise the regime's injustices internationally and try to restore a less violent and divisive political culture.

Now in power, it is ironic that Rajapakse is promoting the kind of repression he once opposed so strongly, further dividing rather than reconciling Sri Lankans. Critics of the government are labelled as traitors, human rights and democracy undermined.

In any country where quasi-religious adoration of "the nation" takes hold, there is a risk this may tip over into unquestioning obedience to its leaders. Ironically, this may harm rather than protect its people and what is best in its heritage. The kind of patriotism needed by Sri Lanka and other countries today is that described by human rights defender Clarence Darrow: "True patriotism hates injustice in its own land more than anywhere else."

Boycott of Sri Lanka Products is Started to Bear Fruits

2010-03-25T22:04:00.002-04:00

Suren Surendiran is a senior member of the British Tamils Forum and the official spokesperson for the Global Tamil Forum.

“Some governments try to dodge criticism by claiming that human rights are ‘western values’. But people all over the world prove them wrong by demanding and suffering for their human rights – be they imprisoned protesters in Iran, or murdered journalists in Russia, or civilians caught up in conflicts in Sri Lanka or Gaza. We must continue to support people who demand their human rights across the world.” – David Miliband, Foreign Secretary, Statement to mark International Human Rights Day, 10 December 2009 -

Sri Lanka’s president is pressing forward with parliamentary elections on April 8, 2010 despite allegations of electoral malpractice surrounding his own presidential election victory in January, the country facing economic crisis and growing international criticisms for the State’s callous disregard for human rights, general governance and lack of political will to resolve the 62 years long conflict.

The U.S. State Department, in its Annual Report on Human Rights for 2009, has been highly critical of the Sri Lankan government. It says the government or paramilitary groups close to it were involved in summary killings and disappearances and that lawyers and journalists were harassed and victimised. It says the war-affected parts of the country saw the greatest number of political disappearances, estimated to be in the hundreds.

Britain has also named Sri Lanka a “country of concern” in the latest Foreign and Commonwealth Office Human Rights Report 2009. “This reflects our concern about allegations of serious conflict violations, as well as the deteriorating status of the rule of law and freedom of expression…” – United Kingdom Foreign & Commonwealth Office Annual Report on Human Rights 2009

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on March 8, 2010 expressed “concerns about the lack of progress on political reconciliation, the treatment of Internally Displaced Persons and the setting up of an accountability process in Sri Lanka”.

The prospect of a panel of experts being appointed to advise the Secretary General on accountability issues relating to Sri Lanka was not welcomed by President Rajapakse who said it was “uncalled for and unwarranted”.

Permanent Representative of the United Kingdom to the United Nations Sir Mark Lyall Grant has said that UK disagrees with the argument put forward by the Non-Aligned Movement and that “[Secretary General] does have a mandate through the U.N. charter to uphold human rights and humanitarian international law, and therefore he is entirely within his rights to set up a group of experts who will advise him on taking forward his concerns about some of the allegations that have been made in the recent months in Sri Lanka”. – Colombopage, 20 Mar 2010

“Sri Lanka’s government has sought an additional 39.6 billion rupees ($345 million) to fund its military, a 20 percent increase from the original defence budget despite the end of a 25-year war against Tamil Tigers in May.

“Sri Lanka has a public sector of around 6 percent of the population. Maintaining loss-making public institutions without reforms, high and unproductive subsidies, a government with over 110 Ministers and expenditures that make more political than economic sense are other factors in the deficit.” – Reuters, March 4, 2010

It is no surprise that the International Monetary Fund has delayed the third tranche of a $2.6 billion loan after Sri Lanka failed to achieve its budget deficit target to reduce deficit to 7 percent of GDP.

An IMF mission to Sri Lanka in February concluded that they were unable to “complete” its review until the pending parliamentary elections in April. It is however important to note that Sri Lanka’s last two IMF programs ended with missions that were unable to “complete reviews”, effectively staying suspended. – Lanka Business Online, 25 Feb 2010.

Despite Sri Lanka’s claims that it can overcome suspension of IMF loan, the country is already fearing the affects of the temporary suspension of General Scheme of Preference (GSP+) trade concessions due to come into effect in August 2010.

“Western countries, and groups in the Tamil Diaspora, are pressing for some kind of accountability for thousands of civilian deaths at the end of the war. Sri Lanka is adamant its soldiers did not violate international law, and that for now has cost it enhanced European Union trade preferences known as GSP+ worth $136 million a year.” – Reuters, 2 Mar 2010

Some of these above quotes and links stand as evidence that credible independent media organisations, institutions and foreign governments have highlighted facts, which I have used to illustrate my argument that the Rajapaksha regime is driving Sri Lanka into economic ruin for the sake of power at the cost of humanity itself.

It is hoped that all donors including China, Japan and India will follow precedence set by Britain and the U.S. in persuading Sri Lanka to address its human rights record.

It is against this backdrop and as part of its campaign to create worldwide awareness of the real human rights situation in Sri Lanka, the Global Tamil Forum has called for a worldwide boycott of Sri Lankan products and services – www.boycottsrilanka.com

Sri Lanka is Quickly Becoming the Congo of South Asia for Its Continuous Subject of Rapes of Tamil Women and Girls

2010-02-20T20:18:00.012-05:00

Never ending stories of rapes of Tamil women and girls at the hands of Srilankan armed forces and its paramilitaries is norm of daily lives of Tamils who what they face in Sri Lanka nowadays. What is so alarming is that these criminals were never brought into justice. For example, Krishanthy case, in which the victim - Tamil teenage girl -was gang raped and later killed by two dozen Srilankan military men in the outposts of their camp in Ariyalai, Jaffna, in early 90s when she was on the way to her school. And another story of young Tamil woman worker of TRO ( Tamil relief Organization ) how she was gang raped and killed by about 20 paramilitary members of TMVP ( Karuna led faction of LTTE) for her suspected affiliation with LTTE in 2006. Because of the culture of impunity in Sri Lanka it encourages the Srilankan armed personnel to inflict more crimes against Tamil women and girls whenever they get chances. In the past, Srilankan armed forces often used to see every Tamil woman as their sexual pry or LTTE cadre given how the civil war played out in last 3 decades . Now LTTE is not in the picture, and it makes things easier for paramilitaries and Srilankan armed forces to go after any Tamil woman or girl whom they like. Raping of Tamil women and girls by Srilankan armed forces has become widespread in Sri Lanka but many stories never hit the mass media due to the backlashes the families of victims expect both from the culprits and the Tamil community itself.

One can argue that what are the benefits in trying to prevent the future rapes if the victims can go through anguish, isolation and the stigma by revealing their horrifying events to the public. Well, how many of you knew that more than 4,000 Tamil women were raped by IPKF (Indian Peace Keeping Force) and its paramilitaries ( ENDLF, PLOTE, etc) during their stay of 3-year period from 1987 to 1989? Even if the local media knew about those incidents, they failed to bring into public because of the retaliation from the culprits of these rapes. People familiar with the IPKF rule in Jaffna knew well about how Tamil women and girls suffered at the heels of IPKF and its paramilitaries. And those paramilitaries often wait on the streets of Jaffna for the school girls to come out from their schools like Veambadi, Chundikuli and Hindu Ladies College etc. These victims were often disappeared for days and released later on with the mercy of their captors or they were killed in some instances. It was evident from the findings of many female bodies buried beside the Ashoka Hotel that was occupied by IPKF and its paramilitaries during their stay in Jaffna. Many can think that 4,000 rape victims may not be high enough to think as epidemic of rape and grotesque violence against Tamil women in IPKF time. In fact, if you go into those little details of the Jaffna population, you would see it was clearly on the epidemic scale.

What it made me to write this post is clearly this news - http://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=13&artid=31223- that appeared on Tamilnet few days back. And I see this is as the troubling sign of what to come from the Srilankan armed forces and its paramilitaries who stationed in Jaffna town which currently falls in the high-military zone. I’m already privy to one such incident happened few months ago and won’t reveal the victim’s name and her place for obvious reasons. The victim was raped by 9 EPRLF men (a paramilitary group that led by Douglas Devananda who is minister of the current ruling government in SL ) It is important to highlight the sufferings of Tamil women what they endure at the hands of Srilankan armed forces and its paramilitaries, otherwise it can once again become epidemic of rape against Tamil women and girls in Sri Lanka.

One should not forget the barbaric nature of Srilankan armed forces who are often given incentives to work in North East provinces of Tamil homeland that they can always get way with the sexual assaults of Tamil women. Past history of Srilankan armed forces is real proof what you can expect from them. During the final stages of Eelam war IV last summer, Defence Sectary Gotabaya Rajapaksa even said that all the Tamil women can become the possession of his military personnel and Tamil men should be thrown into Indian ocean. If military head can have that kind of mentality, no need to mention how the lower ranks work. It was said in many channels that widespread sexual assaults were on going against Tamil women and girls who were part of the 300,000+ Tamils put behind the barped wires by Srilankan government aftermath of its military victory over LTTE last summer.

Haitian peace keeping mission of Srilankan armed forces is a testimonial for how rouge Srilankan armed forces are. If they can go and involve in the raping spree of Haitian girls in their peace keeping mission of Haiti, not to mention that Haiti is more than 12,000 miles away from their country, they sure can inflict more violence against Tamil women in Sri Lanka given the history of hatred Srilankan armed forces have against Tamils in SL. What U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said of Sri Lanka is no accident that rape had been used as a weapon of war in Sri Lanka.
If we do not escalate the issue of rapes of Tamil women how they suffer at the heels of Srilankan forces and its paramilitaries, we may see 100s of brothels between Elephant Pass and Jaffna town on A9 highway just as what Colombo has it between Negombo and Pettah. The cultural city of Jaffna can become history for what it is known if we neglect the seriousness of these rapes. More importantly, there is no end to the sufferings of our women.

Ruwanda, Congo, Darfur, now Sri Lanka - Up to 40,000 civilians 'died in Sri Lanka offensive'

2010-02-12T21:28:00.010-05:00

By Andrew Buncombe, Asia Correspondent
Friday, 12 February 2010

The bitter controversy surrounding the final stages of the Sri Lankan government’s operation to crush separatist rebels has been reopened after a former UN official claimed that up to 40,000 civilians may have been killed.

In the final stages of last year’s move to defeat the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, the UN protested strongly about the number of Tamil civilians caught up in the fighting. Privately, officials estimated that between 8,000-10,000 lost their lives and that many more were wounded.

Now, Gordon Weiss, who until the end of last year was the UN’s spokesman in Colombo, has suggested the figure may be much higher. “A lot of civilians died inside the siege zone. I have heard anything between ten and forty thousand people and that’s from reliable sources who had a presence inside the zone,” he told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. “[The Sri Lankan authorities] repeated a number of things that were either intentionally misleading or were lies. One senior government civil servant remarked at the end of the war that the government insistence that the figures were very low was a ploy. It was a ploy to allow the government to get on with its business.”

Last night, the Sri Lankan government dismissed the claims. Lucien Rajakarunanayake, a senior presidential spokesman said: “All I can tell you is that [Mr Weiss] is unaware of the facts. The figures are a total exaggeration. The UN itself has given figures that are much lower than this.”

Precisely how many civilians were injured or wounded as Sri Lankan forces defeated the remnant of the LTTE fighters making a final stand in the north east of Sri Lanka, may never be known. At the time, the UN and other organisations claimed that civilians were being struck by ordinance fired by both sides. Testimony provided by Tamils who escaped from the war zone suggests that many civilians were used as human shields by the LTTE as government troops advanced.

Mr Weiss was last night unavailable to comment and the UN in Sri Lanka refused to discuss the claims of its former spokesman, believed to be writing a memoir of his experiences in Sri Lanka.

In the interview, the former spokesman also suggested there was a need to investigate allegations of possible war crimes. While there have been widespread calls for such an inquiry, including from some senior figures within the UN, the Sri Lankan authorities have refused such an undertaking. “I will not allow any investigation by the United Nations or any other country. There is nothing wrong happening in this country?Take it from me, we will not allow any investigation,” Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, the country’s defence secretary and brother of the president, recently told an interviewer.

Indeed, the purported readiness of former army chief Sarath Fonseka to cooperate with such an inquiry has been cited by the government as one of the reasons he was arrested and placed in detention and will likely be placed before a court-martial. Mr Fonseka, who last month failed in his electoral challenge to Sri Lanka’s president, Mahinda Rajapaksa, had said allegations about war could be investigated. The defence secretary said of Mr Fonseka’s undertaking: “He simply cannot do that. For one thing it is a lie.”

Yesterday, hundreds of lawyers marched through Colombo to protest against Mr Fonseka’s continued detention. They gathered near the country’s Supreme Court which admitted a petition filed by the former general’s wife that claimed his detention by the military police was illegal. The court has given the government four weeks to reply.

Such a date would be less than a month before parliamentary that Mr Fonseka has intended to contest. The government has not yet specified which charges it wishes to bring against him, but has repeatedly claimed he was plotting a coup – something he denied.

Meanwhile, the US and Norway denied claims made by the government that they had bankrolled Mr Fonseka’s campaign. In a statement, the US Embassy in Colombo said: “The United States backed no candidate but strongly supported a free, fair, and credible democratic process.”

VP, Death, and the Myth!

2010-02-01T03:47:00.021-05:00

The latest story at Tamilwin - http://www.tamilwin.com/view.php?2a36QVj4b4cF98224beSIPz0e22p1GQdcd2GipD3e0dpZLuQce04g2F92cdbHjoQ30 - is stirring the controversy surrounding the death of VP once more. It is astonishing to see how the person who is Srilankan army officer on this image resembles the body of VP that was shown in all Srilankan channels.

It's the real image of VP that was taken on 2007 Maveerar Day.

There were mixed opinions among pro-Tamils about the death of VP prior to this news story at Tamilwin as some thought he may have been killed and some simply said he never dies. For any common-sensed person, it was hard to reject the opinion of death of VP earlier as all the evidences in Mulliyavaikal directly pointed his death. Mind you, well into first week after the alleged killing of VP on May 18th by SLA, KP who is in Srilankan army custody now maintained his position that VP was alive then. I will reproduce few excerpts of the Tamilnet’s interview with KP that took place on May 18th, 2009.

TamilNet: The Sri Lankan Government has declared the war won and has claimed that Mr Pirapaharan, the leader of LTTE has been killed. Has Colombo really won the war?

S. Pathmanathan, Head of LTTE's International Diplomatic Relations
Pathmanathan: The Sri Lankan government makes unverified claims. I am only able to ascertain that our National Leader is alive and well. It is true that many of our senior members and leaders have either given up their lives or been treacherously killed. This is very unfortunate, but it is important to realize that our struggle will continue until the aspirations of our people are realized.

The Sri Lankan Government may have declared a military victory. But it does not realize that it is a hollow victory. It has completely lost the trust and confidence of the Tamils in Sri Lanka.

One thing is clear that LTTE hierarchy was confident of KP then, otherwise they wouldn’t have moved him into higher up the position of Head of LTTE’s international relations when things started to get serious in the midst of Wanni war. After the executions of political leaders- Nadesan, Pulidevan and along with 300 others- on May 17th, the remaining LTTE hierarchy, assume VP was alive then, may have smelled the rat in KP and that put them not to share the info with KP anymore. Either way LTTE intelligence wing that learned the lessons of its life in the final week of battle in Wanni may have awaken from its sleep in time to think what was right for Tamils and its organization by going silent about the death of VP, even if he was alive. What puzzling to me is that why LTTE allowed the common enemy – GoSL- takes control of KP saga. The seismic proportions of Wanni events may have prevented LTTE think clearly for some time. It looks to me they’re still figuring out the good and bad apples even in their organization itself now.

Revelation of VP alive can bring greater harms than VP dead for Tamils for the time being. Let it be what is now that VP is dead. For your own euphoria, you may bring harm to those 14,000 Tamil youths who’re in SLA’s custody now and to those who lost loved ones and their own limps in the war from any chance of rebuilding their remaining scattered lives.

As it seems, LTTE is slowly overhauling its ship now. Look at their new website – www.lttepress.com – and it looks to me real site of their own. Don’t jump on the bandwagon quickly, and the GoSL and its Intel channels can double or even triple cross you here with their abundance of Tamil traitors from its arsenal. If you visit pulikalinkural.com, you would know that it is functioning well now. All it suggests that they’re in the fast-paced rebuilding mode now. The immutable fact of life for anyone is that there are two states in SL now regardless of VP’s existence.

Never Too Late

2010-01-08T19:56:00.006-05:00

If we have learned from our past mistakes, we all know half measures never would bring any final result that we want. The amount of energy put into de facto state in Wanni by LTTE on the expense of building a strong political front in Tamilnadu cost everything for Tamils. Should they have built a strong network in Tamilnadu, at least a strong political front, we wouldn’t be in a position that no one would have imagined it before. Leaving the corrupt DMK or ADMK in power for a past decade or so, pro-Eelam elements put themselves in a big hole that wasn’t really exposed until they were pushed against the wall in the last Eelam war.

One can argue that the mood was hostile against LTTE in India after the death of Rajiv, so any move by pro-Eelam elements in Tamilnadu would cost the remaining support. Well, one wrong call – the death of Rajiv Ghandi that hasn’t proved yet for who did – should not force another wrong call that was being passive on the corrupt DMK and ADMK leaders who are the reasons for why we have been forced to become slaves in our own land now. It is sad to see the so called political pundits blaming the change of mood in western and regional powers for our current state than our own political people – Karunanidhi and other traitors.

Any charity or reform should always start from home. Without cleaning the garbage at home, we can’t point fingers on others - external powers. To the extent India cooperated with Sri Lanka to kill 30,000 Tamils in less than 4 months is a real proof of what you can expect from them in future. Sadly, they even went further by leveraging their current rise of power in South Asia to cover of their involvement of war crimes by silencing the human right calls. It won’t take too long to replicate of what happened to Eelam Tamils on Tamilnadu Tamils. So long as 4 feet “veadi” wearing politicians continue to dance to their masters in New Delhi to amass fortune for them, Tamils will continue to lose their rights, voices, and an identity.

Yes, Tamilnadu enjoys the greater economic prosperity within the current system in India. Being the number one industrialized state and the contributor of third of economy of India, Tamilnadu would have easily prevented the bloodbath and saved 30,000 innocent Tamil lives, instead they watched the carnage unfolding in Wanni. When 100s of Tamil lives were forcefully taken daily in Wanni, Sun TV continued to be silent about any human loss. And the mainstream Medias of India followed their soap-opera stories of cricket and movie stars on their front pages and headline news instead of highlight the any suffering of Tamils in Wanni then. It all indicates one thing: there is no value for Tamil lives. Here is the glimpse of idea where Tamilnadu is heading; Tamil cinema rules the lives of Tamils there, and any Tamil channel you tune into contains 70/30 in favour of English dialogue. After all, Tamil cinema is home to pedophiles and perverts, who often backed by corrupt politicians. No wonder why the scumbag, Actor Vijay, openly expressed his interest for joining the Congress.

What Tamilnadu needs at the moment is “The Shock Doctrine” version of Naomi Klein – a reform in the wake of crisis. Leader of “ Naam Thamizhar Iyakkam”, Seeman, should stop entertaining the local crowd and it is time for him to start the real work. We need a sophisticated umbrella organization that can take hard decisions if needed. Once the clean-up makes full-circle in Eelam and Tamilnadu, then sky is the limit for getting back our lost land and rights. That means the buck stops with Tamilnadu youth now. With one half-measure, we've already lost 3 decades and 130,000 Tamil lives, if we make one more, there won’t be any recovery for Tamils. It is time for Tamil youth to roll up their sleeves and get dirty in Tamilnadu.

Yes or no to Tamil Eelam( referendum in Canada )

2009-12-18T15:05:00.008-05:00

As you know, the political vacuum left by LTTE after its debacle in Mulliyavaikkal can bring greater adversities to Tamils if they do not shake off from what happened there. Yes, there are many Tamil factions emerging in our circles since the brutal military victory of GoSL against Tamils back home. Any ambivalence of the broader Tamil public should not be replaced with anti-Tamil views that is what GoSL have already started to throw at us. Please be clear in one thing that as long as we do not deviate from the Tamil nationalism, we're in the right direction regardless of any short-term adversities. Arguing about what good can bring whether forming the Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam or supporting the Vaddukoddai Resolution, won't help us. But it is all about keeping our Tamil Nationalism alive in these troubling times until we get the right time to strike back. And that opportune moment can come in 10 years down the stretch or 50 years but we can wait for it.

Leaving our youth back home in harms way by escaping into Western countries we also have blood in our hands. If anything in doubt, please see the CH4 clip. How many of our Tamil women are raped by SLA? How many are quietly suffering inside for their current turmoil?

The least thing you can do Tomorrow is paying a visit to any polling center that is close by in your area.

Pictures won't hide the truth!

2009-12-16T00:24:00.008-05:00

The evil acts by Srilankan armed forces against Tamils have reached another new low.

Sell-outs are on making, too familiar scenes once again!

2009-11-19T18:38:00.011-05:00

One man who would have prevented the bloodbath in Eelam that was none other than Mr. Karunanidhi, instead he made his name as biggest traitor of all in Tamil history books.

What can you expect from a man who being married three times and a father of a rapist son – Stanley? Isn’t that his daughter, Kanimoli, who bought 250 acres of land in Srilanka in her recent visit of IDP camps in Vavuniya ? Well, call it as a business trip.

Another Sell-out, TNA MP, Sivanathan Kisor- is making.

Not long ago, 1000s of Tamils were massacred like dogs by Srilankan armed-forces with the help of regional powers such as India and China, who wanted their own interests protected at the cost of Tamil lives. Tamils around the world took to streets and begged everyone to save their brethren back home but the world turned its blind eye just as it did in Rwanda, Congo and Darfur. To make things easy, naive LTTE leadership took series of amateur decisions one after one that helped the enemy to put the final nail on our coffins. Now shell-shocked Tamils are in total disarray as many factions are already starting to emerge even within our own camps. Given the Tamil history, traitors- eddapans - are nothing new but the way they emerge before the Tamil-blood gets dry it shows they're so desperate to make a move either for their own interests or Stockholm Syndrome that took the toll on them.

If you're concerned Tamil, I would say you should pretend to be in a deep sleep for next 3 or 4 years until things get consolidated.

Officially the LTTE is done deal ?

2009-11-12T15:06:00.005-05:00

Revisiting the dirt will only add the pain to Tamils who have no shortage in that aspect but finding solutions to an unanswered questions will help them to think differently even in these adverse circumstances. If you've noticed the LTTE's official statement few days back - passing the torch to the diaspora Tamils from now on regards to Eelam struggles - you can easily come to the conclusion that LTTE is no more. Since the arrest of KP, many pro-Tamil websites started to hit the dust , and also many anti-Tamil elements started to emerge through various channels by using the favorable circumstances.

It seems Colonel Ram is reported captured in the east, so there are no pockets remaining except those who have managed to flee oversees, which is not so many. One can wonder about what happened to Colonel Ram's cyanide? It tells that Colonel Ram and GoSL agreed on some sort of deal that would have provided safe passage to Colonel Ram, in return, he may have agreed to silence his guns.

Also we have seen Rajapaksha freely visiting places like Tirupati and Nepal, with no fear of being attacked. His relative visited Madurai today, again without fear of attack. Fonseka has relatives in Oklahoma without any security, but they are also untouched. So all of this points out to a complete collapse of LTTE with no members left anywhere. From the day Prabhakaran was killed there has not been a single attack in Sri Lanka of any type.

It was a very selfish and stupid strategy at the end, which is unexplainable except for delusion and insanity. The leaders would not let anyone escape alive, everyone had to die with them. I think people like Lawrence were likely executed when they tried to escape. First Tamilnet reported him killed, and then was told to change the story to him being injured. Prior to that there were rumors he was arrested. According to some insider news, Ilanthiraiyan was also executed by LTTE in the final week after finding out that he was an informant to GoSL for many of the LTTE's failed attacks, including the mission of Deepan-Durka that cost at least 500 lives of LTTE cadres.

And the story of "silencing the guns" is another ridiculous thing Tamilnet continues to mention. They only did it after every single LTTE fighter had been sacrificed and no one was left except the leaders. At that time they were restricted to a 100 meters area. That is just stones throwing distance. After every fighter having been killed and only leaders left in a few bunkers covering a tiny area of 100 meters, they announce they have silenced their guns to save the people! And immediately following that the first group of leaders tries to surrender. After forcing at least 30,000 LTTE fighters to be killed and 30,000 civilians to be massacred, the leaders wanted to silence their guns and surrender?

US to question Sri Lanka army chief over war crimes allegations

2009-11-02T09:29:00.000-05:00

By Randeep Ramesh, South Asia correspondent

A video image shows civilians fleeing a strip of land held by Tamil rebels during the civil war. Photograph: Reuters/Reuters

Sri Lanka today objected to attempts by the US to question the chief of its army over allegations of war crimes during the final stages of the conflict with the Tamil Tigers.

US immigration authorities told General Sarath Fonseka, who is currently visiting his daughters in Oklahoma, that they would like to interview him before renewing his green card.

The Sri Lankan government said it was "worried" about the questions he might have to face because the US state department had made "allegations of crimes committed by the Sri Lankan armed forces".

Officials in Colombo are concerned that the US could also seek to ask the army chief about the involvement of the defence secretary, Gotabaya Rajapaksa – the brother of the Sri Lankan president and a US citizen – in the war.

The Sri Lankan embassy in Washington has retained lawyers from Patton Boggs, a leading law firm, to make the case that Sri Lanka could resist US attempts to question Fonseka over the defence secretary's conduct.

Fonseka and Rajapaksa are seen as the brains behind the government's bloody victory in May, which saw the Tamil Tiger leadership wiped out on the Indian Ocean island's north-eastern beaches.

Tamil groups have long urged the US to prosecute both the general and the defence secretary for what they describe as "genocide".

Bruce Fein, a lawyer for the US-based group Tamils Against Genocide, has argued that the political justification for a genocide investigation was strengthened because the "United States has been vocal with Serbia, Bosnia and other nations about policing and punishing their own citizens or residents for genocide".

There have been persistent allegations of war crimes committed during the final months of the 25-year Sri Lankan civil war.

Last month, the US state department's leading war crimes official, Stephen Rapp, called on Sri Lanka to conduct a "genuine" investigation into allegations of war crimes by both government troops and the Tigers.

Rapp's statement came as the state department released a 68-page report, based on US embassy findings, satellite imagery and aid agencies accounts, that painted a bleak picture of civilian life in a war zone under constant bombardment and where the death toll was rising. According to the UN and human rights groups, between 7,000 and 20,000 civilians were killed in the north-east between January and May.

The report blamed both the government and the Tigers. It said rebels had shot people trying to flee from their territory, forcibly recruited child soldiers and used suicide bombers.

But it also alleged that government forces shelled civilian populations, hospitals and schools in rebel-controlled territory, often in areas that had been described by the authorities as no-fire zones.

The Democratic senator Patrick Leahy, who wrote the legislation requiring the report, said it "eliminates any reasonable doubt that serious violations of the laws of war were committed by both the LTTE [Tamil Tiger] rebels and Sri Lankan government forces".

Sri Lanka dismissed the document as "unsubstantiated and devoid of corroborative evidence" .

Since then, Colombo has promised to investigate the final stages of the war, but many observers have raised doubts over its commitment to investigating itself.

Survival of Maoists will pave the path to Tamil separate land in Sri Lanka, and India will pay the price for its game on Eelam Tamils.

2009-10-31T18:58:00.009-04:00

By JIM YARDLEY for NY Times

BARSUR, India — At the edge of the Indravati River, hundreds of miles from the nearest international border, India effectively ends. Indian paramilitary officers point machine guns across the water. The dense jungles and mountains on the other side belong to Maoist rebels dedicated to overthrowing the government.

“That is their liberated zone,” said P. Bhojak, one of the officers stationed at the river’s edge in this town in the eastern state of Chattisgarh.

Or one piece of it. India’s Maoist rebels are now present in 20 states and have evolved into a potent and lethal insurgency. In the last four years, the Maoists have killed more than 900 Indian security officers, a figure almost as high as the more than 1,100 members of the coalition forces killed in Afghanistan during the same period.

If the Maoists were once dismissed as a ragtag band of outdated ideologues, Indian leaders are now preparing to deploy nearly 70,000 paramilitary officers for a prolonged counterinsurgency campaign to hunt down the guerrillas in some of the country’s most rugged, isolated terrain.

For India, the widening Maoist insurgency is a moment of reckoning for the country’s democracy and has ignited a sharp debate about where it has failed. In the past, India has tamed some secessionist movements by coaxing rebel groups into the country’s big-tent political process. The Maoists, however, do not want to secede or be absorbed. Their goal is to topple the system.

Once considered Robin Hood figures, the Maoists claim to represent the dispossessed of Indian society, particularly the indigenous tribal groups, who suffer some of the country’s highest rates of poverty, illiteracy and infant mortality. Many intellectuals and even some politicians once sympathized with their cause, but the growing Maoist violence has forced a wrenching reconsideration of whether they can still be tolerated.

“The root of this is dispossession and deprivation,” said Ramachandra Guha, a prominent historian based in Bangalore. “The Maoists are an ugly manifestation of this. This is a serious problem that is not going to disappear.”

India’s rapid economic growth has made it an emerging global power but also deepened stark inequalities in society. Maoists accuse the government of trying to push tribal groups off their land to gain access to raw materials and have sabotaged roads, bridges and even an energy pipeline.

If the Maoists’ political goals seem unattainable, analysts warn they will not be easy to uproot, either.

Here in the state of Chattisgarh, Maoists dominate thousands of square miles of territory and have pushed into neighboring states of Orissa, Bihar, Jharkhand and Maharashtra, part of a so-called Red Corridor stretching across central and eastern India.

Violence erupts almost daily. In the past five years, Maoists have detonated more than 1,000 improvised explosive devices in Chattisgarh. Within the past two weeks, Maoists have burned two schools in Jharkhand, hijacked and later released a passenger train in West Bengal while also carrying out a raid against a West Bengal police station.

Efforts are under way to open peace negotiations, but as yet remain stalemated. With the government offensive drawing closer, the people who feel most at risk are the tribal villagers who live in the forests of Chattisgarh, where the police and Maoists, sometimes called Naxalites, are already skirmishing.

“Earlier,” said one villager, “we used to fear the tigers and wild boars. Now we fear the guns of the Naxalites and the police.”

The counterinsurgency campaign, called Operation Green Hunt, calls for sending police and paramilitary forces into the jungles to confront the Maoists and drive them out of newer footholds toward remote forest areas where they can be contained.

“It may take one year, two years, three years or four,” predicted Vishwa Ranjan, chief of the state police in Chattisgarh, adding that casualties would be inevitable. “There is no zero casualty doctrine,” he said.

Once an area is cleared, the plan also calls for introducing development projects such as roads, bridges and schools in hopes of winning support of the tribal people. Also known as adivasis, they have faced decades of exploitation from local officials, moneylenders and private contractors, numerous government reports have found.

“The adivasis are the group least incorporated into India’s political economy,” said Ashutosh Varshney, an India specialist at Brown University, calling their plight one of the “unfinished quests of Indian democracy.”

The Maoist movement first coalesced after a violent 1967 uprising by local Communists over a land dispute in a West Bengal village known as Naxalbari, hence the name Naxalites.

Some Communists would enter the political system; today, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) is an influential political force that holds power in West Bengal. But others went underground, and by the 1980s, many found sanctuary in Chattisgarh, especially in the region across from the Indravati River known as Abhujmad. From here, the Maoists recruited and trained disgruntled tribal villagers and slowly spread out. For years, the central government regarded them as mostly a nuisance. But in 2004, the movement radicalized, authorities say, when its two dominant wings merged with the more violent Communist Party of India (Maoist).

Keith Bedford for The New York Times

Indian officers patrolled a forest around their base in Barsur, right on the edge of rebel-controlled territory in Chattisgarh.

Indigenous women walked to a market in Chattisgarh State, where villagers are caught between the Indian government and Maoist rebels.

Authorities in Chattisgarh then deputized and armed civilian posses, which have been accused by human rights groups of terrorizing innocent villagers and committing atrocities of their own in the name of hunting Maoists. Now, violence is frequent, if unpredictable, like the ambush near the village of Laheri, in Maharashtra State, carried out by the Maoists on Oct. 8.

That morning, following a tip, a police patrol chased two Maoist fighters and stumbled into a trap. Two hundred Maoists with rifles and machine guns lay waiting and opened fire when the officers came into an exposed area of rice paddies. Seventeen officers died, fighting for hours until they ran out of ammunition.

“They surrounded us from every side,” said Ajay Bhushari, 31, who survived the ambush and is now the commanding officer in Laheri. “They were just stronger. They had more people.”

The Maoists felled trees across the only road leading to the village. The police, already wary of using roads because of improvised explosive devices, marched their reinforcements 10 miles through the jungle, arriving too late at the scene.

Officer Bhushari said violence in the area had risen so sharply that the police now left the fortified defenses of their outpost only in large groups, even for social outings. The Maoists also killed 31 police officers from other nearby outposts in attacks in February and May.

“It’s an open jail for us,” he said. “Either we are sitting here, or we are on patrol. There is nothing else.”

About 40 miles from Laheri, a processing plant owned by Essar Steel has been closed for five months. Maoists sabotaged Essar’s 166-mile underground pipeline, which transfers slurry from one of India’s most coveted iron ore deposits to the Bay of Bengal. “I’ve told my management that I’ll take a team and do the repairs,” said S. Ramesh, the project manager for Essar. “But I can’t promise how long it will last.”

The Essar plant is part of broader undertaking by the government and several private mining companies to extract the resources beneath land teeming with guerrillas. Mr. Ramesh said 70 percent of India’s iron ore lay in states infiltrated by Maoists; production in this area is stalled at 16 million tons a year even though the area has the potential to produce 100 million tons.

Mr. Ramesh fretted that India’s growth would be stunted if the country could not exploit its own natural resources. Yet he also cautioned that the counterinsurgency operation was no cure-all. “That alone is not going to help,” he said. “We are not fighting an enemy here. We are fighting citizens.”

With police officers dying in large numbers and Maoists carrying out bolder attacks, the debate around the insurgency has sharpened in India’s intellectual salons and on the opinion pages and talk shows.

The writer Arundhati Roy recently called for unconditional talks and told CNN-IBN that the Maoists were justified in taking up arms because of government oppression. Others who are sympathetic to the plight of the adivasis say the Maoist violence has become intolerable.

“You can’t defend the tactics,” said Mr. Varshney, the Brown University professor. “No modern state can accept attacks on state institutions, even when the state is wrong.”

Local people are caught in the middle. On a recent market day in the village of Palnar, women balancing urns of water on their heads and bare-footed, emaciated men came out of the forests to shop for vegetables, nuts or a rotting fruit fermented to produce local liquor. As peddlers spread their wares over blankets, the nearby government office was locked behind a closed gate.

“It’s a bad situation,” said one villager who asked not to be identified, fearing retribution from both sides. “The Naxalite activities have increased. They have their meetings in the village. They tell the people they have to fight. The people here do not vote out of fear.”

Another man arrived on a motorcycle from a more distant village. Several months ago, the police raided his village and arrested more than a dozen people after accusing them of being collaborators. A few were Maoist sympathizers, the man on the motorcycle said, but most were wrongly swept up in the raid. Now, Operation Green Hunt portends more confrontation.

“Life is very difficult,” the man said. “The Naxalites think we are helping the police. The police think we are helping the Naxalites. We are living in fear over who will kill us first.”

Sri Lanka Pressed to Investigate Possible War Atrocities - NY Times.

2009-10-23T19:48:00.001-04:00

By LYDIA POLGREEN and VIKAS BAJAJ

International pressure is mounting on Sri Lanka’s government to investigate atrocities that may have been committed during the final stages of its war with the Tamil Tiger insurgency as two new reports from the European Union and the State Department detailing alleged human rights abuses were released this week.

The reports come as Sri Lanka also faces intensifying criticism for its decision to keep more than 250,000 Tamils who were displaced by the fighting in closed camps that critics have likened to internment camps. The government says it plans to allow 80 percent of these people to return to their homes by the end of January, but insists that it must first weed out any remaining Tamil Tiger rebels hiding among them.

The European Union report in particular, which could lead to the withdrawal of trade concessions worth tens of millions of dollars to Sri Lankan garment and fisheries industries, represents the first time the Sri Lankan government has faced a serious sanction as a result of its conduct of the war.

Economists and business officials said the loss of the trade concessions, known as GSP-plus, could be a serious blow to an already ailing Sri Lankan economy. The country’s large garment industry will likely bear the brunt of the impact because as much as 60 percent of the country’s apparel exports go to the European Union.

Tariffs on some products could go from zero or near zero to between 5 percent and 18 percent, said E. M. Wijetilleke, the secretary general and chief executive of the National Chamber of Commerce of Sri Lanka. Such increases could sink smaller companies that cannot cut costs to match bigger and lower-cost producers in China and India, he added.

“Some small-scale firms will not be able to survive and they will have to lay off the workers from their jobs,” Mr. Wijetilleke said. “There will be a huge impact on the economy.”

The garment industry in Sri Lanka employs about 270,000 workers directly and an additional 50,000 indirectly, according to estimates by Oxford Analytica, a research firm.

The State Department report , which was released Thursday, was largely a catalog of mostly unverified abuses by Sri Lankan forces and the Tamil Tigers based on reports from the American Embassy in Colombo, Sri Lanka’s largest city and commercial capital.

Because of limited access to the war zone by independent aid groups, human rights investigators and journalists, the report does not draw conclusions but urges the Sri Lankan government to investigate the allegations.

Questioned why the report did not take a tougher line, a State Department spokesman, Ian Kelly, defended the conclusions at a briefing with reporters this week.

He said the Obama administration was calling on the Sri Lankan government to open the closed areas to international scrutiny, to investigate the allegations and to bring to justice anyone responsible for atrocities.

So far, the Sri Lankan government has proved adept at eluding international scrutiny and seemingly indifferent to even the harshest criticism of the Western countries on human rights issues.

It successfully maneuvered its allies on the United Nations Human Rights Council to transform a stern demand for an international war crimes inquiry into a resolution celebrating its triumph over the Tigers. Efforts by Western countries to stall a $2.6 billion loan to Sri Lanka from the International Monetary Fund also failed.

International efforts to press Sri Lanka to release Tamil civilians from a vast network of army-run camps in the country’s north have borne little fruit. More than halfway to the government’s self-imposed deadline to let almost all of the displaced people return to their homes, fewer than 10 percent have been allowed to leave, according to the United Nations, human rights organizations and aid groups. And some who have left the camps have been settled in other camps rather than being sent home, according to Brad Adams of Human Rights Watch.

“I think it is fair to say now they never intended to keep their commitment to return the displaced because they have consistently reneged on their promises,” Mr. Adams said. “Their promises are not to the international community, they are to the people in the camps.”

Sri Lankan officials denied this, saying that the government had in the past few days begun relocating 41,685 people from the camps to their homes in what was the battle zone. They rejected the notion that the Tamil civilians were being held prisoner.

“It is not a concentration camp where they are, and they are not being taken to a lesser concentration camp anywhere else,” said Lucien Rajakarunanayake, a spokesman for Sri Lanka’s president, Mahinda Rajapaksa.

KP's arrest led to many downfall of pro-Tamil channels?

2009-10-18T12:01:00.003-04:00

It puzzles me that why "pro-Tamil" channel- www.puthinam.com- won't function anymore. Here is the message from its website.

தனிப்பட்ட காரணங்களுக்காக இந்த இணையத்தளம் இயங்கமாட்டாது என்பதனை அறியத்தருகின்றோம்.

This is to advise due to personal reasons this website will not be functioning anymore.

Happy Diwali to All !

2009-10-16T14:55:00.001-04:00

India gets ready with new dress for Diwali while 300k+ Tamils who are confined into concentration camps in Vavuniya look for the ways to change the ones that they're wearing for months and weeks.

Behind The Sri Lankan Bloodbath

2009-10-09T13:06:00.001-04:00

Thousands of noncombatants, according to the United Nations, were killed in the final phase of the Sri Lankan war this year as government forces overran the Tamil Tiger guerrillas. Nearly five months after Colombo's stunning military triumph, the peace dividend remains elusive, with President Mahinda Rajapaksa setting out--in the name of "eternal vigilance"--to expand by 50% an already-large military. Little effort has been made to reach out to the Tamil minority and begin a process of national reconciliation.

China, clearly, was the decisive factor in ending the war through its generous supply of offensive weapons and its munificent aid. It even got its ally Pakistan to actively assist Rajapaksa in his war strategy. Today, China is the key factor in providing Colombo the diplomatic cover against the institution of a U.N. investigation into possible war crimes, or the appointment of a U.N. special envoy on Sri Lanka. In return for such support, Beijing has been able to make strategic inroads into a critically located country in India's backyard.

Unlike China's assistance, India's role has received little international attention. But India, too, contributed to the Sri Lankan bloodbath through its military aid, except that it has ended up, strangely, with its leverage undermined.

For years, India had pursued a hands-off approach toward Sri Lanka in response to two developments--a disastrous 1987-1990 peacekeeping operation there; and the 1991 assassination of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi by a member of the Tamil Tigers. But having been outmaneuvered by China's success in extending strategic reach to Sri Lanka in recent years, New Delhi got sucked into providing major assistance to Colombo, lest it lose further ground in Sri Lanka.

From opening an unlimited line of military credit for Sri Lanka to extending critical naval and intelligence assistance, India provided sustained war support despite a deteriorating humanitarian situation there. A "major turning point" in the war, as Sri Lankan navy chief Admiral Wasantha Karannagoda acknowledged, came when the rebels' supply ships were eliminated, one by one, with input from Indian naval intelligence, cutting off all supplies to the rebel-held areas. That in turn allowed the Sri Lankan ground forces to make rapid advances and unravel the de facto state the Tigers had established in the island nation's north and east.

Sri Lanka, for its part, practiced adroit but duplicitous diplomacy: It assured India it would approach other arms suppliers only if New Delhi couldn't provide a particular weapon system it needed. Yet it quietly began buying arms from China and Pakistan without even letting India know. In doing so, Colombo mocked Indian appeals that it rely for its legitimate defense needs on India, the main regional power. It was only by turning to India's adversaries for weapons, training and other aid that Colombo pulled off a startling military triumph. In any event, Colombo was emboldened by the fact that the more it chipped away at India's traditional role, the more New Delhi seemed willing to pander to its needs.

Indeed, Rajapaksa deftly played the China, India and Pakistan cards to maximize gains. After key Tamil Tiger leaders had been killed in the fighting, Rajapaksa--to New Delhi's mortification--thanked China, India and Pakistan in the same breath for Sri Lanka's victory.

Today, India stands more marginalized than ever in Sri Lanka. Its natural constituency--the Tamils--feels not only betrayed, but also looks at India as a colluder in the bloodbath. India already had alienated the Sinhalese majority in the 1980s, when it first armed the Tamil Tigers and then sought to disarm them through an ill-starred peacekeeping foray that left almost three times as many Indian troops dead as the 1999 Kargil War with Pakistan.

India's waning leverage over Sri Lanka is manifest from the way it now has to jostle for influence there with arch-rivals China and Pakistan. Hambantota--the billion-dollar port Beijing is building in Sri Lanka's southeast--symbolizes the Chinese strategic challenge to India from the oceans.

