2ND LEAD (Adds video)

Relatives of detainees expecting post-Geneva release get no answer

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 02 April 2013, 23:35 GMT]
Following the recent UNHRC process in Geneva, hundreds of kith and kin of the missing people in the occupied country of Eezham Tamils have again started visiting the Sri Lankan military camps, the so-called human rights commission offices and the offices of the Tamil politicians to locate the details of their loved ones. Some reports that appeared in the Tamil press in recent days, citing information obtained in Geneva by the Colombo-based Committee for Investigation of Disappeared, provided a list of 35 names saying that a section of Tamil prisoners, whose whereabouts were hitherto unknown, were to be produced in the courts by the Sri Lankan authorities. However, none of the relatives of the 35 names leaked in the report have managed to locate details of their missed ones, human rights activists in Jaffna told TamilNet.

The media reports had stated that the Colombo-based Committee for Investigation of Disappeared had obtained the list from a document allegedly produced by a Sri Lankan government outfit in Geneva.

The document was allegedly part of a move by Colombo to ‘convince’ the human rights stakeholders in the Geneva process that Colombo was doing ‘something’ in the direction of releasing those who are being detained at undisclosed locations.

In the meantime, NSSP politician Sunderam Mahendran, who is a director of the Committee for Investigation of Disappeared, said that he had no information of anyone having managed to locate the whereabouts of those mentioned in the list of 35 names.

While it turned out that the report was part of the annual drama staged by the SL government during the UNHRC sessions, with the USA and India in complicity, a senior Tamil parliamentarian in Jaffna, Appapillai Vinayagamoorthy, held a press meeting in Jaffna on Monday stating that he had no faith in any process expecting the Colombo regime to produce the details of the detained Tamils.

“The only way to establish the truth and conclude the fate of thousands of missing is to conduct an independent international investigation,” Mr Vinayagamoorthy said.

The TNA parliamentarian said that he had personally witnessed people who had handed over their family members to the SL military later being told that there was no information on their whereabouts.

“Even a university academic, a mother, who handed over her son and daughter to the SL military at Ki'linochchi, has been told by the same SL military now that there was no information on them,” the TNA parliamentarian said addressing journalists in Jaffna.

Following is a video recorded this week at Ki'linochchi where many mothers like Rajakrishnan Sarasvathy, have been again visiting various offices seeking information on their loved ones.



Mr Sarasvathy, from Aanaivizhunthaan of Karaichchi division in Ki'linochchi district, seeks the whereabouts of her daughter, Rohini, reported missing in 2012, more than 8 months after she was released from SL military detention in 2011.

Ms Rohini, after her release from SL military detention, had opted for a vocational training programme for 6 months at Kanakaampikaipuram in Ki'linochchi.

The victim was reported missing at Thirunakar where she was staying with her friend, according to her mother, who shows the ID card provided to her daughter by the International Organization for Migration (IOM). She also shows a photo of the victim with her friend.