Archive for the 'Intimidations/Murders' Category
Thursday, November 19th, 2009
Courtesy: Daily News
Wasantha Ramanayake
The Supreme Court yesterday refused Express Newspapers Ltd leave to appeal from a judgement from the Civil Appeal Court.
Appellant-defendants Express Newspapers Ltd, Veerakesari illustrated weekly Editor S. Nadaraja and V. Warja appealed against the judgement of the Provincial Civil Appeal Court that affirmed the judgement of the District Court awarding Rs. 50 million to TULF Leader V. Anandasangaree.
They sought to set aside the judgement of the Civil Appeal Court.
TULF Leader V. Anandasangaree filed the defamation case in the District Court claiming 10 million rupees damages from the respondent-defendants.
Anandasangaree sued the appellant-defendants for an article published in the Veerakesari illustrated weekly dated April 8, 2004 was malicious and defamatory of him.
The Bench comprised Chief Justice Asoka de Silva, Justice Jagath Balapatabendi and Justice P.A. Ratanayake PC.
http://www.dailynews.lk/2009/11/19/news22.asp
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Sunday, September 7th, 2008
Courtesy: Asian Tribune
Sun, 2008-09-07 02:33
By Ravindra Wickremasinghe
Demoralize the enemy from within by surprise, terror, sabotage and assassination. This is the only way to win a seemingly unwinnable war - Anon
While most Sri Lankans buoyed by the continuous victories in the battlefield are not paying attention, the LTTE is likely to carryout a series of morale boosting assassinations to wipe-out the Southern leadership and thereby regain the upper-hand in this fight to the finish. (more…)
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Saturday, November 18th, 2006
Courtesy: Tamilweek.com
By D.B.S. Jeyaraj
Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) President Veerasingham Anandasangaree was awarded the prestigious 2006 UNESCO - Madanjeet Singh prize for the promotion of Tolerance and Non - Violence on Thursday November 16th.
The prize - giving ceremony at the UNESCO house in Paris was held as usual on Nov 16th observed annually as International day for tolerance .
UNESCO Deputy - Director General Marcio Barbosa handed over the prize comprising a sculpture, certificate and cheque for US $ 100,000 as honorarium to Anandasangaree amidst thunderous applause.
“I will cherish this moment as long as I live” said the TULF leader.
Loyal TULF supporters, family members and well - wishers from different European countries and Canada were in France to be present at the function where the 73 year old veteran Tamil Politician was honoured. (more…)
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Thursday, June 29th, 2006
June 29, 2006 at 9:59 pm · Filed under Human Rights
The University Teachers for Human Rights (Jaffna) has once again come out with a damning report (Information Bulletin No. 40, 15th June 2006 “Flight, Displacement and the Two-fold Reign of Terror”) on the escalation of conflict between in the North East between the LTTE and the Sri Lankan Government. Refugees are crossing the raging seas to India, and many have lost their lives in this process. Civilian suffering has jumped with the Government failing to control its security forces in the light of LTTE provocations. The 12,000 words report is a testimony of human suffering emanating from a conflict in which blood letting is a daily ritual. Human values have fallen flat and people live in constant fear of death. The peace process almost in tatters.
It goes to the credit of the report that it bluntly exposes both the LTTE and the security forces for paying scant regard for human rights. Under the subheading “LTTE attacks on Mr. Anandasangary’s followers” the report states:
“While those who championed the peace process that is now in a state of collapse have been pointing the finger at ‘paramilitaries’ and ‘spoilers’, they are blind to the old disease that made the peace process unworkable from the start – the LTTE’s constant targeting of political opponents. No one has called the respected democratic politician Mr. Anandasangary a paramilitary. Now with the LTTE’s own party the TNA in the doldrums as time ordained, the LTTE appears determined to eliminate Anandasangary’s loyalists.
About 7.00 PM at his Wellawatte residence in Colombo on 10th June, the LTTE shot dead Mr. Ramachandran (67) brother of Mr. Anandasangary’s former secretary, Satchidanandam, who too has moved out of Jaffna. Ramachandran’s daughter is married to Jeeva of the EPDP. Thangarasa Thangamuhunthan who is an Anandasangary loyalist and former member of the Jaffna Municipal Council that had defied the LTTE on the opening of the Public Library was summoned by two LTTE men who came on a motor cycle and shot at his home in Moolai, Jaffna. He was warded at Jaffna Hospital.”
Then the report describes how people are fleeing Trincomalee. This is elaborated by the story of one Govindaswamy, 75 who an elderly fisherman from Ward 10 Trincomalee who died recently while fleeing to India with his family, reflects the struggle of the people of Trincomalee to survive this complex and stressful environment. The report says, “ After the Government and the LTTE again unleashed their combined terror in Trincomalee in April 2006 (Special Report No.21), the LTTE told Tamil civilians repeatedly in especially the poorer areas, words to the effect, “We will continue our (especially landmine) attacks on the armed forces, and are telling you now that we will not be responsible for the consequences you would face”. Many of them began moving to India by sea after travelling overland to Mannar. The Tigers came back every few days and asked menacingly those who remained “Haven’t you gone”?
Then comes the issue of five students murdered in Trincomalee. President Rajapakse’s remarks on the case are unjustified as they are, show us what needs to be laid out clearly. The Island of 2nd June quoted the President complaining of the lack of evidence against the police personnel being held and his inability to try them according to ‘jungle law’. He appealed to witnesses to come forward and give evidence (to the law enforcing authorities). This prompted a hitherto neglected line of inquiry.