Even as some 280,000 displaced Tamils--equivalent to the population of Belfast--continue to be held incommunicado in barbed-wire camps, India has been unable to persuade Colombo to set them free, with incidents being reported of security forces opening fire on those seeking to escape from the appalling conditions. One of the few persons allowed to visit some of these camps was U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who said after his tour in May: "I have traveled around the world and visited similar places, but these are by far the most appalling scenes I have seen ..." Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said recently that India has conveyed its "concerns in no uncertain terms to Sri Lanka on various occasions, stressing the need for them to focus on resettling and rehabilitating the displaced Tamil population at the earliest." But India seems unable to make a difference even with messages delivered in "no uncertain terms."

The story of the loss of India's preeminent role in Sri Lanka actually begins in 1987, when New Delhi made an abrupt U-turn in policy and demanded that the Tigers lay down their arms. Their refusal to bow to the diktat was viewed as treachery, and the Indian army was ordered to rout them.

Since then, Sri Lanka has served as a reminder of how India's foreign policy is driven not by resolute, long-term goals, but by a meandering approach influenced by the personal caprice of those in power. The 1987 policy reversal occurred after then Sri Lankan President J.R. Jayewardene--a wily old fox--sold neophyte Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi the line that an "Eelam," or Tamil homeland, in Sri Lanka would be a dangerous precursor to a Greater Eelam uniting Tamils on both sides of the Palk Straits. In buying that myth, Gandhi did not consider a simple truth: If Bangladesh's 1971 creation did not provoke an Indian Bengali nationalist demand for a Greater Bangladesh, why would an Eelam lead to a Greater Eelam?

Actually, the Tamils in India and Sri Lanka have pursued divergent identities since the fall of the Pandyan kingdom in the 14th century. While the Eelam struggle is rooted in the treatment of Tamils as second-class citizens in Sri Lanka--where affirmative action has been instituted for the majority Sinhalese and a mono-ethnic national identity sought to be shaped--the Tamils in India face no discrimination and have been fully integrated into the national mainstream.

Another personality driven shift in India's Sri Lanka policy came after the 2004 change of government in New Delhi, when the desire to avenge Gandhi's assassination trumped strategic considerations, with the hands-off approach being abandoned. That handily meshed with the hawkish agenda of Rajapaksa, who began chasing the military option soon after coming to power in 2005. "It is their duty to help us in this stage," Rajapaksa said about India. And Indian help came liberally.

In fact, such has been the unstinting Indian support that even after the crushing of the Tamil Tigers, India went out of the way to castigate the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, Navi Pillay, in June for shining a spotlight on the deplorable human-rights situation in Sri Lanka, including the continuing internment of internally displaced Tamils. India accused Pillay--a distinguished South African judge of Indian descent who has sought an independent international investigation into alleged war crimes committed by all sides in Sri Lanka--of going beyond her brief, saying "the independence of the high commissioner cannot be presumed to exceed that of the U.N. secretary-general."

The costs of lending such support have been high. New Delhi today is groping to bring direction to its Sri Lanka policy by defining its objectives more coherently, even as it struggles to respond to the Chinese strategy to build maritime choke points in the Indian Ocean region. Indeed, India has ceded strategic space in its regional backyard in such a manner that Bhutan now remains its sole pocket of influence. In Sri Lanka, India has allowed itself to become a marginal player despite its geostrategic advantage and trade and investment clout.

More fundamentally, the pernicious myth Jayewardene planted in Gandhi's mind triggered a chain of events still exacting costs on Indian security and interests. In fact, nothing better illustrates the fallacy Jayewardene sold Gandhi than the absence of a Tamil backlash in India to the killings of thousands of countless Tamil civilians in Sri Lanka this year, and to the continued incarceration in tent camps of 280,000 Tamil refugees, including 80,000 children. In fact, even as the Sri Lankan war reached a gory culmination, India's Tamil Nadu state voted in national elections for the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) led by Gandhi's widow, Sonia Gandhi, although that governing coalition had shied away from raising its voice over the Sri Lankan slaughter.

Today, the upsurge of Sinhalese chauvinism flows from the fact that the Sri Lankan military accomplished a task whose pursuit forced the mightier Indian army to make an ignominious exit 19 years ago. Consequently, Colombo is going to be even less inclined than before to listen to New Delhi. Indeed, the manner in which Colombo played the China and Pakistan cards in recent years to outsmart India is likely to remain an enduring feature of Sri Lankan diplomacy, making Sri Lanka a potential springboard for anti-India maneuvers.

Brahma Chellaney, a professor of strategic studies at the Center for Policy Research in New Delhi, is the author, most recently, of Asian Juggernaut: The Rise of China, India and Japan.

Thamilvany Gnanakumar's eye witness story on Guardian Today about what happened in final days of war in Wanni

2009-09-16T12:16:00.009-04:00

Here it is the link

Lanka’s barbed wire

2009-09-09T23:41:00.002-04:00

Indian Express

It is now three months since Sri Lanka’s President Mahinda Rajapaksa declared the country “liberated” from Tamil Tiger (LTTE) rebels after a 26-year war. He said then that he wanted to settle most of the displaced Tamil civilians within 180 days — but today, with more than half that time elapsed, nearly 300,000 are still being held in “internment camps”, to which the media and humanitarian organisations have virtually no access. One person who was able to visit some of them in May was UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon. He said:

“I have travelled round the world and visited similar places, but these are by far the most appalling scenes I have seen...”

In mid-August these camps were flooded by downpours which, according to The New York Times, “sent rivers of muck cascading between tightly packed rows of flimsy shelters, overflowed latrines and sent hundreds of families scurrying for higher ground”. “We all knew that the monsoon rain would come,” says Nimalka Fernando, a Sri Lankan human rights activist and lawyer. “Many alerted the authorities. The government should have evacuated the displaced people earlier.”

Further, there is no public list of those being held in the camps, and many families do not know whether their loved ones are alive or dead.

The brutal and violent methods used by the LTTE during the conflict are beyond dispute. But while it was going on the government claimed to draw a distinction between LTTE fighters and the law-abiding Tamil population, whose genuine political grievances it would address later. So far, nothing like that has happened. Although it has screened out those it believes were LTTE cadres and sent them to separate camps, the government repeatedly extends its own deadline for releasing civilians in the main camps.

People who question this inside Sri Lanka, like Ms Fernando, are accused of being traitors in the pay of “the LTTE diaspora”, while outsiders are accused of using humanitarian concerns as an excuse for neo-imperialist intervention. Sri Lankan journalists who criticised the government have been arrested, beaten and in some cases murdered in broad daylight, while many more have fled the country.

In the last weeks of fighting an estimated 20,000 civilians lost their lives. Government forces are accused of shelling Tamil civilians and killing people who tried to surrender; the LTTE are charged with using civilians as human-shields, forcibly recruiting them as fighters and shooting those who tried to flee. There are rumours of mass graves but no independent observer has been allowed into the war zones to investigate.

As one of the five “Colombo Powers” which organised the historic Bandung Conference in 1955, Sri Lanka was, for many decades, a model member of the international community. Surely, the people of Sri Lanka do not want to compromise that enviable status, and with it their good standing in the groups, like NAM, that represent the developing world.

Friends of Sri Lanka worldwide, especially in the developing world, do not understand why President Rajapaksa chose Burma/Myanmar as the first country to visit after winning the war. They were concerned to read, on his own website, that one reason for this choice was that “the [Burmese] generals are increasingly finding it difficult to contain insurgent groups in the country’s northern frontier and are willing to learn some fresh lessons from President Mahindra Rajapaksa on how to defeat the enemy.”

That is not what the international community in general, and the developing world in particular, wishes to learn from Sri Lanka. Rather, friends of Sri Lanka were — and still are — expecting the country to be faithful to its democratic tradition and act on President Rajapaksa’s promises that the rights of minorities would be respected, that the displaced would be helped to return home, that prisoners would be treated humanely.

We do not believe that most in Sri Lanka agree with what some are saying in Colombo that developing-country governments can best deal with internal opposition by crushing it ruthlessly and treating any advice to respect universal principles of human rights and humanitarian law (which Sri Lanka agreed to uphold when it signed and ratified many treaties and conventions) as hypocritical.

This puts a heavy responsibility on all who are close to Sri Lanka’s ruling elite and on Asia’s key powers — India, Japan and China — which have been staunch supporters of the Rajapaksa Government and have channelled large sums of money in its direction (much of it, recently, for humanitarian purposes). It is time for the people of these countries to insist on a full account of how their money is being spent, and for their governments to say clearly that further economic and political support will depend on the following conditions being fulfilled:

First, the UN, Red Cross and voluntary agencies must be given full and unhindered access to care for and protect the civilians in the camps, and then help them return to wherever in their own country they choose to live.

Second, a list of all those still alive and in custody should be published, so that families can stop searching for loved ones who are dead.

Third, any who continue to be detained as alleged LTTE combatants must be treated in accordance with the provisions of international law, and urgently given access to legal representation.

Fourth, accountability processes must be established to ensure that international aid is not diverted.

Fifth, the Sri Lankan government should invite regional and international specialists in conflict reconciliation to help rebuild lives and communities.

Sixth, Sri Lanka should request or accept a full UN investigation into war crimes committed by all parties during the war.

The government has won the war, and the world shares the feeling of relief visible among Sri Lanka’s people. It remains for them to win the peace, and the rest of the world must help. That is the purpose of the demands listed above. World leaders as well as public opinion must insist on them, not only for the benefit of Tamils in general and the detainees in particular, but also for the hopes of democracy and human rights throughout Sri Lanka, and beyond. Peace won by the brutal humiliation of a people is rarely secure.

The writer is a former foreign minister of Algeria and UN special envoy.

This article was co-written by Edward Mortimer, senior vice-president of the Salzburg Global Seminar.

Sri Lanka: Access denied

2009-09-08T21:22:00.001-04:00

The Guardian

The Sri Lankan government is hugely dependent on outside aid in its efforts to deal with the human consequences of the war which the island had to endure for more than a quarter of a century. High military spending, collapsed tourism revenues, disrupted agriculture, reduced trade, and, to make matters worse, natural disaster in the shape of the tsunami have all undermined the economy.

The government simply does not have the resources to undertake, without international help, the work of repairing infrastructure, restoring economic life, feeding and temporarily housing large numbers of displaced people, and then returning them to their old homes in conditions approaching normality. Long before the war reached its end earlier this year, United Nations agencies, the International Committee of the Red Cross, and scores of voluntary organisations were all present in Sri Lanka ready and anxious to mitigate the impact of the fighting on ordinary people. They were kept at arm's length by the Sri Lankan authorities, who brooked no interference with, or oversight of, their military campaign. There was reason to hope that, with victory, this attitude would change. Unhappily, it has not. Colombo is still severely restricting access to the north, particularly to the area of the final battles, and to the camps where an estimated 280,000 people displaced by the fighting are detained.

The United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, came to Colombo a week after the war ended to ask for "unhindered access" to those camps. UN agencies have instead found themselves hampered in their attempts to bring in the materials to make life in the camps bearable, particularly vital as the monsoon breaks. Voluntary agencies have similarly found themselves blocked by regulations which seem to change weekly, if not daily, while some ICRC offices have been closed down on government orders. Independent travel by journalists is banned. In addition, the government reacts with fury to any criticism, from whatever source, of its slowness in getting the refugees out of the camps and back to their homes.

The secretary general's reward for the low-key approach he has taken to the Sri Lankan crisis since he assumed office has been to be ignored. Now the Sri Lankans have served an expulsion order on the Unicef spokesman, James Elder, after he warned that the monsoon would cause chaos and suffering in the camps. The Colombo government wants aid but it also wants to micromanage the way it is deployed and to bully those who have the job of delivering it. It is time that the donor nations and the agencies formed a united front to resist this unreasonable and ungrateful attitude.

Bodies of female Tamils molested and desecrated by Sri Lanka's Sinhalese army

2009-06-08T12:59:00.003-04:00

Everyone please read the following article and see what barbarians the Sinhalese soldiers are. There is no solution other than Eelam. Even if it takes 100 years and a million martyrs, Eelam should be the aim of all Tamils.

பெண்கள் மேலான பாரிய பாலியல் போர் குற்றங்கள் (படங்கள் இணைப்பு)

http://www.tamilcircle.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=5836:2009-06-07-07-28-46&catid=277:2009

Sri Lanka doctors 'to be tried'

2009-06-04T11:36:00.000-04:00

By Charles Haviland

A group of doctors who worked in Sri Lanka's rebel-held war zone are being held on suspicion of collaborating with Tamil rebels, the government says.

The doctors could be in detention for a year or more before being tried.

With journalists banned from the conflict zone, they became an important source of news about the fighting during the final bloody months of war.

Last month the Sri Lankan government defeated Tamil Tiger rebels fighting for a separate homeland.

Government infuriated

During the final phase of the war, the group of doctors treated wounded and ill patients admitted to the makeshift health posts in the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eeelam (LTTE)-held zone encircled by government forces.

Two of them had been senior local health directors and the United States said they had "helped save many lives" while the UN called them "heroic".

But the Sri Lankan government was infuriated by the doctors' media interviews from the zone, in which they said some of the shelling there came from the government side and had killed civilians.

Human Rights Minister Mahinda Samarasinghe told the BBC they are being detained at the Criminal Investigation Department on "reasonable suspicion of collaboration with the LTTE".

"I don't know what the investigations would reveal but maybe they were even part of that whole conspiracy to put forward this notion that government forces were shelling and targeting hospitals and indiscriminately targeting civilians as a result of the shelling," he said.

The government says not a single civilian died as a result of its final offensive, despite international allegations to the contrary.

The minister says the doctors must be produced in court every month while investigations proceed pending possible charges.

He said the investigation could last up to a year, but there might be extensions to that.

Separately, Sri Lanka's foreign secretary, Palitha Kohona, has been speaking of the government-run camps where more than 250,000 Tamils from the war zone are detained.

He said everyone there had to be carefully screened, adding that it was "quite likely" that even many elderly people were "with the LTTE, at least mentally".

13,130 Tamil civilians missing from IDP camps

2009-06-02T06:11:00.006-04:00

By Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press

UNITED NATIONS, June 2 -- With the UN already under fire for withholding and downplaying the number of civilian casualties in Sri Lanka, another ongoing controversy has opened up concerning the number of internally displaced persons detained in the IDP camps in northern Sri Lanka. Between May 27 and May 30 reports from the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs state that over 13,000 IDPs simply disappeared from the camps.

OCHA's May 30 report states that "276,785 persons crossed to the Government controlled areas from the conflict zone. This represents a decrease of 13,130 IDPs since the last report (Sitrep No.18) on 27 May 2009. The decrease is associated with double counting. Additional verification is required."

But earlier, OCHA had praised the "improved, systematic registration being undertaken in the camps."

UN sources in Colombo tell Inner City Press that senior UN officials above them, Sri Lankan nationals who are Sinhalese, are downplaying the 13,000 "missing" IDPs, which would otherwise be of much concern given the reports of disappearances from the camps, the seizing of teenage males for detention and females for other purposes, as UK Channel 4 asserted with on camera interviews.

These UN sources are surprised, since even Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is under fire for downplaying what has happened to the Tamils, that the UN would be so seemingly cavalier about 13,000 "missing" persons from almost entirely Tamil interment camps.

Meanwhile, in further fall out, journalist Poddala Jayantha, secretary of the Sri Lanka Working Journalists' Association, was kidnapped near his home and severely beaten with sticks before being dumped in a suburb of Colombo. The government had accused him of being too sympathetic to the Tamil Tigers -- or just to the Tamils. The UN, too, has its different way of trying to crack down on journalists.

Over 30,000 Tamil civilians massacred by Sri Lanka army

2009-05-28T21:59:00.003-04:00

Thousands of shallow graves are visible from the air.

By Catherine Philp in Colombo

More than 20,000 Tamil civilians were killed in the final throes of the Sri Lankan civil war, most as a result of government shelling, an investigation by The Times has revealed.

The number of casualties is three times the official figure.

The Sri Lankan authorities have insisted that their forces stopped using heavy weapons on April 27 and observed the no-fire zone where 100,000 Tamil men, women and children were sheltering. They have blamed all civilian casualties on Tamil Tiger rebels concealed among the civilians.

Aerial photographs, official documents, witness accounts and expert testimony tell a different story. With the world’s media and aid organisations kept well away from the fighting, the army launched a fierce barrage that began at the end of April and lasted about three weeks. The offensive ended Sri Lanka’s 26-year civil war with the Tamil Tigers, but innocent civilians paid the price.

Confidential United Nations documents acquired by The Times record nearly 7,000 civilian deaths in the no-fire zone up to the end of April. UN sources said that the toll then surged, with an average of 1,000 civilians killed each day until May 19, the day after Velupillai Prabhakaran, the leader of the Tamil Tigers, was killed. That figure concurs with the estimate made to The Times by Father Amalraj, a Roman Catholic priest who fled the no-fire zone on May 16 and is now interned with 200,000 other survivors in Manik Farm refugee camp. It would take the final toll above 20,000. “Higher,” a UN source told The Times. “Keep going.”

Some of the victims can be seen in the photograph above, which shows the destruction of the flimsy refugee camp. In the bottom right-hand corner, sand mounds show makeshift burial grounds. Other pictures show a more orderly military cemetery, believed to be for hundreds of rebel fighters. One photograph shows rebel gun emplacements next to the refugee camp.

Independent defence experts who analysed dozens of aerial photographs taken by The Times said that the arrangement of the army and rebel firing positions and the narrowness of the no-fire zone made it unlikely that Tiger mortar fire or artillery caused a significant number of deaths. “It looks more likely that the firing position has been located by the Sri Lankan Army and it has then been targeted with air-burst and ground-impact mortars,” said Charles Heyman, editor of the magazine Armed Forces of the UK.

On Wednesday, Sri Lanka was cleared of any wrongdoing by the UN Human Rights Council after winning the backing of countries including China, Egypt, India and Cuba.

A spokesman for the Sri Lankan High Commission in London said: “We reject all these allegations. Civilians have not been killed by government shelling at all. If civilians have been killed, then that is because of the actions of the LTTE [rebels] who were shooting and killing people when they tried to escape.”

First pictures of the devastated war zone in Sri Lanka

2009-05-23T15:49:00.006-04:00

The following are photographs taken by reporters as they flew over the final war zone in Sri Lanka in a helicopter. No one has been allowed into this area since the final battle. There are reports that tens of thousands of wounded civilians were killed on the final three days of fighting. The Sri Lankan government has since cremated all bodies, and dumped the ashes into the sea.

11 Tamil women found brutally murdered in Sri Lanka concentration camps

2009-05-21T21:25:00.002-04:00

By Gethin Chamberlain in Colombo

Reports are emerging from inside Sri Lanka's internment camps of brutal revenge being taken against Tamil Tiger fighters and the abduction of young children by paramilitary groups.

Detainees in one of the camps told the Guardian that a number of female Tamil Tigers have been murdered after giving themselves up to the authorities.

The bodies of 11 young women were allegedly found with their throats slashed outside the Menic Farm camp near the town of Vavuniya, according to people being held behind the razor wire perimeter. The women's short haircuts are understood to have made them easily identifiable as former members of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). The bodies are said to have been discovered in the last two weeks, but there is no way of confirming the allegations because access to the camps is heavily restricted.

On Wednesday the defence ministry said many of the estimated 250,000 people now inside the camps might have to stay for up to two years. Today the government changed tack and insisted it planned to return most of the civilians to their homes this year.

The allegations came as a coalition of humanitarian agencies claimed that paramilitary groups had gained access to the camps and were abducting children.

But aid workers say there is also a growing resentment among inmates in the camps against the LTTE over its treatment of the civilian population in the final months of the fighting and that many of the female cadres now shut inside are living in fear of reprisals. The government has categorically denied the allegations.

An official who has visited the camps recently – whose identity is known to the Guardian – said the women's bodies had apparently been found close to zone II of the camp, where about 70,000 of the more recent arrivals are living under canvas.

"A couple of weeks ago, 11 bodies were discovered. All these women had short hair. This is a tell tale sign of women newly recruited to the LTTE. According to unconfirmed reports, these women had their throats slashed," the official said. "According to my sources, there are about 1,000 cadres currently in zone III and II of Menic Farm."

The official said no one was sure who was responsible, but other female residents now feared for their safety. "They have heard reports of women being killed … so now women have told me they feel afraid."

Speaking to the Guardian through a third party with access to the camps, a number of those detained said they had heard about the discovery of the bodies outside the perimeter.

One man pleaded with the government to let them leave. "I don't know how much longer we can live like this. There are too many people. I don't know why the government won't start releasing us," he said. "There so many people who very clearly have no connections to the LTTE, that can be cleared of any wrong doing so easily".

"For example, I have no LTTE connection. I am an honest man. I only want to do what is best for my family. Why can't they let me and my family go?"

But Sri Lanka's disaster management and human rights minister, Mahinda Samarasinghe, cast doubt on the reports.

"I don't think it is happening because we would have heard about it," he said. "If something like that was happening the UNHCR would be the first to come to me and say they were angry about it, but they have not done that."

Some residents also complained about the disappearance of children from the camps and yesterday the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers said it had verified reports that children as young as 12 were abducted from the camps and the nearby town of Vavuniya.

The "[Some] have been taken away for ransom and their release has been subsequently negotiated by the parents, either by offering jewellery or cash," said Charu Hogg, Asia manager for the coalition, which includes Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.

Others had been abducted by paramilitaries and taken to army camps, presumably for questioning over ties to the rebel group, which frequently recruited child soldiers, she said.

The UN secretary-general, Ban Ki-moon, is expected to arrive in Sri Lanka tomorrow to urge the government to ease access to the camps for the UN and other aid organisations.

