Missing Tamil journalist: octogenarian parents urge international investigation

[TamilNet, Sunday, 05 April 2015, 23:09 GMT]
Eight years have passed since 37-year-old Tamil journalist Subramaniam Ramachandran was arrested by the occupying Sinhala military at Kalikai Junction in Vadamaraadchi, Jaffna. One month after the SL military ‘abduction’, France-based media watchdog, Reporters sans frontières (RSF) stated in March 2007 that it was in a position to affirm that the Sri Lankan military participated in the arrest of journalist Mr Ramachandran, who was the Vadamaraadchi regional correspondent for newspapers Valampuri and Yaazh Thinakkural. His 85-year-old father and 83-year-old mother are still languishing without knowing what had happened to their son. Ramachandran's nine and twelve-year-old children have been expecting the return of their father for 8 years, the aged grandparents said in a video interview to TamilNet urging global attention on the plight of their missing son.
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Tamils boycott Trinco sittings of domestic commission on missing persons

[TamilNet, Saturday, 28 February 2015, 17:52 GMT]
The first day sittings of the Presidential Commission on Missing Persons commenced at Kuchchave'li Divisional Secretariat auditorium Saturday morning. Only four or five Tamil complainants gave evidence as the majority of Tamil complainants boycotted the sitting with the demand of international investigations into the complaints. The Tamils who boycotted the sitting on Saturday were seen in front of the Kuchchave'li Divisional Secretariat, holding placards written in Tamil. They were demanding that the victims should be heard by a UN team and not by any commission appointed by the government in Colombo.
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Victims demand immediate action against Colombo's squad in Ampaa'rai

[TamilNet, Thursday, 19 February 2015, 11:02 GMT]
The families of forcefully disappeared Tamil victims in Ampaa'rai district have demanded immediate arrest and action against Karuna Group paramilitary operative, K. Pushpakumar alias Iniyabarathy, who was the Ampaa'rai district coordinator of Mahinda Rajapaksa's UPFA and a member of the Eastern Provincial Council. After the entire Ampaa'rai district was brought under the control of the occupying Sri Lankan military in 2007, more than 200 Tamil youth have been reported missing in the district after arrest or abduction by Sri Lanka military operated squads. Iniyabarathy has been the key paramilitary operative operating a squad for the genocidal SL military in the district. Iniyabarathy is blamed for the assassination of veteran Tamil journalist Aiyathurai Nadesan in May 2004. Incumbent SL president Maithiripala Sirisena was also having a hand in the paramilitary operations in the East.
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Missing persons' families vow to step up protests in North-East

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 18 February 2015, 11:28 GMT]
Carrying the clothes and photographs of the Tamil youth, who are reported missing after arrest or abductions by the occupying Sri Lankan forces in Batticaloa district, the family members of the missing persons staged a day-long fast in front of Gandhi park in Batticaloa city on Monday. After the entire district of Batticaloa was brought under the control of the Sri Lankan military in 2007, around 300 Tamil youth have been reported missing till 2010, the organisers said. The white-van squads operated by the genocidal military occupying the Tamil homeland have been behind most of the abductions.
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Protests erupt in Jaffna against continued militarisation, unemployment

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 21 January 2015, 23:44 GMT]
The owners of five houses and lands that have been illegally seized by the Sri Lankan military for more than two decades at Koozhaavadi, situated on Maanippaay Road at Aanaik-koaddai in Jaffna protested on Wednesday against the attempt by Colombo to transform their lands into State property with the motive of permanently sustaining a war-time military camp, which was notorious for extra-judicial interrogations, abductions and disappearances since 1996. At the same time, unemployed graduates staged a protest in front of Jaffna District Secretariat demanding jobs.
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Genocidal Sri Lanka continues abduction-styled arrests in North