“There were in fact about 300 witnesses relaxing at the beach front at the time of the grenade explosion. They had been ordered to kneel down in an offensive manner suggestive of communal arrogance by the Navy, who rounded them up. To capture the atmosphere on the beach front, an old woman who cried at the funeral on 5th January of the boys killed, described her experience. The woman accused the security forces of banding together and killing the boys. When the security forces arrived on the fatal day, she sensed their intention and tried to prevent them. A man in commando uniform thrust his gun barrel into her mouth and threatened to kill her if she shouted. He then shoved her away telling her in Tamil to go away and sit down.”
The report says, “The 300 or so witnesses included a deputy education officer, several old ladies and Hemachandran, the father of one of the victims – all prostrate. There were a number of auto rickshaws and about five cars parked at the beach. Among those who had a close view of the proceedings were vendors of refreshments. Why did not any of them come forward? The reason is to be sought in the other witnesses – the Police, Navy and STF – who were upholding the law of the jungle in Trincomalee, the President ironically adverted to, and the fate of the one witness who had the civic sense to defy intimidation by the security forces and pursue justice for his son – Dr. Manoharan.”
“From their kneeling position and with the lights nearby switched off, no one, except perhaps those who were very close, could say who exactly did what. But there is absolutely no doubt that the crime was committed by the security forces present and the principle of command responsibility applies. If the President is unable to exercise his authority as commander in chief to find out what those men under his command did on the Trincomalee sea-front on 2nd January 2006, how impossibly difficult it must be for witnesses to go past these armed and desperate men determined to suppress the truth (apparently outside the control of their C-in-C) and give evidence? “
Another case cited is : “The Grand Tiger Hunt – A Macabre Full Dress Drama before a Captive Audience Weerakkody, a former Ports Authority employee identified with communal violence against Tamils, was killed by the LTTE on 24th December 2005 and it was widely talked about that his son in the Navy had sworn revenge against Tamils. Some killings of both Tamils and Sinhalese continued in the coming days but had subsided by New Year’s Day. People were relaxed on the 2nd of January and many went to the sea front. Dr. Manoharan was at home at 6.00 PM when a friend, a bank employee, telephoned him and told him not to let his sons go out as he had received a tip-off from the Police that some incident was to be staged that day. But his two sons had already gone out. When the elder son came home he telephoned the younger son Rajihar to whom he had given a cell phone to keep him notified of his movements. He was unable to contact him but then found a message from him calling for help and in the meantime, at 7.35 PM, he had heard the grenade explosion. “
“As the parents of the victims found out later, immediately after the explosion, the students who were not hurt, including Hemachandran and Rajihar, were trying to help those injured. They tried to get transport to take them to hospital. Meanwhile the round up started and the commandos arrived. There is a good deal of circumstantial information the parents strongly believe has to do with pre-planning and the targeting of this particular group of students. The information concerns cell phone calls, one received by one of the students at 7.20 PM apparently to ensure his presence at the place of the tragedy, and certain persons who were summoned by cell phone from the scene just before the green auto rickshaw arrived. It is unfair and possibly very misleading for us to speculate. But any proper inquiry should trace cell phone calls made by the Police, the STF unit and several persons against whom suspicion has been directed. We know for a fact that it will not be done by the Sri Lankan authorities.”
Another issue raised is about Kayts. It says, “ Kayts is another place to be watched. A number of families left Kayts for the Jaffna peninsula following the Allaipiddy massacre by naval personnel, killing 11 persons on the night of 12th May. Persons who contacted the witnesses immediately after the incident told us that they maintain with absolute clarity that the perpetrators were naval personnel whom they had regularly seen about the place and they could identify them. Their question was not who did it, but why these navy men with whom they had been on friendly terms acted with such sadistic brutality, killing even a young mother and her infants in cold blood. The witnesses said that there were no EPDP persons among the perpetrators. They added that some Tamil speaking young men on motorcycles were about the area in the days preceding the atrocity, but they could not say for certain whether or not they were EPDP.”
“According to what EPDP persons in Jaffna told some of their friends, a special military team had been conducting investigations on the basis of information obtained from persons detained and they found that some of the places affected had been used by the LTTE. They added that the Navy may have received this information and decided to act. The EPDP leader however told the BBC that even the LTTE might have done it. “
And the less said about “LTTE-controlled Vanni – the Giant Torture Chamber” the better. “One sees the same repressive trends in the Vanni. Human Rights would seem an abstraction where life is ceasing to be human. One sees the same indifference on the part of the LTTE to families, wives and children, no concern about how they live or die. Many young couples with young families suddenly find themselves devoid of the breadwinner. These young men who had started families and had young mouths to feed had been forcibly taken away by the LTTE for 1 to 3 years of military service, promising a monthly allowance for the upkeep of the families. The money comes for about 3 months and ceases. A number of these young men were LTTE cadres who left during the ceasefire and got married.”
An official connected with a church establishment expressed alarm that several of these abandoned families without means were bringing children to them and they simply did not have the means to cope. The torture of the community goes on at many levels. Even older men have been mobilised to undergo auxiliary training and have been told that they would be posted for frontline sentry duty. In a number of villages, these men have collectively told the LTTE, “You can force us to undergo training, you can post us where you would, but when the Army advances we will throw our guns and run away.”