Today a British Euro MP called for a ban on sporting and tourist ties with Sri Lanka. Robert Evans, chair of the European parliament delegation for relations with South Asia, said the England and Wales Cricket Board should suspend bilateral arrangement with Sri Lanka in the same way that it had done with Zimbabwe.

Sri Lanka minister admits army killed civilians

2009-05-21T15:26:00.003-04:00

A former LTTE leader who defected to become a Sri Lankan government minister has given the first official admission that significant numbers of civilians were killed during the final offensive against the rebels.

In an exclusive interview with the Daily Telegraph, Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan, alias Colonel Karuna, said president Mahinda Rajapaksa had made a mistake when he claimed no-one died at the hands of the army.

His comments undermine the government's previous claims and will alert western diplomats gathering evidence on civilian deaths for a future war crimes case.

During his victory speech in the Sri Lankan Parliament on Tuesday, Mr Rajapaksa said his army had achieved a 'miracle' in winning the battle "without shedding the blood of civilians".

But according to Mr Muralitharan, the president was aware of what he called the "damage" and not accepting it had been a "mistake".

He said Tamil Tigers claims of 20,000 deaths were an overestimate but added: "There are casualties, and we have to appreciate the casualties because without them you can't rescue the people. They made a mistake. The president knows the damage."

He said he did not know the exact numbers, but according to the United Nations between 8,000 and 10,000 civilians died in the Sri Lankan army advance across the north of the island between January and May.

Some are believed to have been shot by Tamil Tiger fighters as they tried to flee the battle zone, while many died in army mortar attacks.

"I feel very sad for the people of the north. They are Tamil people and [the Tamil Tigers] did very bad things to them. When civilians tried to escape, including children, they were shot," he said.

Mr Muralitharan, now minister for constitutional affairs and national integration and vice-president of the ruling Sri Lankan Freedom Party, also challenged officials who earlier this week said more than a quarter of a million displaced civilians could be held in overcrowded camps for up to two years.

He called for them to be resettled quickly and said the wasted north of the island must be swiftly redeveloped to unify the country and help Tamils forget the past.

"There are a lot of landmines there, but after clearing, we can resettle. There's no need for two years, after one we can resettle," he said.

Mr Muralitharan said the north of the country had been destroyed by the war and now needed billions in international aid for redevelopment.

He said 95 per cent of buildings in three districts were destroyed and new schools, hospitals, roads, were needed while water, electricity and communications services would have to be restored. "The whole infrastructure needs completely rebuilding," he said.

His comments on the need to draw Tamils into a Sri Lankan future came amid new allegations that paramilitaries linked to the army were being used to pick out Tamil Tiger child soldiers in refugee camps. Some had been then been kidnapped for ransom, said the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers.

Mr Muralitharan was speaking shortly after he returned from identifying the dead body of his former leader, the once-feared Velupillai Prabhakaran.

Television footage had shown his corpse but there were questions over whether the body really was the rebel leader. Mr Muralitharan, who had served Prabhakaran for 20 years as his eastern commander, was sent to the battle scene to dispel doubts. "There is no doubt, it is his body. He was shot by the army," he said.

He said the Tamil Tiger leader was killed by a single shot to the head – the bullet had entered through the left side of his forehead and blown out the back of his skull.

He claimed they had been trying to escape with 18 fighters when the were confronted by Sri Lankan troops.

"They tried to escape into the jungle and crossed an army defence line. They scattered and they [the army] found him. They did not arrest him. He was with four people. They fired at the army and the army shot him. He was a coward leader," he said.

Sri Lanka bans ICRC from IDP camps; let the executions begin

2009-05-20T04:40:00.001-04:00

By Robert Bosleigh in Colombo

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has been forced to suspend the distribution of emergency supplies to as many as 300,000 people displaced by the Sri Lankan Army’s victory over the Tamil Tigers after the Government blocked access to aid camps.

Fears have been growing over the welfare of those forced to flee the conflict zone – many of whom are sick or suffering from battlefield injuries – after tight restrictions were placed on the UN and other agencies trying to administer aid.

Urgently needed supplies of food and clothing had been suspended after access to the camps was restricted by the Government, an ICRC spokesperson told The Times this morning.

The ICRC had been the only neutral aid organisation allowed inside the conflict zone. It had between 20 and 25 staff on the ground in the northeastern region where the Tigers made their last stand over the weekend but has not heard from them since last week.

The blocking of access to the battle zone has raised fears for the fate of those civilians too sick or injured to flee the area by foot.

Those who escaped had to wade through a mine-strewn lagoon, journeying several days to reach camps that are struggling to cope.

Accounts of conditions inside the camps — gained from testimony recorded covertly by aid workers — and the journey to them are horrifying.

Preema, a Tamil woman, arrived at the 400-hectare (990-acre) Menic farm camp on Sunday. She had left Mullaivaikal, the centre of the fighting where the Tigers made their final stand, after being shelled heavily.

She set out with her husband, mother and two children, to wade through the Nandikadal lagoon — a waterway strewn with mines — in a desperate attempt to reach safety.

There were deep craters where the lagoon had been bombed and people often drowned, she said. Her mother died in the lagoon. A man offered to carry her ten-year-old daughter. Preema never saw them again. Her husband was taken away by government troops after admitting that he had worked for the Tigers. He was stopped at a checkpoint in Oomanthai where refugees are being forced to strip before being allowed to pass.

“Everything is lost,” said Preema, holding her son, seven. “Please help me find my daughter. Not knowing anything is making me crazy.”

Inside one camp, Nandani, 76, described being forced to stand for up to five hours a day queueing for food.

Kala, a middle-aged woman, spoke about the constant indignities of her new life. “I do not have underwear. I am unable to use the Kotex that the Red Cross handed out,” she said, holding a packet of sanitary towels she had been given before the organisation’s access to the camp was restricted.

Kothai, another woman, said: “There is a bad distribution system within the camp. Every time it is the same people that get. Men crowd around and push the women and children aside.”

Government officials did not answer requests for comment. Access for aid agencies to another 200,000 refugees already in the internment camps — which the Government call “welfare villages” — has been severely restricted since Sunday, preventing the administration of basic care.

Ban Ki Moon, the UN Secretary-General, is due to travel in Sri Lanka on Friday to offer help to rebuild the ravaged northeast of the country and urge the Government to reach out to the Tamil population.

“These people have endured one of the cruellest military sieges of modern times — daily shelling over several months,” an international aid worker said. “They need urgent help.”

There are fears that the camp populations — especially children — will be hit by contagious diseases. Chickenpox, hepatitis A and dysentery outbreaks have been reported. Medical facilities are said to be woefully inadequate.

There are also concerns that the suffering will radicalise previously moderate Tamils, especially amongst the community’s international diaspora, which had been a key source of funding for the Tigers.

Most Sri Lankans are delighted by the defeat of the Tigers, a terrorist force that fought for 26 years for an independent Tamil homeland, propagating a war that left at least 70,000 dead. Many Tamils were against the rebels after they recruited child soldiers and terrorised their own people.

There were doubts over the sincerity of President Rajapakse’s pledge to build bridges between the Sinhalese and Tamil minority. He has seldom brooked dissent, his opponents say.

The Government is worried over the security situation, and is urgently trying to screen any escaped Tamil Tiger fighters from innocent civilians.

LTTE leadership likely executed after being tricked into surrender

2009-05-19T08:18:00.008-04:00

It appears Prabhakaran and senior leaders were betrayed, possibly by an unknown senior leader, and tricked into surrendering to the Sri Lankan army, after which they were all executed with a shot to the head. It is impossible that both Charles Anthony and Prabhakaran could have been shot directly between the eyes in combat. Several Sri Lankan soldiers have been bragging about events surrounding the execution of the LTTE leadership, including members from the non-combatant civil services wing and even family members of LTTE leaders. We will not go into details of what they say, but it seems to confirm that LTTE leaders were all tricked into surrendering and then cruelly executed.

Prabhakaran was never the person communicating with the Sri Lankan army and the IC. So he had no way of knowing what the real position was, except from what he was told. It would have been very easy for a traitor to convince him that the Sri Lankan army had agreed under IC pressure to a laying down of arms and then negotiations.

Soosai's name seems to have been kept out of most defence.lk reports, making him look like a suspect. But if it was him, they would not have mentioned his wife and children being arrested. It would be better just to escort them away and keep everything a secret. Whatever the case, I am sure there is one or more traitors who are still living, but listed as killed by the Sri Lankan army to give them a new identity. There have been moles inside the LTTE for several years, and the many assassinations are proof of this.

Also note this shocking evidence. The two photographs of Charles Anthony released by the Sri Lankan government (one showing him dead, and one showing him alive) are wearing the exact same clothes. In the living photo he is wearing the same shirt that he was killed in. It appears they took this photo after he was arrested, just before executing him. Please see the photos below:

Please note that there has never been a recent photo available with the Sri Lankan government showing Charles Anthony until the day they recovered his dead body. What is the chance of this? In all of the other reports they released over the last several weeks they have been showing very old photos of him in LTTE uniform, which were clearly taken several years ago. But the day they find his dead body (with a bullet wound directly in the head), they also release a new photo of him which perfectly matches his present looks, and is wearing the exact same clothes as when he was killed. The hair and mustache is even cut to the exact same size and shape. It is clear this photo was taken just hours before he was cruelly executed by the Sri Lankan army with a shot to his head.

This is further proven by the fact that in videos of the body, there are pools of fresh wet blood pouring out of the wounds on his body. This is only possible if the video was taken immediately after he was killed. If he had been killed in combat, or if he had committed suicide, the blood would have already coagulated and would not create fresh puddles when they placed him on the tarpaulin.

Prabhakaran still alive and safe: KP

2009-05-18T17:15:00.003-04:00

LTTE international spokesman K. Pathmanathan tells Channel 4 News in UK that LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran is alive and safe in an undisclosed location.

Latest Interview with LTTE head of international relations, Selvarajah Pathmanathan

2009-05-17T12:10:00.006-04:00

A key Tamil Tiger leader has spoken exclusively to Channel 4 News, saying their chief is still alive and they want a political solution. Alex Thomson reports.

Alex Thomson (AT): What is the latest situation for LTTE in Sri Lanka?

Selvarajah Pathmanathan (SP): Our organisation is ready to lay down its arms and participate in the peace process.

AT: How many cadres or soldiers are involved here?

SP: Less than 2000 cadres. They are in the perimeter area. We prepared to stop the war. Our people are dying. Every hour more than a hundred dying. More than 3000 die from yesterday. 25,000 wounded.

AT: These are civilians, yes?

SP: Yes.

AT: What are you calling on the Sri Lankan government to do?

SP: From yesterday we are calling on talks to stop the fighting and immediate ceasefire. We are ready to lay down the arms and participate in the peace process.

AT: Is this end of the war after all these wars?

SP: Yes we'd like to end this war.

AT: What do you say that the LTTE will continue fighting by other means, guerrilla war?

SP: I believe that over the 38 years we fight and only the civilian and human life are every day dying. The...in another 30 years will continue we don't believe that - we believe in peaceful way for solution for Tamil people.

AT: What are the orders from the LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran ?

SP: Prabhakaran actually ordered that. For 4 hours I talked to him - he passed this message to Sri Lanka Government and international players...and we are waiting for their answer. Until now no one give their answer or no one stop the war.

AT: Is Mr Prabhakaran still in this area in Sri Lanka?

SP: Yes sir.

AT: And you spoke to him from this surrounded area, and he is ready to surrender?

SP: Not surrender. We are lay down the arms not surrender.

AT: Why not surrender?

SP: Actually its mainly a thing...about security...we take arms for freedom struggle - why surrender to them. We ready to work with them not surrender.

AT: Why did LTTE take so many human shields and not allow them to leave?

SP: We never take the civilian with us. The civilian they are relative our family or the related. Or they don't believe Sri Lankan army will give security to them. They don't like to go to camp. As you know they torture and harassment. They don't want to go to Sri Lanka forces. The government stop medicine and food. People are dying without. We asked - we sent 35,000 out ourselves. We don't take human shield. It's the wrong information. Wrong propaganda.

AT: So its not true then that LTTE cadres fired on civilians to prevent them leaving?

ST: Actually we never shoot them. Some crossfire happened. Why would we kill our own people?

AT: Can I ask about the two doctors who were giving interviews about the condition of the civilians. They have disappeared?

SP: Last night one doctor injured. We send them to the military side. And for the treatment. Actually now I heard one doctor in Colombo for treatment other in military camp.

AT: To summarise, the condition of the commander Pr...LTTE are willing to lay down weapons but not surrender?

SP: Yes not surrender - willing to lay down arms not surrender.

AT: So is the war over or changing?

SP: War maybe over or changing to political way. Depending on few hours to see what going on. We are saying...willing to lay down arms...willing to lay down arms and find political solution for our nation.

United Nations "negotiator" on Sri Lanka payroll

2009-05-15T10:15:00.020-04:00

Today it was announced that the United Nations would send Vijay Nambiar to Sri Lanka for the second time to try and negotiate on behalf of the trapped Tamil civilians, just as the Sri Lanka army launches a final assault against the LTTE:

It was announced at UN headquarters on Thursday that UN chief Ban Ki-moon is rushing his chief of staff Vijay Nambiar back to Sri Lanka to press for protection of the trapped civilians.

Allow us to bring some facts to light about this supposedly "unbiased" negotiator, who appears to actually be on the payroll of the Sri Lankan government, though indirectly - something that is obviously known to the United Nations. Vijay Nambiar's brother (Satish Nambiar) is a paid consultant for the Sri Lankan army, and has been since 2002. What is the link between this Sri Lankan military consultant and the United Nations? It is hard to determine, but despite the obvious link through his brother, there is also a small resume of Satish Nambiar's located on the UN website:

http://www.un.org/News/dh/hlpanel/satish-nambiar-bio.pdf

Very odd since he hasn't worked officially for the UN since 1993. We should also note that after visiting Sri Lanka, Vijay Nambiar first reported back to his brother in India, before reporting to the United Nations in New York. Under such urgent and dire circumstances, why would he spend days visiting his brother rather than returning to the UN to report about this important matter.

Satish Nambiar has been quoted by the Sri Lankan defence website several times, most recently glorifying the defence secretary for his great accomplishments in routing the LTTE.

What does this mean? The UN sends an "impartial" negotiator to Sri Lanka who's brother has been a paid consultant to the Sri Lankan army since 2002. This same brother also happens to be the Director and President of the "United Service Institution of India", which is organizing an event in Delhi on 27th May 2009, titled "Present Situation in Sri Lanka and the Way Ahead", where the speaker is "His Excellency Mr. Romesh Jayasinghe, High Commissioner, High Commission of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka". This "negotiator's" brother happens to arrange speaking engagements for the Sri Lankan government, while also being a paid consultant for the last 7 years.

Already there is a conflict of interest with the UN sending an Indian who is affiliated with the congress party, accused by most Tamils as being the real designer of this war in Sri Lanka. But on top of it, his brother has been a paid consultant for the Sri Lankan army for 7 years, and is even now arranging speaking engagements for the Sri Lankan government representatives in India.

After Vijay Nambiar made his first failed visit to Colombo to speak with the Sri Lankan government, instead of returning to the United Nations to report the outcome, he went to India to spend time with this brother on "vacation", the same brother who is a paid consultant for the Sri Lankan army! While thousands of Tamil civilians were dying, he delayed reporting to the United Nations and instead vacationed with his brother in India. When he finally arrived at the United Nations he refused to speak to the press, even though it has always been his custom to hold press conferences after such important trips.

On 4/26 Vijay Nambiar's brother, Satish, submitted an article to several newspapers, which was subsequently published in the Indian Express and quoted on the Sri Lankan government's official military website (http://www.defence.lk/new.asp?fname=20090427_04):

Writing in the Indian Express newspaper, Satish Nambiar said, Sri Lankan Army Commander Lieutenant General Sarath Fonseka "has displayed the qualities of a great military leader nations are blessed with from time to time."

Writing on the Army Chief Nambiar further said, "Resurrected from the grave as it were after the attack on him some years back, he has displayed a single-mindedness of purpose in pursuing his goal of decimating the LTTE. Needless to say, he has been able to achieve his objective because of the full support and encouragement provided by the political establishment led by President Rajapaksa.

"The demise of the LTTE is possibly," said Nambiar, " now only a matter of days. The total demolition of the once universally feared organisation that introduced suicide terrorism and the use of improvised explosives (IEDs) as a form of insurgency warfare is a tribute to the determination of the Sri Lankan Armed Forces under its intrepid commander, Sarath Fonseka. General Fonseka has displayed the qualities of a great military leader nations are blessed with from time to time."

He further said, "As someone who was briefly involved with the peace process in Sri Lanka in 2002-2003, I have already acknowledged the outstanding performance of the SL security forces and the efforts of General Fonseka, a person I met on a number of occasions during my visits to Sri Lanka during 2002-2003 and developed great respect for, both as an individual and as a soldier."

So what we have is the following:

1) Nambiar's brother has been a paid consultant for the Sri Lankan army for the last 7 years.

2) Nambiar's brother has written propaganda articles for Indian newspapers, which were subsequently quoted by the Sri Lankan military on their official website.

3) Nambiar's family is connected to the congress party, which is responsible for the present war in Sri Lanka.

4) Nambiar's family is deeply involved in the Indian military, which holds a grudge against the LTTE for its war with the IPKF.

5) Nambiar's brother has arranged speaking engagements in Delhi for the Sri Lankan government's high commissioner to promote the Sri Lankan government's war against the LTTE (http://www.usiofindia.org/EVENTS.HTM).

6) After visiting Sri Lanka on behalf of the UN, rather than report to the UN in New York, he instead went on a vacation with his brother in India, the same brother who is a paid consultant of the Sri Lankan army.

7) The United Nations website contains a small resume of Nambiar's brother on its website despite him not having officially worked for the UN since 1993 (http://www.un.org/News/dh/hlpanel/satish-nambiar-bio.pdf). There is obviously more to this than meets the eye.

8) The bias of Nambiar's brother was evident even in 2002, when he met with Tamil paramilitary groups, but refused to meet with democratically elected Tamil representatives while visiting Baticaloa as a paid consultant of the Sri Lankan army.

Now that the reasons for the complete failure of Nambiar's original trip to Sri Lanka on behalf of the United Nations is abundantly clear, with over 10,000 innocent Tamil civilians killed, and 20,000 severely injured as a result, what would we expect the United Nations to do at this crucial time? They have now decided to send Vijay Nambiar back to Sri Lanka again to "negotiate" on behalf of the civilians. Are you certain he isn't negotiating on behalf of his brother and the Sri Lankan government? In no other field, whether business, diplomacy or anything, would they allow such a conflict of interest to exist, especially with thousands of civilian lives at stake.

Please wake up and realize that the United Nations is not here to help and protect the innocent. The only people the Tamil people can depend on for help are the Tamils. You have tried convincing the international community and the United Nations, and as a result there are 30,000 Tamil civilian casualties in just 5 months. While the UN sends people paid by the Sri Lankan government to "negotiate" on behalf of the Tamil civilians, thousands of civilians are dying day by day. When the LTTE was strong and the Sri Lankan army was on the brink of collapse, the international community tricked the LTTE into the ceasefire agreement. The ceasefire agreement was nothing but a cover to arm and train the Sri Lankan army further, so that they could launch a final war against the LTTE.

Today the UN and the international community does not want to even speak with the LTTE, despite showing so much interest in bringing the LTTE to negotiations in 2002 when the LTTE had the upper hand. This shows that the United Nations only respects violence and military might. When the LTTE was strong, they were requesting the LTTE to negotiate, but when the LTTE is weakened, they no longer have interest in negotiating a settlement to this conflict. Instead they repeatedly call on the LTTE to lay down their arms and surrender to face a certain death at the hands of the Sri Lankan army.

Learn this lesson well. The international community only respects you based on your might and capability to commit violence. Some foolish moderate Tamils have in the past criticized the LTTE for not trying to pursue peace, but now the futility of that path has been clearly exposed for all to see. The LTTE chose the path of peace in 2002, and the international community took advantage of this to weaken and destroy the LTTE through proxies. The end result is the entire world stands silently as 10,000 Tamil civilians have been murdered - all because the Tamil people did not possess the military might to protect themselves. The only solution to this problem, the only way in which the Tamil people can be protected, is if they increase their military strength and bring Sri Lanka to its knees through violence. Only then the international community will respect the rights of the Tamil people.

Vijay Nambiar at work.

Massive bombardment of civilian zone by Sri Lanka army

2009-05-15T04:49:00.012-04:00

The Sri Lanka army has resorted to a final massive bombardment of the remaining civilian zone prior to an all out assault. Fighting is being reported house to house. Unprecedented bombs have been dropped on the civilians by Sri Lankan air force planes as never before seen. The entire no fire zone is a huge ball of fire, with thick smoke making it impossible to breath. The LTTE has been offering stiff resistance to protect the remaining civilians, but it is only a matter of time. Sri Lankan soldiers have been sighted wearing gas masks, raising fears chemical weapons may have been used in the attack.

Families of dead Sri Lanka soldiers speak; government has abandoned them

2009-05-14T04:40:00.001-04:00

The Sri Lankan government’s “final offensive” against the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in the island’s north has killed and injured thousands of Tamil civilians as well as displacing hundreds of thousands others.

While the defence ministry reports that soldiers are facing “stiff resistance,” it refuses to allow any journalists into the area and last October stopped reporting soldier casualties. The government claims that the death toll is a security issue, but the real reason is its fear that the escalating casualties would add to the popular anger and discontent over the war.

Over the past month, the bodies of hundreds of dead soldiers have been returned to their families in remote villages in the south. Many more wounded soldiers are being treated in government hospitals in Colombo and other areas. This terrible toll is the other side of the Sri Lankan government’s criminal war.