[TamilNet, Saturday, 26 April 2014, 15:35 GMT]
Around four people are being abducted on a daily basis in North by the occupying Sri Lankan military intelligence operatives clad in civil as ‘Terrorist Investigation Division’ of the Sri Lankan Police. The abductees are taken to interrogations cells operated in each district. Most of the victims are taken to interrogation camp situated in Vavuniyaa, paramilitary sources in Vavuniyaa said. Many of the families of victims avoid media focus due to the prevailing threat and intimidation by the occupying SL military. One of the abductions reported in Jaffna this week was carried out by armed men who came in a white-van to Karaveddi in Vadamaraadchi South West on Wednesday night.
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Colombo stages smokescreen operations to divert global focus on crimes: TNA councillor

[TamilNet, Friday, 11 April 2014, 18:26 GMT]
The so-called revival or regrouping of the LTTE and the arrests made during the sessions in Geneva, targeting of rights activists, and now claiming the episode over by killing three alleged ex LTTE members under suspicious circumstances, looks like a political smokescreen operation carefully managed by the Sri Lankan military intelligence, blames TNA councillor and former parliamentarian M.K. Shivajilingam. The reaction comes after the Sri Lankan military claimed that it had slain three LTTE members who were re-organising the movement. The killings seem to have taken place in Nedungkea’ni in Mulaiththeevu district. But, the dead bodies were taken to Sinhala colony Padaviya division in Anuradhapura district. No independent journalists have been allowed to witness the episode or those slain at the claimed site where the cordon and search operation had taken place, he said.
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SL military detains 28 Tamils in 2 weeks

[TamilNet, Thursday, 27 March 2014, 11:00 GMT]
The occupying Sri Lankan military, launching house-to-house search in the North and East has targeted former LTTE members, has detained at least 28 Tamils within the last two weeks. The Sinhala military, unfolding a concocted scene of regrouping of the LTTE, initially ‘abducted’ two persons in Pazhai on charges of distributing leaflets and later arrested a mother and daughter on 13th March in Tharumapuram in Ki'linochchi. Several arbitrary ‘arrests’ have been made since then. While pro-Sri Lankan groups were projecting so-called 'LTTE terrorism’ as the key issue in Geneva as a smokescreen to deviate the global focus, the SL military intelligence operatives have been deployed in an unprecedented terror operation after 2009, as a tactic to support their ‘Geneva strategy’, Tamil rights activists in Ki'linochchi said.
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Abductions, arrests spread to Jaffna

[TamilNet, Friday, 21 March 2014, 17:43 GMT]
More than 10 Sri Lankan military operatives, who came in a white-van and motorbikes Thursday night abducted a 40-year-old father of three at Kottaavaththai in Ka'rana-vaay North in Vadamaraadchi. The abduction took place at gunpoint as neighbours gathered at the site in defence of the victim. At the same time, a 35-year-old fisherman was ‘abducted’ at Vettilaik-kea'ni in Vadamaraadchi East. The military operatives gave a note in Sinhala to his wife stating that the Sri Lankan Terrorist Investigation Division (TID) has detained him, news sources in Jaffna said.
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Navi Pillay urged to launch international investigation on missing persons

[TamilNet, Monday, 20 January 2014, 12:07 GMT]
Stating the recent attacks and threats against Tamil activists in North and East who were in the forefront in the protests reprenting the victims of enforced disappearances, the committees representing the interests of the families and relatives of the disappeared persons in the North and East, on Monday urged UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Ms Navaneethem Pillay to appoint a Sri Lanka specific international independent UN working group to investigate enforced disappearances and abductions that have taken place in the North and East of the island.
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Armed men abduct son of leading civil activist in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Thursday, 26 December 2013, 11:49 GMT]
Four masked men carrying handguns have abducted 22-year-old son of the leading fisheries society activist Kanthavanam Sooriyakumaran in the early hours of Thursday at Inparuddi, Point-Pedro, in Jaffna district, according to the relatives of the victim, Thamilamuthan Sooriyakumaran. The abduction took place while Mr Thamilamuthan was alone at his sister’s home, as the family had gone to Vadamaraadchi East to take part in the memorial event held for their children and others who had perished in 2004 tsunami tragedy. Mr Thamilamuthan has already complained to his family and friends that Sri Lankan military intelligence operatives were closely following him during the past few days. His father, Mr Kanthavanam, is the president of the Federation of fisheries societies in the Northern Province.
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Jayalalithaa voices against Indian complicity, but considers Eezham Tamils as ‘minority’

