Mannar women write to President

[TamilNet, Sunday, 08 April 2001, 12:28 GMT]
"There are many laws and schemes for the protection of women. Appropriate action is not taken against those flouting them. On the contrary, at the highest rungs of the Government, such obvious offences are even denied, disowned and covered up. This creates in the public mistrust in the rule of law and becomes an encouragement for the criminals. The Government, instead of ensuring the safety of the public, is interested in protecting the security forces", the Mannar Women's Front said in a memorandum sent to the President Sunday.
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Tamil women have no faith in President - MP

[TamilNet, Saturday, 07 April 2001, 11:30 GMT]
"The Tamil women of this country have no faith in the President or the government because there is no justice when wrongs are perpetrated on them by the armed forces. The recent actions of the President are encouraging the army to further indulge in sexual atrocities against Tamil women. Although she is a woman the President does not bother to take even minimal action against the perpetrators of murder and rape. The President applauds the security forces and does what she can to cover up their heinous activities against the Tamil people. Sexual atrocities have been committed on Tamil women in Mannar many times in the past. But only the 19 March incident has come to light", said Mr. Selvam Adaikkalanathan Member of Parliament for the Vanni, speaking Saturday at the protest fast at the St. MaryÌs Church in Mannar town. More than three thousand people from many parts of the Mannar district took part in the fast to protest against the brutal rape and torture of two Tamil women in custody by the Sri Lanka Navy and the Counter Subversive Unit of the Police on 19 March.
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Jaffna MP lambastes Colombo's duplicity

[TamilNet, Thursday, 05 April 2001, 18:32 GMT]
Sri Lanka's Deputy Minister for Defence, Gen. Anuruddha Ratwatte, flatly denied that the security forces had raped two women in detention in Mannar, interrupting the All Ceylon Tamil Congress MP for Jaffna, Mr. Vinayagamoorthy, who was on his feet in the Parliament Thursday speaking on the destruction of Tamil temples in the north and east and the rape of women in Mannar. "The statement of the Deputy Minister of Defence is tantamount to a gross intimidation of the judicial process. It shows that the government is more eager to justify such atrocities by its security forces than it is to bring the perpetrators of such crimes to book", Mr. Vinayagamoorthy told TamilNet Thursday evening.
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Trinco lawyers condemn Mannar rape

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 03 April 2001, 15:04 GMT]
"Lawyers cannot be mere onlookers when injustices are done to civilians by law enforcement authorities," said the President of the Trincomalee Bar Association Mr.Arumugam Jegasothy presiding over the special meeting convened Tuesday morning to pass a resolution condemning the brutal and beastly crimes committed on two Tamil women in Mannar by law enforcement personnel when the victims were under their custody.
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Government attitudes may contribute to rapes -Sampanthan

[TamilNet, Sunday, 01 April 2001, 20:39 GMT]
"It would be pertinent to raise the question as to whether pugnacious statements made by persons in high positions and the expressed determination of the Government to continue with the war, contributes towards the unleashing of brutality such as rape and torture on unarmed Tamil civilians particularly Tamil females. It would appear that some service personnel think that if a Tamil is implicated even falsely with the LTTE any crime can be committed against such Tamil person" said the Secretary General of the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF), Mr.Rajavarothiam Sampanthan, in a letter to President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunge.
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Mannar DMO report confirms torture and rape

[TamilNet, Sunday, 01 April 2001, 17:27 GMT]
The District Medical Officer of Mannar in his medical report to the Mannar court this weekend on Wijikala Nanthakumar, the pregnant woman who were arrested on 19 March by the Counter Subversive Unit, said that there were abrasions on her genitals and that there was bleeding in her vagina during examination. Dr. G.Somasekeram, the Mannar DMO who submitted the report on Saturday after examining Wijikala Nanthakumar on 30 March said, "From the history given by the subject and (from) examination I come to the conclusion that Nanthan Wijikala was tortured and raped".
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Bishop protests Police, Navy rapes and murders

[TamilNet, Sunday, 01 April 2001, 03:08 GMT]
“The atrocities of the Sri Lanka Navy personnel in Mannar district are growing bad to worse daily. All my efforts to get the Sri Lanka Navy to respect the basic human rights of the people so affected by the prolonged war are proving futile. I have again appealed to the Commander General of the Sri Lankan Navy for redress in the name of the civil public of Mannar,” Rt.Rev. Rayappu Joseph Bishop of Mannar said in a statement issued Saturday.
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Batticaloa undergrads condemn state terrorism, rape