Most soldiers are economic conscripts, forced through poverty to become cannon-fodder in the communal war. Far from enlisting to support the communal aims of the government’s war, they join the army to provide money for their families. While President Mahinda Rajapakse constantly speaks of the “heroes” of his war, the real stories of their lives and deaths are never told.

World Socialist Web Site (WSWS) reporters recently spoke with the parents and families of several soldiers who were killed during last month’s battles in the northeast of the island.

***

Warnakulasuriya Amith Madhusanka, a 19-year-old solider from Haththiniya, about 57 kilometres from Colombo, was killed on April 29 in northern Puthukkudiyiruppu. According to information given to his parents, he was one of nine soldiers from the Gajaba regiment who lost their lives that day.

Like thousands of Sri Lankan soldiers, Amith was forced into the military by poverty. He left school after reaching Grade 10, took up masonry and carpentry work in order to support his parents, and then joined the army in January 2008.

Amith Madhusanka's parents

Amith’s parents, Ajith Joseph and Krishanthi Manike, were distraught over their son’s death.

Ajith Joseph, 39, has picked coconuts for nearly 20 years. Amith’s only sister is married. All are very poor and live in a small dwelling built from wooden planks and a roof thatched with coconut leaves.

Ajith Joseph explained: “The main reason my son joined the army was in order to raise money to build a house for our family. We don’t have land or a house. We used to live in small houses erected on other peoples’ lands and we drifted from one place to another.

“My son was very worried about our condition. He wanted to buy some land for us but he couldn’t do it. For the last two years we’ve been living in the home of his mother’s parents. This small piece of land was given to her father because he was working at the adjoining coconut estate.”

Government parliamentarian Dayassritha Thisera and several local politicians attended Amith’s funeral and told Ajith Joseph that he could build a house on a nearby small piece of land. Ajith Joseph began building a wooden-plank home on that land, using some of the money received by the family from the army for his son’s funeral.

Last week, however, local government authorities told Ajith Joseph that he could not build the house because the land was on a government reservation. “I spent 15,000 rupees [$US127, or more than two months pay] trying to build that house and I’ve now lost everything,” Ajith Joseph angrily said.

Ajith Joseph told us that many people had attended Amith’s funeral, with several parliamentarians appearing at the front of the procession. “All they want soldiers for is war,” he said. When asked about the government, he simply said: “We can’t live in the present unbearable conditions.”

Nirosha Perera from the Colombo suburb of Pannipitiya was told by local police on April 9 that her younger brother, Buddhika Sanjeewa, had been killed. One day earlier she received a telephone call from the Puthukkudiyiruppu army camp where Buddhika was stationed, asking why she had been named as his guardian, even though their parents were still alive.

“He named me as his guardian,” Nirosha told the WSWS, “in order to make me his beneficiary because I am the poorest in the family.” Her father’s sister and brother both had their sons killed in the army. “Now my father has lost his 22-year-old son,” she said.

Buddhika’s 56-year-old father works at the National Hospital in Colombo. He suffers from a heart ailment but has to keep working to support the family. His eldest son, a bachelor, drives a trishaw. Nirosha’s husband is a manual laborer, but without a regular income. They all live in a partially-constructed house.

Buddhika trained as a welder at the government’s Vocational Training Institute. He attempted to establish a welding workshop at home but lacked capital. Concerned about the economic problems facing the family and not wanting to be a burden, Buddhika decided to join the army.

“Mother and I tore up his school leaving certificate to stop him enlisting but he secretly obtained a second copy and joined the army,” Nirosha said.

Buddhika was given four months’ training and sent to the battlefront. Two months later his remains were sent back home. Family relatives told us that the army officers who escorted the body were unable to come to his funeral because they were too busy attending several similar funerals.

Holding back her tears, Buddhika’s grief-stricken mother said: “These people send youth who can just hold a gun to the front. I must say this openly—the government is responsible. To me he is my beloved kid but for them he’s just a soldier. They first said that the war would finish in a month and I thought that my kid would be home in a month, but no. Then they said it would finish in 48 hours but still my son didn’t come. Now you see how he came.”

Naleen Maduranga was killed on the Puthukkudiyiruppu battle front. His home is in Avissawella, about 50 km southeast of Colombo, where he lived with his uncle, M.K. Sunil, a 53-year-old carpenter.

Maduranga, who was raised by his uncle, was killed March 29. On the same day, his sealed coffin was escorted home by several army officers. The government provided 30,000 rupees (about $US260) for funeral expenses.

Sunil's family

Three families—Sunil’s own, his son’s and his daughter’s—live in the house, which is located on a small piece of land. Sunil suffers from a heart disease but he has to keep working to provide income for his extended family.

In tears, Maduranga’s aunt told us: “The army did not even know when my nephew died and we don’t even know that Maduranga’s body was there in the coffin. An army officer waited on duty till the burial was over and we were advised not to open the coffin. We all somehow expect that Maduranga may come home again.”

Maduranga was born in 1987 in Avissawella and educated at Mahiyangana Central College about 220 kilometres from Colombo. Forced to abandon his education prematurely, 11-year-old Maduranga began working as a helper in a local shop. Maduranga’s younger brother became a monk, having been offered to a temple.

Such was the poverty that when Maduranga was about 13 his parents asked Maduranga’s uncle Sunil to look after the teenager. He moved into Sunil’s home and began learning carpentry. Maduranga’s cousins told us that the boy suffered because he hadn’t been able to grow up in the warmth of his own family and out of deep despair tried to commit suicide on one occasion.

Maduranga joined the army in November 2007. He hoped that if he survived the war he could support his parents’ and uncle’s families, and if he were killed then both families would get compensation.

Maduranga quickly became fed up, deserted the army while on leave and began working as a bus conductor. Facing arrest by local police for desertion, he decided to go back to the army. Within months of rejoining, Maduranga’s dead body was returned to the home.

Sunil’s daughter, Thilini, told the WSWS that she was also married to a soldier and now had fears about his life. “I know how terrible the nightmare is for those families who have members engaged in this war.”

Story was a hoax planted by Sri Lankan government

2009-05-13T11:41:00.013-04:00

I am very happy to say this story was a false rumor. I was very sad when I saw the story. It was taken from Athirvu.com, and also shown on Makkal TV, which makes me think these are planted stories by the Sri Lankan government.

The root cause of false rumors being spread is the complete ban on the media by the Sri Lankan government. Everyone only wants the truth revealed. We don't want more and we don't want less. But the Sri Lankan government is making it very difficult to get the truth, which sometimes results in rumors being spread as truth. If the Sri Lankan government would allow international media into the war zone, and allow NGOs into all of the IDP camps, then we would not have a situation where false rumors get spread as truth. Such rumors really only hurt the Sri Lankan government, so it is in their own interest to allow free access to the media, unless there is something that they are hiding.

Though the above story was false, the following two videos recorded by Channel 4 news from the U.K. are real, and highlight the terrible conditions within the Sri Lankan concentration camps, where torture, rape and disappearances are rampant.

Elderly Tamil civilians dying of starvation in Sri Lanka concentration camps

2009-05-12T12:35:00.004-04:00

The number of deaths among elderly persons in Vavuniyaa IDP camp is on the increase. From May 1 till May 11, sixty-one elderly persons have died due to what is termed "natural causes", a term used to hide the real causes, namely starvation, lack of water and lack of medical facilities. Their bodies have been lying in the mortuary of the Vavuniyaa general hospital awaiting relatives to identify them, sources in Vavuniyaa said.

Hospital sources said their bodies would be buried at the state expense if their relatives fail to identify them and do the last rites. Elderly IDPs are given shelter in Chettikulam Menik Farm camp. While inquiring into the sudden deaths in Cheddikulam, health workers said that a high rate of elderly persons in this camp have been dying due to the above mentioned causes.

UN deplores civilian bloodbath in Sri Lanka; 3,200 civilians reported killed in single day

2009-05-11T02:00:00.002-04:00

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — The United Nations called the killing of hundreds of ethnic Tamil civilians in a weekend artillery attack in northern Sri Lanka a "bloodbath" amid reports Monday that the war zone was heavily shelled for a second straight night.

The initial artillery attack — which lasted from Saturday evening into Sunday morning — killed at least 378 civilians and wounded more than a thousand more, according to a health official inside rebel-controlled territory.

A rebel-linked Web site blamed the attack on the government, while the military accused the beleaguered Tamil Tigers of briefly shelling their own territory to gain international sympathy and force a cease-fire.

About 6 p.m. Sunday, a new round of shelling pounded the area, according to a government health official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

The TamilNet Web site said many more civilians were killed in the second attack and that the death toll from the two days of violence was likely in the thousands.

Reports of the fighting are difficult to verify because the government bars journalists and aid workers from the war zone, but the U.N. confirmed a heavy toll from the first attack over the weekend.

That attack marked the bloodiest assault on ethnic Tamil civilians since the civil war flared again more than three years ago. Health officials said a hospital in the war zone was overwhelmed by casualties, and the death toll was expected to sharply rise.

"The U.N. has consistently warned against the bloodbath scenario as we've watched the steady increase in civilian deaths over the last few months," U.N. spokesman Gordon Weiss said Monday. "The large-scale killing of civilians over the weekend, including the deaths of more than 100 children, shows that that bloodbath has become a reality."

U.N. figures compiled last month showed that nearly 6,500 civilians had been killed in three months of fighting this year as the government drove the rebels out of their strongholds in the north and vowed to end the war.

About 50,000 civilians are crowded into the 2.4 mile- (4 kilometer) long strip of coast along with the separatists, who have been fighting for 25 years for a homeland for minority Tamils.

The government has brushed off international calls for a humanitarian truce, saying any pause in the fighting would give the rebels time to regroup.

The initial attack began Saturday evening soon after a Red Cross ship that had been evacuating wounded civilians left the war zone, health officials said.

Artillery pounded the area throughout the night, forcing thousands to huddle in makeshift bunkers, said Dr. V. Shanmugarajah, a health official in the region.

Hours after the attack, the dead and wounded continued to pour into the hospital, he said. As of Sunday afternoon, the bodies of 378 civilians had been brought in and were being buried by volunteers, but the death toll was likely far higher since many families buried their dead where they fell, he said.

TamilNet said rescue workers had counted 1,200 civilians killed in the attack. The Web site initially reported that the rebels' military spokesman, Rasiah Ilanthirayan, was among the dead, but later said only that he was seriously wounded.

Bodies were laid out in rows on the mud outside the hospital, some of their faces covered with mats and sheets, according to photos from the area. One small boy was stripped to the waist, his head covered in a bloody bandage and his mouth agape.

The hospital was struggling to cope with the 1,122 wounded civilians amid a shortage of physicians, nurses and aides made treatment difficult, Shanmugarajah said.

"We are doing the first aid and some surgeries as quickly as we can. We are doing what is possible. The situation is overwhelming; nothing is within our control," he said.

More than half the hospital staff did not turn up for work because their homes were attacked and many of the wounded went untreated for more than 24 hours, said the other health official, who declined to be named.

Suresh Premachandran, an ethnic Tamil lawmaker, said the assault was the deadliest attack on civilians since the 1983 anti-Tamil riots that killed as many as 2,000 people and helped trigger the civil war.

"In the name of eliminating terrorism, the Sri Lankan government massacres its own citizens. It is absolutely unacceptable," he said, calling for the international community to intervene.

TamilNet also blamed the attack on the Sri Lankan forces, which rights groups have accused of bombing and shelling the war zone despite its pledge to stop using heavy weapons.

The Sri Lankan military denied firing the artillery and said they witnessed the rebels firing mortar shells from one corner of the coastal strip into another section heavily populated with civilians for one hour Sunday morning.

"I think the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) is now trying to use these people as their last weapon to show the world that the army is firing indiscriminately and stop this offensive," military spokesman Brig. Udaya Nanayakkara said.

Human rights groups have accused the rebels of holding the civilians as human shields and shooting some who tried to flee.

Human Rights Watch on Saturday accused the military of repeatedly shelling and bombing hospitals in the war zone.

Tamils in concentration camps die of starvation as Sri Lanka leaders live luxuriously

2009-05-07T00:21:00.008-04:00

The Sri Lankan government has recently released some old family pictures of LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran, and claimed they show Prabhakaran living a very luxurious life. I am sure everyone in the world has pictures of themselves celebrating some special occasion. There is nothing wrong with celebrating a special occasion with a feast. Defence.lk is trying to twist the photos to suggest every single day Prabhakaran is living a luxurious life, but the fact that he has refused to be bought out for years proves this is not the case - he is not interested in money or a luxurious lifestyle.

They say Prabhakaran gave special treatment to his own son, but sent other people's sons to fight. But Prabhakaran's son was leading from the front lines last month when he was injured in combat. Prabhakaran is willing to let his son fight and die on the front lines for the cause of the Tamil people.

The Sri Lankan government continuously tries to benefit from contradictory statements. They will simultaneously say Charles Anthony was injured on the front lines, but then they will say he is protected and living a luxurious life in a foreign country. They are unable to make up their mind which story to publicize, so they foolishly publish both versions which are mutually contradictory.

They show a picture taken during peace times of Prabhakaran's son celebrating his birthday. During peace time there was no shortage of food, or difficulties for the people. Do they expect Prabhakran's 6 year old son should be dressed in military dress during peace time on his birthday? Again they show a picture of Prabhakaran's son riding a bicycle during the peace times, claiming it is somehow wrong for a child to ride a bicycle.

They show a picture of an NGO worker eating on the beach during the peace time, and claim there is something wrong with that. Do NGO workers not eat food? Should NGO workers live off of air? Again, this picture was taken during peace time when there was plenty of food for everyone. It was not like it is now in the no fire zone, where the Sri Lankan government denies food to more than 150,000 civilians, while the government leaders enjoy sumptuous meals in Colombo.

There have already been a number of starvation deaths reported inside the government detention camps. While the Sri Lankan government lets imprisoned Tamil civilians die of starvation in their custody, the leaders like Rajapaksa enjoy sumptuous meals in Colombo and on international trips. Take for example the fact that during a short period of less than 2 years (2006 to 2007), Mahinda Rajapaksa spent around 473 million rupees on trips abroad. This same person wants to criticize Prabhakaran for giving a birthday cake to his son in 2002 during peace times.

Let anyone who wants to criticize old family photos first look at the house, car and food that Mahinda Rajapaksa uses today. Maybe Defence.lk can show us photos, side by side, of Prabhakaran's place of residence, fighting with his people in the no fire zone, compared to Mahinda Rajapaksa's luxurious house in Colombo.

Chemical weapons used by Sri Lanka against Tamil civilians in no fire zone

2009-05-03T18:46:00.004-04:00

( A civilian victim of Sri Lankan chemical weapons in the no fire zone.)

Recent reports indicate the Sri Lankan army has begun using chemical weapons against highly congested civilian areas within the no fire zone. With just 11 days left before the Indian elections conclude, Sri Lanka is under intense pressure to finish off the war or face a possible Indian intervention after the elections. In response, Sri Lanka has been transporting large numbers of gas masks to the front lines, and has begun deploying chemical weapons through artillery.

Chemical weapons were extensively used around April 1st, during a siege on Anandapuram, but after that attack, the government returned to using standard explosive munitions. This week's return to using chemical weapons appears to be in response to a failed amphibious assault carried out by the Sri Lankan navy in which there are rumors that LTTE submarines may have intercepted troop transport vehicles attempting to land in the no fire zone.

Sri Lanka thanks India for helping to kill 7,000 Tamil civilians

2009-05-03T05:57:00.005-04:00

Today the government of Sri Lanka released an official thank you statement to the various countries that have trained and supplied weapons to the Sri Lankan army for their invasion of the Tamil homeland. The first country mentioned, as expected, was India. No other country has provided more military support and weaponry in this current war than India:

"Sri Lanka is about to conclude her war against terror. In this context, the people of Sri Lanka are grateful for the wholehearted support given to them by India, Pakistan and the rest of the South Asian countries, China, Russia, Pakistan, Japan, Iran, Libya, Vietnam, Mid-East, African and Southeast Asian countries. But for their understanding on our plight and the trust they placed on us, we would never be able to come this far in our battle against terrorism."

Over the last four months, over 7,000 innocent Tamil civilians have been murdered by the Sri Lankan army with weapons supplied by India. Another 14,000 civilians have been severely wounded, many having limbs amputated. The Sri Lankan government salutes India for their role and help in this great achievement. The killing of the Tamil race would never have been possible for Sri Lanka if it had not been for the help of India.

Unfortunately, Tamils in Tamil Nadu did not take this congratulatory message from Sri Lanka favorably. For the first time ever, Tamils have turned on their country's own armed forces and attacked a convoy of 80 military vehicles as it passed by Coimbatore, setting fire to 5 vehicles and throwing boxes of mortars and RPGs into the road. For those who have watched the video it brings back memories of LTTE cadres ambushing Sri Lankan army transports. Today it was only vehicles damaged, but the anger is growing in Tamil Nadu, and it is only a matter of time before things change. In 1983 it only took 13 dead Sri Lankan soldiers to start a 30 year civil war. No one can know which small event may trigger a huge change.

Sri Lanka's Sinhalese nationalists stir hate and violence against minority Tamils

2009-05-02T00:10:00.002-04:00

By Basil Fernando

Members of a Sinhalese heritage group, the Hela Urumaya, gathered in front of the British High Commission in Colombo, Sri Lanka, on Wednesday to protest the visits of British Foreign Secretary David Milliband and his French counterpart, Bernard Kouchner.

Photographs of the protest showed Buddhist monks seated in front of the slogan-chanting crowd, while a large poster exhibited the photographs of Milliband, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Erik Solheim, the Norwegian minister for the environment and development with the slogan, “Wanted for Aiding and Abetting Terrorism.”

“We may have to take choppers and machetes, we will have to attack with choppers those who jump over the boundaries,” the protesters chanted, referring to Tamils trapped in the conflict zone.

The British and French diplomats were visiting to inspect the humanitarian situation of civilians trapped in the no-fire zone where the Liberation Tigers of Tami Eelam and government forces are engaged in fierce battles. Their visit, however, failed to persuade the government to temporarily halt the hostilities. Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt was denied a visa to join the delegation.

The foreign diplomats’ concern was for civilians trapped between the warring factions, estimated to be around 80,000 to 140,000 including women, children and the elderly. The call for humanitarian concern has been portrayed in the media and by extremist racist elements as an attempt to extend a lifeline to the LTTE. One of the placards read: “Gordon Brown, would you give a humanitarian lifeline to Osama bin Laden?”

According to reports, over 6,500 civilians have been killed and 14,000 injured due to shelling and the use of heavy arms since January this year. Over 175,000 persons are now internally displaced, including 110,000 people who have fled the no-fire zone.

The portrayal of concern for humanitarian issues and international law, even in the midst of a conflict, as treachery and invasion, is part of a national ideology promoted by the government through its supporters and through the media. The call to take up choppers and machetes reminds one of similar slogans used in places like Rwanda. This kind of ideology and propaganda has the potential to lead to massive violence. Instead of the war bringing an end to violence, what seems to be emerging in Sri Lanka is a further period of even more intense societal violence.

In provincial council elections held in the Western province on April 25, the two candidates who received the most votes both have had criminal charges brought against them – a politician facing several charges of rape in the High Court and a well-known businessman engaged in the gambling industry, who has faced several criminal charges in the past.

Election monitors reported more incidents of violence, including murder, during this election. The atmosphere surrounding the election is demonstrated by the fact that over 60 journalists left the country in fear of their lives. The Immigration Department restricted the issuance of visas for 837 persons, including foreign media personnel. The state media has been widely used for government propaganda and that of its supporters.

This raising of a war psychology and promotion of “nationalism” that sees the rule of law and democracy as a threat to sovereignty has for its ultimate aim the displacement of free and fair elections. The intimidation of the opposition and the silencing of voices that insist on the return to a stable society based on functioning institutions are the parameters in which the new political system functions.

The impact of this on civil society has been demonstrated in several incidents. Akmeemana is a remote village in the country’s south where the population is almost totally Sinhalese Buddhists. Kavin Rashmaka, two years and eight months old, and 10-year-old Thanuja Iragane were both killed while looking for Kavin’s tricycle.

The two children were brutally hacked to death in what was reported as a family dispute, where the assailants took revenge on Kavin’s father by killing the child. As Thanuja was a witness she was also killed. The bodies were hidden and discovered only a few days later when the police and villagers launched a search. The alleged assassin was immediately killed after his arrest and the villagers reportedly killed his father later. Both the crime and the manner in which justice was carried out are barbaric.

Also disturbing is that at the time of the murders Kavin’s mother and father were gambling at two separate locations, and the mother was reportedly not allowed to leave the gambling den as it is customary that no one leaves while the game is underway. So she was prevented from accompanying little Kavin when the child went looking for the tricycle. Buddhists shun gambling, but in this remote village it has become part of daily life, indicating the nature of social transformation taking place even in rural areas.

In another incident, a 13-year-old girl was forced to drink acid, which was also poured over her head as revenge against her parents who allegedly gave information to the police about an illicit liquor business in the area.

Incidents of lawlessness are reported from all over the country every day. There is no national consciousness aimed at consolidating a stable society based on democratic institutions and people’s participation. Instead there is a type of nationalism that attempts to direct people’s attention to real or imagined enemies. Lawlessness has become an integral part of this “nationalism” now promoted in Sri Lanka.

During calamities like the 2004 tsunami, money from donors is dispersed generously on behalf of internally displaced persons. However, such persons do not participate in the utilization of these funds. In fact, refugee centers may last for a long time purely to attract more donations.

What administrative and political measures will be taken to allow currently displaced persons to quickly return to their lands and their way of life? Or will they be kept under harsh conditions to provide satisfaction for those who wish to deal with national problems with choppers and machetes?