[TamilNet, Saturday, 21 December 2013, 21:35 GMT]
India's “insensitive policy” and “overt act of defence cooperation with Sri Lanka”, which totally ignores the impact it may have upon not just the sentiments of the people of Tamil Nadu, but the direct effect on the right to livelihood of the Tamil Nadu fishermen, said Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu Ms J Jayalalithaa in a strongly worded letter to Indian Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh on Saturday. Indian Coast Guard is allowed to participate in a marine defence exercise and has deputed ships, officers and men to Trincomalee, to participate in an exercise, despite repeated calls from Tamil Nadu to issue a clear policy direction that the Ministry of Defence should not provide training, or engage in any form of co-operation with the Sri Lankan Armed Forces that were responsible for rights violations against “Tamil minority” in the island Ms Jayalalithaa said.
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Asylum seeker tells UK Court of Colombo sanctioned abduction, torture

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 11 December 2013, 23:08 GMT]
The Immigration and Asylum Chamber of UK's Upper Tribunal, during hearings of an appeal by a Sri Lankan ex-Police officer who sought asylum in the UK claiming imminent threat of persecution, refused asylum to the appellant on the grounds that there was plausible evidence that the officer knowingly participated in war-crimes, and therefore, is excluded from the protections of the Refugee Convention. The Police officer, named "Mr. AS" in the proceedings to preserve anonymity, and believed to be a Sinhala officer, told the courts that he and 11 other members of a special unit of the police took part in white-van abductions of Tamils suspected of having links with the LTTE, and that his unit operated from abandoned buildings and received direct orders from Deputy Inspector General (DIG), a high level Police authority.
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Aussaresses, Abbott, Rajapaksas, birds of the same feather on torture?

[TamilNet, Friday, 06 December 2013, 01:31 GMT]
While Australian Premier, Tony Abbott, whose recent statements on condoning the allegations of torture by Sri Lanka security forces, was condemned by international rights groups, European media reported that one of top French ex-military officers, Aussaresses, who confessed to coldbloodedly torturing and summarily executing dozens of prisoners during France's brutal colonial war in Algeria decades earlier, and who defended his actions, passed away this week. He was 95. He was stripped of his medals, and was convicted later in France. Allegations of rape and torture are also rampant in Sri Lanka under the rule of Rajapakse-family, with UK charity Freedom From Torture documenting more than 60 cases of torture by Sri Lanka security forces, and Human Rights Watch documented 62 cases of sexual violence involving the security forces, noting that rape is widespread and systemic.
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TID operatives harass Thinakkural journalists in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 01 October 2013, 10:22 GMT]
The Chief Editor of Yarl Thinakkural, Mr Atputhananthan, has complained to the regional commissioner of the Sri Lankan Human Rights Commission in Jaffna on Monday that individuals claiming to be from the ‘Terrorist Investigation Division’ were intimidating two of the journalists in the paper, Mr Punitharuban Vinslow and Mr Tharmabalan Vinojith of the paper. “During the last two weeks the individuals claiming to be from the TID have been visiting this office and trying to collect personal data relating to above named two journalists. In the absence of of any official request and hence the inability to obtain any data, they are now engaged in collecting such information from the localities where they live,” the chief editor of Yarl Thinakkural has stated in his letter to the SL HRC.
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SL military machinates caste, anti-diaspora violence in Jaffna villages