During the earlier years of war, among the difficulties faced by the farmers was tank maintenance. During the ceasefire moves were made to do repairs to Giant’s Tank in west Vanni. In order to mobilise the men for its auxiliary forces, the LTTE banned the dry season cultivation. Many men confine themselves to their home with their children in agony fearing abduction by LTTE press gangs in their proverbial white vans.
The LTTE’s measures have also given rise to an undercurrent of unrest. In one area regarded a high security zone of the LTTE, a tough commander was brought back from retirement. A grenade was aimed at him, causing injury to two persons. Those in the area discount the Karuna group as being responsible.
Speaking at a passing out parade of the auxiliary forces in Vattakacchi, Killinocchi, on Sunday 4th June, Colonel Balaraj announced that Eelam War 4 has begun, and in its prosecution, the guerrilla attacks are now taking place. He said that the Rajapakse regime, which has revealed its colours by killing Tamils in the same manner the Premadasa regime did, is being given the last chance. Because of the strength of the Tamils today, he added, the dreams of the Sinhalese government will come crashing down: We will heap up victories by winning our lands back from the enemy, who would be stupefied into inaction when our battle plans are unravelled in the field.
“The LTTE may not be so sure and perhaps never was in starting a war until the enemy blundered by turning indiscriminately on the people. The Karuna forces, backed by the Army, have launched several attacks on the LTTE Vanni faction, and reports indicate that a number of persons are being killed on the LTTE side. The Vanni faction routinely denies major losses and they may be right. For them the auxiliaries are thoroughly disposable. The truth is likely to be that those being killed are persons who do not want to hold a gun in the first place, and given the option would throw their gun and run away. Would the civilians be given a chance? Note the omission when Balraj referred to two presidents, “ the report says.
The conclusion of the report is that the state and international community must act.
“The LTTE has already started a war without acknowledging it to the international community. The security forces and civilians are daily facing casualties. The former are angry and have weapons and the institutional means to do things and cover up; the latter are helpless. But they do not want war and that is capital the Government can use to corner and expose the LTTE. Instead the impunity in which the armed forces’ current actions are steeped is enabling the LTTE to make cannon fodder of these people who dread war. This state of affairs today is precipitating the human catastrophe of massive displacement where people have limited choices of where to run.”
“Sri Lanka is becoming a place where life has no value. People are being killed, but no one feels responsible. Those in authority do not appear to understand that this is a problem that must sooner rather than later concern the welfare of everyone of us. When it comes to Tamil civilian deaths at the hands of the security forces, government spokesmen, in the absence of the authorities doing anything constructive, are spinning tales that do not do them any credit.”
The report urges the “President speedily institute a committee based at the presidential secretariat and reporting to him, to quickly investigate and check abuses by the security forces. The committee should be formed of persons who enjoy the confidence of all communities and could include retired senior security personnel, retired judges, retired public servants and other persons as necessary to give it clout. The committee should as often as necessary, visit areas under government control where violations are taking place and collect evidence from those affected. It should have access to security forces’ camps and to question officers and personnel as required. The task of the committee should be to identify perpetrators, suggest remedial and disciplinary measures and other measures to prevent violations.”
http://tamilweek.com/news-features/archives/date/2006/06/
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Thursday, June 15th, 2006
UTHR(J)
Information Bulletin No. 40
Date of Release: 15th June 2006
1. Introduction
The escalation of conflict in recent months has heightened the travails of civilians in the North-East. Extra-judicial killings, conscription of children and adults, and displacement are taking a tremendous toll. Once again, refugees have been driven to flight across the raging seas to India, and some have perished in the attempt. The state’s failure to control its forces in the face of LTTE provocations, to enforce discipline or accept responsibility for their actions has greatly increased civilian suffering.
Villages of all communities live under enormous fear of what they cannot control. It would be a mistake to underestimate the suffering. Muslims in Mutur for example – though often considered to be less affected by the current violence - face, many uncertainties. They are confined to a small area and movement by land is perilous. Their farming and commercial activities are at a standstill. They do not trust the agenda of the government forces who are only too happy to let Muslims take the blame for killings of Tamil civilians. The LTTE has ordered their expulsion in the name of a front organisation. When questioned by the media the LTTE denies it, but they have done little to calm Muslim fears, rather they have acted to increase their insecurity. As a result, many Muslims with contacts have moved to Kinniya where they do not face the same debilitating fear.
In the Vanni where the LTTE’s military conscription of both adults and children is an intimate reality, fathers are huddled in their homes with their children fearing to go out, lest they are dragged into a van by thugs and are not seen again. Their mental agony is beyond description. When the security forces exhibited an acceptable level of discipline, the people had more options. Today that discipline has been severely eroded. The terror they face is at least two (if not three) fold and for the most vulnerable there are no options. Some of the recent tragedies, apart from their poignancy, are reminders of the multi-faceted history of the Tamil people and the current sources of terror.[Top]
1.1 LTTE attacks on Mr. Anandasangary’s followers:
While those who championed the peace process that is now in a state of collapse have been pointing the finger at ‘paramilitaries’ and ‘spoilers’, they are blind to the old disease that made the peace process unworkable from the start – the LTTE’s constant targeting of political opponents. No one has called the respected democratic politician Mr. Anandasangary a paramilitary. Now with the LTTE’s own party the TNA in the doldrums as time ordained, the LTTE appears determined to eliminate Anandasangary’s loyalists.