Meanwhile, there are serious concerns of a possible bloodbath in the coming week of civilians caught between the LTTE and the government’s armed forces. The nationalist propaganda to ignore the voices of senior diplomats from Europe and the United Nations may contribute to downplay this very real danger.

--

(Basil Fernando is director of the Asian Human Rights Commission based in Hong Kong. He is a Sri Lankan lawyer who has also been a senior U.N. human rights officer in Cambodia. He has published several books and written extensively on human rights issues in Asia. His blog can be read at http://srilanka-lawlessness.com.)

In peace, Sri Lankans still disappear; 5,727 disappearances in one year

2009-05-01T23:44:00.003-04:00

By Maura R. O'Connor

BATTICALOA, Sri Lanka — When the Venkatesans recall how many of their family members have disappeared, the husband and wife look down at their hands and begin counting fingers. Four of their relations are missing, each abducted in the night by unmarked white vans. Three were taken in the last four months.

For any other family around the world, this number would be shocking. But for an ethnic Tamil family in Sri Lanka’s Eastern Province, it is unremarkable. For decades the region’s civilians have been traumatized by widespread disappearances, and they believe the majority of them are perpetrated by government security forces or government-backed paramilitary groups.

“We are powerless and don’t know what to do,” said Mrs. Venkatesan (the name has been changed at her request). Her only son was abducted last year and held in a prison for 11 months without charge. The 27-year-old said the police tortured him by beating the bottom of his feet. “When you are 40 years old, you will never walk again,” he said they told him. Last December he was released without explanation, narrowly escaping becoming another finger to count on his mother’s hand.

No one is sure exactly how many individuals have disappeared in the East over the last three decades as the Sri Lankan government has fought the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). What is clear is that the disappearances are continuing, even as Sri Lankan government forces farther north engage in what they call they call the final battle.

Abductions have been a favored counterinsurgency tactic of the Sri Lankan government in its civil war with the LTTE — and the East has been at the heart of this battle from the start.

In one of the bloodiest periods of Sri Lanka’s history, from 1988 to 1994, 20,000 people around the country disappeared, although some believe that the true number may be two to three times higher.

Currently there are 5,727 unsolved cases of disappearances registered with the United Nations Human Rights Council, one of the worst records in the world. In a report issued in February 2009, the council expressed its alarm that the number of disappearances appeared to be increasing, particularly in eastern towns like Trincomalee. But widespread fears of reprisals, the council said, means that the true scale of the problem is likely underreported.

Many residents of the Eastern Province hoped that when the Sri Lankan government won control of the region from the LTTE in 2007, the possibility of a new era of peace would be realized. Instead, disappearances remain a common, almost daily, occurrence.

Tamils fear retribution from Sinhalese as war reaches its climax

2009-05-01T04:01:00.000-04:00

In a shop in Colombo's Bambalapitiya neighbourhood, the man stretched out on a sofa suddenly woke with a start. "They're not terrorists," he declared, correcting his friend's use of the word. "They're freedom fighters – 99.99 per cent of Tamil people support them but they are not in a position to show it."

As Sri Lanka's army squeezes the last remnants of the once potent Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), such sentiments voiced within the Tamil community represent one crucial reason why this operation might not mark the end of the insurgency.

Analysts say that even if the rebels in the country's north-east are neutralised in the coming days, the movement will retain the capacity – and perhaps the public support – to launch terror strikes and suicide attacks.

"As a viable insurgency they are finished but they will still be able to operate as a terrorist organisation," said Bahukutumbi Raman, a former security advisor to the Indian government.

Despite international calls for a ceasefire, a bloody end appears the most likely outcome for the fewer than 1,000 rebels cornered in a two-square mile patch with up to 50,000 civilians.

A day after the British Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, and his French counterpart, Bernard Kouchner, called for a humanitarian ceasefire, the Sri Lankan President, Mahinda Rajapaksa, rejected their calls.

"The government is not ready to enter into any kind of ceasefire," he said. "It is my duty to protect the people of this country. I don't need lectures from Western representatives." The LTTE and its leader, Velupillai Prabakharan, said they would never surrender but called for international help to enforce a ceasefire.

"If any country really cares... I ask that country to go beyond its diplomatic boundaries for the sake of saving human lives and make Sri Lanka stop this genocidal war," the LTTE's political leader, Balasingam Nadesan, told the Associated Press.

It is impossible to accurately gauge the level of support for the LTTE. Fearful of the government and equally fearful of speaking out, most Tamils talk about suffering routine discrimination. They talk of their fear when passing through the ubiquitous check-points and how the troops might arbitrarily decide to detain them.

One university lecturer, who agreed only to speak on the telephone, said: "The police are always asking us what we are doing here. Why we are in Colombo. We are scared. In public places we have to speak Sinhalese. If you speak Tamil in a bus or market, people will stare."

This, of course, does not equate to support for the rebels' violent tactics. But on a walk through Bambalapitiya, replete with Hindu temples and flower sellers, practically everyone who agreed to speak voiced some degree of sympathy for the LTTE.

"The police... always assume we are the LTTE. Perhaps 75 per cent support the cause. There are also people who support the actions," said one Tamil shop-owner, who asked not to be named. Asked about Mr Prabakharan, the 29-year-old replied: "Perhaps 75 per cent of people like him."

The man who had been asleep, a 60-year-old former government worker, said that a series of administrations had passed measures that discriminated against the Tamils. "My own son and daughter have gone to the UK," he said. "The government plans to kill or destroy the Tamil people."

The Sri Lankan authorities say they are seeking to avoid civilian casualties and that the ongoing operation is to rescue civilians. While the UN has estimated that at least 4,500 civilians have been killed since January, the government has rejected reports that it has fired artillery into the area, or fired at a makeshift hospital.

Yet the government says it is taking steps to protect against possible LTTE strikes when the military operation is concluded. In an interview with The Independent, the Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, the brother of the President and the survivor of an assassination attempt in 2006, said: "That is why we have lot of checkpoints and roadblocks. All these things are going on because of that."

Sri Lanka admits bombing civilian safe zone; 20,000 civilian casualties in 3 months

2009-05-01T03:54:00.002-04:00

The Sri Lankan government has admitted carrying out air raids in the so-called no-fire zone in the country's northeast where the army is battling Tamil separatists.

But Palitha Kohona, the Sri Lankan foreign ministry secretary, told Al Jazeera that the raids had been carried out weeks ago and that the military had focused only on the Tamil Tigers' (LTTE) artillery guns, well away from civilians.

"As long as the retaliation is proportionate, it is perfectly legitimate and what we did exactly was located these guns and retaliated against those guns," he said.

"I would challenge anybody to say that these shell holes were created once the civilians moved into the area and became occupied by civilians."

The apparent admission follows the leaking of UN satellite images showing evidence of such attacks, supporting claims by Tamil groups that aircraft had bombed the area the government designated a safe zone in February.

Earlier denial

The government had for weeks repeatedly denied its armed forces were using heavy artillery or conducting air raids in the safe zone where it says Tamil Tigers have been holding civilians as human shields.

Many who have managed to get out say the fighters were indeed holding them against their will, and fired on them to prevent their escape.

Tens of thousands of civilians, along with the Tamil Tigers, are believed to still be in the 10sq km area.

On April 19, Kohona told Al Jazeera there was no government shelling in the safe zone.

"Absolutely not, because the government has issued instructions, very strict instructions, to the military not to use aerial bombing or shelling into this area."

But on Friday, confronted by the latest UN satellite imaging agency (Unosat) pictures showing craters which were formed inside the zone between February and April this year, Kohona at first challenged their authenticity before admitting targeting the Tigers' heavy guns.

He said, however, that it was before civilians flooded the area and maintained that the government adhered to international law.

Detailed images

Unosat says the pictures show craters which were formed inside the zone between February 15 and April 19, the day before the army breached the Tigers' defences and civilians started to pour out.

Einer Bjorge, head of the mapping unit at Unosat, told Al Jazeera the pattern of the craters would have required air power.

"The imagery is fairly clear and shows the time, so anybody can study and compare them," he said.

He said the images were also commercially available from the satellite operator.

"Anyone interested in verifying the images can purchase them if they want. It is commercially available to the public," he said.

"You can't get any more transparent than that."

Meenakshi Ganguly, a senior researcher with Human Rights Watch (HRW), told Al Jazeera that the pictures did give evidence that civilians were at risk, saying the government may have "deliberately deceived the international community when they expressed concern about the situation".

"The pictures do prove that heavy weapons were used and indeed civilian casualties did occur, as shown by UN figures of the death toll since January," she said.

"In fact, HRW once recorded the sound of shelling which was dropping near a hospital."

United Nations satelite images show bomb craters throughout the "No Fire Zone"

2009-04-27T20:07:00.004-04:00

The following report contains United Nations satellite images of the "No Fire Zone" taken several days ago which clearly show the extent of bomb damage to the densely populated civilian areas. While viewing the images, note the fact that practically no permanent building has a roof, but the walls remain intact - a clear indication that the building was bombed.

Already a large amount of evidence has been gathered to be used against Sri Lankan government officials for war crimes against civilians. The complete report is available here in pdf format:

http://www.innercitypress.com/UNOSAT19April09.pdf

[Note: The file was originally on the United Nations website, but has since been password protected so the public cannot see the report. Thankfully Inner City Press had downloaded it and posted it on their website before the U.N. tried to hide the report.]

Rumors the Sri Lankan military used chemical weapons

2009-04-06T14:20:00.016-04:00

There have been rumors going around that the Sri Lankan military used chemical weapons yesterday in its battle against the LTTE. We do not have proof one way or the other, but two odd points cast doubts on the government. For the first time ever, pictures of the dead LTTE bodies have unusual burn wounds and skin peeling off in many places. In the past the bodies have never had such wounds. Secondly, the Sri Lankan military has blurred out parts of the dead fighters' bodies, most commonly the face (but many faces are also left unblured, so they are not trying to hide the person's identity). There are no signs of blood in the blured out area, so the only logical conclusion is that they want to hide the oddly peeled and burnt skin, which would be most visible on the exposed face. Below are a few examples of these wounds:

In the photo above, why is his chest blurred out? There is no sign of a bullet wound, but you can see a rash or burn around his neck and the blurred area, plus his skin is peeling off on many places.

Why did the Sri Lankan government blur out the faces in the top row, but not the faces below:

What are they trying to hide by blurring out the faces? There are no signs of bullet wounds there, and they obviously aren't hiding their identity, because other faces are being shown. It is possible they are trying to cover up signs of peeling and burnt skin, which would be most visible on the exposed faces.

Defence.lk finally assembles gun "seized in combat"

2009-04-06T05:51:00.005-04:00

Defence.lk finally managed to assemble the anti aircraft gun they claimed to have captured "while it was being fired in combat". In their latest picture, they attached the gun barrels, so that it looks like a functioning weapon instead of an unassembled weapon they brought out of a storage room.

Why would they have first shown the weapon unassembled if it was actually captured from the LTTE in combat. Obviously the LTTE would have been using it assembled. It would have been impossible to have been firing if it was unassembled as originally shown:

Originally, when they "seized" it in "combat" it had no gun barrels. Then a couple days later the army adds the gun barrels because many people, not only here, but even on Sinhala forums, had pointed out it was unassembled.

What does this look like? The army brought the weapon out of a storage room for a shocking photo shoot, but since it isn't a common weapon the soldiers forgot it was missing the gun barrels. After it was pointed out, they quickly added the gun barrels. From where? Obviously they had the gun barrels in their storage room from where they brought out the gun.

It is highly unlikely that the LTTE had left the gun barrels unassembled on the front lines. What the government wants us to believe is that the Sri Lankan military first recovered the main gun during direct combat, braving live enemy fire from the gun even though it was unassembled, and then subsequently recovered the gun barrels two days later.

BBC fooled by false Sri Lankan military story

2009-04-05T01:00:00.013-04:00

Yesterday the BBC News had been fooled to publish a story provided by the Sri Lankan government that was clearly false. The story originated on the website Defence.lk, which is the Sri Lankan government's official military website. On this website, the government reported the following (http://defence.lk/new.asp?fname=20090404_02):

"According to the defence sources, troops engaged in mop up operations in the Anandapuram area seized the [artillery] weapon that was being fired by the terrorists on direct mode at the advancing soldiers. The soldiers have braved the raging artillery fire and captured the gun after attacking its operators. Also, this is said to be the first occasion where troops have seized an LTTE artillery gun in direct combat."

The BBC reproduced this information without caring to verify the facts of the story. For reasons that will become apparent, Defence.lk chose not to include any photographs of the captured artillery gun. But today the website Army.lk included the following photograph, which completely contradicts the story provided by the government:

The picture shows parts of an unassembled anti-aircraft gun, which they claimed was an artillery gun. Now compare that with the official government's story from Defence.lk, which was subsequently published by the BBC:

"According to the defence sources, troops engaged in mop up operations in the Anandapuram area seized the [artillery] weapon that was being fired by the terrorists on direct mode at the advancing soldiers. The soldiers have braved the raging artillery fire and captured the gun after attacking its operators. Also, this is said to be the first occasion where troops have seized an LTTE artillery gun in direct combat."

Please explain how these parts of an unassembled anti-aircraft gun were being fired by the LTTE? The Sri Lankan government's creative writers had even added fine details to the made up account, like that the LTTE were firing an "artillery gun" directly at zero degrees from short range. But when we see the pictures, there isn't even a complete gun, what to speak of an artillery gun! How exactly did the soldiers "brave the raging artillery fire" of a gun that is unassembled and incomplete? This is another case of the government hiring creative writers to provide fake stories to the media. It is unfortunate that a respectable news source like BBC could have fallen for these false accounts and published them without proper verification of facts.

The Sri Lankan government's website, Defence.lk, has a long history of publishing false stories made from staged and faked photographs. We hope the BBC will take this fact into consideration in the future and avoid reproducing anything this website says without first verifying it thoroughly. The good name of the BBC, as one of the finest media sources in the world, deserves to remain clean and above the dirt of the Sri Lankan government's false media reports.

Mystery of the Matching Machine Guns

2009-04-03T07:14:00.014-04:00

Today the Sri Lankan government published an article on their official website (Defence.lk) titled "Army annihilates terror pocket in Anandapuram" wherein they claim to have killed a large number of LTTE fighters and recovered 50 T-56 rifles. There are a few obvious problems about the story that I would like to point out here. The first problem, which is a recurring theme in nearly all of the governments claims, is that they haven't shown any bodies of dead LTTE fighters. They claim to have recovered 31 bodies of LTTE fighters but instead they choose to show this photograph that highlights their day's victory:

We realize an old rusted container is a big accomplishment to highlight, but when they claim to have recovered 31 bodies of LTTE fighters, don't you think that would be more important to show? But we shouldn't criticize them too much, because that isn't all they showed. There was also this:

In case you can't figure out what it is, I will help you out. That's half a boat they recovered. It's basically as shocking and amazing as a full boat, but just divide that by two. Maybe they should have renamed their article to "Army annihilates half a boat and old rusted container in Anandapuram". That would have made it a little more clear for the readers, and would have removed any confusion.

But let us move on to the real point of this article, that is the picture of guns they claimed to have recovered. We already mentioned that they failed to show any pictures of dead LTTE fighters, even though they claimed to have recovered 31 bodies, but at least they showed us the picture of the guns they recovered, right? There is just one problem with the picture. They claimed to have recovered 50 T-56 rifles, but the picture shows over 90 T-56 rifles (you can click the photo for a bigger version):

In fact, there are more than 50 T-56 rifles in the first two rows alone. It was just a few days ago that we caught Army.lk posting a fake photograph of "captured weapons" that had actually been taken a year before. Unfortunately, in this case, the Defence.lk editors were smart enough to erase the exif data that shows the date a picture was taken, so we cannot know when this photo was actually taken, but we can be certain it is a fake because the number of rifles doesn't even come close to matching the story.

There is one more dead give away that shows this photograph is a fake, and I am sure the editors are too stupid to have figured this out. Just look at the model of gun that has been recovered. There are two types of T-56 rifles used by the LTTE. The most common rifle used is the regular T-56 (top of following photo), which has a wooden shoulder support, and the other version is the T-56-1 (bottom of following photo), which has a collapsable shoulder support:

Up till now whenever the security forces have recovered large numbers of T-56 rifles in battles, the majority have been regular T-56 rifles, with a smaller mix of T-56-1 rifles included. But in today's photograph, every single rifle is a T-56-1 model, which is almost impossible based on past experience. How can there be nearly 100 T-56-1 rifles without a single regular T-56 rifle included? The only way that would happen is if the guns were brought out of a storage room - not collected from a battlefield. In the Sri Lankan army's storage rooms they divide the guns based on model. When a soldier was sent to bring guns for this photograph, he foolishly took all the guns from a single pile, which contained the rarer T-56-1 rifles. So rather than being a mix of various guns (as would occur in a real battle), the entire collection of guns were identical - something that is statistically impossible in a real battle.

To give you an idea of what recovered guns should look like, here are several photographs from the government following large battles. Note the mix of guns, with most being regular T-56 rifles with wooden shoulder supports (you can click on the pictures for larger versions):

In literally every single case most of the recovered guns are regular T-56 rifles, but in today's photograph, every single gun is a T-56-1 model, nearly 100 of them. Please look at the original photograph again (see the enlarged version by clicking on the photo, it really highlights this point):

Such an occurence is statistically impossible, and the only way they could have 100 T-56-1 rifles together like this is if they brought them out from a storage room, where the rifles are stacked based on model.

Once again these two points prove the story created by Defence.lk is not true. They claim to have recovered 50 T-56 rifles, yet they show nearly 100 rifles in the photograph. And the fact that every single one of the 100 rifles is the rarer T-56-1 model proves this photograph is set up taking guns from a storage room.

Entire staff of Army.lk website team fired

2009-04-02T21:29:00.005-04:00

Following many embarrassing cases of fraud by the official government websites Army.lk and Defence.lk being exposed, today we have received news that the entire staff of the Army.lk website has been fired and fully replaced by military personnel. This is the real reason there has been a sudden change to a "new" amateurish website design. The government has tried to claim it was due to upgrading to a new server system, but server changes have nothing to do with the complete website design and maintenance. The government could have easily switched to a new server while maintaining the old design, which was more attractive and user friendly. But instead the government has completely severed connections with the old team, as they have doubts the previous software system may be compromised by LTTE agents.

The government website made the following statement:

Your favourite www.army.lk website is back on track with a colourful re-design from today (2nd April 2009) onwards after it dispensed with previous technical failures, experienced under our former service-provider.

The Army is proud to announce that the Army Information Technological Unit has now undertaken its maintenance with the unstinted support, extended by Sri Lanka Telecom Ltd.

The actual reason the government has replaced the previous staff with full time military personnel was because several of the former staff members had been selling information to a Tamil website, which resulted in many embarrassing cases of false government propaganda being exposed in the media. They feel it will be easier to keep military personnel in check as compared to private workers, but advisors from the unnamed Tamil website state communication has already started and it is only a matter of time before the underpaid staff agree to help out.

The old design.

Another fake article by the Sri Lankan government exposed

2009-04-02T06:05:00.017-04:00

It was just 2 days ago that we exposed Army.lk (the official Sri Lankan military website) for using year old photographs to make up a combat story that supposedly took place the same day. Today we have once again caught them using fake photographs to create a false story. The article titled "LTTE’s Chemicals for Bomb Production Unearthed" contains the following photograph:

In the article they state:

An estimated quantity of 3500 kg of Potasium Chloride, used for production of C-4 explosives and other deadly mines, etc by Tigers was unearthed by the troops in OLUMADU, VAVUNIYA last evening (March 31) while the stock remained buried in a container.

The first thing I would like to point out is that Potasium Chloride is used throughout the world primarily as fertilizer. It is not in any way connected to C-4 explosives. In fact Potasium Chloride isn't even one of the ingredients in C-4, though it can be used in other forms of conventional explosives if modified properly. Rather than tell the truth, that the Sri Lankan army found a bunch of fertilizer bags, the official Army.lk websites claims they found "ingredients for making C-4". They even named the photograph of the fertilizer bags as "C_4.jpg" to highlight that they discovered a "deadly explosive", when infact they only found fertilizer.

This itself is bad enough, but it isn't the reason for this article. Please look closely at their claim. They specifically say that they discovered this "deadly C-4" on March 31st, and they even explain how they had dug it out from a secret hole. Now please have a look at the date this photograph was taken:

The photograph was actually taken on February 2nd, yet they claim it was dug out from a secret hole on the 31st of March. But wait, there is something even more humorous about this photograph. See if you can recognize anything in the following screen captures from television news reports filmed last month:

This container of fertilizer was already used in a television report a month ago, and even then that was a lie because it was actually found in February as the photograph shows. What that means is they lied about this not once, but twice. Even the television news report was actually a lie, and we would never have known it if they hadn't posted the photograph today on Army.lk showing the real date it was photographed.

From this we can realize that not only are Army.lk and Defence.lk making up false stories, but even the television news channels are also making false news reports according to the government's orders. Such dishonesty on the part of television news reporters isn't surprising, as just last week one famous reporter (Saman Kumara Ramawickrema) embedded with the army was caught stealing many latpops, digital cameras, and even gold looted from a temple in the war zone.

In recent weeks, over 400,000 Tamil civilians had to flee their homes and leave their possessions behind as the Sri Lankan army ruthlessly bombed them. While the civilians fled for their lives, the Sri Lankan soldiers, and even the news reporters, moved in to loot the belongings of the helpless Tamil refugees. With such an immoral security force, is there any surprise in finding false stories published on their websites and in their news media? What is one fake photograph when they are willing to murder thousands of innocent civilians?

Note: Subsequent research has found the following:

1) The photo was taken on February 2nd based on exif data contained in the photograph.