[TamilNet, Friday, 30 March 2001, 17:28 GMT]
More than a thousand students of the Eastern University in Batticaloa Friday staged a protest against the rape and torture of Sivamani and Wijikala, the two women who were tortured and raped in the custody of the Counter Subversive Unit (CSU) of the Sri Lankan Police in Mannar on 19 March. The student protestors condemned the attitude of the Women's rights groups in the north and east, which, according to them, deliberately choose to ignore the atrocities perpetrated on women like Ida Kamalitta, Koneswary, Sivamani and Wijikala.
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Mannar CSU rapes pregnant woman

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 28 March 2001, 18:07 GMT]
"Wijikala was screaming inside the building. I heard her pleading 'I have nothing to do with the Tigers. I am a family woman. Please do not do this to me'. Then some CSU men came out and told me that they were forcing Wijikala to have sex with them and threatened to rape me as well. One of the men tried to strip my clothes. When they saw that my son was asleep on my lap, a Policeman dragged him away into one of the buildings in the CSU compound as I begged them not to hurt him. Two men then pinned me down on the van's floor while another stripped me and raped me. I was screaming and pleading when a Policeman put his foot on my mouth to stifle me. Inside the building they forced Wijikala, who was standing naked, to strip my underwear. I was hung upside down in a knot from a pole placed between two tables, with my hands and feet tied. Then the men in the room poked our genitals and tortured us until dawn", said Sivamani Sinnathamby Weerakon, the young mother of three who was arrested by the Counter Subversive Unit (CSU) of the Police in Mannar on 13 March. Wijikala Nanthan, 22, of Alavetty in Jaffna who was arrested with Sivamani, is pregnant.
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Mannar judge strikes at ER abuse

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 27 March 2001, 06:16 GMT]
The Mannar district judge, M.H.M Ajmeer, Monday ordered that two Sri Lanka Navy personnel, accused in the murder of a civilian, be kept for fourteen days in fiscal custody, rejecting a submission on behalf of the Navy that they (the SLN personnel) should be allowed to remain in the care of the armed forces until the conclusion of the investigations because Sri Lanka's Emergency Regulations (ER) provide for considering 'wrongs' committed by Sri Lankan security personnel under 'exceptional judicial circumstances'. The judge observed in his order that although arresting and detaining persons by Sri Lankan security forces personnel are legal under Emergency Regulations there is no provision anywhere in the ER that allows security forces personnel to cause the death of any person in their custody.
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SLA operation in Mannar south, three missing

[TamilNet, Monday, 26 March 2001, 14:30 GMT]
The Sri Lanka army is on a deep penetration operation in the jungles and coast in the southern extreme of Mannar, which is contiguous with the Puttalam district's border, sources said. Mrs. Philippu Calistus 40, who came to Mannar town Monday from the interior jungle village of Neelamadu in sthern Mannar said that three persons, including her husband Philippu Calistus Cruz, 45, who went to the coastal village of Pookkulam on the Puttalam-Mannar border on Saturday 24 March where hundreds of troops had moved in, have gone missing.
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Tigers extend cease-fire, warn Sri Lanka over attacks

[TamilNet, Thursday, 22 March 2001, 11:44 GMT]
The Liberation Tigers Thursday extended their unilateral cease-fire for another month, till April 24, but warned they would resume armed operations if the Sri Lankan government refused to reciprocate and continued military operations against the LTTE. Pointing out that it has not launched any offensive operations either in the north-east or the southern provinces or capital, Colombo, during the three months of its unilateral cease-fire, the LTTE said in a statement that 133 of its fighters had been killed in attacks by the Sri Lankan military in the same period.
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Young mother stripped, tortured by Mannar CSU

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 20 March 2001, 18:12 GMT]
A young mother arrested by the Counter Subversive Unit (CSU) of the Mannar Police Monday night was stripped naked, assaulted and tortured by five men in her cell, sources said. The woman's five-year-old child is also detained with her at the CSU. The young woman, Sivamani Weerakon, was arrested from the Aasika Lodge in Uppukkulam, a suburb of the Mannar town. Her husband was away in Vavuniya at the time of her arrest, the sources said. Policemen from the CSU had arrested her and her child around 11 p.m. Monday night. They had also arrested Wijayakala Nanthan, another young woman who was at the lodge. Both are being held at the CSU in Mannar town.
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Want of food said afflicting war traumatised children