About 7.00 PM at his Wellawatte residence in Colombo on 10th June, the LTTE shot dead Mr. Ramachandran (67) brother of Mr. Anandasangary’s former secretary, Satchidanandam, who too has moved out of Jaffna. Ramachandran’s daughter is married to Jeeva of the EPDP. Thangarasa Thangamuhunthan who is an Anandasangary loyalist and former member of the Jaffna Municipal Council that had defied the LTTE on the opening of the Public Library was summoned by two LTTE men who came on a motor cycle and shot at his home in Moolai, Jaffna. He was warded at Jaffna Hospital.[Top]
http://www.uthr.org/bulletins/bul40.htm#_Toc138040841
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Thursday, July 21st, 2005
5. The Sooriyamoorthy Assassination
The LTTE takes great pains to paint all its victims as paramilitaries of some sort. Take the case of Mr.P. Sooriyamoorthy, the highly respected former mayor of Trincomalee and father of five children, who contested the parliamentary elections in Jaffna in April 2004 on Mr. Anandasangary’s party list. As mayor, the Government gave into Sinhalese extremist sentiment in preventing him from opening the new market he built for Trincomalee. He also earned the appreciation of Tamil passengers who had to travel by ship to Jaffna in the latter 1990s by arranging rest facilities for them.
Until he died Sooriyamoorthy was a frequent caller at Mr. Anandasangary’s home in Colombo where he used to help with office work. Though warned by friends, he did not take the LTTE threat seriously enough as it had no pretext for branding him a traitor. The controversy over the overnight erection of a new Buddha statue led to tension and a shutdown of Trincomalee on Tuesday 17th May. In the evening of the very next day, Sooriyamoorthy was shot at his home and injured. He was airlifted to Colombo for emergency surgery and died a week later as the shooting had damaged his liver.
On the very day Sooriyamoorthy was shot, “Nitharsanam” with close links to LTTE intelligence announced that he had been attacked by government, majoritarian Buddhist fanatics. This was initially believed even by persons close to Sooriyamoorthy. But there were witnesses who could testify to the contrary – relatives and neighbors who saw and heard the assault. It soon got out that
four young men on motor cycles had arrived at his house on the night of the attack, and asked him to come with them to discuss a business deal. Sooriyamoorthy was reportedly suspicious and refused. When his assailants tried to physically force him outside, there was a struggle.. The killers panicked, shot him in the abdomen and thigh and ran away, leaving him injured. The hero supposedly killed by Sinhalese fanatics became an embarrassment to the LTTE. When he died there were tell-tale virtual admissions by the killers. The Tamil Sakthy TV where his daughter Sooriyaprabha worked failed to announce his death. The London-based LTTE-run IBC Radio described Sooriyamoorthy as a man castaway (thrown) and rejected by the people, in reference to the elections mercilessly rigged by the LTTE.
The climax came in a statement claiming responsibility for Sooriyamoorthy’s murder, dated 27th May, printed in the Uthayan and other LTTE-controlled media and supposedly faxed to them, claiming to have come from a Seralathan, writing as spokesman for the Tamil National Army associated with Karuna. The statement claimed that Sooriyamoorthy was killed because he was a spy for the LTTE Vanni group. The allegedly Karuna statement was publicised exclusively in the media of his enemy. Even more curiously, the statement gave its address as Pandivirichchan, Vavuniya, a solidly LTTE-controlled area in the Vanni! That is also a statement of affairs within the LTTE.
It is dishonest to pretend that these are killings between the LTTE and paramilitaries that one can do nothing about. Every murder gives out its secrets under scrutiny. Even Sooriyamoorthy had been reduced in death to a paramilitary, this time a paramilitary of the LTTE, as if that made his murder less of an issue. It was a calculated and resounding attack on democracy, aided by the hullabaloo created over the statue by friends in need - Buddhist extremists.
Iqbal Athas reported (Sunday Times 10 Jul.05): “Rear Admiral Weerasekera, according to a report from a state intelligence agency, had addressed a gathering of three wheeler scooter taxi drivers who are known to be responsible for placing the statue.” The Rear Admiral who was moved out of Trincomalee by the President later denied the charge, but the intense security in the eastern town would not have permitted the erection of the statue without the connivance of the security forces. In Trincomalee, the minorities have felt the heavy hand of discrimination enforced by local security commanders in favour of the Sinhalese. In January 1997 Brigadier P.S.B. Kulatunge prevented Mayor Sooriyamoorthy from opening the new market he had built, as the city father, obscurely citing “the deterioriating situation in the area, and the general interest of the public in Trincomalee” (Special Report No.8). Now it would appear that another security top brass erected a Buddha statue thus creating a ‘deteriorating security situation’ to give the Tigers the cover to kill the former city father. The Buddha statue that signalled his death promises to remain the monument to the city father’s memory, rather than the new market he built and was not allowed to open.
http://www.uthr.org/bulletins/bul38.htm#_Toc135544187
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Sunday, May 29th, 2005
Tamil Week
By D.B.S. Jeyaraj
The dastardly killing of former Trincomalee Urban Council chairman Periyappodi Sooriyamoorthy by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam is an unmistakable warning signal to Tamil United Liberation Front President Veerasingham Anandasangaree. Though Sooriyamoorthy has sported different party colours at different stages of his political career the man was primarily a Sangaree loyalist and trusted confidante. He threw in his lot with Sangaree despite the danger and contested Parliament elections last year in Jaffna on the Independent list fielded under the padlock symbol by Anandasangaree. He has been associating with Sangaree for more than three decades. (more…)
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Saturday, May 29th, 2004
Part III: The Elections and their aftermath
Date of Release: 29th May 2004
A triumph of fascist diplomacy?