2) Army.lk originally published this finding on February 5th (http://www.army.lk/fulsit.php?idx=1213)
but has recently deleted the article. It is still present in the google cache though (http://209.85.229.132/search?q=cache:SPEkbilormYJ:www.army.lk/fulsit.php%3Fidx%3D1213).

3) Around March 15th, news reporters filmed several of these containers, with the exact same contents and even identical concrete support footings, in a report that claimed thousands of tons of LTTE fertilizer had been found. If the above container had really been burried in the ground as claimed by Army.lk, why would they build the exact same concrete footings to place the container on top of as the LTTE had done? Also why would they raise the entire container from the ground while still full, instead of unloading it first. They would need a huge crane to lift such a container while full, and there is no evidence that such a crane even exists in the Vanni.

4) The original photograph from this article (located at http://www.army.lk/editor/images/diwan/C_4.jpg) has since been deleted by Army.lk.

5) After deleting the photograph, the editors of Army.lk forgot to remove the html code in the article that contained the photograph: img width="444" height="333" border="1" alt="" src="http://www.army.lk/editor/images/diwan/C_4.jpg". This code is still present in the article, but the image has been deleted.

Army.lk takes advice from Puligal Today

2009-04-01T02:07:00.012-04:00

By Charu Sheelan

In our previous article titled "Defence.lk is 41% more lethal than Army.lk" we had mentioned the Defence.lk website's repetitive use of the word "sniped" in virtually every single article they publish, and also pointed out the conspicuous absence of any sniper attacks being reported on Army.lk. Basically we have a situation where the writers for defence.lk "fill" their articles with made up sniper attacks against LTTE fighters, sometimes "sniping" as many as 30 enemy combatants in a single article.

Unfortunately the writers for the other official government military website, army.lk, are never consulted about the story writing, so there are daily discrepencies between the "officially" announced LTTE casualties by the army.lk website and the defence.lk website. The most obvious difference, other than the numbers of LTTE fighters killed, is the lack of any sniper reportings at all on army.lk, compared to the daily massive sniper reports on defence.lk. Think for a minute, if the Sri Lankan army had actually sniped 30 LTTE fighters, you would expect the army.lk website to know about it and report it, but instead you will find a completely different daily report with no mention of the made up sniper attacks, and a far lower total for LTTE fighters killed.

As mentioned in the previous article, the total reported LTTE fighters killed by the army over the last two months is 41% higher on defence.lk (1174) as compared to army.lk (just 835). The number of LTTE fighters killed by snipers during the same period is over 200 according to defence.lk, compared to ZERO reported by army.lk. Based on this information we stated the following in our previous article:

In every single Army.lk report the LTTE suffers "heavy casualties" due to close quarters combat. But in every single Defence.lk report, the report always concludes with at least 5 or 10 LTTE fighters being "sniped" from long range. On one day the writer became a little too excited and he sniped 30 fighters at one go. What this shows is its simply two seperate people making up stories, and their story patterns remain repetitive because its the same person writing every day. They don't have the intelligence to make up new stories each day, or even to match their stories with their other website writers.

We are happy to report that Army.lk has taken heed of our report, and today for the first time in nearly a year they have brought back snipers to their daily report:

"Army snipers played a key role in those offensives taking minute targets." (from http://army.lk/morenews.php?id=20933)

A little research shows that the last time Army.lk has spoken about a sniper was in April 8, 2008 when they reported:

"Army snipers meanwhile sniped and killed three terrorists on two occasions in THIRUKETHISWARAN and PERANKUMAM. There was one female Tiger terrorist among the dead."

Besides this sniper incident reported in April 2008, there were only 3 other sniper incidents mentioned over the last five years by Army.lk which were reported on 28th January 2008, 24th January 2008, and 27th February 2008. Thus in the history of the Army.lk website there have been only 4 mentions of sniper attacks by the Sri Lankan security forces ever. But after we reported this on Puligal Today, showing the discrepancy with defence.lk's daily massive "sniper attacks", the very next day Army.lk decided to add snipers to their report for the first time in a year, and only the 5th time ever. Lets look at their newly injected sniper statement again:

"Army snipers played a key role in those offensives taking minute targets."

Just as a TV serial slowly introduces a new character into the script, Army.lk has introduced their latest character "Mr. Sniper", so that they can fall in line with defence.lk's made up casualty reports. But what is so humorous is the fact that they got this idea, not from their own officers or propaganda officials, but by reading a Tamil website called Puligal Today. Thus the level of mental insecurity of the defence propaganda team becomes self evident. Their minds are so weak, that in a single article I was able to inject the concept of adding snipers to their reports. Just see how easily they are influenced by psychological warfare. And these are the people who are supposed to be in charge of government propaganda. Their job is to convince other people, but their minds are so easy to influence that they themselves are revealing their own insecurities by their reactive actions.

This has been the repetitive history of this defence team, constantly revealing their own weaknesses and insecurities. Their own reactions indicate weakness and admit their mistake. For example, I said their picture was photoshopped, and immediately they removed the photo and then later put a caption "This photo has been altered for security reasons". I said they were showing pictures of dead sinhala soldiers and claiming they were LTTE, immediately the picture disappears from their website. I said Army.lk has never reported any of the "sniper attacks" claimed on defence.lk, the very next day they start speaking about snipers. Can you see the pattern, which completely betrays their own insecurity? They are being played and manipulated like fools, and they respond just as expected, further exposing their own insecurities and faults.

In conclusion we would like to thank the staff of Army.lk and Defence.lk for once again taking the advice provided at Puligal Today and trying to improve their poor record of misinformation. We cannot change them over night, but little by little we will clean the modaya out of their head.

Army.lk caught using fake photographs

2009-03-31T03:41:00.013-04:00

By Badrinath Mahalingam

For the last one week the Army.lk website has severely restricted its use of photos, and has almost exclusively published only "file photos" unrelated to the articles. We have heard from reliable sources working in the government that this is due to a direct order from above to stop publishing photos that are not personally approved by a high ranking official. This order came about after the defence.lk website was caught several times using fake photographs, sometimes even showing dead bodies of Sinhala soldiers while claiming they were LTTE fighters.

Out of the 20 articles currently published on the army.lk front page, only two articles have had photographs "approved" to be published. These two articles are titled "Troops Collect Fifteen Dead Tigers & Twenty Weapons" (located at http://www.army.lk/morenews.php?id=20926) and "Besieged Civilians in their Hundreds Reach Cleared Areas" (located at http://www.army.lk/morenews.php?id=20924). Unfortunately both of these articles contain fake photographs, evident from the date the pictures were taken.

In the first article, the following photographs are shown:

The article states:

"Tigers during Sunday (29) unsuccessfully tried to assault advancing troops but the troops took an upper hand and reacted hard against them. Tigers went on running amok leaving behind their arms and ammunition and also their own cadres."

"ARMY troops engaged in extensive search and clear operations in captured areas, north of PALAMATTALAN, PUTHUKUDIYIRIPPU this morning (30) collected dead bodies of fifteen more Tigers along with twenty T-56 weapons and one Multi Purpose Machine Gun (MPMG)."

As you can see in the photographs, there are 20 T-56 weapons and one multi purpose machine gun, so the story must be true, right? There is only one small problem. Even though the story seems to match the photograph (with the exception of the 15 dead LTTE fighters they claimed to have recovered), the photograph itself was taken in February of 2008!

So rather than write articles based on actual events, and then adding related photographs to the article, the Army.lk writers start out with fake photographs, and then "create" a story based on the photograph. How else could the fake photograph have the exact number of T-56 rifles as the story, and exact number of multi purpose machine guns. It is clear that the story originated from the photograph, and the photograph itself was a fake from more than a year ago.

Please note once again the amount of detail this creative writer adds to a non-existant story based off a photograph taken a year before:

"Tigers during Sunday (29) unsuccessfully tried to assault advancing troops but the troops took an upper hand and reacted hard against them. Tigers went on running amok leaving behind their arms and ammunition and also their own cadres."

First the tigers "unsuccessfully tried to attack", then the Sri Lankan army soldiers "reacted hard against them" resulting in the tigers "running amok" in panic. In that state of panic the tigers "started abandoning their weapons and ammunitions and even their own cadres". Just see the extent of fantasy writing the Army.lk website goes to. The photograph is a year old, yet these creative writers have imagined a whole series of events on how that photograph came to be. And the scariest part is that the government of Sri Lanka then presents these fantasy movie scripts to the world as factual "news".

The only other article on their website to contain a photograph is "Besieged Civilians in their Hundreds Reach Cleared Areas" which has the following photograph:

Though the article was published on March 30th, the photograph they show, which was supposedly taken the same day, was actually taken on March 13th. So once again we see that the army.lk and defence.lk websites both manufacture stories and extensively use fake photographs to mislead the public. Add to this the fact that the daily reported number of LTTE fighters killed never matches between the Army.lk website and the Defence.lk website, both of whom are official government websites. When one government website says 40 LTTE fighters were killed, and the other website says only 2 fighters were killed, it becomes obvious someone is making up stories. What is so surprising is that the government officials are so stupid that they do not even compare the stories they publish to make sure there are no contradictions.

In summary, out of the 20 articles currently being displayed on the Army.lk front page, there is not a single authentic photograph included. 18 of the articles contain no photographs at all, or sample pictures labeled as "file photos". The remaining two articles that do contain photographs actually have fake photographs, as well as creatively manufactured storylines based on those fake photographs.

Another example of imaginative stories created from a photograph was the following, reported last week both on Army.lk and Defence.lk:

Defence.lk stated about this photograph: "LTTE built statue of the megalomaniac terror chief Prabakaran is located in the centre of Iranapalai junction." Unfortunately the fiction writers at Defence.lk didn't even take the trouble to read the name writen on the statue's plaque before writing their story line:

When the official government defence department can't make out the difference between a Prabhakaran and a Senthuran, it is no wonder that they have been unable to capture him for 30 years. Even though Tamil is supposedly an official language in Sri Lanka, it is obvious that even high ranking officers in the defence department do not know how to read it. How else can you explain not a single person in the defence department realizing who the statue was in the photograph? But truth is not important for the government of Sri Lanka. More important is to create catchy fantasy stories, like the one of the LTTE fighters who "ran amok", "dropping their weapons", which happened to be photographed by the defence department a year before.

Defence.lk is 41% more lethal than Army.lk; writers deserve promotion

2009-03-29T09:34:00.023-04:00

By Shankar Neelan

We have taken the last two months worth of battle reports from both Army.lk and Defence.lk (both official government websites) and compiled the daily battle reports into a chart for comparison. What we find is quite shocking. There is absolutely no relationship between the reports from the two websites. Some days Defence.lk reports 30 LTTE fighters killed, but army.lk reports only 2 killed. There are spans of an entire week where army.lk reports extremely low casualties, but defence.lk reports daily 20 to 30 LTTE fighters killed, mostly "sniped". What this shows is the two websites are filled with reports written by creative writers, who obviously don't compare notes between each other's stories. In fact Defence.lk has managed to net-kill 41% more LTTE fighters than Army.lk:

One of the most humorous aspects of the Defence.lk writer's style is the repetitive use of the word "sniped" to net-kill mass numbers of LTTE fighters. After going through every report over the last two months I found Army.lk has never reported a single LTTE fighter having been killed by a sniper. In every single Army.lk report the LTTE suffers "heavy casualties" due to close quarters combat. But in every single Defence.lk report, the report always concludes with at least 5 or 10 LTTE fighters being "sniped" from long range. On one day the writer became a little too excited and he sniped 30 fighters at one go. What this shows is its simply two seperate people making up stories, and their story patterns remain repetitive because its the same person writing every day. They don't have the intelligence to make up new stories each day, or even to match their stories with their other website writers.

What we find in the analysis is that the Defence.lk writers are in a competition to "outdo" the Army.lk writers, to prove that they are doing a better job then the others, and really deserve that promotion they have been asking for. In the past we have shown how the Defence.lk writers went so far as to create fake photographs, and to photoshop pictures to create false stories. Now we have conclusive proof that every single story is just a creative writing assignment, with numbers pulled out of their ass. How else can you explain that over a period of 2 months there are only 3 days where the casualty figures match between Army.lk and Defence.lk. The numbers are so far off that there isn't even a slight resemblance between the two.

In conclusion I would like to point out that the Defence.lk writers deserve special recognition for their accomplishments. Over the sample period of 2 months they have proven to be 41% more lethal then their top competitor - having net-killed a whopping 1174 LTTE fighters, compared to Army.lk's meagre 835 fighters. Thats a 339 kill improvement, while maintaining the same basic costs. In the present times of economic struggle, with the Sri Lankan government "dusting off the begging bowl" to get a 4 billion dollar IMF loan, I think we need to encourage as much efficiency in government as possible. The defence.lk writers have proven themselves, that they are the most efficient and lethal net-writers out there. In fact, I feel their accomplishments are so spectacular, we should even consider replacing Army.lk with a Defence-2.lk. Imagine if we could have two defence websites, each with a 41% improved lethality rate. That would result in the Sri Lankan government killing 82% more LTTE fighters for the same cost. That is called using intelligence to rise above the economic downturn - thinking out of the box. Who's the modaya now?

Sri Lanka heading to massive financial crisis due to government failure

2009-03-27T10:48:00.005-04:00

By Senthil Ganeshan

Sri Lanka main opposition United National Party (UNP) today said that the government is heading to a massive financial crisis due to their mismanaged economic policies.

Speaking to the media, opposition chief minister of the Central PC and National organizer of UNP, S.B Dissanayake said that this has already resulted in huge problems throughout the country.

According to the Dissanayake a large number of jobs have already been cut off and several companies had also closed due to the financial crisis.

He pointed out that the profit of the companies registered with the Stock Market in Sri Lanka had declined by 61 percent in the past few weeks.

The main opposition blamed the government that they don't have a proper system to save the country's economy as corruption and frauds are rampant.

However, critiques point out that the financial crisis and declining stock market yields are not only limited to Sri Lanka but even superpowers like the US are facing an economic melt down due to the global recession.

----------------------------------------------

- IMF Loan request raised to nearly 4 billion dollars.

- IMF Loan may still be vetoed by US, which would lead to a complete financial collapse of the government.

- Government is paying armed forces personnel with newly printed money each month, resulting in collapse of the rupee.

Sri Lanka: East Has Become Bihar-Like

2009-03-24T05:48:00.004-04:00

By Ratna Sivanesan

A Press Release from the Asian Human Rights Commission

The abduction of Varsha and the Extra-judicial killings of the Alleged Abductors

Sri Lankans looked at their TV screens and newspapers last week with shock and shame as the story of the abduction and killing of six year old Varsha Jude Regi of Trincomalee came to the attention of the entire nation. Although much has been talked and written about this horror story, the real societal meaning has been glossed over. The abduction has taken place in an area where abductions for ransom are now quite common. People, depressed by the absence of the rule of law or any sort of protection, appeared to show pleasure when they heard about the extra-judicial killings of such abductors. These are clear features of a place where law does not exist. The other area in the Indian subcontinent which has become infamous for similar abductions and lawlessness is Bihar in India. Now the common saying in India is “if you are from Bihar do not tell anyone.”

Varsha’s tragic story is that this six year old went to school on Wednesday 11 March. By noon she was allegedly abducted by a person trusted by the family to teach the computer to her and her brother. He was known as “computer-uncle.” The abductors thereafter began negotiations with the relatives and the father who is working in the Middle East. The kidnappers demanded a Rs 30 million ransom. While the family members were negotiating giving a Rs 1 million, the girl’s body was found in a bag on Friday, 13 March. Her throat had been slit and the bag containing her body was left in a drain on New Moors lane in the heart of Trincomalee town.

Adding more to the horror of the story, two persons, Oswin Mervin Rinawushan and Vardharajen Janarathan were both found dead while in police custody. The police reported that after Rinawushan had been arrested and in police custody, he was taken out and that he then attacked the police. In retaliation the police shot him dead. The story relating to Janarathan is that when he, too, was taken out by police in handcuffs, he managed to pick up some cyanide and swallow it. It is said that there are a few more suspects. It is very likely that if they are arrested something similar would happen to them as to the earlier suspects.

Further adding yet more horror to the story, the two main political parties of the east TMVP and what is known as Kuruna’s party accused each other of being behind the kidnapping and the killing of the little girl. The TMVP has been accused of being behind the murder because the school bag belonging to little Varsha was found in the TMVP office. The TMVP stated that together with two thousand of their former cadres, Kuruna has joined the Sri Lanka freedom party and they had taken with them some of the office equipment of the TMVP. The issue for the public would not be which one of these groups is responsible but that it is the new political guardians of the Eastern province that are allegedly behind the assassination of little Varsha for purposes of ransom.

It has also come to light recently that there had been several other earlier abductions for ransom including a leading businessman, a manager of a movie theater and a bus conductor in Trincomalee. They are of course in addition to a much larger list of such abductions.

Important Considerations

a. When abductions become a common occurrence; this is a clear indicator of the breakdown of law enforcement. This is not a surprise in the East which was a theatre of civil war for a long time and which has come out of the control of LTTE not long ago. However, the role of government under these circumstances is to re-establish law enforcement as its number one task. The government has not approached the matter in this way and perhaps the government is not even capable of addressing the matter in this way. The reason the government is incapable of dealing with the matter is because, even in the safer area in the South, the failure of the rule of law is an admitted fact. A government that is not capable of imposing the rule of law in more safe areas in the South cannot be expected to be capable of ensuring the rule of law in the East.

b. Handing over the East to political groups which have no commitment to the rule of law; perhaps due to the very incapacity to uphold the rule of law, even in the South, the government has been willing to hand over the East to anyone so long as they do not oppose the government. The primary concern seems to be to accept electoral support from anyone who wishes to give it, irrespective of whether they are bandits or political criminals.

c. People’s pleasure in seeing extra-judicial killings of abductors; the police seem to be quite happy that the arrested abductors are no longer alive and even state that people are very happy about their deaths. This kind of mental attitude is a sad demonstration of people’s helplessness in the face of failed law enforcement. In such situations people either take to lynching of alleged criminals themselves or are quite happy when the police do it for them. Almost daily stories of this kind are heard from Bihar. Sometimes a few people are killed in what is called encounter killings. Some video clips have been published in which a policeman on a scooter is shown with the alleged suspect tied to the back of the scooter and dragged along roads in a public place. When humanity descends to such a wretched situation, the only pleasure they can derive is to see cruelty perpetrated on their alleged tormentors. Any consideration of law or due process does not even enter their minds.

d. The entire population accepts the police story of the way the suspects had been found dead and do not want to probe it further to find the truth. Almost everyone suspects the police story about such deaths in police custody. In fact, no one believes these stories are true. But neither the government nor any other agency will want to probe into the matter. Any probe will surface too many additional factors which government and society are unwilling to deal with. To the extent of such unwillingness, the situation of lawlessness will remain unchallenged. Again, this is another similarity with Bihar. The problem of lawlessness is so complete and complex in Bihar that even the central government of India has not taken any significant action to deal with that part of India.

A Society Crippled by Shock and Shame

Sri Lanka today is a society crippled by shock and shame. It cannot even deal with such a humanly moving tragic situation of a child’s abduction and murder as in the case of Varsha Jude Regi. It is just another incident and another tragedy. To forget the tragedy as soon as possible is the best way out. Put the entire blame on the alleged abductors and then feel happy that those suspects are no longer alive. When the human psyche reaches such a state of uncaring, only extremely bold decisions by governments, with foresight enough to want to re-establish the rule of law, can rescue such a society again. Today, however, the leaders of the present regime are themselves the prisoners of the same situation. They can only shed crocodile tears for the loss of a child like Varsha.

It is civil society that must take the initiative and try to break out of this base condition of lawlessness seen everywhere in the country.

About AHRC: The Asian Human Rights Commission is a regional non-governmental organisation monitoring and lobbying human rights issues in Asia. The Hong Kong-based group was founded in 1984.

One LTTE gunman pins down 50 Sri Lankan special commandos

2009-03-17T08:12:00.012-04:00

By Balakumar Anjaneyan

This video is a few weeks old, but it shows how clueless the Sri Lankan special commandos are. Here a single LTTE gunman pins down around 50 commandos on the beach at Chalai. In developed countries, the military is trained to storm the enemy's sniper position, but in Sri Lanka these commandos just try to hide. One even tries to dig a hole into the sand to hide like an ostrich. How humiliating for him to be caught on tape doing this. Note how no one has any idea what to do as they are being fired on. They neither try to get out of the line of fire, nor do they try to neutralize the attacker. They just lay there in the sun like idiots.

UN concerned for single staff member, doesn't care for 200,000 other civilians

2009-03-16T15:02:00.012-04:00

By R. Srivatsava

Today the U.N. released a statement that they were deeply concerned for the well being of one of their paid staff workers forcibly conscripted by the LTTE to fight against the Sri Lankan army. I find it odd that the UN has so much concern for this one person, yet for two months the UN has said absolutely nothing when thousands of other civilians have been murdered by the Sri Lankan army.

In their report they are so concerned that a 16 year old daughter of their paid staff worker has also been conscripted to fight, but no mention of all the other children of the Tamil people currently dying in the Vanni at the hands of the Sri Lankan army. They are very concerned anytime a child is made to fight in the war, but why aren't they bothered when many hundreds of children have been killed by the Sri Lankan government in artillery bombings? Does this seem balanced to anyone? One 16 year old child is conscripted to fight under emergency situations, and the UN sends out press releases to the world, yet 700 children have been murdered by the Sri Lankan government in less than two months, and the U.N. remains completely silent. What exactly are the moral values of the U.N. that compell it to speak quickly when the LTTE merely conscripts someone, but remain silent when the Sri Lankan government engages in mass murder?

Does the U.N. consider murder to be a lesser crime than conscription? If a single act of forced conscription can result in the U.N. sending press releases throughout the world, then a single act of murder should likewise generate even more of a response from the U.N. We should have seen 3,000 such press releases from the U.N. condemning the Sri Lankan government for all the times civilians have been murdered in the last two months! But the facts are the U.N. has remained completely silent despite thousands of murders and other attrocities being committed by the Sri Lankan government.