[TamilNet, Monday, 01 April 2013, 07:39 GMT]
An SL Military intelligence backed attack that took place in a Marriage Hall at Aavarangkaal in Puththoor, Jaffna, on last Wednesday and Thursday, shows to what extent the occupying Sinhala military has determined to engineer caste and anti-diaspora violence in select rural areas of Jaffna Peninsula to ultimately make Eezham Tamils weakened as a nation in the island, news sources in Jaffna said. The Marriage Hall that was preparing for a marriage function and its manager who is a retired Village Officer, were brutally attacked by a gang of youth organized by the occupying Sinhala military and its collaborators in Jaffna. The reason for the attack is said to be a publication coming from the diaspora in the UK that was stocked at the Marriage Hall for release. The publication was interpreted as a talk on caste and false accusation against SL military.
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Blake, architect of Tamil tragedy, spectator to genocide

[TamilNet, Friday, 22 February 2013, 22:22 GMT]
Blinded by the 9/11 terror and impelled by the perceived need for swift action against "terrorism," the US-led International Community, made two serious miscalculations in Sri Lanka war: By allowing unhindered space for Sri Lanka's final military thrust, they misjudged Sinhala society's willing capacity to inflict bestial, savage crimes on fellow human beings; and the IC's belief that, once the Tigers are eliminated Rajapakses will “fill in the gaps” and provide an acceptable political solution, has been shown as embarrassingly flawed. Now, as the IC savors the dystopian-monster they created, the need to whitewash the atrocities by side-stepping accountability, and to focus on development, appear to be driving IC's actions. Tamils, now left defenseless, hold Ambassador Blake, as the key US official who shaped the US policy on Sri Lanka's war, responsible for the tragedy.
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Navi Pillay pre-concludes ‘procedures’ to adopt by UNHRC process

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 12 February 2013, 22:46 GMT]
While the US officials, who visited the island of Sri Lanka last month, were talking of tabling a ‘procedural resolution’ to approach affairs of the island at the March sessions of the UNHRC in Geneva, the report that has come from the office of Ms Navi Pillai (OHCHR) on Monday outlined what procedures have to be taken to further the processes started with last year’s resolution at the UNHRC. When the US-tabled resolution, watered down by India and passed last year, was fundamentally responsible for the acceleration of structural genocide of Eezham Tamils as witnessed in the course of the year, any further ‘procedural’ enhancement of the resolution is like decorating the rat’s tail with a silk tassel, as the saying in Tamil goes (eli vaalukku padduk kungncham), commented human rights activists in Jaffna.
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Two rebel leaders reported killed in Chechnya

[TamilNet, Saturday, 26 January 2013, 23:57 GMT]
Russian security forces claim to have killed two key Chechen rebel leaders, along with nine other rebels, BBC reported on Friday. The two commanders, brothers Khusein and Muslim Gakayev, were considered the regions “most wanted men”, were reportedly killed during a clash with the security forces. The killings follow a “counter-terrorist operation” that has been on in the South of Chechnya since Wednesday, UPI cited Moscow backed Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov, who is largely considered by Chechen nationalists as a quisling.
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Gotabhaya exonerates US-refused SL general

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 22 January 2013, 16:48 GMT]
Genocidal Sri Lanka’s Defence Secretary and presidential sibling Gotabhaya Rajapaksa on Sunday tried to exonerate a Sinhala military general, Maj. Gen. Sudantha Ranasinghe, who was refused admission into a US military training programme on grounds that he had served the war-crimes-accused 53 Division of the SL military. The said general, recently appointed as SL Military Secretary, had not commanded the 53 Division or any other fighting formations, but he was only ‘Commissioner General of Rehabilitation’ taking over a state-run project to ‘rehabilitate’ ex-LTTE cadres in Feb 2010, Gotabhaya said, accusing the US for its blunder in the denial of opportunity to a senior officer of a friendly country to enhance his knowledge, Colombo defence writers reported on Monday.
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