While the nature of the LTTE(P)’s military gains against the Karuna are dubious, it is to the LTTE(P)’s diplomacy and Colombo’s incompetence that one needs to look to understand the events. Our examination is admittedly speculative, but the pattern of developments raises questions that cry for answers.
The LTTE(P) appears to have assessed the outcome of the April 2nd elections, which brought in a minority government led by the President’s party, and ordered its surrogate party, the TNA, to fish in troubled waters. The main subject of any deal the LTTE(P) sought to make with the Government would inevitably have been Karuna – nothing overt, just a few more clarifications to the Government’s ‘neutrality’.
The LTTE(P) attacked and the Navy did nothing – remained ‘neutral’ – and supposedly saw nothing and reported nothing. Is the Navy so redundant or was it just convenient? Karuna’s spokesman Varathan charged in an interview with the Asian Tribune (21 Apr.04) that President Kumaratunge ditched Karuna in return for an offer of the TNA’s good offices in peace talks and conditional support in Parliament. Having seemingly dispensed with Karuna, the TNA voted against the Government’s nominee for speaker – D.E.W.Gunasekera – a man who had long spoken up for the Tamils.
The TNA’s lethal democracy
Having fashioned a parliamentary group – the TNA – to tamely promote the LTTE(P)’s claim to be the sole representatives of the Tamils, the LTTE was determined to extract every strategic use from it. It was important enough that intelligence chief Pottu was placed directly in charge. The blatant rigging of the last elections and the failure of the Government to check the abuse despite repeated complaints have been amply documented in the reports of independent election monitors.
The LTTE(P)’s political wing leaders in Jaffna, Illamparuthy (Aanjaneyar) and Paapaa were given the job of fixing the election for the district. We deal with one aspect. According to information from a member of the fixing party, which is fairly indicative, the ballots to be cast by the fixers were to be divided in the following ratio: For every three ballots, one for Gajendran, president of the so-called International Students’ Organisation, one for Mrs. Padmini Sithamparanathan and one for the candidate from the electorate. That aside there would have been internal manoeuvring of the fixers by the candidates themselves and senior LTTE persons. It was Gajendran who organised Jaffna University students in mass impersonation at the 2001 elections.
The preference votes tell their own story:
Gajendran: 112 077, Padmini Sithamparanathan: 68 239, G.G. Ponnamablam: 60 768, Suresh Premachandran: 45 783. TULF’ s Mavai Senathirajah scraped through with
38 779. A popular figure such as Sivamaharajah lost with 24 964.
The electoral list was the same one used in 2001 when the TNA obtained a total of 102 214 (less than Gajendran’s preference vote. But this time a section from Vanni also voted!). In 2001, Anandasangaree and Mavai Senathiraja led with more than 33,000 preference votes – about a third the number obtained by the party, and 20 000 to 30 000 of the TNA’s votes were fraudulent. In 2004, the TNA increased its vote from 102 324 (or 55.8% of votes counted) to 257 320 (or 90.6%). The EPDP’s share dropped from 58 000 (or 30.6%) in 2001 to 18 612 (or 6.55%) in 2004.
These figures are the result of extensive fraud and violent attacks, threats and harassment of the opposition and the voters themselves. One could say without hesitation that at least 100 000 of the 112 077 preference votes supposedly obtained by Gajendran in 2004 were fraudulent, as with about 170 000 of the 257 320 votes credited to the TNA in Jaffna. Thus even the last vestiges of democratic choice among the Tamils were utterly bankrupted. That was not the most sinister aspect of the whole exercise.
Suresh Premachandran performed the marvelous feat of increasing his preferential vote to 45 783 from 13 302 in 2001, which too was notoriously fraudulent. Also on the TNA list, long time LTTE ally C.V.K. Sivagnanam obtained 25 954 and failed to get elected. Sivagnanam was, in 1987, LTTE’s nominee to the aborted North-East Interim Council, when Premachandran, as General Secretary of the EPRLF, was its arch-enemy. Sivagnanam was deeply offended, since the votes were a measure, not of the people’s regard for him, but rather the LTTE’s. This was an election in which the LTTE assigned the votes!
The score was even more remarkable because it is well known that the chief fixers, Illamparithy and Paapaa, hated Premachandran. Obviously Illamparithy and Paapaa had been given firm orders from the top that Premachandran must enter Parliament. We pointed out in Bulletin No.35 that Suresh P. is a leading asset of intelligence chief Pottu Amman, and his men are now constituted into a special intelligence unit under Pottu.
While in the South and in neighbouring India, people have used their vote to protest against the economic and political order of neo-colonialism, those rulers imposed on the Tamils, whether through a rigged electoral process or through simple military might, are in fact the keepers of a prison. The people undergo all manner of torments there, from murder and torture to child conscription.
Among those to whom the people of the North-East owe the robbery of their democracy and the legitimisation of their ‘sole representatives’, are sadly, the European Union.