Fear not! The U.N. is not ignoring your sufferings, they are just waiting for another case of a forced conscription before they speak out and chastise the LTTE for their inhuman war crimes. Until then, stay in your bunker, eat whatever leaves you can scrounge, and keep having faith that the U.N. is there to help you. After your children have been murdered and your daughters raped, the U.N. will be there to provide food for you inside the government's concentration camps. The next three years of your life will be wonderful, all thanks to the U.N. and their great concern for your people. You may be raped, murdered or starved, but they will never let you be forcibly conscripted - for that would be a crime against humanity.

The press release from the UN states:

"The UN in Sri Lanka has protested to the LTTE that UN national staff, as well as children in general, are protected under national and international law from recruitment by armed groups, and has called for their immediate release."

Find a single conscripted 16 year old girl: demand the LTTE immediate release her. Find 200,000 civilians being bombed to hell by the Sri Lankan army: wait silently for two months and then congratulate the army for putting an end to terrorism. Welcome to the double standards of the United Nations, who's only aim is to satisfy member states. The purpose of all organizations are to benefit their members. In this case the Tamil civilians happen to not be members of the UN, so their wellfare is irrelevant. How else can you explain the U.N. being so concerned for a single conscripted girl, but not caring at all when 3,000 civilians have been killed. Though they were quick to immediately condemn the LTTE as soon as they heard about this conscription, the U.N. has been hearing of civilians being killed by the Sri Lankan government for months, yet isn't in a hurry to say anything.

The U.N. is so hypocritical that they are blaming the LTTE for the Sri Lankan government's own crimes. It is the Sri Lankan government who is bombing the civilians. It is the Sri Lankan government who is starving the civilians by not allowing food into the area. It is the Sri Lankan government who is not allowing medecine into the area. Yet the U.N. says the Sri Lankan government is not at fault. Who is at fault for all of these crimes? Of course its the LTTE. Its the LTTE's fault that the Sri Lankan government is bombing the civilians. It's the LTTE's fault that the Sri Lankan government is not allowing food to the civilians. Its the LTTE's fault that the Sri Lankan government is not allowing medecine to the civilians. Everything is the LTTE's fault in the eyes of the U.N. despite the fact that it is the Sri Lankan government doing everything. The Sri Lankan government is the one who invaded the Tamil homeland. The Sri Lankan government is the one with hundreds of artillerly cannons firing into the heavily populated civilian areas. It is the Sri Lankan government dropping bombs from airplanes on the civilians. But all of that is the fault of the LTTE in the eyes of the U.N. simply because the U.N. must defend their own member states. They are completely blind to all of these attrocities, but as soon as they see a single child recruited as a soldier, they swoop down with their eagle eyes to point out the violation of human rights.

Dear United Nations keep your false concern for my people to yourself. We don't want your false mercy and compassion. While 3,000 of my brothers and sisters were murdered by the Sri Lankan government you sat silently without concern. Now you want to pretend that you are so concerned for one single girl who has bravely taken up arms to defend her people? If you are not here to help us, then leave us be to die an honorable death, defending our people from the Sinhala invaders. Let our children die with weapons in their hands, rather than die helplessly in a bunker with bombs falling from above.

In every country in the world, in times of emergency, the citizens are required to sacrifice and serve their country by taking up arms. Even a country like the United States has had forcible conscription during past wars. Why do you think someone should be exempt from this sacrifice just because he was a paid worker for the U.N.? Thousands of other Tamil civilians have also been forcibly conscripted to defend their people and homeland, but you haven't spoken up to protect them. Why is it you are only concerned for those people who were your paid workers? During times of peace they benefitted from your work, and earned more money than others, but now that it is a time of war they will have to sacrifice like all of the Tamil people have to. There will be no special protection for your chosen few. Keep your hollow and false compassion for your own people. While thousands of Tamil civilians are being murdered, you pretend to be alarmed and shocked that one person is being forced to fight. All Tamils will live together as one and die together as one. If you don't have compassion for all of our people, then we do not want your compassion for any of our people.

"Hunting the Tiger" on SBS News Dateline

2009-03-16T04:12:00.007-04:00

By Tamil Arasi

The following is a news program broadcast yesterday on an Australian television network. Take special note of the third part where the Sri Lankan defence minister explodes at the reporter for asking questions he didn't like.

Welcome to the Vanni: Video from Vakthaa.tv

2009-03-14T14:45:00.011-04:00

By Priya Chandramukhi

Everyone was asking for this video. Now Vakthaa.tv has posted it, so it shouldn't disappear:

http://www.vakthaa.tv/v/3320/oddusuddan-ambush.html

U.N. rights chief points to war crimes in Sri Lanka

2009-03-13T08:38:00.005-04:00

By Stephanie Nebehay

GENEVA, March 13 - Both sides in Sri Lanka's conflict may have committed war crimes and must suspend fighting to let thousands of civilians escape, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said on Friday.

Warning that the loss of life may reach "catastrophic levels", she urged the government and Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rebels to suspend hostilities to allow evacuation of up to 180,000 civilians trapped on the northeastern coast.

Pillay said the government had repeatedly shelled the designated "no-fire" zones for civilians and also cited reports that the separatist guerrillas were holding civilians as human shields and had shot some as they tried to flee.

"Certain actions being undertaken by the Sri Lankan military and by the LTTE may constitute violations of international human rights and humanitarian law," Pillay said in a statement issued in Geneva.

"The world today is ever sensitive about such acts that could amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity," added the former U.N. war crimes judge, who grew up in a poor Indian neighbourhood in Durban as a member of South Africa's Tamil minority.

Sri Lanka's military has encircled the LTTE Tamil Tigers in a mere 37 sq km (15 sq miles) of the island nation's northeastern coast and is fighting to deal a death blow to a civil war that has raged off and on since 1983.

More than 2,800 civilians may have been killed and more than 7,000 injured since Jan. 20, according to a range of credible sources, Pillay said. Many had been inside the "no-fire" zones.

Hundreds of children were believed to be among the dead.

"The current level of civilian casualties is truly shocking and there are legitimate fears that the loss of life may reach catastrophic levels, if the fighting continues in this way," Pillay said.

"The brutal and inhuman treatment of civilians by the LTTE is utterly reprehensible and should be examined to see if it constitutes war crimes," she said. (reporting Stephanie Nebehay; editing by Jonathan Lynn)

Defence.lk caught with more fake photographs

2009-03-12T05:17:00.001-04:00

By Sunil Devan

Today in an article titled "LTTE plot for mass scale chemical attack bared" the government has posted the following photograph, which is so obviously altered that it is ridiculous:

Please click on the photo to see an enlarged version. The entire photograph has been created using repetitive pattern brushes. Note the bushes on the left of the two people. See how the exact same pattern repeats itself throughout the bush. A similar pattern occurs on the right side of the people. There is a very clear split in the photo between the people and the background, indicating the photograph was not taken in the Vanni at all. This is a studio photograph, pasted on top of a picture in the Vanni, but the job is done so poorly that anyone can see it is fake.

We have been proving time and time again that the Sri Lankan government lies to their own citizens, and has been releasing false information for months. Just this week the Sri Lankan military was caught showing pictures of dead Sinhala soldiers, claiming they were bodies of LTTE fighters. Now this latest case just futher proves that there is no level the Sri Lankan government won't stoop to in order to stop the freedom struggle of the Tamil people.

Below are some closeups of the edited photograph:

See the drastic change from one photograph's background into the other photograph's background. The trees and bushes were added on top of the picture.

Note that the same light pattern on the leaves repeats itself 5 times in a row.

Note the two wires. The bottom one is copied pixel for pixel from the top one. Also note that the bottom wire disappears in midair due to a bad smudge effect. To make it clearer to you, below we have enlarged the two wire sections 400% and placed them next to each other. Note that every single pixel is identical (click for enlargements):

Both wires identical pixel for pixel.

Note the blue tarpaulin suddenly becomes the walking path! Also note the brownish walking path has been created using a square pattern repeated several times. You can see the square pattern clearly where it joins the bushes. The brown walking path also is painted on top of the soldiers leg!

In this picture the blue tarpaulin was "created" by copying from an area with a different lighting, so there is a stark contrast between the tarpaulin the soldier is standing on, and the "created" tarpaulin just to his right. One is light blue, one is dark grey.

Here you can clearly see a patern repeated to fill the bottom right corner of the main photograph. Those who have used photoshop, are very familiar with this technique.

Another sloppy example of using a pattern to create the walking path. Note that in some places the walking path is on top of the tarpaulin. This is a sign that the editor was a complete amature. Also note the blue smudge on the right side of the walking path. The editor accidentally copied a piece of the tarpaulin onto the path when he meant to take a "sample" of the path to replicate elsewhere. Again it shows he is a complete amature.

The same light pattern is repeated three times, indicating it is a pattern being copied from elsewhere to fill the background.

Notice the yellow and red flower on the left is pixel for pixel identical to the flower on the right.

Now go back and click on the original photograph so that you can see it expanded 500%, and look through it to see some of these things I have pointed out. It will not only be completely apparent that the photograph has been edited, but it will also be clear that it was edited by a half-blind idiot.

What this case shows is that the Sri Lankan government thinks the sinhalese are foolish idiots. They think they can shovel piles of horse crap on them, and they will keep their mouth open wide asking for more while clapping their hands and cheering. The sinhalese are in complete denial, refusing to accept that their government would ever mislead them about the war. In this case the lie is just a harmless photograph, but what about the lie about the sinhalese who have died in this war? There have been over 20,000 sinhalese soldiers killed in fighting over the last one year, but the Sri Lankan government keeps feeding you piles of horse crap like this photograph, saying there have been no casualties. The same is the case with regards to Tamil civilian casualties. There have been thousands and thousands of innocent civilians killed in this fighting by the government, but they continue to lie to the country saying no one has been killed. Everyone needs to wake up and realize these politicians are cheaters, and their only aim is to fill their own pockets. They neither care about the unity of the country, nor about Sri Lanka's citizens.

Postscript: After seeing this article, the Sri Lankan government first removed the photo from their website in an attempt to cover the truth, but the AFP press wire had already published it online along with many newspapers. As a result, many hours after having deleted the photo, the Sri Lankan government again placed the photo on their website with the caption, "The background of the image has been altered due to extreme security concerns". Since the photo had already been published by AFP, their only option was to pretend the photo was meant to be edited.

Fighting moves to Thevipuram

2009-03-11T03:53:00.003-04:00

By Sesha Balasingham

Reports from the Vanni indicate heavy fighting is currently going on at Thevipuram. Thevipuram was previously located in the original no fire zone, and was occupied by the Sri Lankan army on February 2nd. The LTTE first broke through the forward defence lines of the 58th division on Sunday night, and has since launched several attacks on the 57th and 58th divisions at Thevipuram and Visuamadu. Most recently the heaviest fighting has now moved to Thevipuram, with hundreds of Sri Lankan soldiers killed in combat.

Sri Lankan government caught posting pictures of dead Sinhala soldiers claiming they are LTTE

2009-03-10T03:33:00.001-04:00

By Karuna Indranil

The above photograph was originally shown on the Sri Lankan army's official website in an article claiming they recovered 150 bodies of LTTE fighters, but today it has disappeared (but not before I had saved it). Please click on the photo to see a close up of the first soldier. It is obvious by his facial features, skin complexion, uniform and haircut that he is a dead Sri Lankan soldier. If you look down the line, you will see several other dead bodies with similar hair cuts, skin complexions and facial features.

Once this fact was pointed out in this blog, the photo disappeared from the Sri Lankan government's website. You can check the article here to see for yourself:

http://www.defence.lk/new.asp?fname=20090309_08

Notice there are no longer any photos that show closeups of the dead fighters. Why? Because it was obvious many of them were Sri Lankan soldiers. That this was a deliberate act of deception is further proven by the fact they have replaced the old photos with completely different photos, but they have retained the same file names. This is done so all the links to the photos on various websites will not show that the photo has been deleted. People will click and go to the "new" photo and think the allegation is false. If the photos were not present, people would immediately understand the government was hiding something.

For example the original photo above is now the following:

http://www.defence.lk/img/20090309_LP06.jpg

Please note that in the old photos it was pouring rain, and in this new photo it is sunny outside. This new photo isn't even from the same area as the other photos. It is a very hasty attempt to replace the old photo with something, so people don't see that the dead bodies are Sinhalese soldiers mixed with LTTE fighters.

Here is the close up of the dead Sinhala soldier. Just see how the army treats their dead "heroes". They dump their bodies into piles and pretend they are the bodies of LTTE fighters.

LTTE overuns PTK junction; fighting reported up to Visuamadu

2009-03-08T06:11:00.000-04:00

Latest news from the battlefield indicates LTTE fighters have overun the PTK junction, with fighting reported all the way to Visuamadu. The 57th division, which is supposed to be avoiding combat and being held as a "reserve" force, was hit in attacks that have penetrated all the way through the 58th division to the secondary reserve lines. Its is not clear whether the LTTE plans to hold the territory, or if it is only a hit and run attack meant to damage the Sri Lankan forces. Reports indicate hundreds of Sri Lankan soldiers have been killed in the fighting. Meanwhile, the Sri Lankan government has promised to completely finish the LTTE within the next 72 hours. We shall report back in 3 days as to whether this has been accomplished or not.

Sri Lankan Army caught fabricating fake news

2009-03-07T21:04:00.001-05:00

In the last 3 days the Sri Lankan army website has been caught altering their news stories and fabricating "weapons finds". First let us look at the orignal photos that accompanied the article titled "More & More Astonishing Weapon Hauls Found" (http://army.lk/morenews.php?id=20556):

As the title suggested, these "astonishing weapons" include an old pair of boots, and a wooden toy gun made in 1920.

The second photo of "astonishing weapons" includes some old calendars, a broken belt buckle, and some CD-ROM disks. It is believed the LTTE planned to throw the CD-ROMs at advancing troops to grievously injure them. We still havent figured out how the broken belt buckle was going to be used. We can't rule out the possibilty that the LTTE may have been planning to use the old calendars to make crumpled up balls of paper, which they would then hurl at the government soldiers.

The third photo of astonishing weapons shows the same deadly CDs we already discussed, but with the addition of two old pairs of pants. The pants, being seperated from the persons wearing them, indicates the LTTE planned a surprise naked assault to shock and scare the advancing troops. The army is currently searching for the two matching naked fighters that were previously linked to these pants.

That concludes all of the "astonishing weapons" discovered for this article. It is quite embarrassing for the Sri Lankan government to publish such a ridiculous find under the title "astonishing weapons". But don't worry, because they know how to solve this problem. Three days later, THE SAME ARTICLE HAS NEW PHOTOS:

Three days after the article is published, photos of the most sophisticated weapons ever found on the battlefield are added next to the photo of old boots and a belt buckle. All of the missile launchers are sparkling clean and brand new, with fresh paint, as though they just got unloaded from Pakistan in Colombo. Each missile launcher has Tamil words painted neatly on them, to give the impression that they were clearly in the possession of the LTTE.

Think for a minute. If you wrote this article, and had to choose between putting the photo of the old boots and broken belt buckle, or putting the photo of the super sophisticated missile launchers never seen before in the battlefield, which one do you put? Well the Sri Lankan government chose to put the picture of the old boots - that is until they changed their mind 3 days later and decided to put something better.

When you see the video of the 13 missile launchers being found, we find further discrepancies. In one place they show the missile launchers being dug up from the dirt, wrapped in plastic. In another place they show the missile launchers being carried out of a secret bunker in the ground, completely unwrapped. In a third place they claim the missile launchers were found inside an oil tank, and they show the picture of the very visible oil tank on their website, which obviously isnt a place to hide anything of value.

Another point to note is that in the last 3 days, the Sri Lankan army has reused the same battle photos in three different articles. The pictures found in this article http://www.defence.lk/new.asp?fname=20090307_03 as well as this article http://www.defence.lk/new.asp?fname=20090306_03 are actually the same as the story of the Chalai infiltration (http://www.defence.lk/new.asp?fname=20090305_10). So they have made three articles out of a single event. Further, they show 6 bodies, but claim to have killed 100 LTTE fighters. "Amazingly" they have 100 guns to show, but only six bodies.

In a recent article titled "LTTE Arms, Ammunition & Explosives Recovered" (http://army.lk/morenews.php?id=20558), the government shows the following photo claiming it to be the recovering of LTTE weapons:

We are supposed to believe that this cardboard box has been burried under the ground for days, yet it is not damp, not dirty, and not damaged in any way. This is clear proof that many of the photos provided by the Sri Lankan army are fake. Click on this closeup below to see clearly that this box was never burried under the ground:

There are absolutely no signs of this box having ever been burried under the ground. A hole in the ground draws water and moisture, so a cardboard box burried under the ground will be completely damaged. Further it will be covered in mud and dirt, and there will be very clear signs that it had been burried. This photo shows the Sri Lankan army has dug a fake hole, and then took a photo of two soldiers pretending to take this box out from the hole. For those of you who have served in the Sri Lankan army, ask yourself if that yellow tape is military issued. Case closed, fraud proven.

Heavy fighting at Mankulam

2009-03-07T04:28:00.001-05:00

Reports from the battlefield indicate there has been heavy fighting at Olumadu, just outside Mankulam. Olumadu was captured by the Sri Lankan army last year on November 25th. Olumadu is located around 4 kilometers from Mankulam, on the Mullaitivu road.

55th Division to link with 58th Division

2009-03-07T00:37:00.000-05:00

After facing fierce resistance South of Chalai, the 55th division plans to avoid the coast by linking up with the 58th division North of PTK. Heavy fighting was reported yesterday in the area marked by a red circle. Though the army had claimed to be fighting in Palamattalan, our reports indicate they have not been able to cross the natural water inlet at Chalai, and have been calling in air strikes against the opposite shore for the last few days.

Sri Lankan Army pushed back to Chalai

2009-03-06T00:09:00.000-05:00

Unconfirmed reports state the Sri Lankan army has been pushed out of Palamattalan back to Chalai, across the natural water inlet. As a result of this, there have been plans to avoid the coast and link the 55th division with the 58 division in the north of PTK instead.

UN calls for an immediate ceasefire

2009-03-05T23:37:00.001-05:00

Yesterday the U.N. secretary general called for an immediate cease fire in Sri Lanka and said that thousands of civilians had been killed by the Sri Lankan government. He also stated that the UN has received reports that people have died from starvation in the no fire zone due to the government blocking food aid shipments. The report can be read on the UN website here:

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=30099&Cr=sri+lanka&Cr1=

The report concludes, "The Secretary-General today also urged the Government to begin “serious” efforts to resolve the underlying causes of the conflict."

The particular wording used has raised a lot of eyebrows. It seems the UN wants more than an end to the fighting, but wants a political solution for the Tamil people. It is obvious international opinion has completely shifted sides over the last two months. If the Sri Lankan government refuses to heed the UN, as well as countries such as the US and UK, there may be a solution forcibly impossed on them, much like was done in serbia, granting autonomy to the Bosnians.

It appears the killing of an ICRC worker and wounding of his son by government artillery shelling of the so-called "safe zone" has convinced the UN to change their position.

Current Situation in PTK

2009-03-04T19:46:00.000-05:00

As of now the LTTE still holds 90% of PTK. They will try to defend it, and if that proves to be impossible they will take positions across the lagoon and defend the bridges entering it. They had a lot of success stopping the advancement of the 55th division and 59th division across the water inlets, so they may try this with the remaining divisions as well.

The LTTE is still publishing a daily newspaper and broadcasting Voice of Tigers on the radio, so its not that things have completely broken down. If you see the videos of the civilian areas, vehicles are still moving in both directions as normal. A lot of what happens depends on how many civilians are actually in the area, because that also determines how many people will join the battle. If it is at the high end (400,000 civilians) then the LTTE has a much better chance to defend. If it is on the low end (the government's 60,000 civilians) then that makes it much harder, as there will be fewer people coming forward to join in the battle against the sinhalese invaders. It is impossible for anyone to have accurately counted, but I would guess the number is probably in the middle at 200,000.

There are no signs of panic in the civilian areas. There are still clear signs of civil order and discipline, indicating a large presence of LTTE cadres/police throughout the civilian areas.

The LTTE is also consciously withdrawing from areas, which is evident because no bodies are recovered by the government. If the LTTE positions had been overan, the dead bodies would be proof. But when the LTTE chooses to withdraw from an area over night, the government then steps in when the morning arrives. This is what happened at PTK junction.

There has been plenty of evidence showing that the LTTE can move by boat freely at will. Their recent attack near elephant pass at the rear of the 55th divisions shows they are not boxed in by a naval cordon as the government claims. If the LTTE wanted to completely vacate PTK and infiltrate into other parts of the island they could easily accomplish it, but they want to stay to defend the civilians to the best of their ability.

STF commandos kill rape victim's mother

2009-03-03T06:45:00.000-05:00

Two days ago there was a report that a 14 year old Tamil girl was raped in front of her mother by STF commandos in Baticaloa. Today the STF commandos returned to her house and finished their "job" by murdering the mother for having reported the incident to the police.

It is disgusting that this woman can tell the police what happened and then be left helpless as those same police come back to her house two days later and murder her. There is no way Tamils can live peacefully under the Sinhalese, as this is the treatment they are given day in and day out.

Two days ago this case was reported in many places including in the comments of this blog. The Sinhalese readers commented as usual "oh another fake rape case". That is how Sinhalese treat Tamils who have been victimized, by accusing them of being liars. Now each and every one of you Sinhalese "patriots" have this woman's blood on your hands. You are all guilty of this murder, because when she came to you with her story asking for justice, you accused her of being a liar and left her to be killed by your own police force.