[TamilNet, Sunday, 18 March 2001, 18:58 GMT]
"How can a traumatized child be rehabilitated psychologically when there is bombing and shelling daily in the war zone?" asked Mr.S.Subramaniam, Director of Education North East Provincial Council speaking Sunday at a meeting in Trincomalee town for officials of the Provincial Department of Social Services trained under a counseling program sponsored by Save the Children Norway (SCN) to rehabilitate children traumatized by war in the northeast. " We do not know how traumatized children in the war torn areas of the northeast are fed. Ninety percent of the children here would be psychologically sound if they are properly fed before they reach the age of 5. If they aren't fed properly before 5 they cannot be rehabilitated psychologically", said Mr. S.M Croos North East Provincial Director of Social Services in his address.
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Official apathy, malnutrition plague Trinco refugees

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 14 March 2001, 21:30 GMT]
(NEWS FEATURE) Over 75 percent of refugee children under five living in conflict zones of the northeastern province suffer from malnutrition, according to preliminary surveys by government and NGO officials presented at a three-day workshop inaugurated Wednesday morning at Trincomalee Town Hall under the auspices of Sri Lanka's Ministry of Planning and Implementation. The surveys indicate that the majority of mothers among the displaced in these regions suffer from malnutrition during pregnancy and after childbirth.
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SLN punishes Mannar fishermen again

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 14 March 2001, 17:19 GMT]
Five fishermen from the Mannar town’s coastal suburb of Panangkatti Kottil who were severely beaten up by the Sri Lanka Navy sailors were remanded until 27 March by Mannar district judge M.H.M Ajmeer Wednesday. The fishermen were produced before the judge by the Counter Subversive Unit (CSU) of the Police this evening. The Navy had assaulted and arrested them in the sea off Mannar town early morning Tuesday, seizing the three boats in which they had set out; accusing them of possessing more fuel than what is permitted under the unwritten restrictions of the Vanni embargo. The five men were bruised all over, with broken skin, swellings and contusions.
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For a few litres more....

[TamilNet, Sunday, 11 March 2001, 14:22 GMT]
The Sri Lanka Navy barred more than eighty fishermen in Pallimunai, a coastal suburb of Mannar town, from setting out to sea since Thursday 8 March for taking in their boats 10 litres of kerosene above the quantity permitted under the unwritten restrictions of the Vanni embargo. A spokesman for the Pallimunai fishermen said Sunday that they had got special permission from the Police for taking the additional 10 litres per boat as they were going to fish in the seas near Iranaithivu and Naachchikudah, more than forty sea miles north of Mannar.
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Saw navy men strangling Uthayakumar -daughter

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 07 March 2001, 17:34 GMT]
"I saw the soldiers beating up my father with a club and he cried out in pain. My brother and I cried when we saw this. Our father told us that he was being taken to the Tharapuram Navy camp and asked us to come there in the morning. The soldiers then took him away. We saw our father being walked down the street later around 10.30 p.m." said Anusiya Uthayakumar, 16, the daughter of the man who was allegedly beaten and strangled to death by Navy personnel who arrested him on the night of February 28, in her evidence in the Mannar court Wednesday. Answering a question by Inspector of Police (Mannar crime branch) S.Abeyawardena during her evidence, Anusiya said that she also saw the naval ratings strangling her father while they were beating him up.
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SLN clubbed, murdered father of seven -MP

[TamilNet, Sunday, 04 March 2001, 22:01 GMT]
The murder of Kandaiah Uthayakumar, father of seven, who was arrested Wednesday 28 February by the Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) in Savalakaadu in Mannar should be investigated and the persons responsible should be brought to book, said Mr.Selvam Adaikalanathan, MP for the Vanni, in an appeal sent to the Sri Lankan President Sunday. He told TamilNet that the SLN personnel had surrounded and searched Uthayakumar's house around 9 p.m. Wednesday. They had accused Uthayakumar of smuggling banned commodities to the Vanni and assaulted him in front of his crying children.
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Collusion, apathy said skewing medical legal reports

[TamilNet, Sunday, 25 February 2001, 22:02 GMT]
"There is inordinate delay in getting medical reports on rape and torture from the Batticaloa hospital" said Suganthi Kandasamy, state counsel, addressing a seminar on Community awareness and aspects of the law Sunday in the eastern town. She noted that it is very difficult to prosecute cases involving torture and rape in Batticaloa because medical legal reports are either not available or in some important cases, even the preliminary examination of the victim is not done by medical officers assigned for the purpose at the Batticaloa hospital.
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