On 5th April 2004 John Cushnahan MEP, who headed the EU election observers issued a statement, which said of elections in the North-East: “It was encouraging that the people of the North and East were able to exercise their franchise through cluster arrangements. However, it is a matter of deep concern that the electoral process in the North an East was tainted by intimidation and violence”.
But the stark reality was that the election in Jaffna was not just tainted. It was completely polluted. The violence, intimidation and murder were systematic, unchecked and the election was the culmination of that process. All these crimes since 2002 were exclusively the work of one party, which Cushnahan did not name. Cushnahan is evidently pleased with the cluster arrangements he pushed for – done in such a way that people from the LTTE-controlled area were in practice free to vote just for the one party he was reluctant to name.
The monitoring group Paffrel observed in its interim report the fact that those contesting the elections independent of the LTTE doing so only on the pain of being deemed traitors, exerted a ‘chilling influence’ on both contestants from the opposition and those who would vote for them. Indeed the observations of foreign monitors contained in the report suggest that many voters were spared the painful dilemma by having their polling cards taken from them beforehand and even on their way to the polls:
“…the voter turn out [in Jaffna town] appeared to be low and large numbers of youth were also observed with polling cards, particularly in the vicinity of Jaffna campus (University)…
[The following refers to the exercise of democracy by voters form the LTTE-controlled Killinochchi, which Cushnahan found ‘encouraging’:] “Two international observers at the Muhamalai cluster polling station independently witnessed large-scale vote rigging originating from the LTTE-controlled ‘uncleared area’. Between 11 AM and noon international observers saw young men collecting polling cards from persons crowded into open-air vehicles. In other instances, young men were handing out polling cards to persons in vehicles, seemingly checking them (perhaps for sex) before handing them over. At least three persons were seen holding two-inch wads of voter cards…”
The foreign monitors also interviewed and recorded testimonies of opposition party workers and polling agents who had received dire threats from the LTTE, both personally and impersonally: “They [came home the night before the elections and] grabbed me by the throat and pushed me into a coconut tree. I felt something [cold] stick in my ears…One of the men hit me in the stomach with a flashlight…”
The result was duly hailed by the LTTE publicity apparatus as an affirmation of its sole representative status. This was the liberation of a people who had since 1931 known and valued the free exercise of universal adult franchise. The Commissioner for Elections who had earlier pledged to be strict and vigilant, tamely accepted the results for the North-East with some words to the effect that they were a special case beyond him.
The MPs were soon put to good use. The Daily Mirror of 6th May carried a curious item ‘Oslo warns it might pull out’. The contents of the story, concerning the TNA MPs meeting Erik Solheim at the Norwegian Embassy, indicated that the source was Suresh Premachandran. Solheim was quoted laying down conditions for the Sri Lankan President, who according to Solheim is to negotiate on the LTTE’s convoluted terms – negotiations only with the LTTE starting with its ISGA proposals, not to be a piece of deception to obtain aid and within a time frame. Solheim was further quoted as warning that Norway would pull out form facilitation should criticism continue to be levelled against them.
In comparison with the evil machinations and organised hyperactivity of the LTTE lobbies, which were ably using Norway and the EU to advance their agenda, the Government and the Sinhalese polity were hopelessly inert. The latter are unable grasp issues in time and identify priorities. One putting together the sequence of events since last November would be left with the impression that MEP John Cushnahan and peace envoy Solheim have been far more active in deciding trends in the North-East, and the country’s destiny, than the President of Sri Lanka.
The Return of the Ellalan Force
In the wake of the election, the LTTE’s death squad the Ellalan Force (Ellalan Padai) is up to its old tricks in Jaffna. Its role: to reassert the LTTE’s control over the local population through terror. The Ellalan Force functions as the LTTE’s morals police – violently eliminating persons it deems “anti-social” elements. It also functions as a political hit squad, blamed for the murders of many of the LTTE’s political opponents, among them, the Jaffna Mayors Sarojini Yogeswaran and Sivapalan who belonged to the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF).
On 16th May Subramaniam Chandralalith,(age 22) was found stabbed to death in a Jaffna neighborhood. A note near his body signed by the Ellalan Force claimed responsibility for the killing, accusing Chandralalith and five others abducted with him of “anti-social activities,” including robbery, rape, abduction, extortion, fraud and child molestation.
Chadralalith’s mother-in-law told the Police that LTTE cadre Easwaran (the LTTE’s area leader for Nallur) abducted the men at gunpoint while they were playing cards and took them away in a van. The other victims were found blindfolded, bound and beaten. They told police they had been tortured. Tamilnet on May 16 reported that the police said they had not arrested anyone in connection with the murder and abductions and did “not know anything about the Ellalan Army,” a claim that is exceedingly hard to believe.
Easwaran’s brutality (and that of the Ellalan Force) is well-known in Jaffna. Eeswaran was also implicated in the June 2003 murder of Thambirajah Subathiran (Robert), respected deputy leader of the Varatharajaperumal wing of the EPRLF. In April 2004, police officials told James Ross of Human Rights Watch that “no progress had been made in the case, despite leads implicating a local Tiger leader”. To our knowledge Easwaran has never even been questioned.[7] The freedom and impunity enjoyed by well-known serial killers is a unique aspect of the Sri Lankan peace process.
http://www.uthr.org/bulletins/Bul36.htm
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Wednesday, April 28th, 2004
JAFFNA DISPATCH
by James Ross
Post date 04.28.04 | Issue date 05.03.04
Veerasingham Anandasangaree’s campaign headquarters is a bunker. Heavily armed soldiers and coils of concertina wire surround the one-story compound on a side street in Jaffna, the largest town on the peninsula of the same name in northern Sri Lanka. The unused metal detector and bullet-riddled, sheet-iron doors give visitors pause. But Sangaree, as Anandasangaree is known, at 71 years old and a member of Sri Lanka’s parliament since 1971, remains determined. A Tamil politician of the old school, he has bulldog jowls, a dapper moustache, and a smoldering fire in the belly. The two telephones in his windowless office ring incessantly.
This is not a scene of power, however, but of powerlessness. On the wall behind him are large photos of party leaders. The ornate Tamil script is beautiful, but the dates tell the real story: All these men are dead, assassination victims. And Sangaree doesn’t want to join them. “I have not left the compound to do any campaigning,” Sangaree told me two days before the April 2 elections. “I have not met with a single voter.” He described threats and violence against his supporters that made it impossible for them to canvass voters or hold public rallies. He held up a badly dented, large, white megaphone. “I won’t have any party agents at the polling stations. It’s too dangerous for them.” He sighed dejectedly. “They are animals, if you ask me.”
The “animals” preventing him and other politicians from campaigning in Jaffna are the Tamil Tigers, officially known as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (ltte). For two decades, the Tigers waged a brutal war for independence from Sri Lanka, which is majority ethnic Sinhalese–a war that resulted in numerous atrocities and cost some 65,000 lives. In February 2002, the Sri Lankan government and the Tigers signed a cease-fire that has brought a welcome respite from the fighting. Young soldiers stopped dying, land mines started being cleared, and humanitarian assistance began to reach the worst of the island nation’s war-torn areas.
For two years, finalizing the peace has been the main issue in Sri Lankan politics. Former Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe made the peace agreement the centerpiece of his government. And Norway, as primary peace mediator and leader of the five-nation Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (slmm), which oversees compliance with the cease-fire, has devoted considerable political capital toward reaching a final settlement. Unfortunately, the Sri Lankan government, and foreign donor states, have made no real effort to hold the Tigers accountable for grave human rights abuses and the absence of democracy in Tamil areas. So, for people like Sangaree, “peace” isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
Under the cease-fire, the Tigers retain formal control of most of the northern and eastern third of the country, which is inhabited predominantly by the largely Hindu Tamils. Excluded from these areas is much of the Jaffna peninsula, including Jaffna town. Although it’s been eight years since the Sri Lankan army recaptured Jaffna from the Tigers in bitter fighting, the pockmarked remains of bombed buildings belie the town’s return to normality. The restoration of government control is just as illusory: Real power lies with the Tigers. In classic Mafia style, the Tigers maintain a system of extortion, known as the “Tiger Tax,” against local businesses, travelers heading south, and truckers. Since the cease-fire, the Tigers have killed more than two dozen opposition Tamil politicians and party workers, as well as other critics. And they’ve made sure local government officials do nothing to stop them. When asked about the highly publicized assassination of respected Jaffna politician Thambirajah Subathiran ten months earlier, a senior police official conceded no progress had been made in the case–despite leads implicating a local Tiger leader. Indeed, not a single person has been prosecuted for any of these killings. Police are well aware that after the Tigers broke a 13-month cease-fire in 1990, their forces attacked and overran dozens of police stations, and killed some 600 officers.
Buoyed by the cease-fire, the Tigers this year plunged headfirst into the electoral process to obtain seats in the national parliament. And their intimidation tactics have proved effective. The Tigers endorsed a proxy party, the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), an amalgam of Tamil parties. Sangaree himself ran successfully on the TNA party list in 2001. But, a year ago, he openly rejected the Tigers’ claim that they are the “sole representatives” of Sri Lankan Tamils. The Tigers forced him out of his own party, and he soon found himself the target of death threats. When elections were called in February, he bravely decided to run as an independent. The Tigers responded similarly after their eastern commander, known as Karuna, split off with some 6,000 fighters in early March. Karuna rallied some support among eastern Tamils and sought (unsuccessfully) an independent cease-fire with the government. But days later a university professor close to Karuna was ambushed and wounded. Three days before the elections, the one eastern TNA candidate who had openly pledged support for Karuna was shot and killed.
In the war-devastated Vanni, the Tiger-run region south of the Jaffna peninsula, there is considerable support for the TNA. But, because the Tigers do not permit Sangaree or other non-TNA parties to campaign there, there is little opportunity to change minds. In Jaffna, many Tamils who oppose the Tigers’ brutal methods nonetheless accept that they are the only game in town. The bishop of Jaffna, the influential leader of the area’s significant Catholic minority, recently told a group of visitors, “People want to send a message that the Tamils are united vis-à-vis the [Sinhalese majority] south. So the opposition [non-TNA parties] are viewed as traitors and have little support.” Indeed, the only news most Tamils receive about the opposition comes from a local Tamil press that routinely runs blatantly false news stories maligning the non-TNA parties. In March, when an independent Tamil radio station began broadcasting from London, the Tigers denounced its reporters as “traitors” and its journalists received death threats.
But the reality of Tiger terror really hits home when you leave the politicians and speak with its everyday victims. A rural couple from one of Jaffna’s islands, parents of four, was visibly nervous but willing to tell their story to me. At eleven the previous night, ten men had appeared at their home and demanded they step outside. The husband described how they questioned him about his volunteer work for an opposition party: “They grabbed me by the throat and pushed me into a coconut tree. I felt something stick in my ears. Maybe it was gun barrels, but I couldn’t see for sure. One of the men hit me hard in the stomach with a flashlight and said that, if they saw me at the polling station acting as a party agent, the next day I’d be shot.” His wife finished the account: “They said, ‘We are ltte, so be careful.’” Her fear seemed overcome by a sense of helplessness: “If something happens to my husband and me when we go home, what will happen to our children?”
Then, on polling day in the north and east, the Tigers resorted to large-scale vote manipulation. At a polling station on the Jaffna peninsula, I watched as some 40,000 enthusiastic voters scampered three miles past minefields under a blazing sun to cast their ballots. Random conversations left little doubt they were voting en masse for the TNA. So it was all the more astonishing to witness in the Tiger zone a systematic effort to rig the vote, complete with young men distributing thick stacks of unused polling cards.
The election fiasco in the north and east is the culmination of a failed effort at appeasing the Tigers. According to longtime Tamil human rights activist Rajan Hoole, former Prime Minister Wickremesinghe’s “whole [peace] program was based on avoiding war and using foreign donor funds to firmly establish his control in the south. Never in his career did he show any regard for human rights.” The Norwegian-led cease-fire-monitoring mission has been ineffectual in addressing Tiger atrocities, failing to put the necessary resources, expertise, or political will into seriously investigating the killings. After a spate of reputed Tiger killings last year, slmm spokeswoman Agnes Bragadottir said it was beyond their mandate to investigate them: “The slmm should not be drawn into internal politics. This is not a monitoring issue for us, this is a criminal case.” And slmm Deputy Head Hagrup Haukland told Reuters in February, “In 2003 alone we have seen the killing of 30 to 40 local leaders and Tamil politicians who are against the ltte. But that is a case for the police. We have approached the Tigers about this, but they deny that they are behind the killings.”
By downplaying Tiger atrocities, the slmm has abrogated protecting the human rights of the Tamil population. Hoole believes the slmm has been “mainly interested in preventing war in the short term and has constantly veered toward exonerating the Tamil Tigers for accusations of violations. The slmm sees it as the surest way of maintaining the status quo.” When Karuna broke off from the Tigers in March, the slmm pulled out its monitors from the east, claiming they no longer had a role since Karuna’s forces were not bound by the cease-fire agreement. But, as the Tigers maneuvered their forces against Karuna in clear violation of the ceasefire, the international monitors were conspicuously silent.
Overall, in the Sri Lankan election, President Chandrika Kumaratunga’s opposition alliance grabbed nearly half the parliamentary seats and quickly formed a coalition government. This was bad news for the Tigers, who hoped to play kingmaker by keeping Wickremesinghe’s party in power. Instead, they unleashed their full fury against Karuna: A week after the elections, the northern Tigers launched a multi-pronged assault against Karuna’s forces, quickly routing them. While rumors surfaced of massacres of Karuna’s surrendered soldiers, the slmm met with the Tigers once more and announced, “We are back on track again.”
Throughout the long civil war, the military and political strategy of the Tamil Tigers remained constant: eliminate anyone deemed an obstacle to complete victory. Many in Sri Lanka hoped the demands of making peace would change that. But, instead of permitting pluralistic elements to emerge during the electoral campaign, the Tigers have sent the message that the same rules still apply.
Back on the Jaffna peninsula, the TNA took eight of the nine parliamentary seats. Sangaree fared poorly in the polls. He is filing protests against Tiger vote-rigging, but there is little chance he’ll succeed in overturning the outcome. Perhaps the waning of Sangaree’s political life will add years to his biological one. But, in the unyielding and unforgiving world of the Tamil Tigers, he shouldn’t let his guard down. Not for a moment.
James Ross is the senior legal adviser for Human Rights Watch, and has followed human rights issues in Sri Lanka since 1994.
http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20040503&s=ross050304
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Wednesday, March 17th, 2004
[TamilNet, March 17, 2004 16:12 GMT]
The Jaffna Police Wednesday filed a plaint in the Chavakachcheri Magistrate’s Court on a complaint made by Mr. Veerasingham Anandasangaree that a group of persons had attacked his supporters when they were campaigning on March 11, legal sources said.
Mr.Anandasangaree further stated in his complaint that two persons who came in a motorbike on the day of incident had attacked and snatched several copies of election pamphlets from his supporters when they were distributing to the members of the public in the Chavakachcheri town, legal sources said.
The Magistrate Mr.P.Subramaniam put off the inquiry on the plaint for March 30th and ordered the Police to submit a report on that day after holding a preliminary inquiry into the complaint made by Mr.Anandasangaree, legal sources said.
Mr. V.Anandasangaree, the controversial president of the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF), has fielded an independent group under his leadership in the Jaffna electoral district in the forthcoming general election. He was not included in the TNA list of candidates following a case filed by him against the Secretary General and Senior Vice president of the TULF Messrs R.Sampanthan and Joseph Pararajasingham.
The inquiry into the case is pending in the Colombo District Court, legal sources said.
http://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=13&artid=11492
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