Escalating killings, abductions: ‘Diplomatic civilities will not work with Colombo’

[TamilNet, Monday, 03 January 2011, 00:06 GMT]
Fatal attacks and abductions against educationalists, environmentalists, priests and youth activists in recent days in the Jaffna peninsula seriously question the wisdom of some sections of diplomats and politicians in the international community who sometimes back advocated unassuming participation of Tamils in ‘development’ and ‘reconciliation’ without resolving political and military questions. Diplomatic civilities as shown by the US ambassador Patricia A. Butenis in taking pride of what Rajapaksa government is achieving in resettlement, while making it a beneficiary of USAID, will not work with the kind of people at the helm of affairs in Colombo. The IC is once again demonstrating its impotency in handling the national question of Eezham Tamils without political solution and without removal of occupying military, a Jaffna based human rights activist told TamilNet Sunday.

On the New Year Eve, a killer squad went to the house of 28-year-old Ketheeswaran Thevarajah, who works in a post office in Vadamaraadchi.

The killers first threatened him to open his computer and show the photographs stored in it. Mr. Ketheeswaran was an environmental activist.

He has covered the environmental damages that were taking place in Kudaththanai area in Vadamaraadchi where indiscriminate sand scooping by SL government supporting EPDP destroyed the sand dunes, and caused seawater coming in. The computer of Ketheeswaran had many photos taken by him in this regard.

The wife of Mr. Ketheeswaran, sensing that the squad has come to kill her husband, held him tightly to prevent him get shot. But, the killers through a gap of her grip passed a bullet into his head. Mrs. Ketheeswaran has given a statement on the circumstances of her husband’s killing.

Ketheeswaran died on the same day after being transferred to Jaffna Teaching Hospital from Manthikai hospital. While he was at Manthikai hospital, some key operatives of the EPDP were seen spying in the hospital locality.

According to observers, the EPDP, as in some earlier occasions, has come out with verbal condemnation of the killing. But, informed circles say that the involvement of the EPDP in any killing is always after getting specific permission or instruction from the SLA high command in Jaffna.

In the case of the killing of the chief priest of Changkaanai Saiva temple, the SL colonial commander Maj. Gen. Hathurusinghe conceded the involvement of SLA gun, but accused former LTTE cadres now conniving with the SL military for spoiling the SL military and borrowing guns for such incidents. According to Hathurusinghe, Tuesday, abductions are not possible in Jaffna, as there is no LTTE threat now.

Meanwhile, India will deploy fighter jet squadrens for the first time in South India and in Andaman Islands, to face arial or sea threats from non-state actors such as the Laskar-e-Toiba (LeT) and the LTTE, said an Indian journalist S. Vekat Narayan, citing Indian Air Force Chief, P.K. Barbora, Wednesday.

The Indian fighter aircraft squadrens are deployed in Sulur in Coimbatore and in Bangalore, besides the deployment of four to five ships in the eastern Arabian sea, near Laccadives.

According to the Indian Air Force Chief cited, the Indian Home Ministry suspects the regrouping of the LTTE.

Both New Delhi and Colombo, grooming their military for different purposes of their own, find strategic partnership in citing LTTE as a reason, and thus have created space for killing and silencing Eezham Tamils who love their land and genuinely care for its requirements.

Chronology: